Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

It is great to be able to talk to Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2015-2016 and cognate bills, the government's budget bills, because of course everybody knows that this budget was simply a political document to try to save the jobs of Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. They are not that interested in the jobs of Australians. You can tell that because their own budget papers talk about unemployment going up—indeed, going up to 6.5 per cent, and that is the highest level of unemployment for 14 years. Sadly, it even projects that it will stay there for some time.

This budget still contains a lot of the nasties from the previous budget, which was so unpopular with the people of Australia. It still includes the increase in the petrol excise, which will disproportionately impact on the people in rural and regional Australia every day as they go to work or take their kids to school. In this budget there is still the plan to increase the pension age to 70. I am sure that is something that the tradies who might be taking advantage of the instant asset write-off will not be very happy about. It still contains the deregulation to Australia's universities that could lead to $100,000 degrees. Still contains more than $80 billion in cuts to health and education, and of course it does not contain the fifth and the sixth year of the Gonski education funding that was promised by this government. It also contains family tax cuts. There are cuts to Family Tax Benefit Part A and Family Tax Benefit Part B.

Indeed, we have seen some modelling today which shows just how that will impact on average Australian families. To give you an example, for a couple on a single income earning $65,000 with two children, one in primary school and one in high school, over the four years of the budget it is a loss of more than $20,000. That is a very significant loss indeed. For a couple on a single income of $75,000 with two kids, one not yet of school age and one in primary school, over the four years it is a loss of $6,000. And for a sole parent with an income of $55,000 with two children, one in primary school and one in high school, again it is a loss of more than $20,000. How can the government say this budget is fair? What they are trying to do to these families is rip money away and, on the other hand, say that we need this budget saving so that we can fund changes to child care. They want to take money off some families and give it to other families, and the way they are going about it is absolutely not fair.

This budget also includes the changes to paid parental leave. We saw some really appalling language used by the government to describe families that were taking paid parental leave, the government scheme and their employer's scheme. Of course, they seem to forget that a lot of the employees who are accessing employer funded paid parental leave have bargained for that leave. They have forgone other entitlements or possible wage increases to obtain that paid parental leave. They will have worked with their colleagues and with their boss and negotiated that additional leave so that they can spend more time at home with their newborn babies. They do not expect to be called fraudsters by the government when they access, legitimately, both schemes. And, of course, those changes to paid parental leave that are in the budget will affect more than 80,000 families. It is a loss of up to $11,500 per family at that critical time when many people are resorting to one income and are relying on this leave to spend time at home with their babies. Those opposite go around the country taking happy snaps in childcare centres. They go out and about in their electorates with tradies and say that this budget is full of good news. That is simply not true. They are linking cuts to family payments to childcare benefits for other families and they are taking money away from families with newborn babies.

As I said, those opposite talk about this budget being all about jobs, but what we actually see in this budget is unemployment going up. In my portfolio of employment services there is a package in relation to youth unemployment, which we are pleased to see they are acting on. Youth unemployment in Australia has been growing, and it has been growing at an alarming rate. There was a big announcement of $200 million for youth unemployment measures. As I went through the budget papers, I was looking and looking for it, but there was no new money for this; it is coming out of what is already allocated to employment services in the budget.

From 1 July the government have their new jobactive program. They have taken money out of the jobactive program to pay for youth unemployment services, which is well and good, but they are actually admitting that jobactive will not work for young people. It will not work for young people because many young people are vulnerable. The new jobactive program will not work for vulnerable people, regardless of their age. The government needs to do a lot more if it wants to address long-term unemployment and unemployment for people with serious barriers to employment. It needs to invest to move people from welfare into work, as we keep hearing all the rhetoric about. This government is not seriously investing in jobs for people who face barriers to employment.

There is also nothing in the budget about job creation. There is not a proper plan for job creation. Yes, there is a short-term plan for small business, but there is no long-term plan for infrastructure, for investing in education, for investing in science, for investing in innovation and for investing in those jobs of the future, where Australia's prosperity will lie. That is what we heard about in the opposition leader's budget reply speech. We heard about investments in science, technology, engineering and maths and how important they will be. They are really critical to Australia's future.

In the past Australia invented some great things and made some great innovations. We need to ensure that Australia continues to do that in the future. We need the smart jobs of the future, the well-paying jobs of the future. We need to make sure Australians are qualified to take up these jobs, which means we need to invest in education. As I said earlier, the money for the Gonski funding that is so critical for our students' education is not there in years five and six of the budget.

The youth unemployment programs the government has brought in are only replacing programs that were previously cut—great programs like Youth Connections, Partnership Brokers and national career development services. All these wonderful programs were designed to get young people into work. So, for a government who says it is serious about jobs, there is not a lot of assistance in this budget to get disadvantaged people into work. The budget papers say that unemployment will be going up. I am not convinced and I do not think the Australian public is convinced that this budget is good news for those people who are trying to work in Australia.

In relation to my other portfolio, the budget papers contain some interesting things, including a couple of funds under the Regional Development Program. One is called Stronger Communities, and $150,000 for each electorate is mentioned. A fortnight out from the budget, there is no information on exactly how this will work or what the process will be. We have been told that the involvement of the local member is going to be important, but we do not know what that will be. So we are not sure quite how this program will work. But I am concerned that it might work like the Community Development Grants Program, a program which the government created out of uncontracted Regional Development Australia funds. They put money into it and—surprise, surprise—90 per cent of the funding went to coalition-held seats and contained a whole heap of election commitments. So I would be very concerned about the Stronger Communities fund and how that is going to work.

Interestingly, the Community Development Grants Program had an additional $50 million popped into it in this budget. Again, a fortnight out from the budget there is no process for applying for grants under this program. Surprisingly, there has been an announcement out of this program—a program under which there is no process for people to apply. So, again, I would be very concerned about this program and how it is going to be used by the government and how it will apply across the country. We all want to see investment in local communities across Australia, but we want to be sure that that money is going to the best projects, the projects that support local jobs and local communities and that have a benefit for every community, with funding going right across the country. It should not simply be used as a bucket of money for coalition election promises, which is sadly where I think it is heading. So there are those two interesting little buckets of money in the budget.

Finally, in the few minutes remaining to me, I would like to talk about my home state of Tasmania. Tasmania seemed to miss out in this last federal budget. Western Australia gets another half a billion dollars for infrastructure, but Tasmania, which has the highest unemployment in the country, misses out. What is worse is that not only do we miss out; the $100 million cut to the Midland Highway is still in the budget and there is a $120 million cut to rail infrastructure from state and federal Liberal governments. That was money for freight rail in our state that was supposed to build on previous investment by the Labor government. Further, the University of Tasmania is getting a funding cut over four years of over $125 million. So several hundred million dollars is coming out of my home state of Tasmania.

Last Friday the Prime Minister was in town and he was asked about funding for the Mersey Hospital—it is a hospital on the north-west coast that, many people might recall, was bought by former Prime Minister Howard for the princely sum of a dollar from the state government. It is the only Commonwealth owned hospital, I think, in the country. The Commonwealth is in negotiation with the state for funding for this hospital, and everybody was expecting the Prime Minister to make an announcement that there was no money in the budget for it, but, of course, he did not. So we have no idea whether the money for the Mersey Hospital is in the budget or not.

We know one thing that is not there, and that is the Cadbury's money. People may recall that in the fanfare of the election the Prime Minister visited the Cadbury's factory at Claremont and announced 200 new jobs and an investment of $16 million in Cadbury's. Sadly, I have to report that on Friday, 80 Cadbury workers were told they no longer had a job—80 workers are now without a job—and my sympathies go to those workers and their families. This was an investment that was promised by Mr Abbott personally, but this money was not forthcoming. Now it is a budget saving; in the budget papers it is minus $16 million in the tourism budget. We are assured by the Treasurer and the Prime Minister that that money will still come to Tasmania, but nobody can tell us where it is in the budget. The Treasurer was asked where the money is and which department has it, but he did not know. The Prime Minister does not know either. So I am looking forward to Senate estimates to try to find out where this money might actually lie for Tasmania—what projects it is earmarked for—because nobody seems to be able to find it at the moment. Tasmanians do not have a lot of confidence that they will get this funding from the Abbott government.

There has not been a lot of good news for Tasmania in the budget. There was a little bit of good news, though: irrigation projects received some funding in the budget. They were announced by the Prime Minister a couple of months ago, and these projects have bipartisan support in Tasmania. The former Labor government invested more than $140 million in irrigation projects in the state of Tasmania, and the state and federal Labor governments established Irrigation Tasmania—a wonderful body that has been putting together a range of irrigation projects. It has been talking to Infrastructure Australia to get the projects properly assessed. It is good to see they are getting some funding under the current government, although the funding envelope is somewhat short of what is required for these projects. Again, I am a little curious as to how the remaining $40 million will be found for these very important projects in an industry that is growing jobs in Tasmania. It is an area where we have invested heavily in the past and has had bipartisan support in the past. The agriculture industry has been going extremely well in Tasmania; many new jobs have been created in agriculture; and I would like to see that continue and to see additional funding come to my home state.

Overall it is not great news for my home state of Tasmania. There is no great news for families in this budget, particularly families who receive the Family Tax Benefit or for those people who are currently looking for a job in Australia. I do not think that this budget is something that those on the government side should be taking happy snaps about while they travel around the country, proclaiming that it is a great budget when clearly it is not.

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