Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Addressing this piece of legislation that is before us tonight, I would like to quote Dickens because I think Dickens sums up what this budget is all about. He succinctly put it:

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.

That is what this budget is all about and that is what the debate tonight is all about. On that side, they are happy for us to place generations upon generations further and further into debt. On this side, we know we have a responsibility. We have a responsibility to be able to look our children and our grandchildren in the eye and say to them, 'We are not stealing from your future.' It would be irresponsible for us to do anything else.

What were we faced with? We were faced with a budget which, heading into the future, was going to see the debt of this nation reach $667 billion, with not a solution in sight as to how we were going to address it. We were left with a situation which already had us paying an interest bill of $1 billion per annum. We were left with a solution from those opposite which basically said, 'Let the spending continue. Let the spending reign and let irresponsibility reign.' But we were not going to stomach this. We knew that we had to be the adults in the room, that we had to be the responsible ones, that it was up to us to act—and act we have in this budget.

We have almost halved the net debt situation, the future generations we will face in seven or eight years time. We have taken the action to make sure that key parts of our economy are placed on a sustainable footing—our health and our education sectors in particular. For those opposite to still stand and say that there are cuts to health and education shows that they have got dizzy from their own spin. If you look at the forward estimates it states extremely clearly that health and education spending continues to go up over the forward estimates of the budget.

We have before us a budget which is responsible, a budget which says to future generations, 'We will not burden you with our debts.' As the Prime Minister so brilliantly put it in question time today, we will not be accused of stealing from future generations. We will not allow this generation to do that to future generations. What does this budget provide? It provides record funding for infrastructure, record funding for roads. I know, Mr Deputy Speaker, in your electorate that would be extremely well met. I am sure it would be in other members' electorates, especially in regional and rural areas. In Victoria alone we are seeing record investment in road infrastructure. In country areas it is worth noting the increased funding for Roads to Recovery, the increased funding for the Black Spots Programme and the increased funding for projects in my electorate, like the Condah-Hotspur Road, the upgrade of the Great Ocean Road, the extra money going into the Western Highway and also the money which will ensure the duplication of the Princess Highway to Colac. These are all productivity-building infrastructure investments which will improve the economic output of this nation.

There are also other areas which will benefit from this budget. One of the things which has not got much currency because of the frightful fear campaign being run by certain sectors in the opposition is what we have done in aged care, and in particular what we have done for the aged care sector in the regional and rural areas. We have increased the funding for those vital institutions which provide in small regional and rural communities the ability for older people who have lived in a community to stay in those communities and to spend the last parts of their lives there. Once again, this would not have occurred unless we had this very sensible budget which thinks about all Australians, whether they live in regional or rural areas or whether they live in the capital cities.

This budget also meets everyone's local election commitments. All the commitments that were made to the people of Wannon have been committed to in this budget. I can go around my electorate and look everyone in the eye and say, 'The promises that we made in the lead-up to the election have all been met in this budget.' That is incredibly important. That ranges from CCTV cameras in Maryborough, to the road infrastructure that I have already mentioned, to the lights which will go into Melville Oval at Hamilton, to the regional cancer centre which will go into Warrnambool. There is a $10 million investment by the federal government in that $30 million project which the community has demonstrated the need for so remarkably. They got the state government on board and raised funds themselves, and we have a federal government commitment to go with it. The result is a $30 million regional cancer centre. All this is confirmed in this year's budget.

But this budget is not just about responsible spending; it is also about real reform. It has been remarkable to see the reaction to this real reform by those opposite and how they have sought to demonise it in an almost abhorrent manner. If you look at education, we see outlined in this budget the most major reform in higher education since the Whitlam reforms of the early seventies. These reforms will enable universities, for the first time, to openly compete for students. This can have real benefits for regional and rural students because universities in our regional and rural areas can offer a lower cost of living than their urban cousins and they can also now compete for the first time on the price of the courses being offered.

It is worth examining the experience in England with the deregulation of its higher education sector. There we have seen a 12 per cent increase in students from lower socioeconomic areas accessing higher education. That is worth repeating: in England we have seen a 12 per cent increase in students from lower socioeconomic areas accessing higher education. And, if you want to, you can juxtapose that with what is happening in Scotland. But I will not go into that detail; I will just make that statement about what has happened in the UK.

For students from regional and rural areas in Australia, who do not access higher education like their city cousins, these reforms give them the ability to more readily access those important institutions. I have said to the Minister for Education that he is making incredibly important reforms and we have to make sure we get the implementation right because, if we do, these reforms can be ground-breaking, especially for regional and rural students.

If we look at health, we will now have a price signal for Medicare. This was tried before by the Hawke Labor government, which put forward some very good cases as to why it should be done. We are once again seeing a small price signal put into the health system so that we can have a sustainable Medicare system. This is about ensuring the long-term future of Medicare; it is not about anything else; it is about ensuring that we can have a health system which is sustainable in the future. In the past decade we have seen a $40 billion increase in the health spend. What we have to do is ensure that health spending is sustainable. For those opposite, I reiterate that, over the next four years of the forward estimates, health spending goes up; there are no cuts; health spending goes up.

To make sure health spending is sustainable we are putting in a small price signal. In doing that, we are not saying this is money which we will then put into general revenue to spend on whatever; we are actually saying we will make sure that that money goes into medical research. So, once again, we are being extremely responsible with the actions that we are taking. We are putting in place real reform which will benefit the nation over the longer term. It is worth reminding those opposite that in other areas of the health system we do put in price signals and they have supported the putting in of those price signals. So it seems passing strange why they will not agree and see as sensible that we put in this small price signal when it comes to Medicare.

There is another question that the budget has put out, and it is a pretty big question. What it has done is honestly and transparently laid out the future of the nation's finances. But what we are yet to hear from those who are critical of the economic plan we have putting in place is what is their solution. What is their alternative? I say to the Labor Party: come into this place and present to us your alternative plan. How are you going to rein in the spending, or are you happy to sit here or stand here tonight and say, 'We are happy to put the budget on a course so that we will have $667 billion worth of debt in the next seven to eight years.' What is your plan to deal with the $1 billion of interest we are currently paying on the nation's debt? Tell us. Are you happy to go on paying that $1 billion a year on that debt? Are you happy for that to increase over time? What is your economic plan? It is all right to sit there and be critical of this and be critical of that and spin this and spin that. Why don't we see the details of what your path is to get the nation's finances back under control?

So far we have heard absolutely nothing. We saw the budget-in-reply speech—not one initiative laid down to say, 'This is what we would do to fix the situation.' If you cannot come up with your own solutions and you do not start doing the work to come up with your own solutions, you are going to get a very rude awakening as the next election approaches. You will be left looking like the emperor that has no clothes. When the Australian people ask what is the alternative there will be nothing there. So rather than spending your time naysaying and trying to disrupt everything that we are doing with regard to our economic plan, why don't you spend your time focusing on what your alternative will be. I look forward to hearing about it.

It is a pleasure to rise here tonight and talk about this considered and honest budget. It is honest especially for the voters of Wannon because every one of our election commitments has now been honoured and clearly spelt out in the budget. I look forward to hearing from those opposite about their economic plan.

See this speech in context