Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-18 and related bills. Tasmanians will grin and bear the tired jokes about two heads, up to a point, but if there is one thing that really annoys us it is when Tasmania is left off the map of Australia. In 1956, we were left out of the Olympics signage. In 1982 and 2014, we were left off the map design on uniforms for the Commonwealth Games. In 2012, Arnott's left us out of the artwork for their Australia-shaped biscuits. Even South Australia left us off their logo. Woolworths had to withdraw caps from the market because the great state of Tasmania had been left off the map of Australia. We can live with the two heads, but we will not live with being left off the map. So you can imagine how we feel when it is not a Sydney graphic designer drunk on his chai latte leaving us off the map but the Treasurer and the Prime Minister of the nation who leave Tasmania off the map. That is what they did two weeks ago in the budget.

The Prime Minister and the Treasurer of Australia left Tasmania off the national map. They left Tasmania off the map in every way—in infrastructure investment, health and education funding, and support for tourism. They ignored Tasmania at every turn.

There was $75 billion in infrastructure investment for the rest of the country but nothing for Tasmania. There was $5.3 billion for a new airport in New South Wales, $1 billion for rail in Victoria, $1.6 billion for road and rail in WA and $844 million for roads in Queensland. You know what, Treasurer? Tasmanian roads need investment too, well beyond what is already in the pipeline—a pipeline started by Labor. We could certainly do with a new Bridgewater Bridge to provide certainty to north-south traffic flows and to ensure that the billions that have been invested to date in the Midland Highway—investment that has occurred mostly under Labor—is put to best use. It is not like these are pie in the sky projects; they are on the Infrastructure Australia short list for priority funding but ignored by this Treasurer and by this Prime Minister. There was also nothing for much-needed sewerage in Launceston in the seat of my good friend the member for Bass or for the University of Tasmania's STEM relocation project.

It is little wonder then that in the two weeks since the budget not one minister from this government has set foot in Tasmania—not even the most junior assistant. The Liberals have been too embarrassed to show their faces in a state they have abandoned. This budget is a betrayal of Tasmania and particularly of the 119,000 Tasmanians who put their faith in those opposite and voted Liberal last July. This Prime Minister and this Treasurer have told all Tasmanians in no uncertain terms that they do not matter to them. Where are Tasmania's federal Liberal representatives, the four Tasmanian Liberal senators, the four horsemen of the apocalypse as it were? Missing in action—perhaps sharing a bush with Sean Spicer, hiding from Tasmanian journalists and inconvenient questions, notable only for their silence and their abject failure to stand up for the people of their state.

Compare the government's risible performance with that of Labor. In the two weeks since the budget, Tasmania has played host to the opposition leader, to the deputy opposition leader, to the shadow Treasurer, to the shadow infrastructure and transport minister, to the shadow communications minister and to the shadow minister for veterans' affairs and defence personnel. Labor has also held community meetings on the NBN, on jobs, on education and on veterans. Labor is talking to Tasmanians and Labor is listening to Tasmanians. So if there is one document that sums up this government's complete contempt for the people of Tasmania, it is this budget.

It is not just the big-ticket items like infrastructure. The government's contempt reaches right down to community level. A year ago sports and community groups in my electorate received letters from the former Liberal member that they had secured $10,000 grants for solar panels. Since his defeat, the former member has been appointed by the government to administer Norfolk Island, but surely the promises he made on behalf of the government should stand? Tasmanians have certainly been assured repeatedly that all commitments would be honoured, despite the defeat of the three Liberal MPs across Tasmania, but in the 10 months since the election we have heard nothing.

I wrote to Minister Frydenberg last October to seek some answers and, some weeks later, Minister Nash replied, essentially saying, in terms admittedly more polite than this: 'Butt out. We will deal with the groups directly and we are not telling you anything.' But seven months later the groups are getting nervous. They tell me they are still waiting for their solar panels, and I do not see any sign of their funding in this budget. I have learnt that groups like the Perth Football Club have been directed to resubmit their paperwork to apply for funds that they have already been promised. So not only was there little mention of Tasmania in the budget, but it also seems that members of my community now have to scrounge and beg simply to receive what they have already been promised.

If there are two areas of the budget where this government really fails Tasmanians, they are health and education. The Liberals continue to put vulnerable Tasmanians' health at risk with their three-year delay to reversing the Medicare rebate freeze. Those opposite will cackle like galahs every time we mention the freeze, pointing out that it was introduced by Labor. That is very helpful of them. We have never denied it. But what those opposite fail to point out is that the freeze was designed to last less than a year. It was the Liberals, elected in 2013 and re-elected in 2016, who decided, over our objections, to keep it in place. It is only because of Labor's ongoing pressure that they have now agreed, reluctantly and far too slowly, to remove it in 2020.

Every day the freeze remains is a day that the cost of a visit to the GP increases. Tasmanians already suffer from below-average bulk-billing rates. Across Tasmania, just 74 per cent of GPs bulk-bill, compared to the national average of 84.1 per cent. Between July 2016 and March 2017 Tasmania's bulk-billing fell by 2.2 per cent, more than three times the national average, taking Tasmania to being the second lowest bulk-billing state in the country. Out-of-pocket costs to visit a GP have risen by $5.90 per appointment since December 2014, from $30.79 out of pocket to $36.74 out of pocket. Each day the freeze stays in place is another day when a mum on a low income has to choose between paying the rent and getting that lump checked out; when a man has to decide between a birthday present for his grandchild and asking his doctor why it hurts to urinate. Worse, most people in my electorate earn below the national average income. More people than average are in receipt of Centrelink payments. More people than average suffer from intergenerational welfare dependency, and more people than average suffer medical conditions. People in my electorate and my state cannot absorb these further cuts to health, and there is little doubt that these outcomes are linked to the historically poor outcomes in education.

Labor would have invested more in schools and TAFE across Australia and Tasmania; but the Liberals are slashing funding. $85 million is to be cut from schools in Tasmania, and $65 million of that is from public schools, where the investment need is historically greatest. On average, it is a $2.4 million hit to every school in Tasmania. That is a hit that my communities cannot absorb. Schools in my electorate have already lost pathway planners and other essential resources due to decisions by the state Liberal government. We are not cutting fat anymore: the Liberals are into flesh and bone. It makes no sense, because at the same time that this government is cutting $22 billion from schools it is handing $25 billion to corporations and banks, and it wants to hand over another $25 billion if it can get the rest of its corporate tax giveaway through the Senate. Economists, the Australia Institute and the OECD all agree that investing in education provides a much bigger bang for our buck than a handout that will at best deliver 0.1 per cent economic growth in 10 years time. That is not growth—that is a rounding error. So if you are not convinced by the touchy, feely, left-wing idealism of providing young people with better opportunities just because it will make them happier, healthier and wealthier, be convinced by the fact that it is better for business.

When we talk about big numbers we can sometimes get in a bit of daze. One of the aspects of this budget that really upsets me is the $11 million being ripped out of Tasmania's TAFE and training sector. I am a big believer in tertiary education. I know that I personally have benefited greatly from it. As a boy from the suburbs—from Maddington in Western Australia—tertiary education opened my eyes, I think, as no other education could have.

I do acknowledge that tertiary education is not necessarily for everyone and that TAFE and apprenticeships provide a fantastic vocational pathway to work for many people. But we need to resource them properly, not cut them to shreds. I still recall that the first act of this government in 2013 was to axe the trade training centres program when the next trade training centre on the books was to be in Campbell Town in my electorate—a town that would have benefited greatly from a trade training centre and the opportunities it would have provided to young people in the northern Midlands.

Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta, explain to me, please, the logic of increasing the cost of university while also lowering the threshold at which fee repayments have to start. It is a double whammy for young people, and it is getting to the stage already where too many young people in regions and outer suburbs are not even thinking of university as an option—especially when they are anxious about the rising cost of housing and power. It is not even entering their consciousness that it could be a possibility for them. We are restricting social mobility when we should be advancing it.

At its heart, this is a budget of unfairness because on 1 July every member of this chamber and the other place will get a big tax cut, while the people who clean our offices, and the men and women who guard our galleries, serve us our meals and drive us around in the big fancy cars will all get a tax rise. And that unfairness sticks in my throat. On 1 July someone earning $1 million will pay $16,400 less tax, while someone earning a relatively modest, these days, $65,000 will pay $325 more tax in two years time. How on earth is that fair? In a country where there is a widening income gap, where unfairness is getting worse not better, how is that fair? This budget makes it worse, not better.

This budget fails the jobs test. Unemployment is going up. We do not hear 'jobs and growth' anymore. It has been clear, though, since that little slogan bit the dust that it just has not happened. This budget fails the Medicare test. And this budget fails the fairness test.

Australians cannot trust this Prime Minister nor this Treasurer to deliver a fair budget. They do not believe it. Their party does not believe it. And Tasmanians—well, we certainly do not believe it.

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