Trevor Evans (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018. It is always a pleasure to follow the member for Kennedy. I want to report that this government's budget has been quite well received around Brisbane. I held mobile offices around my electorate over the past week and spoke to a great variety of local people about different measures in the budget. Whether it was the small business measures to help small businesses grow and make that prosperity that the member for Kennedy was talking about, the infrastructure investment, the schools funding or the certainty being provided to the NDIS, the feedback has been almost universally positive. One constituent I met yesterday on racecourse Road in Hamilton was Cathy. Cathy told me how she liked the fact that this budget was trying to move Australia past some of the divisive and partisan arguments that have bogged down and distracted this parliament for too many years. She wanted me to congratulate the Prime Minister on this government's announcements on schools funding, on guaranteeing Medicare and on fully funding the NDIS. Well, Cathy, consider it done. I also met a lady named Sue on Kedron Brook Road in Wilston, who is the carer for her disabled child and who told me that she was relieved that the government was trying to bypass the politics that threaten the bipartisan support for the NDIS. She told me how the budget would provide the NDIS and many families like hers with the stability and security they would need to move confidently forwards into the future.

Three days ago I was very pleased to have the Commonwealth Treasurer visit Brisbane. We attended a pretty big gathering of local businessmen and businesswomen, as well as many from other Brisbane community and non-government organisations. The Treasurer was able to talk through many aspects of the budget and many of the budget measures, and answer questions along the way. I say a very big thank you to the Valley Chamber of Commerce, its members and its partners, as well as to the Property Council, for helping to bring together such a great event and so many people from right across Brisbane. The small-business measures are very, very close to my heart. I have been very pleased to observe, over the last three or four years, how it is becoming a hallmark of budgets these days to place a special focus and a special emphasis on small business. And so we should, when we consider how small business continues to drive the creation of jobs, entrepreneurship, innovation and risk-taking in Australia. Focusing on small business in a budget is not an automatic outcome; it is a record of achievement of this Liberal-National government. Talking with Brisbane business people the other day, the Treasurer noted in passing the incredibly popular instant asset write-off being extended for small businesses in the budget. There are about 30,000 small businesses in Brisbane that can, hopefully, take advantage of this measure and more easily invest in and grow their businesses.

The centrepiece for small business is that the budget enshrines the Turnbull government's delivery of small and medium business tax cuts—immediate tax cuts for small businesses—and then further tax cuts over the course of the Ten Year Enterprise Tax Plan. This will be one of the hallmark achievements of the parliament this year, and it is something I have already spoken about a number of times in this chamber. Everyone who works in small business or helps run or manage a small business needs to know that the Labor Party is proposing to reverse those tax cuts if they ever win government.

The Treasurer also spoke in Brisbane about the infrastructure being delivered for Queensland and for Australia in this budget. It is a $75 billion infrastructure budget. It commits to a long-term vision, and it is a game changing infrastructure set of projects across the nation. The major funding announcements for Queensland to help ease congestion on both the Bruce Highway north of the city and the M1 south of the city are good news for almost everyone who goes anywhere around South-East Queensland. The $8.4 billion equity injection that the Turnbull government will make into the Australian Rail Track Corporation for inland rail between Melbourne and Brisbane is good news not just for those of us at the end of the line in Brisbane but for every region and every centre along the route all the way to Melbourne. The Treasurer also specifically named the Brisbane Metro and Cross River Rail in the budget as projects that should, in the future, be able to access the new $10 billion National Rail Program, once their business cases are completed and assessed. There has been a little bit of argy-bargy about the Cross River Rail project in the news over the past week in Queensland. I will be generous and limit my comments now, in passing, to saying that maybe some of the silly arguments that were progressed are down to the fact that pre-election nerves are driving state politics at the moment in Queensland, and move on.

The topic of school funding has been receiving a lot of support as well in Brisbane, I can report. The Minister for Education and Training, Simon Birmingham, was in Brisbane one week ago, and we met with the principals of about 40 local schools as well as representatives from many of the P&C and P&F associations right across Brisbane. Our needs based funding model for schools, endorsed by Gonski, is about fairness, but, just as importantly, it is about transparency. I have 46 schools in my electorate of Brisbane. Under the school funding announcements made by this government and funded in this budget, over 40 of those schools will be getting significant funding increases. I do have a handful of local schools that will receive approximately the same funding levels going forwards, and I have one school that looks like it will receive cuts going forwards. Based on those facts, I encourage all parents in Brisbane to check out the online estimator to see for themselves how much extra funding the federal government will be providing for their school and to look at how the funding of so many of our local schools will change. I encourage all parents to do this—to look at the details—because I am confident that, once you get into those details, the school funding announcements made by this government and funded in this budget are eminently fair. They are creating a system that is equitable and needs based, as Gonski originally intended.

By way of example, for the Kelvin Grove State College, which is the biggest school in my electorate in inner-north Brisbane, this government will provide Education Queensland with funding that starts at about $2,300 per student on average in 2017 and that rises to $3,682 per student in 2027. Even assuming no further growth in student numbers, that will add up to over $18 million of additional funding for Kelvin Grove State College over the next 10 years. For Windsor State School, a much smaller school, right near my house, the government will provide Education Queensland with an extra $4.3 million over the next 10 years, assuming no growth in student numbers. It is a similar story for almost every other school in the government, Catholic, Anglican and independent school systems. For St Columba's, for instance, in Wilston, funding from the Commonwealth to the Queensland Catholic education body will increase from $3,500 per student on average to $4,950 per student in 2027. Similarly, for St Agatha's in Clayfield, funding from the Commonwealth to the Queensland Catholic education body will increase from $4,092 per student on average to $5,781 per student in 2027. So schools across Brisbane in every sector will be receiving significant increases in funding under this government's needs based funding model. The total increase in federal government funding for schools in the electorate of Brisbane over the next 10 years is $211 million, spread across those 46 schools and currently across the enrolled 26,000 school students.

The transparency of school funding we are providing is the key here. It demonstrates the fairness for everyone to see. To the extent that that transparency then raises subsequent questions about how individual systems such as Education Queensland or the Catholic education body distribute the funding we provide from the Commonwealth, then I believe that is a healthy consequence, because I trust in parents and principals and school systems to have a logical, grown-up and constructive conversation about that based on the facts. It stands in stark contrast to the alternative approach that we inherited when it comes to school funding, Labor's 27 different deals for different states and different sectors, with no transparency and no ability for parents, school communities and principals to understand what is really going on.

On another topic, health care, contrary to some of the silly scare campaigns that have been run by the Labor Party in recent times, Medicare funding will continue to increase by $2.4 billion over the next four years. To the extent that the Commonwealth helps the states to run the state hospital systems, that will also increase by $2.8 billion over the four years. While Labor froze the GP rebate when they broke the national budget all those years ago, it is the Liberal-National government that is now unfreezing it. While Labor stopped listing new medicines when they broke the national budget, it is the Liberal-National government that is listing new medicines, such as for Australians at risk of chronic heart failure.

The government is also working closely with doctors on the introduction of the Health Care Homes model of care to improve services for people with complex and chronic conditions. Specifically for Brisbane, I was very pleased to see in the budget that the Turnbull government's Health Care Homes program will include a trial site at the Spring Hill Medical Centre right in the heart of Brisbane, and I look forward to seeing the trial up and running as quickly as possible.

I was also pleased to see in the budget that Brisbane is receiving another road blackspot funding project, following on from the four intersection upgrades that I have already been proud to deliver, working closely in partnership with the Brisbane City Council. This funding will continue to deliver safety improvements, such as safety barriers and street lighting to sections of dangerous road that have a crash history. After the successful completion of works near the Waterloo in the Valley, the works on Wickham Street and Gotha Street in the Valley, the Kelvin Grove Road intersection near the Normanby and the intersection of Lamont and Newmarket roads in Wilston, we will now be turning our focus to the next most dangerous intersection according to the statistics, which is the intersection of Wickham Street and Brookes Street in the Valley. So there will be approximately $350,000 going towards safety improvements on that intersection. They are most welcome, and I want to thank the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Darren Chester, for that announcement.

On the topic of housing, I was very pleased to see in the budget quite a number of measures that will work in a number of different ways to improve housing affordability, particularly but not just for young people and prospective first home buyers. In Brisbane, of course, the market is not exactly the same as in Melbourne and Sydney. In Brisbane we are currently experiencing a surplus of new apartments, and it is driving down rents in some areas, like Newstead, and prices for some types of housing. Prices for apartments in some areas are reportedly 10 to 20 per cent lower than they were just this time last year. I want more people to buy their first home in Brisbane. I want it broadcast across the country how you can find dozens and dozens of properties in inner Brisbane for less than $200,000 right now, today, if you search online. I want prospective first home buyers to know about the different measures being implemented by this government that are aimed specifically at people like them and the types of properties they are most likely to buy the first time around in places like Brisbane.

I also want to acknowledge in passing the extra funding in this budget for homelessness and social housing, especially for domestic violence victims and youth. The housing debate is not just about people wanting to buy their first home; it is about people who struggle to pay the rent and therefore could never save a deposit and it is also about all those people who will not even have a roof over their heads at some point in their lives. The inner city is naturally where a lot of vulnerable and homeless people go to access the help, services and safety that is more readily available there.

In closing, I want to reinforce that the people of Brisbane have generally received this budget quite well. They approve of the measures that are in front of them. As they become more aware of them, I think their support is only going to grow. I want to note that much is being said by the opposition about some of the budget measures, and I suppose we will wait and see what happens in the Senate over coming weeks and months. It is disappointing to me in this debate on the appropriation bills that the opposition would be seeking to misappropriate the word 'fairness', which applies, sadly, less and less to the policies being pursued by the modern Labor Party and the current Leader of the Opposition. It is all politics and hypocrisy with the current Leader of the Opposition. Labor froze the GP rebate. This Liberal-National government is unfreezing it. Labor made big spending commitments for the NDIS outside the forward estimates. This Liberal-National government is securing the funding and the certainty that disabled people, their carers and their families deserve. Labor bastardised the Gonski recommendations and delivered 27 different funding models that treat every state and every system differently, which no parent can see, let alone understand. This Liberal-National government is delivering the needs based funding that treats all students equally and that Gonski originally intended.

Labor has committed itself to increasing the taxes on all small- and medium-sized businesses if it ever wins power, whereas this Liberal-National government has just decreased the tax burden on our hardworking small businesses, who are, as I said, the most likely to generate the new jobs, the opportunities and the prosperity that our country so desperately needs. Labor wants to pretend that it has a silver bullet for housing, whereas it is actually pursuing policies that will probably seek to indiscriminately or bluntly smash the values of all homes of all kinds, such is the bluntness of their policy prescriptions, whereas this Liberal-National government has targeted its range of measures at prospective first home buyers and at the classes of housing most likely to be bought by new home owners in places like Brisbane. Just thinking about the budget in broad terms, Labor wants to massively ramp up spending, whereas this government is keeping a lid on spending growth, which, with the hopefully constructive collaboration of the Senate in the weeks and months following, should see Australia return to a balanced budget position in 2020-21. Labor wants to massively increase the intergenerational debt burden we place on the next generation, and it has the audacity to talk about fairness. It is time the Labor Party stopped misappropriating the word 'fairness' and made some sort of constructive contribution to Australia's future based on the very sensible measures outlined in this budget. I commend this budget to the House. I commend this appropriation bill to the House.

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