Matt Williams (Hindmarsh, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the appropriation bill because I think it is important for us to understand and to articulate clearly where we are as a nation and why we need to make some changes now and not before it is far too late, when more austere measures are required. We need to do that so that the case for budget repair is understood by the public out there.

The constituents of Hindmarsh and people of Australia know that something has to be done. They know that we cannot go on in the same way that we have in the past. Without change, Australia will record the fastest growth in spending of the top 17 surveyed advanced economies. People know that we need to reduce the unsustainable spending. We know that our demographics are changing. Life expectancy is increasing. This is increasing pressures on social welfare and welfare payments, which we want to maintain. The budget repair will allow us to fund future spending commitments on necessary social services, whether they be health, aged care, pensions or education. It will also allow us to fund future unexpected events.

If you think back to the Howard years you will remember that they made some tough decisions. They ran budget surpluses in 10 out of 11 years. So when the global financial crisis hit they had money in the bank. There was money there to spend on necessary social infrastructure such as education or other areas to help families during those difficult times and to help with employment. But the government could do that because the hard yards had been done because we managed our finances and we lived within our means.

Furthermore, the Commission of Audit talked about expenditure increases over the next decade—a doubling, or even more than that of expenditure on health, aged care, education and pensions. What does this add up to currently? Where is our budget at? What is our financial situation? We have interest repayments of $1 billion a month. Worryingly, around $700 million of those repayments go overseas—out of our economy. That amount is unable to help the people of Australia to manage their costs, to get on with their lives.

What could we do with $1 billion a month? This is the question I put to the Labor Party, opposite. We could do so much. We could help the people that those on the other side of the chamber want to help. We could assist local communities. We could build a new hospital. We could build new schools. We could build new infrastructure—new roads. We could do so much. We could help families with their daily struggles. But that money is wasted; it is going overseas.

This point has not been addressed by the member for Denison, who just spoke, or by our opposition, the Labor Party. What do we do about that situation? Where is the solution? If we do not do anything now the repayments will increase to $3 billion a month within 10 years—hence, something needs to be done now. It would be a travesty to have more interest payments going overseas—more wasted money so that we are unable to fund community services, the social services and the physical infrastructure that we need.

If action is taken now, which we intend to do, it will save us $16 billion over that 10-year period. This is more than the NDIS, this is more than higher education and this is more than the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. That is what the end dividend is, that we will make these savings which we will be able to contribute back into our budget revenues and help to fund the necessary expenditure that we need.

What is Labor's solution to the debt problem? Wasted money on interest repayments and more expenditure in the future. We are going in the right direction. It will be a shared contribution. As the Treasurer said, and as Menzies said many years ago, 'We are a nation of lifters, not leaners', where all Australians must contribute in a fair way. We are discontinuing the trend of industry assistance, away from corporate welfare, towards programs that facilitate innovation and self-reliance. So we are making necessary changes across the board, looking at taxpayers' money and how to spend that in the best possible manner.

Low-income households will continue to receive significant payments, and when we get rid of the carbon tax every household will benefit by $550 per year. This is where the Labor Party, who cry out about the cost of living, can do something. They can vote for the carbon tax to be removed. But, no: they sit on their hands.

There are structural reforms that we are undertaking to address the ageing population and our slowing economic growth. We are making sure that everyone makes a contribution by asking higher income earners to pay the budget repair levy. They already pay a significant amount of the tax—around 50 per cent of all tax revenue is from high-income earners—admittedly, they are only 10 per cent of the population. This is very much an equitable measure.

We are building Australia's future, with $50 billion in infrastructure and social infrastructure, with education reforms, is not to be forgotten. The $50 billion in infrastructure is a record amount, as we all know. It will improve our economic activity and productivity even more so. It will reduce congestion, lower our business costs and get people home quicker so that they can spend more time with their families rather than being stuck in traffic. In South Australia alone, the South Road upgrade of $1 billion is a great announcement, and I commend the Prime Minister, who committed to this upgrade of South Road within 10 years last October, and Minister Briggs for the work he has done. In my area, the $448 million Torrens to Torrens project is to commence in 2015.

Still on the economy, the people of Australia know that Liberals are businesses' best friend. The small-to medium-size enterprises out there will benefit from a tax cut to around 800,000 small-to medium-sized businesses in Australia. This may provide incentives for those companies to expand, to buy some new capital equipment, to look at new research and development or to employ people: 'Wouldn't that be a great initiative?' the Labor Party says. Ultimately and importantly, the workers benefit.

Lower taxes—the mining tax being removed will help my state of South Australia with iron ore. And, naturally, there is the carbon tax. The member for Makin is here again today, and he heard me speak last night about the benefit of removing taxes. He knows that the companies, the small businesses and the households in his electorate are finding it tough because of the high utility costs, where the state Labor government is contributing to higher power prices through their solar feed-in tariffs and the previous federal government did through the carbon tax. The member for Makin is happy that at least now there is a government that will reduce taxes and help the people in his electorate. On reducing taxes: the tax take for this budget will be $5.7 billion less. That is a significant change to the previous Labor government.

To leverage further private sector investment, the government is prepared to use its balance sheet to help manage risks that might otherwise impede private sector financing. We are looking at new and innovative ways and we are working with the states in how we can finance infrastructure. We are breaking new ground in this sense. In my local community of Hindmarsh there have been infrastructure projects that will help local people. There are CCTV cameras in Henley Square and the redevelopment of the foreshore at Glenelg, where the Foreign Minister was just recently.

We are supporting local clubs through the budget, whether they be football clubs, soccer or other sporting clubs. And we are supporting environmental projects—the Green Army is just one of those initiatives.

I now want to move to education. There have been some groundbreaking education reforms introduced in this budget by the Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne. Let us just reflect on where we are now with tertiary education. We have no university inside the top 20 in the world. A nation such as Australia deserves to have a very high quality top ranked university. Our universities, moreover, are slipping in global rankings—going in the wrong direction. Asian universities, especially those in China, are improving. Something must be done to enable our universities to improve and be the best that they can be.

The Commonwealth will provide around $16 billion to universities this year, with increases each year. Importantly, there is a new initiative to expand opportunities and provide support for students through direct Commonwealth financial support for those studying higher education diplomas, advanced diplomas and associate degrees with all registered higher education institutions, whether they be in the city or in the country, whether it be TAFE or vet, whether it be universities or otherwise. There is considerable support for students going forward in terms of financing their studies in the first instance.

Significantly, we will be establishing a new Commonwealth scholarship scheme to assist students from a disadvantaged background so that they do not miss out. The new Commonwealth scholarship scheme will expand opportunities for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, Indigenous students and students from regional Australia. These new arrangements will mean our smarter students can receive a world-class education no matter what background they are from. You would think the Labor Party would be supporting such an initiative. Well, we do not hear anything from members opposite; there is a lack of consistency in their ideals at times.

Other support and equity measures include that 80,000 more students will be supported as they pursue the best course for them. There is $820 million overall to expand access to education. We are removing the FEE-HELP loans for students and we are ensuring graduates will only begin paying their HELP debt when they are earning a decent income. This is fair. The Group of Eight universities unanimously support the core elements of the government's proposed reforms, as they said in a recent press release. They said:

In particular we support: expanding the demand-driven system to non-university providers, with adequate quality controls—

and something that has been overlooked in the education debate is that there will be more students wanting to attend university and tertiary education—

extending funding to sub-Bachelor Degree programs (e.g. Diploma and Associate Degrees); and deregulating tuition fees.

I want to quickly touch on education funding, which will increase for schools year on year. Students and schools will benefit from a record funding investment of $65 billion over the next four years. From 2013-14 to 2017-18 the funding will increase by 34 per cent, a $4.6 billion increase. So this whole notion of education being cut is ridiculous and misleading. This is over $1.2 billion more than Labor would have spent over the next four years. From 2018, there will be a stable and sustainable system for schools funding based on the CPI. In South Australia alone—and this is something the member for Makin should again take note of—the funding will increase by an additional $74 million in 2014-15, $64 million in 2015-16, $68 million in 2016-17 and $70 million in 2017-18. I am sure the member for Makin will tell his South Australian Labor colleagues that they should be clapping their hands for the record increase in funding that the federal Liberal government is providing to South Australian schools in this budget.

In addition to what we are doing in terms of funding, we are looking at increasing excellence in teaching and school leadership. It is not all about funding, as we know. This debate requires a much more analytical approach than just throwing money at things—we know that is what the Labor Party love to do, but they do not get the outcomes. As we know, the quality of teachers is one of the biggest influences on student results and development.

The Medical Research Future Fund is a groundbreaking initiative. I want to quote what the member for Sydney said in August 2013:

Labor wants more Australian research advances to be taken into the marketplace by Australian firms rather than watching the commercial benefits of our ideas exploited by overseas companies with better access to investment funds.

She will be pleased to know that what we are proposing will help significantly, through the Medical Research Future Fund and other initiatives we are taking, in terms of changing corporate welfare to look at innovation.

In closing, I want to quote another opposition member, now retired, former PM Julia Gillard. She told parliament on 14 March 2013:

In line with our fiscal strategy, we are asking the nation to take some tough decisions and to make some tough choices.

Yes, this sounded good, but Labor failed to deliver the fiscal strategy. Well, they gave us the five highest deficits in history—tough decisions—and the mining tax: how much did that raise? They changed their mind so many times. Tough choices? The only tough choice the Labor Party made was to bring back Kevin Rudd and change leaders so many times. They were not focused on being a good government for the people of Australia. They were more concerned with their leader and who was going to get the spoils of office. They were all talk and no action.

We are making some challenging decisions so that we can repair the budget, as we said we would do, and provide sustainable finances to fund expenditure in the future. We did not make this mess. We are taking responsibility to clean it up. This is not our desired course of action, but we are cleaning up Labor's mess and taking the responsible course the Australian people need.

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