Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I want to speak today on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2013-2014, Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2013-2014 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014 and, of course, on the amendment that Labor has moved. The three bills reflect additional budget appropriation for the 2013-14 financial year and they contain details of extra spending as a result of government decisions that were made in the 2013-14 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook. In total, the government is seeking parliamentary approval for about $14.8 billion of additional expenditure in 2013-14.

While we will not block the passage of these bills, we do want to note the gross hypocrisy and dishonesty when it comes to spending—and previous speakers have highlighted what I am talking about. Before the election, the Treasurer was saying, 'If debt is the problem, more debt is not the answer.' We see in these bills that it is clear that the Treasurer thinks that more debt is the answer, and his deal with the Greens to have 'debt unlimited' is reflected in what is happening with these appropriation bills.

The government has been trying to justify much of its agenda since coming to government by saying that the previous government left the country with a budget emergency. But what are the facts of the budget numbers that were left by Labor to this government? The numbers were verified independently by the departments of Treasury and Finance prior to the election, in the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook, PEFO. Labor had the budget going back into surplus in 2016-17. This government has turned around a projected $4.2 billion surplus in that year to a deficit of $17.7 billion. I again remind members that the Treasurer had said, 'If debt is the problem, more debt is not the answer.' As I said, these appropriation bills seek approval for around $14.8 billion in extra spending this year, and the largest contributor to that extra spending is the appropriation that the government is seeking of $8.8 billion for the Reserve Bank. That is a contribution that the Treasurer has consistently refused to provide an adequate justification for.

These bills not only detail spending proposals but also reveal a number of cuts. We should not forget that the Prime Minister said on the eve of the election that there would be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS. We have seen the lie of this in the weeks and months since the election. With these appropriation bills we see it in black and white, with millions of dollars of cuts in the health portfolio and millions of dollars of cuts in the education portfolio—and we have certainly heard public discussion of further cuts, including cuts to the ABC and cuts to the pension to pay for the rolled-gold paid parental leave scheme that the Prime Minister has promised.

The health and education cuts and others detailed in these bills happen this financial year. From the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook we know that, across the forward estimates, Australia's public hospitals will be $400 million worse off. At the same time, the government have announced that they are ending Labor's trades training centres, cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from education.

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