Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On the morning of the last of federal budget, the Liberal MP for Hume, Angus Taylor, set the tone for the day by sharing some ancient wisdom, which I picked up in a note today. In a series of tweets, he cited the values of Roman philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero:

The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.

Certainly Cicero knew a few things about a hostile Senate, which we also face. He was eventually decapitated. I hope that is not the case with this budget!

Having mentioned the new member for Hume, I cannot help but remember his predecessor, Alby Schultz. Alby Schultz was a great warrior for his cause, and for many causes he and his wife had—especially farmers in their district and those across the nation who were suffering as farmers. Now why do I mention Alby? I went to a party room meeting this morning, Alby, and nobody attacked the National Party. Without you there, we do not have that solid resonance from those who come from your side of the square. You are so different, so special, and we wish you all the best in your retirement. I believe you have just had very, very good health news. All the best to you.

There is one thing I want to say to the wider Australian community, to the truck driver on the road, to the school teacher listening now, to the person hearing this in a remote part of Australia, in our suburbs and anywhere else—to each one of you. Firstly, with regard to the nation's health and wellbeing, especially its financial health and wellbeing, whatever we were doing was not working. Doing nothing, the status quo, which meant staying in the mess we were in, was not an option. It was not an option to allow the country to continue on the road it was on because all the forecasts were not prudent courses for appropriate outlays on your behalf to achieve a beneficial, healthy resurgence in this country.

I, like many other members of parliament, have desires for my electorate. For the nation, yes, there are many outlays that, whether you like it or not, whoever you elect is locked into making those payments. There are very small parts of the budget that can be adjusted to put us on a road back into the black. Basically, for health, education, welfare, support for older people, most of the costs are already locked into today's and our future budgets. So we have a small opportunity, in parts of the budget, to look at how we can make a change to what we are doing that will be beneficial for our future.

Not all debt is negative, either at a local or state or federal level. If you are building infrastructure for the future, sometimes, as with the business I was in, you need to be in debt. At other times you need to be in surplus, and you have to have the goal of being in surplus, otherwise you will forever remain in debt. Understanding that is clear to everybody across this nation. You have to have a goal to be in surplus in your family budget. You do not want to leave the debt to your children after you are gone. One thing we know for sure, in this place and outside this place, is that one day it will all be gone.

You have few chances to do the right thing by the nation while you are in power. For me it is not the office I hold that is important; it is the outcome that I deliver after holding that office. If I came here and I said nothing and I did nothing, I would be marked down. If you come here as an individual or you come into power as a government, you get hold—as Paul Keating said—of the levers of power. If you do that and leave the train just sitting on the rails at the station, going nowhere, you have done nothing for your community and you have done nothing for the nation. So it is not the office I hold but the outcome. In everything I do, both in this House and more broadly, I have taken those positions because I believe we can deliver a better outcome internationally, nationally, at our state level and our regional level. We have a large role to play in that.

As local members, though, we have desires for our community. I do not know what it is like in your electorate but, for me, it is not hard: I need a new hospital in West Gippsland. I cannot have that new hospital if we are in such great debt here that I cannot go to the government and say I need an outlay of many millions of dollars because over a long period of time the hospital that has served the community so well is one that was placed in a regional country area but is now directly on the outskirts of Melbourne, if not actually included in the outer Melbourne area. It has all the pressures of Melbourne's outer growth and at the same time it has the Latrobe Valley pressing on it from the other way. It is a very important health facility for our community in the West and South Gippsland areas as part of a framework of other hospitals, in Leongatha and Wonthaggi and, closer to Melbourne, in Casey, but it is the next port of call for people.

The committee, thoughtfully, have purchased the land for the new hospital, but what they will need is the go-ahead for the funds to build. The Leongatha bypass has just been funded by the federal government. We were blessed to get that through. It will make a difference to that community. It will change that community completely from having massive trucks going through it. We funded that.

There is the long jetty restoration at Port Welshpool, which I have been campaigning for ages. It is a beautiful old jetty that has heritage values. It has been burnt recently by vandals, and that is why it needs a complete rebuild. It is going to cost some millions of dollars to do. It has been a promise of mine in every election campaign up until the last one, when it was refused because of the situation we found ourselves in. I was not making promises during the election campaign. It will give access for disability fishing, it will change the nature of the town, tourism will grow, you will save the kindergarten, you will save the school, you will increase the business opportunities around the port area, and the whole area around Port Welshpool will be enhanced.

The West Gippsland round football stadium regional hub at Pakenham is needed because of massive growth. One family every day moves into my district around the Cardinia shire area, but particularly around the Pakenham-Officer area. There is one family every day. Probably on the figures, some days, two families. Their needs for infrastructure for sport for the young people are being catered for by the community as best we possibly can. The next step is a fairly major round ball—we used to call it soccer—football complex. That is a request of mine for the next election campaign and that is what I will be putting to my leadership.

The Moe Rail Precinct Revitalisation project has been funded, signed off, ticked off by the government. That will make an enormous difference to Moe and district and our pride in our community. The business community are right behind this. The two girls I am talking about will know who I am talking about, because one has a surname like mine, so I cannot really use it because it sounds like we are related. That is not the case at all, but can I just say to the two girls in those two businesses: congratulations on your work to push all the way through for the Moe revitalisation precinct, and I look forward to the turning of the sod for the next part of that.

Unless we can get our finances in order, we are not going to be able to fund the Korumburra Early Childhood Community Centre. I am very desirous of funding these projects, but governments have to have the money to be able to fund them. The only way we can do that is to make the sacrifices, as the Abbott government has outlined in this budget.

We had the great blessing of opening Prom Country Aged Care, as I said in an address the other day. They have asked for an extension. They now have a long waiting list of people who would like to join in that centre, and they are asking for more funds. I also met with Hillview aged care the other day. They have a proposition that they want to put to government, to the department, to say that we can join these two parts of the building up here, it will cost $900,000 and they don't need any more facilities—for example, kitchens and facilities to back it up; all the services are there. It is $900,000 and the former minister at the table knows exactly what I am talking about. It is a great opportunity at little cost, shovel ready. What is the problem? There is $5 million in capital works grants to be spread right across Victoria. That is one drip in a very, very big bucket needed for aged care right across the country.

There is one particular issue—treating young people with respect and saying to them: 'Look, we want your first work payment not to come from the government.' We want your first payment to come from your endeavours, so we are striking an accord with you to say that we do not want your first payment to be a dole payment.

I do not know what I would have been like as a 15-year-old when I did my first part-time job if I had been looking forward to my first payment being an unemployment benefit. I was always looking for my first payment to be what it was when I was 15 and went out carting swedes, hay and potatoes and weeding onions. You may say that those jobs are not there today, Russell, because the hay carting has been taken over by the big round bales and there are special insecticides now to remove the weeds from onions et cetera. But there are other jobs out there that were not there in my day of opportunity. I agree with the message that is coming from the government that for the first six months, surely, you can either learn or you can earn. If you have special disability, of course we are going to look after you, but I want your first payment to be an exciting payment.

When my dad first saw that cheque for £15, after I had spent two weeks digging and carting swedes, he was excited. I was the slowest digger and carter of swedes of the whole group of people in that paddock, but I earned £15 for the two weeks and I was pretty excited about that too. My father was so excited about it that he kept the cheque and gave me the money—he never thought I would earn anything!

Having said that, it is important that we send a message to the young people of Australia: here is the opportunity. If you are thinking that when you leave school you are going straight on a government benefit, no, we want you to have a view that you are going into the workplace. We want to change the culture of the nation to one that says, 'I am not after a government handout; I am after the government supporting me into opportunity either through learning or any other way that can support me into a job.' I think the government in this budget wants to change the culture of the nation.

Paul Keating said that when you change the government, you change a nation. Mr Abbott and Mr Hockey and their team have put forward this budget. Let us give it the opportunity to work over time and the benefits will flow to the generations. Rather than leaving our generations with a debt, rather than leaving the next generation to pay the bill, we can be the generation that began the cultural change and began the great opportunity to make something of this nation, starting with its young people.

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