Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Vocational Education) Share this | Hansard source

I want to take the opportunity in this cognate debate on the five appropriation bills to make some overall comment about the budget that has recently been brought down and to then talk specifically about my own region and how the budget impacts on us in Cunningham. I think the first thing we have to say about the budget is that it is quite clear that it is not actually a budget of a national government putting in place programs and funding to deliver a stronger future for Australia. In fact, it is really last year's budget. It has been repackaged. There has been an attempt to put some less worrisome aspects into it in order to prepare for an election period. It is very clear that it is a campaigning budget as the government go about attempting to draw all the attention and focus to what initiatives in the budget they hope will be well received in the community, ignoring the fact that it is fundamentally carrying forward everything from the previous budget.

The budget has also failed the government's own test that it set for it. It has failed to deliver on reduced tax, it actually has more debt and unemployment is predicted to be higher. In fact, it is predicted to peak at 6.5 per cent. At this point in time, what our nation actually needed was a vision for the future and a budget to deliver on it. That is far from what the nation has received. In fact, there is one future that I think is very much at the heart of this budget—and that is the Prime Minister's future.

The contrast to that was the budget reply speech delivered by the Leader of the Opposition, which put squarely in focus the challenges we as a nation face and the sorts of investments and considerations we need to be making to provide the jobs for the future, to put the foundation in place for the businesses of the future and to develop the skills and infrastructure we as a nation will need.

Why I feel the budget is so short-sighted is that it has clearly been structured with a short-term impact in mind. I say that because a number of new measures in the budget are funded for only two years. This includes the proposal for universal access to preschool, the small business accelerated depreciation program and the nannies program. These particular initiatives have been funded for only two years, so one can only suspect that the budget was targeted at getting through an election rather than laying the foundations for the future.

The budget also fails the fairness test. The fairness test was very, very important for the previous budget. It was a spectacular achievement of unparalleled failure. We still see, however, that those things that caused us most concern in the last budget because of their intrinsically unfair impacts are still there in this budget. The $80 billion cut from schools and hospitals is still in place. In particular for me that is very frustrating because one of the most important reforms that I think was put in place by the previous Labor government was the Gonski funding reforms—the funding model where, irrespective of the school sector that schools came from, it was based on need. That particular funding program was so well supported that all sectors of the education community supported it. State governments got on board. In fact, the government, who were then the opposition, said that they were on a unity ticket with Labor, that if you voted for the Liberal and National parties you would get exactly the same in school funding as you would have got under the Labor government. Quite clearly, that was not true.

Mr McCormack interjecting —

'Over four years, not six,' the member says. I do not remember that asterisk in the fine print in all the campaigning materials that went out. Importantly, it is something that state governments have reflected their frustration with as well.

We still have the proposal for $100,000 university degrees. Across the country, that has been soundly rejected by communities. People are very worried that the next generation will carry a debt forward that will be so heavy that it will prohibit them from doing things that as Australians we have taken for granted for many generations, such as buying your own home.

The last budget was a spectacular disaster, and initiatives from it are still in this budget. In particular, I want to talk about the cuts to family payments that were in the last budget. Those were not supported by the parliament. What we have in this budget is not just the continuation of banking those cuts to family payments; this budget has now taken them hostage and said that if people want the childcare changes proposed by the government, some of which the shadow minister has said we are keen to look at and which we understand may have positive benefits, they cannot have them unless there are significant and very damaging cuts to family payments. The budget has taken them hostage. We have not only had the unfairness previously; the government have now used that to hold hostage any other changes that might be of benefit to families. Again, the budget comprehensively fails the fairness test. The issue about the family payments is of particular concern in my electorate. I have had quite a lot of contact about this.

I just want to bring members' attention to the fact that the report which was the focus of much discussion in question time today that has been released by NATSEM has indicated that there is a significant hit to Australian families in the budget. The NATSEM research found that nine out of 10 of the lowest income families lose under the Abbott government's budget, while nine out of 10 of the wealthiest families benefit.

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