Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2015-2016 and cognate bills before the House to highlight the significant contribution to South Australia, and particularly to my electorate of Barker, being made by the Commonwealth through the 2015-16 federal budget. We know that our first budget was strong medicine for the financial wreckage left behind by Labor, but it was necessary in the first budget to put the country on a stable, sustainable financial footing so that we could invest for the future in our second budget. This is a responsible, measured and fair budget that is investing in jobs, growth and opportunity.

I am disappointed that the member for Griffith just left the chamber, because I wanted to congratulate her on what was a herculean performance, and I am sure you would agree with me. But then we would need to finish the sentence, because it was a herculean performance of motherhood statement after motherhood statement—15 minutes of it. It has been interesting to watch the Labor Party scratch around since budget day to find something—some negative stuff—to talk about with respect to this budget. It is important that we push back.

The point about this is that we have push modelling from NATSEM and we have Labor's year of big ideas, which are really just a year of old ideas. And, of course, what is the solution? I was making notes about Labor's positive, substantive contributions in terms of how we go about improving the economic conditions in this country, and in the last 90 seconds I get effectively a reference to coding and to 'finding a way' to help start-ups succeed without risking their family home. Of course, we will get further than that.

While we are talking about the budget, let me talk about South Australia. We have a South Australian state Labor government that wants to spend its time talking down our economy; wanting to aggressively attack the federal Liberal-National government. So I thought I would point out to the House, through this speech, some of the contributions being made to South Australia as a result of our budget.

Over the next four years, the Commonwealth funding for South Australia will increase in each and every year, rising by 30 per cent or $2.4 billion over the forward estimates, bringing total Commonwealth spending in South Australia over that period to just under $40 billion. South Australia will benefit from: a 30 per cent increase in GST revenues, or $1.8 billion more over the forward estimates; a 19 per cent increase in funding for hospitals—I will repeat that: a 19 per cent increase to funding for hospitals—or $208 million more over the forwards; a 26 per cent increase for schools, or $280 million over the forwards; and $2 billion in funding for world-class infrastructure, including the much-needed work on Australia's most inefficient road, the North-South Corridor, and $1.5 million more Commonwealth funding over that period as a result of the 2014-15 budget. On every single measure, the South Australian state government is receiving more Commonwealth funding than ever before. Last year, South Australia was one of only two states where the number of small businesses declined. In this budget, the Liberal government is giving the engine room of our economy a jump-start. Struggling South Australian small businesses will benefit from the $5.5 billion of dollars of new measures lowering the small business tax rate and allowing them an immediate tax deduction for every asset they acquire that is valued up to $20,000. There are also new provisions for a simpler, more affordable, flexible childcare system, benefiting South Australia's parents, and for an $842 million extension of universal access to early childhood education, allowing up to 15 hours of preschool a week per child.

Having spoken about South Australia, Deputy Speaker, if I can be allowed to just parochially mention two commitments that were delivered as a result of this budget. The first is a $7.5 million grant to the Coorong District Council to underpin SA's motorsport park, Tailem Bend. From my electorate's perspective, this is most certainly the centrepiece of the budget; some of my colleagues might disagree, but I can assure you that the metropolis of Tailem Bend is looking very much forward to being the second venue for the V8 supercar racing in South Australia. The other commitment that I would like to refer to is the $5 million contribution for the Murray Bridge Racing Club which will underpin its Gifford Hill development, which will see the expansion of Murray Bridge's golf course, a significant residential development, relocation of the racing track to Gifford Hill, and an associated training all-purpose track and conference centre.

Having dealt with the parochial, I would like to move back to the budget from a national perspective. In preparing criminal trials, I always asked myself: 'What is my case concept? What is it that I am seeking to prove by calling this witness or this series of witnesses?' And so it is that I sat back in some quiet time after the delivery of the budget and thought: 'What was the Treasurer's case concept with respect to this budget?' I came up with, effectively, a pretty simple suggestion—he was keen to establish a better budget and a stronger economy with more jobs. And in every measure I saw delivered, both on budget night and in the detail thereafter, I kept coming back to: 'a better budget and a stronger economy with more jobs'. These are easy things to talk about but much more difficult things to deliver. What were some of the difficulties that the Treasurer faced? Well, he faced an iron ore price that was effectively falling off the cliff face—$92 billion in write-downs. Notwithstanding that, he was determined to deliver a better budget; a budget which more closely reflected balance. And you will see over the forwards, Deputy Speaker, deficits going from $41 billion to $35 billion to $26 billion to $14 billion to $7 billion.

As someone who has a small business background—my wife and I ran a small business; I grew up in a household where my mother operated a small business and my father ran our family farm—I am never comfortable, like, I am sure, the member for Braddon, with operating budget deficits. But the reality is that we inherited a budget which was structurally out of order. Our payments were significantly outstripping our receipts, and that was before we dealt with the calamity of an iron ore price which has so significantly decreased.

The member for Griffith suggested that we are the true economic vandals, and her principal submission was our previous budget. What our previous budget did was halve the trajectory of our net debt position, and we did that because we knew that if we did not get on with the business of improving our overall fiscal position then the task would be left to subsequent generations of Australians. As with any tough decision, the longer you wait to implement it the more trouble you find yourself in. So we set about that course.

We are now seeing some of the dividends from taking hard decisions in the budget. What were those dividends? Those dividends were principally in the form of a small business package—a $5.5 billion shot in the arm for the small businesses of our nation. In my electorate, there are some 102,000 voting-age constituents, and over 15,000 small businesses. I make that to be about one in seven involved in small business. Let's consider that for every small business there are often, as mine was, a partnership between a husband and wife, or a partnership between two individuals. I would hazard a guess that one in four of my electors are actively involved in a small business. So this measure is a $5.5 billion shot in the arm to those businesses. It says to small businesses that those who of us who get the privilege of representing our constituency here in Canberra understand that you are the engine room of this economy. We understand that, if we are to deal with the unemployment issue, which the member for Griffith was so keen to focus on, then you are going to be our strong allies in addressing that issue. So we took some real and practical measures.

We effectively said to the small businesses of Australia: you can have a tax cut—an effective 1.5 per cent tax cut. We also said that we would operate a system of instant asset write-offs, which have been seen principally in the agricultural sectors of my electorate. People have been rushing out to rural stores and buying that piece of equipment that they just have not had the confidence to buy to this point. It helps that we have commodity prices at record levels. The Minister for Agriculture has been opening up markets and putting export parity pressure on purchases of our commodities such that the beef price is now over 300c a kilogram. Sheepmeat continues to travel strongly, as do other commodities.

In addition to the small business package, we identified—and quite rightly, in my view; at least the Treasurer did—the need to deal with participation as an issue. We all know and have heard in this place many times that Australian female participation rates are well behind those of Canada. To deal with that, we have delivered a budget measure of $4.4 billion for families, to assist and to facilitate the return to the employment market of those in our economy who are currently undertaking parental responsibilities.

We have taken the Prime Minister's Paid Parental Leave scheme—which I can now say I was never a big fan of, something I made clear to the Prime Minister in private—a measure which was intended to work over the first six months of child's life, and we have applied that to the first six years of a child's life, to give assistance to families who are seeking to meet their responsibilities in the economy, particularly in capital cities, where one must operate from a position of being a dual-income family, but less so in Barker.

In the short time I have left to speak, I want to mention one other thing. Not all things occur on budget night and not all things find their way into the budget, but the budget processes are sometimes instructive. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the Assistant Treasurer and the Treasurer on accepting an invitation to fast-track the consideration of a review of reforms for the wine equalisation tax. As the member for Barker I am effectively the member for wine. I represent more constituents engaged in the wine industry, either by value or by volume, than any other member. Given that I am also the member representing the river Murray, we like to say that we are specialists in turning water into wine—but that might be one claim too far!

Essentially, the Winemakers' Federation has called on our government to consider reforming the wine equalisation tax and removing it from bulk unpackaged, unbranded private-label wine; to abolish the New Zealand WET producers' rebate; to introduce a traditional rebate measure to allow a merger of two WET-rebate-eligible businesses; and, from the associated savings, to go about marketing Wine Australia overseas, taking advantage of the low Australian dollar and, of course, the recently established free trade agreements with China, South Korea and Japan.

Those reforms were to be shunted off to the agriculture white-paper process. I am pleased that advocacy in the lead-up to and in the course of the budget has seen those reforms fast-tracked for preparation of a discussion paper, which will hopefully be available in July and consideration of any reforms ready and implemented by the time of the next Australian vintage. These are critical reforms which will return the Australian wine industry to a position of long-term viability. I thank the Treasurer and the Assistant Treasurer for considering those reforms.

See this speech in context