Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Not content with making schools suffer, the budget will also punish universities and those people who want to get a degree. There will be a staggering $5 billion cut to the tertiary education sector by this Liberal government. By deregulating universities, the Prime Minister and his government are making it abundantly clear that they do not believe in fair and affordable higher education. They want to take us down the path of an Americanised university system, where you are paying $100,000 to get a university degree. Well, this is Australia, and we are proud of our fair and accessible university system. These cuts are a disgraceful betrayal of Australian children and their families, who should be able to access a world-class higher education.

These cuts mean more student debt, and changes to indexation in relation to HECS balance will make it even harder to get a degree, particularly for rural and regional students. There are around 20,000 students from across the Hunter region who attend the University of Newcastle, and we are rightly proud of our uni. In fact, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings recently named the University of Newcastle as the best Australian university under 50 years of age. This draconian deregulation model has been widely criticised by vice-chancellors, some of whom broadly support deregulation. The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Technology, Sydney, Ross Milbourne, has stated:

I don't support this budget package because it is a badly designed model of deregulation plus the biggest funding cuts in history to higher education.

The University of Adelaide Vice-Chancellor, Warren Bebbington, observed:

… it is starting to look as if the student debt burden for many under the proposed reforms might well be worse than in the US. Deregulation would become mis-regulation.

And the University of Canberra's Vice-Chancellor, Stephen Parker, noted:

I also think it is unethical for a generation of leaders who by and large benefited from free higher education to burden the generations behind them in this way.

This is a damning condemnation of the government's plans from those who know the system best.

Of course, not every student wants to go to university, but the government has proposed similar severe cuts for trade and skills training. Almost $2 billion will be taken out of skills programs, over $1 billion of which was funds to support apprentices. The government committed to create one million jobs before the election but is now abolishing essential services for apprentices and workers. Nearly $1 billion in support payments under the Tools For Your Trade program will be cut, a particularly harsh blow for young Australians trying to get a start in a trade. Many apprentices have contacted my office voicing great concern about this measure.

It is not just apprentices who will suffer under this harsh budget. Families will also suffer. At the same time as their family tax benefits are reduced, they will need to find extra money in their household budget to cover the impost of a GP tax, higher medicine costs and the fuel tax every time they fill up at the bowser. Families on family tax benefit part B will have their payment cut when their youngest child turns six. The government also plans to freeze the rates for family tax benefits and has reduced the threshold for payments from $150,000 to $100,000. This will mean that a single-income family on $65,000, well below the average, with two children aged eight and 14 is going to lose over $6,000 by 2016. These are figures from the independent National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, NATSEM, a centre that Prime Minister Abbott was lauding when he was in opposition as the greatest repository of family income modelling in this country. This cut equates to an 11 per cent cut in that family's income. Why is it fair that someone on $180,000 or $200,000 a year will pay $400 extra in tax but a family on $65,000 will lose over 11 per cent of their income? And this cut will be permanent because of this heartless and cruel government.

Finally I would like to speak about the cruel changes to Newstart for people under 30. The overwhelming message to these people from the Abbott government is: 'You're on your own.' Young people under 25 will now be shifted from Newstart payments onto the youth allowance, leaving them $48 a week worse off. After 1 January next year, job seekers under 30 who need Newstart and youth allowance will be forced to wait six months before receiving any support. This is right-wing conservative ideology at its worst. It is victim blaming and it is fundamentally unfair.

These appropriation bills are the first step in bringing in some of the harshest budget cuts we have ever seen. These bills are peppered with callous cuts, but, whilst essential services and supports are slashed, making life hard for those on low and middle income, there is money in the kitty to pay wealthy women $50,000 to have a baby and increase the non-concessional superannuation cap to $180,000.

This budget is about choices: Tony Abbott and the Liberals have chosen to hurt the most vulnerable whilst protecting the interests of the wealthy. Labor has made a choice too. We have chosen to defend our legacy of Medicare, of historic levels of funding for schools, of the social wage, of representing the interests of workers and families. We will fight against the abolition of universal health care, increases to the costs of medicines, the petrol tax and the unfair cost to families, students and pensioners. Labor will fight these measures because they attack the very values on which our movement is based—fairness, equality and social justice. I will stand up for the 100,000 pensioners in the Hunter region who will suffer cuts because of this heartless government; I will stand up for the patients in the Hunter Valley who will pay an extra $28 million because of the GP tax.

Budgets are about choice. I have a one-year-old daughter, and I want her to grow up in a society that is fair and equitable, where she has the best chance of advancing, based on her hard effort and her intelligence—not on the size of the bank balance supporting her. How is it fair to have $100,000 debt when coming out of university while those opposite enjoyed a free education? It demonstrates the hypocrisy of this government that this Treasurer was protesting against a $200 fee for university education 20 years ago, but now is trying to impose an American level of debt on university students. This budget is an attack on the Australian way of life; it results in a 12-per-cent cut to family income for people on well-below the average wage while giving a free kick to the wealthy. Labor will not support it. Labor will oppose it because that is what the Australian people elected us to do—to fight for lower-income Australians, to fight for pensioners and to fight for those who need Medicare most.

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