Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly let me say to the previous member that I have been an observer of budgets since I first came into this place in 1987, and this budget perpetrates the greatest fraud on the Australian community of any budget I have witnessed or known of. New members into this place need to really understand what a fraud this budget is. It is based on lies as a result of announcements made by the Prime Minister before the election that there would be no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts to pensions and no plans to increase university fees, and that Tony Abbott would be the infrastructure Prime Minister and the Prime Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Nothing could be further from the truth. All this budget does is perpetrate a fraud upon the Australian community.

Australians are rightly, as the Leader of the Opposition said, shocked and angry—shocked by the brutality of the government's attack on our way of life and angry at a Prime Minister who pretended to be on our side. We just need to look at the various items in the budget to get a really good appreciation of what that means. Health should not be determined by your wealth. However, a GP tax or more expensive medicines will put more pressure on families struggling to make ends meet. If people do not go to the doctor because of this tax, the health of people will fail, with more acute presentations. PBS medicines will also incur, of course, a co-payment.

Let me be very clear. We already know that people have taken the decision, as a result of the budget announcement, not to go to the doctors. We have heard this from doctors in Western Sydney. We know it from doctors in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health services. This is what is happening. People have been scared by this announcement. If the sickest and poorest of Australians do not see a doctor, that means the sickest and poorest Australians will die early. That is what will happen as a direct result of this budget. This government has failed one of its prime responsibilities, to care for its people, and it will of course cost us more in the long run.

Hospitals servicing the people of Lingiari will also face a $2.8 billion cut over five years. These hospitals are already bursting at the seams and struggling within their own budgets. The Northern Territory government has cut funding in health and education at the same time as this government has done the same thing. The Prime Minister lied to voters before the election, and his lies will now hurt poorer families and the most disadvantaged.

Lingiari schools will face cuts of up to $181.7 million over the next five years. From 2018, schools will be further handicapped by reduced indexation payments. University student loans will have to be repaid earlier with a substantial increase of interest payments from a current 2.25 per cent, and they will be asked to cough up 60 per cent of the cost of going to university.

Let us be very clear about this. People who come from regional Australia, from remote Australia, from my electorate—all of the Northern Territory except Darwin and Palmerston, including Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands, 1.34 million square kilometres, a very dispersed population—will be the most disadvantaged by these hideous attacks upon their livelihood and upon the way of life that they experience. University will become less of an attractive option, and regional universities such as Charles Darwin University will suffer as a result of the announcements which have been made in this budget. The result for young people in Lingiari will almost certainly mean a decline in the numbers of those interested in pursuing a tertiary education at Charles Darwin University or other universities around the country.

Lingiari pensioners, of course, will be hit as every other pensioner in Australia will be hit as a result of the announcements made in this budget. Now they will have to work longer and then receive a pension, if they are lucky, which is significantly reduced due to a change in the indexation system from the current 27.7 per cent of average male weekly earnings to a new, lesser, CPI index. Over time, that will cause a dramatic hit to their pocket, and they know it. This government is trying again to perpetuate a lie that somehow or another, because it will index pensions continually and move the CPI, it will not make a difference. The government knows it makes a difference. Old-age pensioners in this country know it makes a difference. Any reasonable Australian will understand that it will make a difference.

And of course the government have perpetrated the same hideous attack upon service pensioners. I cannot believe what the government have done, yet they have the hide to say that they are a friend of Australian Defence Force personnel and veterans. They are far from that.

Indeed, when we look at job seekers, we see people with no income support for six months. What will job seekers under 30 years old do with no income or support for six months? Who is going to support them in a place like Lingiari with dispersed populations, overcrowded houses, no jobs and no training opportunities? Who is going to do this? The mind boggles at the inane way in which this government has formulated this budget, because it has attacked the most vulnerable and, as the Leader of the Opposition said, it will create an underclass. And, of course, under-25-year-olds will lose their Newstart allowance to go onto the much lower youth allowance. This will put enormous pressure upon families not only in Lingiari but across this country.

Then we heard today about infrastructure. We heard the Deputy Prime Minister get up in question time today and pout on about how he had done such magnificent things in the seat of Lingiari as a result of this budget. The only infrastructure money of any substance for my electorate of Lingiari appears to be $45 million for six strategic bush roads. These were announcements which I made previously and which were accounted for in the forward estimates from the former Labor budgets. There were no new announcements—no new announcements—made for Lingiari. Overall, the Territory, with a sixth of the Australian landmass, will receive for infrastructure around $670 million over 10 years—$67 million a year—out of a national budget of $126 billion. Even the ACT will get $700 million, more than the Northern Territory. Have an understanding, Prime Minister, of the infrastructure needs of remote and regional Australia. You clearly do not, and certainly the Deputy Prime Minister has no idea.

Aboriginal people of Lingiari make up 40 per cent of the electorate's population. They have been particularly let down by this budget and by their own senator and minister, Senator Scullion. He is responsible as a senator and a cabinet minister for advocating for the Territory and its interests at the cabinet table. He has failed miserably. Senator Scullion sat by and watched $534 million be ripped out of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs budget? How can you be serious about closing the gap when you rip $534 million of program money from these budgets? $160 million over three years has been ripped out of the Aboriginal health budget. They have put that money into their health future fund. If you were going to take this money out because you thought you could find some efficiencies, you would invest the money back into front-line services. That is not what this government have done. They have abandoned Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians through these hideous cuts. Cuts to child care, arts centres, drug, alcohol and tobacco education and mental health programs will have an enormous impact on Australia's first peoples. In addition, Aboriginal legal services will have to endure cuts of $13 million over four years, which will result in more Aborigines going to jail for what will likely be trivial offences like nonpayment of fines. What a shame. Shame on Senator Scullion and shame on the Prime Minister and the Treasurer.

Indigenous health is something I know something about. I know a lot about some things, but this is something I know a particular amount about. The Abbott government need to come clean about the real impacts of these deep cuts to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health. They have clearly failed to appreciate the serious repercussions of the cuts they have made and of the new taxes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health outcomes.

The evidence is undisputed. Smoking contributes to a four-year difference in the life expectancy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Smoking contributes to 20 per cent of deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. It directly causes a third of the burden of cardiovascular disease and cancer in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Yet this government, through this budget, is cutting funding to the anti-tobacco campaigns in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

We know already that in cutting the Preventive Health Agency they are making a mockery of their supposed concern for the lives of ordinary Australians let alone Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. They have made it very, very clear that this fundamental, very important and essential part of our health infrastructure—the Preventive Health Agency—has no place in their future. We all know about the tsunami of diabetes which is confronting us. This organisation is very important, yet it is nothing to this government. They know that chronic disease will only be improved by encouraging people to seek treatment, get health checks and access preventative health services such as these smoking education campaigns.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health service will have to absorb the massive cost of the co-payments. Many will be unable to cover the cost of vital health services, such as pathology, imaging and a range of specialist services that are often required with complex health issues. The people who will suffer are the sickest and poorest people in this country, and those are the people for whom we are saying we want to close the gap on life expectancy. They are going to be hit hard by these proposals. We know that they are less likely to seek assistance through health services.

Let me talk about petrol for a moment. Constituents in my electorate pay on average more than 22c per litre for fuel than the national average bowser price. That is if you live in a city like Alice or Katherine. If you live in a remote community like Numbulwar or Alpurrurulam, before this heartless budget you would have expected to pay more than $2.55 a litre. This price will increase rapidly over the next four years because of the indexation arrangements for petrol they are going to reintroduce—and there will be no relief from this government. Again, the people who most need assistance in our community are going to be disadvantaged.

The majority of businesses in Lingiari are small businesses and they will not benefit from any of the company tax cuts the Prime Minister has made for his mates at the big end of town. Lingiari small businesses will simply see their business inputs, in particular fuel prices, continue to rise.

Then there is the hit to families. The Prime Minister said in May 2011:

A dumb way—

to cut spending—

would be to threaten family benefits or means test them further.

What has he done in this budget? In this budget of cruel surprises it is no real surprise that he has slugged family payments big time. We know what this means. The cut in family tax benefit end-of-year supplement will result in up to $306 per year less to spend at that important time for families when expenses mount up for Christmas. Lingiari Aboriginal families have over 20 per cent more 0-14-year-olds than the national average. They will be the hardest hit. Yet he has got billions of dollars to spend on the really subversive Paid Parental Leave scheme. What a way to spend your money. What a priority this government has got: feed the pockets of millionaires and don't look after families who are most in need. That is clearly what this budget is designed to do. It will create an underclass.

Lingiari will also feel the pain caused by cuts to local government from Regional Development Australia funding. In particular I am disappointed with the defunding of a project partnership between the Katherine Town Council and Godinymayin Yijard Rivers Arts and Cultural Centre to deliver stage 2 of the centre in the Katherine cultural precinct. This project was going to provide increased opportunities for income generation, community engagement, employment and training. You just cannot continue to perpetuate this fraud upon the Australian community. You promise one thing before the election and do entirely the opposite after it.

Let me talk about veterans' affairs for a moment. The Prime Minister and the current Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Senator Ronaldson, have stated many times that our veterans deserve to be recognised for their unique contribution to Australia. I agree wholeheartedly. Yet what he has done in this budget is cut the veterans' affairs budget by more than $100 million, down from Labor's record $12.5 billion in our 2013-14 budget. The coalition will scrap the senior supplement for veterans who hold a Commonwealth seniors card or gold card, which helps pay for energy costs, telephone and internet costs and water and sewerage expenses. In another blow to veterans military and other untaxed superannuation income will be counted as income when applying for a Commonwealth seniors card and the deeming rate thresholds will be moved, hitting the part pension of some veterans with small amounts of assets.

You cannot continue to tell these fibs. The people of Lingiari are reeling after this budget. We need to understand that this parliament and this government have an obligation that we should never forget the fair go, we should never forget that Australia is a country where all can share and none should be left behind. But that is precisely what this government does. It will leave people behind, it will create a new underclass. It is a shame on this government, and every member of the government should be most concerned about what this budget will do to the way of life of so many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Australians.

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