Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

After last year's truly terrible budget that had impacted on so many people across the community and had demonstrated a failure by this government to honour the commitments it had taken to the election and people had voted upon—in the expectation that they would be delivered, but they were not—there was great expectation that this budget would, in fact, be better than the last. This has turned out to be nothing but a cruel hoax. It is a cruel hoax to the people I represent, in Western Sydney, and a cruel hoax to a lot of other people across the country.

On so many levels, when you look at the life cycle from young people through to people who work through to people who retire, all continue to be affected by this budget. You should not judge the Prime Minister by his words, you should judge him by his actions. Do not judge him on the types of promises that were made leading into this budget, judge him by the outcomes that will be visited upon the people—particularly those I represent in this place—at every single level, starting with young people, particularly children. In my area, there are about 19,000 families that are dependent on family tax benefit part A and 17,000 on family tax benefit part B. On family tax benefit B in particular, what can be expected? When children reach the age of six, the expectation that parents had for some time that there would be some support to help them meet the cost of living in raising children is gone. Those cuts would take place. When people ask where Prime Minister Tony Abbott was when people needed help and support, he was nowhere.

What happens when young children who have been affected by that type of thing go to school and want the opportunity to unleash their potential? Again, the Prime Minister said that this government was about unleashing the potential of Australians. Young Australians expected their potential to be unleashed and supported through, for the first time, a chance to change the way we fund education in this country and target need. In my part of Western Sydney—where we would have expected, rightly, support through the Gonski reforms for schools where there are young people in need—that funding has been cut. Billions have been cut from funding to schools. That was basically enacted last year in the budget, and this year it is continuing to have an impact in this second budget. There is no reversal or change whatsoever to that schools funding. Then you need to ask: where was the Prime Minister when young people and their parents wanted better support for schooling? The Prime Minister was nowhere in reversing billions of dollars in cuts to school education.

The Prime Minister tells us he wants people to take the jobs that are there. No-one—simply no-one—walks up to a job, presents themselves and expects a job to land in their lap. They need to be able to have the level of skills required to undertake the job. Then you look, for example, at what this government has done to make people job ready, in terms of vocational education, and you see millions cut. So you need to ask the question: where was the Prime Minister when people wanted extra support and training to get the jobs that he claims are out there? He was nowhere to be seen.

If you want younger people to go on to tertiary education and get the skills that we need to ensure that our economy keeps growing and that those people can go on to better lives—again, the Prime Minister said he was about unlocking potential—where was he on that? This budget continues to nurture at its heart the desire for $100,000 university degrees that would put university education out of reach for the young people of Western Sydney and families who are genuinely anxious about whether or not their young will be able to go on to university and whether their talent, not their parents' bank balance, will be the measure of whether or not they get into university. There is no chance under this budget, which again, as I said, maintains what was delivered in last year's budget, which is a type of higher education reform that puts higher education out of reach for young people in our area. Where was the Prime Minister when people needed support so that they could get into higher education? Nowhere to be seen.

Where was the support for young disadvantaged people who had fallen out of school or fallen out of traditional avenues of support and who need targeted assistance, some help to be able to build their own life skills and then get into training and get job ready for, again, the jobs that the Prime Minister claims are out there? Youth Connections was cut in the last budget. Programs that would have supported, for example, Marist Youth Care in my area—who lost millions in funding to support young people in our area with the type of assistance that was required to get them back on track—are gone. Where is Prime Minister Tony Abbott when people in our area who want to get a job or get trained need that extra support to get them job ready? He is simply not there.

Look at the jobs themselves. The Prime Minister claims that he wants to get people to take the jobs that are out there. The coalition promised they would create one million jobs, which was not based on any economic fact. This was, as has been discovered and revealed in the last 12 months, simply a number manufactured by the coalition going into the election, not supported by any evidence whatsoever. But we are told that one million jobs will be created. We later asked, 'Where are those jobs?' We are in a situation where the jobless figure is higher now than it was during the global financial crisis. Unemployment has been revised upwards and will stay above six per cent. Those jobs that the Prime Minister expects people to take up are simply not there. Where was the Prime Minister when people wanted jobs and wanted to be able to go into meaningful employment? Where is the Prime Minister and where is the evidence of jobs being there for people? They are nowhere to be seen.

The Prime Minister believes, as we all do, that employment provides a much better avenue to economic prosperity than welfare. Yet where are we at with wages? Wages are growing at their slowest rate since records began, particularly in the case of the Reserve Bank. They are growing slowly—more slowly than has ever been experienced. It means that the types of pay increases that people would have been able to rely upon to fund the things that families need to pay for—getting the bills paid, making sure the kids go to school and taking the family holiday and the time away—are not there. Wages continue to grow at the slowest rate that has ever been experienced. What is the coalition's response to this? The coalition has elements that argue, for instance, that penalty rates should be cut. This is the answer to slow wages growth: to take money away from people. A government that refuses to support any application to boost low-income earners' wage increases through the Fair Work Commission will always oppose a wage rise for people when they want to be in employment. People want that employment to be meaningful and fund the type of lifestyle they have a right to expect. Where is the Prime Minister when people want to have fulfilling jobs that pay them well? He is nowhere to be seen.

The people who are losing their jobs in this economy want to be able to turn to employment services to get them back into paid employment. But this government has completely shaken up the way that employment agencies are funded. We have seen a cut to the number of agencies being able to provide that type of support to people who turn to them for help when they need it most to get back to the workforce. The Prime Minister says he wants to put people into jobs. The people that can help those people get into jobs have been denied the ability to do so. Again I ask: where was the Prime Minister when people who wanted employment and wanted support needed that help? He was simply not present.

What about people who are experiencing short-term or long-term healthcare problems and want to be able to get a quality level of health care—for example, in my part of Western Sydney? What did this government do leading into the budget? It cut the funds that were assigned to provide things like MRI machines in Mount Druitt hospital. That funding was cut in the first MYEFO of this government. It then continued to cut support to state governments that had already, for example, shut the cardiac ward at Mount Druitt hospital that was providing assistance to a part of Western Sydney that has some of the highest rates of heart disease in metropolitan Sydney. We have had our cardiac ward shut. In the last budget, the Abbott government cut funding to states for health care, and those cuts were not reversed in this budget. What has been the outcome? In the last week alone, Mount Druitt hospital advised that it will be cutting nursing staff who are providing health care for the people in our area. State budgets are now under pressure because they have been suddenly gazumped by a federal Abbott government that did not warn anyone and, in fact, promised there would be no cuts to health. Where was Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister, when people in my area relied upon an adequate level of funding support for health care? He was nowhere to be seen.

What will happen when low-income people who are in the workforce want to be able to save and put extra money aside in superannuation? There was a scheme in place to ensure that the government would make a modest $500 contribution to superannuation accounts so people would have their own savings to live off instead of the pension when they retired, or not draw on the pension as much. This co-investment by government, the low income superannuation contribution, was cut by this government. On the one hand it takes away support, a tax concession for low-income people, but on the other it refuses to make any changes to the taxation concessions provided to those people with superannuation accounts of $1.5 million.

Those concessions, in total, will start to weigh down on government revenue to the extent that it will be higher than the pension bill faced by this country. This government refuses to tackle those concessions—its answer is to cut pensions, to cut concessions to pensioners and to change indexation for people in their retirement years who would rely upon the pension. Again, where is the Prime Minister when the people who are in the workforce want to save for their retirements and rely upon some support to ensure that they are not drawing on the pension, to the same extent, when they retire? The Prime Minister is simply nowhere to be seen.

For those leaving the workforce who do not have adequate super—who made plans to get a pension—what happened? The Abbott government changed the pension-indexation arrangements and told everyone for the best part of a year that the pension would continue to rise, knowing full well they would cut the amount of income that pensioners would have. They cut the support to states and territories to extend pensioner concessions—costing pensioners $1,500 a year—and have continued that cut, not reversing that position. In retirement, when pensioners rely upon a pension and level of income support—that would not be there for superannuation, because they have been in the workforce too long—where is the Prime Minister for pensioners, in my part of the world or pensioners in other parts of the country? He is simply not there.

Across all areas of Australian society, as I have indicated—for children, for young people, for people in the workplace, for families and for retirees—people are simply being affected, again, by this budget because it either fails to correct the terrible decisions made at the last budget or adds to the burdens already in place. It fails to meet the government's own test as to what it would achieve. It promised it would cut debt and the deficit. Both are up—debt is up and the deficit is up. And joblessness is up. We are seeing the impacts on the broader community as a result of this.

There is no plan for the future and no plan for the jobs that we need to prepare for into the future. However—I would make this point—the PM is there for someone, when the need is clear, and he will act and change direction. He will do all sorts of things. He will switch from denying funds to showering funds. There is nothing he will not do for this person in a time of need and he will shape an entire federal budget around them, regardless of whether it conflicts or undermines their ability to meet their own commitments. That person is the Prime Minister himself. He is not there for children, he is not there for families, he is not there for workers and he is not there for pensioners. He is there for himself. This budget is a survival document for the Prime Minister, which robs from various people in our community to save his position. It demonstrates at its core how fundamentally shabby this budget is and how it denies people, particularly in Western Sydney, the fair go that they ultimately deserve. It is all about saving the Prime Minister and not saving the broader Australian community.

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