Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Tax Laws Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, also known as a tax hike or a tax increase, or in fact a broken promise. We heard that a fortnight ago when the Australian people were hit with a budget that was made up primarily of broken promises, cruel cuts and unfair cost-of-living increases—hypocrisy writ large for all Australia to see. Budgets are about choices and they display a government's values. This budget shows the Abbott-Hockey government cares more about big business and the wealthy than about the young, the sick, the elderly, the unemployed, the poor overseas or even middle-income families. This is not the sort of Australia that I want to be associated with.

Prime Minister Abbott misled Australia when he promised before the last election that there would be no new taxes. This piece of legislation is a clear breach of that promise. He said there would be no tax increases; we have seen a fuel tax proposed. He said there would be no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts to the ABC budget or the SBS budget, and no changes to pensions. All of those promises have ended up being broken and, sadly, most Australians will now pay the price for that.

Let us look at a few incontrovertible facts contained in the Abbott-Hockey budget. It is important that listeners understand how these decisions will affect them and their families. For a start, almost immediately—from 1 July—we will see an impact on hospitals, such as the hospitals in my electorate, the QEII and the PA, which is right on the border. The government's broken promises mean beds will go, wards may close and patients will obviously be worse off. Waiting lists will become worse. Queensland has already been under the knife from Campbell Newman's devastating attacks on health, which resulted in reduced services and thousands of job losses. Now we are told there will be a $7 fee increase for GP visits, combined with cuts to public hospital funding.

Labor will not stand by and let Australia become a country where the elderly are at risk and have to choose between eating or going to see a doctor, or where poorer families have to choose between food and vaccinations for their children. I am proud to be a member of the party that will fight the Abbott-Hockey attack on Medicare, this GP tax. We are the party that introduced Medibank, repulsed the conservatives' attacks on it and brought back Medicare. Labor will not let this government destroy universal health care in Australia. I remind those opposite, who talk about the need to put a price on things, that it is not a free healthcare system: we pay for it in our taxes when we pay the Medicare levy. So we will vote against Prime Minister Abbott's doctor tax.

I note the Minister for Health has not repeated his line that all doctors received a $10,000 pay rise in the budget. That certainly went down like a bucket of cold sick with my doctor when I went for a check-up last week and spoke to him about it. He explained that the costs associated with recouping the $2 that goes to the doctor's pocket would be wasted. It is like a red-tape tax on top of the cut to what they receive if they are bulk-billing.

All Australian schools will hurt as a result of the Abbott-Hockey $30 billion cut to education. Education is the policy area that I am most positive about. Sadly, we saw it savaged a fortnight ago. Before the election, the Liberal-National party told Australians that they would not cut education. We were told that they supported the Gonski reforms—it was a unity ticket. Many of those opposite had their photographs taken in front of the Gonski reform banners. Instead, the teachers, parents and students of Australia found out they had been betrayed, with the budget announcing the biggest cut to school funding that this country has ever seen. Before the election, the government said, 'No cuts to health, no cuts to education.' After the election, it was a different story.

The education cuts will mean a reduction in the number of teachers and aides, and literacy and numeracy programs and may eventually see schools close. One school in my electorate, Nyanda State High School, has already closed, and other schools may become more marginal as the states try to plug the great, gaping hole created by the Abbott-Hockey budget. As a former teacher I understand the importance of upholding quality education and resources for all Australians.

Labor will continue to do what we have always done. We believe in a fair education system for all Australians and we want the Gonski reforms. Remember, they were economic suggestions. They were not from some bleeding-heart leftie; they were from a banker looking at education from an economic perspective and saying, 'We must invest in education based on need, because of the gaps that are opening up.'

The budget also contained the Prime Minister's plan to cut families off from family tax benefit B when their youngest child turns six. Under Labor, these families received family tax benefit B until their children turned 16. This cut will be especially felt by single-income families. They are the group that have been asked by the Liberal-National coalition to do the heaviest lifting, the group that cannot just cut back on cigars, the ones that struggle to make ends meet.

In addition to having their family payments cut, families will lose the schoolkids bonus at the same time as they are slugged with these new taxes when they visit the GP, when they fill up the car and when they pay the Coles and Woolies tax at the checkout to, basically, fund the Prime Minister's crazy, gold-plated PPL scheme. This budget is a major hit to family budgets. It sparked a discussion between states and territories about increasing the scope of the GST and, as we heard from earlier speakers, it will hit people making decisions about focusing on fresh fruit and vegetables if the GST is spread to fresh fruit and vegetables. The people that are actually investing in fruit and vegetables will now drift away from that. Hopefully, that is not an argument that those opposite will advance.

As Labor has indicated, we will oppose the attacks on our pension system and the millions of Australian pensioners who rely on it. We did increase the pension age to 67 by 2023. That flowed after a comprehensive review into Australia's pension system and a significant improvement to the base rate for the pension and improvements to indexation. I remember the member for Port Adelaide, as the responsible minister, travelling the land and talking to seniors groups about that process.

However those opposite have provided no evidence to support an increase in the age pension to 70. We in Australia would have the oldest working people in the world. This budget of broken promises will mean concessions that flow to almost 600,000 Queensland pensioners and almost 50,000 Queensland Commonwealth seniors health card holders will dry up because of the cuts to states, and maybe from as soon as 1 July. On top of this, around 650,000 Queenslanders will have concessions cut for vital services such as public transport, electricity and water bills. That is in addition to them trying to meet the costs of that 23 per cent electricity spike from last year delivered by Premier Newman. The people in my community deserve better than these savage attacks on their wallets. When you are struggling to get by week to week, a discount on your power bill or your bus ticket if you are going to see your doctor, goes a long way. All those discounts will go due to the Abbott-Hockey budget.

One of the cruellest betrayals, I think, is that of those young people under 30 who are looking for a job. Horribly, we hear that they will have to wait up to six months before receiving any income support. Bad luck if you are one of those people estranged from your family and who cannot go home to find a bed with your family, or if you do not have generous friends. Often they are the people that have struggled in education and struggled to find work. We will be stepping over them in the street; they will be the beggars of tomorrow. After six months on work for the dole, if young people still cannot find work, they face another six months without Newstart. This means that those without parental support will have to beg, basically.

So we oppose this. The government has planned to push young people under 25 from Newstart onto this lower youth allowance, a cut of at least $48 a week or almost $2,500 a year. So much for all Australians doing the heavy lifting. It seems that the poorest and most disadvantaged are the ones asked to do the most. These changes will confine young people to a life of poverty and tear away the vital services that they rely on.

This budget of broken promises has ensured that Australians that want to attend university in the future will face higher debts. It will see students paying thousands of dollars extra in the interest on their loans after 2016. I heard on the ABC this morning that it is estimated that there could be an increase of the third, or 33 per cent, and that is before the university bean counters hike up their fees depending on what they feel they can retail their degrees for especially in some of the sandstone universities.

The future of our nation is built on quality education and meeting the growing demands for skills and innovation. This means that universities should cater to our smartest not just the richest. This 'dumb but rich' cohort strategy should be avoided by those opposite. This is definitely a budget built on the wrong choices and the wrong priorities and it has not recognised where we should be investing if we are going to have any chance of providing jobs for the children of the next 50 or 60 years.

This is seen in the context of a government that made a promise to the Australian people that there would be no changes to higher education. In fact it would 'ensure the continuation of the current arrangements for university funding'. However the budget is basically the end of affordable higher education and Labor will oppose this inequitable change to higher education and fight to maintain the current HECS/HELP system widely acknowledged as affordable because it asks people to contribute to a reasonable amount to their education.

This budget is an unprecedented attack on the standard of living Queenslanders and people in my electorate. It is a complete betrayal. Before the election the coalition promised:

No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or the SBS.

There were even cards distributed so that people would be able to hold the future coalition government to account.

There is a strong odour of mendacity around those opposite. They have broken their promises and betrayed Queenslanders, and I am sure that Queenslanders will remember them when it comes to voting at the next election. I am sure that they will also see the ploy being set up when Campbell Newman says, 'I object to everything that the Prime Minister is doing.' The reality is that he has an election coming quick and fast—maybe in March. We have a by-election in Stafford in a few weeks and that will also be an opportunity for Queenslanders to let the Liberal-National Party coalition know that they do not agree with people saying one thing before an election and doing something else afterwards.

This legislation before the chamber, the Tax Laws Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill, is another broken promise, as I said at the start. We have seen quote after quote to this effect. I think that the Monthly has kindly put all these quotes together so that people can compare what was said before the election with what has occurred after the election especially a fortnight ago on budget night. So I am looking forward to people holding this government to account when it comes to what they said before the election and what they have said afterwards. This legislation before the chamber now is another broken promise and should be seen in that light.

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