Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am quite pleased to be able to talk to this chamber, the people in the gallery and the Australian people who will be listening online and watching on television. It is a wonderful thing to have the opportunity to talk in the chamber. We sometimes take it for granted. I want to reflect a little bit on the journey that has made us into such a great country and has afforded us the standard of living that we enjoy. It has not just been by chance. It has been because of good decisions and often hard decisions. It has been because of the endeavour of every Australian who chooses to pull together to contribute rather than take. There is that great saying about those who put their hand up rather than their hand out. This budget is about those who put their hand up and not their hand out.

The challenge we have had since we have come to government in the last 18 months is explaining the journey to the Australian people. When the Howard government came into power in 1996, people had lived through the recession we had to have in 1992 when interest rates had been very high, when businesses had gone broke and when people who had had a great dream to purchase a home had then found that they were not able to make the repayments on those homes. They had lived through those difficult times. Then, when the budgets in the early years of the Howard government came in, they understood that there needed to be some cost cutting. They understood that we need to tighten our belts.

We had a little bit of a different situation in the Rudd-Gillard years. What we saw there as we were going into the global financial crisis in a very strong financial position is that we effectively moved private debt into public debt. That is fine. That has a place at times in the Australian economy and the global economy to keep confidence up and to keep stimulating people. That was what happened. However, we cemented in many of our forward projections that ongoing stimulating effect without being able to fund it. You can move private debt into public debt for a little while, but there will be a reckoning. There is a need to then make some changes. There is a need to then rein in some of those costs.

The challenge we have had is that people did not feel the effects in the Australian population. People did not lose their houses and jobs like they certainly did in America and like they certainly still are in Europe. Unfortunately, then, we have had a difficult narrative to say to people that things have changed, that the economic climate has changed and that we have to meet some challenges and constructively pull together if we are going to continue the prosperity that we as Australians enjoy.

People are beginning to realise that now. I think this is the difficulty that the opposition are having in trying to explain their narrative. While the narrative might sound good, people understand at the moment that the economy is difficult and that we are very much at a crossroads and we can grasp the opportunities but we can also falter if we do not have the will and the ambition and the internal fortitude to make tough decisions.

We have put forward a raft of tough decisions. Some of those from the first budget needed the rough edges knocked off. There is no doubt about that. It is the role of the Senate to try to hold us to account and knock off rough edges. But people have realised now that the job market is a little softer, that things are little bit more difficult. They are looking for a government that is prepared to make those tough decisions and to seize the opportunities so that, together, our best years can be ahead of us.

A budget really is an economic document and it is the engine room for us to build the society that we want to have. Everyone concedes that we want a society that looks after those who cannot look after themselves, looks after senior Australians, looks after our young and unemployed so that they can get on that first rung of the working latter, has a good defence system and has good roads. These are the things that we want our society. But you cannot build those things unless you can afford to pay for that with the dollars.

The dollars come from the work of average Australians. The government actually does not have any money; the government has your money. It always needs to remembered that money that the government has is your money. Often people say a great line to me, 'The government has gotta.' I say, 'Who is the government? The government is you. The government is a reflection of you. It is your hard work and then we are entrusted with spending your money to build the society that we want to have.' We cannot just spend money we have not got. We have to spent it frugally and make tough choices.

What we have done since coming into government has been a very interesting narrative. We made some very tough choices in the first budget. We have then been very mindful that we sit in the Asia-Pacific region, so we have to capitalise on the opportunities that sit in the Asia-Pacific region. Through the work of Andrew Robb and through the backbench trade committee, we have developed free-trade agreements—which had been stalled for a very long time—and have stitched those deals up with Japan, China and South Korea. As the global market changes, as iron ore has contracted and as coal has contracted, we have some great opportunities that are really the hard work and the working out of those three free-trade agreements.

This budget is actually about seizing those opportunities. It is one thing to have an opportunity, but it is quite another thing to turn an opportunity into a reality. This is the 'yes, but how' budget. For those in the gallery, these are my favourite three words: 'Yes, but how.' People always say, 'What is this policy and how does it apply to me?' That is how I look at legislation: 'Yes, but how.' We hear, 'We want to have universal education,' from the opposition and I say, 'Yes, but how?' They say, 'We want to have free health cover,' and I say, 'Yes, but how?' This is the 'yes, but how' budget. This is the budget that explains to us how we can move to seize the opportunities of the free-trade agreements.

I will tell you how we are going to do it: we are going to do it with the great ingenuity and the great thought processes and dedication of average Australians. I believe, with a lot of confidence, in average Australians. I believe that Australians are smart and that Australians work hard. If you give them an incentive, then they will go out, turn our economy around and do anything that they set their minds to.

In my electorate, we have 15,000 small businesses. They are mums and dads, usually. They have often got the children working. They are trying to build their life and build their prosperity through small business. This budget is seizing the opportunities for them. There is a 1.5 per cent tax cut for small businesses. There is accelerated depreciation for purchases under $20,000. There are great things for agricultural businesses. Even for those businesses that are not registered as corporations, we have found a way of making sure that they also receive a tax cut. Often, there are productivity gains that need to be made if they are going to capture an opportunity. That is what this $20,000 accelerated depreciation is.

I heard the budget reply speech. It talked about an aspiration all five per cent cut for small business. Anyone who has been in small business—and I have been in small business since I was self-employed at 22—knows that they would take the accelerated depreciation of purchases under $20,000 time after time before I would ever go for a five per cent cut on a company tax rate for small business. It simply shows that they have missed the beat on this one. They have missed the mark. If I go out and talk to people in my electorate, which I have been doing, they will say that we have got this one right.

Not only are we saying to small business that you have got to seize the opportunity but we have also presented a child care package that is about getting people reengaged in the workforce and getting young mums who—unfortunately, through necessity—need to go back in the workforce to pay off their houses and often to help with the dreams and ambitions of their family. We presented a child care package that I think will be very welcome. There is also a part of this child care package that is going to assist in those small country towns, such as in my electorate, where the child care model does not always work in its traditional way.

We have also understood that pensioners need to be valued. We have taken away the changes that were creating uncertainty for pensioners. We have said to those who are self-funded superannuation retirees that they have done well. We are very mindful that being a self-funded retiree at this time, where interest rates are quite low, is a difficult journey. We are not going to rob your superannuation. Also, those who are the poorest—in my electorate, we have a lot of the poorest—will be $30 a fortnight better off. There is a level of fairness in this that I think has been addressed.

We are also mindful that if we are going to seize the opportunities that are before us, we need to get younger people who are unemployed working. Getting people on that first rung of the ladder is a critical step. Assistant Minister Hartsuyker has done a good job working on this and having incentives. If you are not working, you are going to have to turn up 25 hours a week and do something to get you job ready. You are going to have an opportunity to work with business, hand in glove, so that you are more in tune with the demands and the opportunities that businesses present people.

I have a strong belief that the best thing you can give a young person is an opportunity. The best thing you can give a young person is an opportunity—I have said it again because it is important. If you get a young person to have a job, have money in their pocket that they earned and have a sense of self-worth, that is something that puts their shoulders back. That is something that makes them stand taller and prouder. What we want for young Australians is to be involved in this great economy and to have great opportunity, and there is stuff here to put that first rung on the ladder.

Often it is mentioned to me by some of our senior Australians, who have still got something to give, that unfortunately they are passed over at times for a job. They might be 50 years old or older but they have got the beauty of wisdom and knowledge. They are the people who are going to drive a forklift and not break it, but their knees might not be as good as they used to be for jumping up and down into that truck cabin. They have often felt that they have not been able to get that job. In this budget there is a rejigging of the $10,000 Restart program to help those who are 50-year-olds or older to get back into the workforce.

This budget also builds the society that we want to have. There is an additional $1.6 billion over the five years for lifesaving and life-enhancing drugs. Often people come into my office and say: 'We are in a situation where we are quite sick. If only this drug could be listed. That would add very much to our standard of living and maybe make us live that little bit longer.' Unfortunately, we all die; but if a drug makes us live a little bit longer then that is a good thing. There is some stuff in this budget that is really very important.

One of the things in this budget that I am most proud of is a very small amount of money—it is listed as a line item in the health budget—for the Wimmera Health Care Group Oncology, Dialysis and Community Palliative Care Centre. We had a situation in my electorate where people were not able to get treatment for cancer because there were not enough services. These people were driving up to 400 kilometres, getting their chemo and driving back, stopping on the edge of the road to throw up because they were unwell from the chemo treatment. That $1 million is a line item in this budget. The centre will be funded. It will mean that people's lives will be saved; it will mean that people's lives will be enhanced.

So please look broader than the rhetoric that is being discussed around this budget. This is certainly a financial document, and there are some really good things in this budget that will help us build the society that you and I want to live in for a long time—a society that builds on the future. I am proud to be in a government that has delivered this budget.

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