Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018 and related bills of course appropriate money from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the ordinary annual services of government. Labor has a principled position of not opposing supply, unlike those opposite, so these bills will be approved. But they come on the back of what has been a shocking budget from this government, trying its best to imitate fairness whilst still making life more difficult for pensioners, families, working Australians and students.

The budget will see the country's fiscal position worsen. Remember the rhetoric in the lead-up to the 2013 budget from the then Leader of the Opposition, the member for Warringah, claiming that the coalition are always better fiscal managers and will always do a better job of balancing the budget. Malcolm Turnbull, the member for Wentworth, the new Prime Minister, has taken on that mantle as well and taken up that rhetoric that conservatives do a better job. The facts tell a very different story. This year, the budget deficit triples from the original budget that was handed down by this government, to $37 billion. Net debt is just about to go through the half-a-trillion-dollar mark for Australia, an unprecedented record in net debt levels. Receipts are at 24.1 per cent of GDP and expenditure is at 24.8 per cent of GDP.

The very interesting thing about this budget, like in all of the other coalition budgets that have been delivered since 2013, is that it claims a surplus in the fourth year. If you look back at every single one of them—what do you know?—they said we would get to surplus down the track in the fourth year. I can tell you, according to their first budget, we are meant to be in surplus now. If you look back at the Abbot government's first budget, their projections were that we would be in surplus now, that the economy would be in surplus. They have done it again. The member for Cook has again made this claim: 'Don't worry. In the fourth year we'll be in surplus.' It is pie in the sky. Like with many of the commitments this government makes, you simply cannot believe it. It would be funny if it were not so harsh on Australian people. There are a number of disastrous elements contained in this budget, not the least of which is the fact that this budget gives a massive leg up to millionaires and makes life more difficult for struggling families, pensioners, students and working Australians.

Labor really are the only party that are committed to fairness, and that is evident in our approach to the budget, to ensuring proper funding of schools, hospitals and the National Disability Insurance Scheme and to taxation and housing affordability. We do not believe that someone who is a millionaire should get a tax cut or that someone that is on $50,000 or $60,000 a year should pay more tax. This government's priorities are so out of whack that, on 1 July, a person who earns $1 million per year will pay $16,500 less in tax as a result of what is in this budget, but someone on $50,000 or $60,000 a year will pay more income tax. In particular, someone who is on $60,000 a year, in two years time, will pay $324 more in tax. Only the member for Wentworth, one of the most out-of-touch Prime Ministers in living memory, could think to ask people on $50,000 a year to pay more whilst giving a tax break to the wealthiest Australians, while at the same time cutting funding for schools and universities, making life more difficult for families and pensioners.

This has been a bad budget for education. For preschools there are cuts. For school funding there has been cuts. TAFE funding has been cut and university funding has been cut. So much for investing in the future. The Prime Minister used to be big on investing in the future, saying: 'We're living in the most exciting times we've ever had. We need to invest in the future, and education is the key.' But it apparently is not if you are a student in Australia at a school and not if you are a prospective TAFE student or university student. Schools have been thrown into disarray by this government's cutting of $22 billion from the schools budget, compared to what the Labor Party had promised, in the wake of the Gonski recommendations, when we were in government. That includes about $850 million cut over the next two years alone from New South Wales public schools.

The New South Wales Liberal government knows this. The strongest critics of what this government is doing have been the New South Wales Liberal government and their education minister, because they know that the New South Wales public education system is being short-changed by the Turnbull government with these measures. They know that schools will be forced to cut back on resources and potentially sack teachers. They will deliver an inferior education system, compared to the one promised by Labor, which the New South Wales Liberal government enthusiastically signed up to, particularly when Adrian Piccoli was the education minister.

In my community I have already had people visit me, desperate about the cuts to schools. I recently saw a single mother whose daughter goes to a Catholic school in my community. After seeing the budget, and this government's massive cuts, and having spoken to the principal of the school, she is beside herself with worry that school fees will be increased. This is a single mum who is struggling to work and provide her daughter with a good education. She has been thrown into a state of panic and fear because of this government's education cuts. This particular school featured in a media story about cuts to Catholic schools and the potential for fee increases.

With universities, as well, $3.8 billion has been cut over the next few years from universities across Australia. Students will pay eight per cent more to get a university education here in Australia. In the age of trying to compete with Asia and of trying to boost productivity in our nation as a means of growing our economy, this is not the right thing to be doing. Cutting education funding for universities and asking students to pay more is not the right thing to be doing. It means quite simply that some students will miss out, that university will become unaffordable, and the productive capacity in our community of those individuals is reduced. Instead of investing in local jobs and skills, this government's budget is cutting funding for TAFE, vocational education and apprenticeships by over $600 million.

Labor, in contrast, as Bill Shorten outlined in his budget reply speech, will invest in TAFE and apprenticeships by establishing a new $100 million Building TAFE for the Future Fund. We will restore TAFE to the backbone of our skills and training system by guaranteeing two-thirds of all funding for TAFE. Bill Shorten has also announced that on future infrastructure projects funded by the Commonwealth government one-in-ten workers on those projects will be Australian apprentices. We will invest in training and skilling a new generation of workers that can deliver the productive capacity for our future economy.

On housing affordability, this government has completely failed Australians. It has completely ignored their pleas to do something about the massive tax concessions—some of the largest tax concessions in the world—that exist for property investors in Australia. They have particularly ignored the pleas of young prospective first home buyers, who are desperately trying to fight their way into the housing market. The government's efforts on housing affordability are little more than smoke and mirrors, designed to make the public believe they are doing something on the issue, but in fact they are actually doing nothing.

It is a fact that unless you are tackling negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions in this environment you are not fair dinkum about housing affordability. I think the Australian public now knows that. I met with a young constituent in my electorate last week who put it perfectly. She said, 'It is an investors' market.' If she goes along to an auction hoping to buy a unit, to buy her first home, she is competing with someone who is getting a massive tax concession from the government, in the form of negative gearing, so that they can buyer that as an investment property, rent it out to deduct the loss and get a tax deduction. In this market that is unsustainable. Numerous studies and numerous economists have identified that as unsustainable. Unless you are tackling negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts, you are not fair dinkum about housing affordability.

This government is actually attempting to make it worse, because the announced measure about superannuation funds and people being able to divert up to $30,000 into a superannuation fund in the form of a first home saver account and get a tax benefit when they withdraw that money will do very little to improve housing affordability in Australia. In fact, all it will probably do is push up the cost of housing, because developers and vendors will know that young people are coming along with the extra $30,000 that they have been able to save as a tax concession, so they will push up the price. That is the evidence that we have seen in recent decades when governments have put money into the pockets of first home buyers. It simply pushes up prices, and it is one of the contributing factors to the unaffordability of housing in Australia.

The second point I want to make is that, at the moment, $30,000 does not buy you a window pane in the community that I represent. Young people I have spoken to have said, '$30,000—what is that going to do to help?' By contrast, Labor is deadly serious about housing affordability. We have announced a series of measures that will tackle the housing affordability problem over time—most notably, restricting negative gearing to properties that are off-the-plan developments. That will grow the capital housing stock and create 25,000 jobs over the longer term. We will also restrict and reduce from 50 per cent to 25 per cent the outrageously unsustainable capital gains tax discount that exists for people who sell investment properties. When this measure was introduced by the former Treasurer Peter Costello in the 1990s, guess what? It was unfunded. That was during the glory days of the mining boom when John Howard and Peter Costello were splashing around middle-class welfare and cash. They introduced this capital gains tax discount, but it was unfunded in the budget. We are all now paying the cost of that. We are paying the cost of it not only through reduced receipts in the budget that could fund services but also through unsustainable increases in housing, because investors get an advantage over first home buyers. Labor will limit that tax concession. We will also limit direct borrowing by self-managed superannuation funds that invest in property. We will increase foreign investor fees and penalties, and we will facilitate a COAG process to introduce a uniform vacant property tax across all major cities.

This budget was a boon for the big end of town and, in particular, for big corporations. The government are delivering a $65 billion corporate tax cut, and that says it all. While the government is happy to stand by and watch penalty rates cut, while they are happy to hit women in unsustainable casual employment the hardest, while they are happy to ask pensioners to pay more, while they are happy to ask families to pay more, while they are happy to make life more difficult for people on unemployment benefits, while they are happy to cut funding for universities and while they are happy to make students pay more to go to university, they are very, very pleased to give a $65 billion tax cut to some of the biggest corporations in this country. That says it all about this government's budget priorities and their approach.

With regard to the banks, the government wants the public to believe that they are now tough on the banks, but the fact remains that the government is yet to say how they will stop the banks simply passing on the cost of this levy to their customers—particularly now that we have uncovered in parliament that they will get a tax deduction for this. While the government is playing smoke and mirrors, pretending to be tough on the banks, Labor is the only party that is going to have a fair dinkum royal commission—a fair dinkum inquiry—into what is going on in banking and put in place practices that protect consumers.

All in all, this is a bad budget for families. It is a bad budget for pensioners. It is a bad budget for students. It is a bad budget for the unemployed. And it is a bad budget for working Australians. But it is a great budget if you are a millionaire or you are a big corporation, and that is what is wrong with this Turnbull government.

Sit ting suspended from 13:19 to 15:59

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