Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018, because it is with some bemusement that over the past couple of weeks I have been watching this government to continue to refer to the 2017 budget as a 'fair budget'. I must say that there is a big difference between the empty rhetoric of fairness and fairness that is at the heart of party values, because the fact is that there is not much at all that is fair about this budget. There is nothing fair about a budget that gives big business a $50 billion handout while increasing taxes for Aussies on low incomes. There is nothing fair about a budget that rips out $22 billion from schools. There is nothing fair about a government choosing to give a $16,400 tax cut to millionaires, where someone earning $1 million will pay $16,400 less tax, while someone of $65,000 will pay $325 more tax in two years' time. I cannot understand how they can even remotely be constructed as fair. There is nothing fair about a government that continues to support penalty rate cuts that will reduce the take-home pay of around 700,000 Australian workers, while we, the parliamentarians, including those on the other side—the very people who claim to be fair—enjoy a nice tax. I for one am willing to forgo my tax cut in order to help those less fortunate, those who are doing it hard. In my electorate of Cowan the second-largest employment group is in hospitality—cafes, restaurants and takeaways. They are the very people who are going to be more adversely affected by penalty rate cuts. By all accounts, this budget fails the fairness test. Those opposite can aspire to be us, and that is very—

An opposition member: Noble!

Very noble—it is a very noble aspiration, I might say. They can claim that suddenly they are the party of fairness and equality, but that is a joke. They will never be us. They will always be a government that look after the top two per cent, because when it comes down to it they do not know what fairness means.

This budget fails the fairness test. The Turnbull government fails the credibility test. The budget fails the economic credibility test. Let us start with this: growth is down; wages growth is down; and unemployment is up. The government went to an election with the mantra of jobs and growth. Here are the fiscal facts. There are 10,000 fewer jobs forecast in the budget—sorry, that is 100,000. Gosh, I had to look at that twice. It is 100,000 fewer jobs forecast in the budget. Gross debt will pass half a trillion dollars in the coming months. That is $20,000 for every Australian man, woman and child. Gross debt will hit $725 billion—I cannot even imagine what that looks like—in 10 years. The deficit is 10 times bigger—a whole 10 times—than was predicted in this government's first budget, from $2.8 billion to $29.4 billion. Talk about fiscal failure! The deficit for this year has tripled. Net debt has blown out by over $100 billion since the Liberals came into government and will be at record levels for more than three years. Yet this government, the government that claimed to be delivering fairness, persists like a dog with a bone in handing out $50 billion of tax cuts to big business while slugging hardworking Australians again and again and again.

I am disgusted. That is the only thing I can say. I am disgusted that this government can even utter the word 'fairness' in relation to this budget. I am disgusted that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer can even look at themselves in the near each morning and use that word 'fairness' in reference to this sham of a budget. I am disgusted that they could treat Australians with such contempt—the people that they are elected to represent in good faith, the people who voted for them in good faith. I am disgusted that they would be so arrogant as to try to con those people into believing for one second that they have their best interests at heart, that they would have them believe this government is even remotely interested in fairness.

There are many aspects of this budget that I could speak on, but I do not have all day to do that, unfortunately—well, fortunately—so I am going to focus the rest of my time on three issues that are particularly affecting the people of my electorate of Cowan. The first issue is the unfair zombie measures that are included in this budget along with some new, hidden measures. These include keeping the age pension at 70; new cuts to family payments; new cuts to veterans health—my gosh, at least leave that alone—and the abolition of the energy supplement, leaving pensioners, pensioners like my mum, $366 a year worse off. All of these measures target our most vulnerable, because they are easy targets when your core principles, your core values, are at their very heart unfair.

These measures are not there because this government has suddenly had a change of heart and, by some miracle, some overnight epiphany, now believes in the principle of fairness. No. These are remnants of a raft of unfair zombie measures that the government took out of the budget. They did not take them out because they are unfair. No, they regret taking them out of the budget. They took them out because they could not pass them. They still believe in them. They still want those unfair measures in there, but they just could not get them passed.

Let us take a look at how these measures adversely affect the people of Cowan. As of March 2017, Perth's northern suburbs are facing 3.6 per cent unemployment. That is 21,100 people in the north-west and north-east of Perth, where my electorate is located. One in four people in the suburb of Girrawheen—that is just one suburb in my electorate—are unemployed. Youth unemployment in Perth's northern suburbs is at a whopping 13.5 per cent. There are over 3,000 people in training in my electorate of Cowan and over 5,000 people at university, which leads me to the second issue, which is higher education.

I have four university degrees. It is not because I like punishment and it is not because I have been a perennial student; it is because I tend to get interested in things and like to learn about them. I did not have access to free education. I do not come from that generation. I have paid my debts for three degrees. For the fourth one—my PhD—I managed to get a scholarship. I paid my HECS debts as a single mum on a low salary. I paid those off and it was hard. I was able to do that, despite how difficult it was, but I understand that young people on low incomes who have just finished a university degree and may have their first job are also finding it hard. They have high levels of financial stress. They are finding it hard to purchase their first home. They are finding it hard to get married and do all the kinds of things that young people look forward to.

The government's proposals in the budget around higher education are going to have a huge impact on the very people for whom higher education is not an opportunity that is easy to attain—those for whom entry into university is already limited: women in particular, Indigenous Australians even more particularly and those for whom these kinds of opportunities do not often come around. In this budget Malcolm Turnbull is proposing to cut funding to universities, increasing university fees, and also make changes to how HECS will be repaid.

Not all people should, want or can go to university. That brings me to my third issue—skills and apprenticeships. In the budget the government is cutting $600 million from TAFE and apprentices, on top of $3.8 billion from universities and $22 billion from schools. Australia now has 130,000 fewer apprentices and trainees than when this government was first elected. I remember a time when Australia had a world-class training system. When I travelled the world people would come up to me and say: 'You guys have the best training system. We want to emulate your training system.' That is no longer so. TAFE and vocational training funding and the number of supported students are lower than they were a decade ago. This is despite increasing numbers of jobs requiring vocational skills. There is no plan for education and no plan for Australia's future. Labor will reverse this $600 million cut to skills and training and will invest in TAFE and apprenticeships, as we should be doing. Only Labor will provide more opportunity for Australians to gain the skills they need to get good quality jobs.

I return to my original point about the fundamental unfairness of this budget. On all measures—on education, pensioners, higher education, training, families, veteran health, Medicare and housing affordability; on every measure—when it comes to fairness this budget, I am afraid to say, fails dismally. Australians can continue to trust, as they always have, that Labor will block these unfair measures, because we know how these measures adversely impact the people in our communities. We know how they adversely impact workers who rely on penalty rates to get through the day. I was one of those workers once and I know what it is like. I know what it is like to go through a week when you do not have enough money to cover the rent, to cover the groceries or to feed your kids for the week. I know that for those who rely on penalty rates they are not a luxury. They do not use the money to go to the cinema or to buy avocado on toast. They use the money for their essential needs—to keep a roof over their head, to keep food on the table and to keep their kids in school. I know; I have been there.

And now, as a parliamentarian—and, prior to this, as a professor—I am blessed. I am blessed that I am in one of the most highly taxed tax brackets in Australia. I am blessed that I can earn the kind of money that I have. But I did that through education. Education gave me the opportunity to lift myself up, to lift my family up and to put my kids through school and through university as well.

If you cut that essential opportunity of education from so many people—if you take away, rip away, that opportunity from so many young people—you know, that could be the next Einstein out there. That could be the next Nobel prize winner out there. That could be the next person to cure cancer out there. We have to think about it. When we take away opportunities for education, for higher education, for TAFE or for a good, strong, school education, we are taking away Australia's future. We need to be thinking about that.

When it comes to fairness, there is no such thing as 'Labor light'. There is no such thing as a 'Labor wannabe', as flattering as that may seem, as noble an aspiration as that might seem. There is only one Labor Party, only one party that puts people first, only one party that understands the needs of workers, of pensioners, of veterans, of the people most vulnerable in our society, and is not a party that puts big business first. That party is Labor, and that is fairness.

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