Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Like others tonight, I rise to talk on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-18 and related bills and the budget delivered by this government. It has gone from a slogan around jobs and growth to a budget around tax cuts and education cuts. That is my summary of this budget. We all know that budgets are about priorities, and the government's priorities are quite clear in this budget. Their priority is the top end of town. Their priority is to give tax cuts to multinational companies and millionaires and to cut funding for the things that would make a difference in Australia, the things that would impact on the current situation in this country where we are at a 75-year high in inequity.

The current climate is a 75-year high—those with and those without are the furthest they have been apart for 75 years. This is a climate where wage growth has flatlined to the lowest it has been since records have been kept and where company profits are at a 10-year high. This government's answer to that, and its priority, is to prioritise tax cuts for the very wealthy in this country, for multinational companies and for the four big banks. Although the government has hidden in the budget a new tax for banks, that will not actually end up being what it claims it will be because, at the other end of that, it is going to give them a whopping great tax cut.

In a time when we have 700,000 people unemployed, when over a million people are saying they are underemployed and when casualisation of our labour force is at its worst, this is a government that delivers a budget off the back of a legislative program that has failed to do anything about labour hire companies or sham operators. It had an opportunity in the chamber. It brought into the chamber a piece of legislation that was called 'protecting vulnerable workers' that failed to deal with the critical issues.

On top of that, the government are bringing in a budget that shows clearly what their priorities are, and their priorities certainly do not include the electorate of Lalor that I represent. The government certainly have not prioritised the 200,000 people who live in the electorate that I represent. In fact, many of the things in this budget are going to hurt the people who live in my electorate. There are 70,000 families in the electorate of Lalor, a lot of whom are dependent on the minimum wage and on penalty rates. From 1 July, over 12,000 people will take a hit of up to $77 a week in their take-home pay, and there is nothing in this budget to support those families. There is absolutely nothing in this budget that is going to make a difference to their lives.

This is a government that talked a big game going into this budget. If you remember, it was going to tackle housing affordability. Now, member after member of the government come in here and, mealy-mouthed, they stand there and tell us that they are going to fix supply. The federal government has levers that could impact on housing affordability and make a difference in a community like mine. There are levers that Labor have begged it to take up, levers that Labor took policies on to the last election. We laid out a suite in front of it and said: 'Here, take these. These are great ideas. Let's make some changes to negative gearing. Let's make some changes to capital gains tax. Here's a revenue source for this government.' The government claimed it did not have a revenue problem—but, suddenly, it does. Suddenly it has a revenue problem.

This is a government that has tripled the deficit, and then walks in here and talks about surpluses into the never-never. This is a government that has paid no attention to the residents across this country, to the people who live in this country and what they need. This is a government that wants to come here and talk a big game about infrastructure, and yet the infrastructure spend has not increased. This is a government that wants to talk about infrastructure. It wants to say it is an infrastructure government and claim that its budget papers contain a big spend on infrastructure. Well, it is not if you are Victorian. Victoria has 25 per cent of the population and got only eight per cent of the infrastructure spend and none of the money that was promised to Victoria under the asset recycling. That is not going to be delivered. So, in regard to the commitment the Andrews Labor government made in their budget around that being spent on regional rail across Victoria, they are going to be sadly disappointed because this government has refused to fund Victoria for what it deserves.

The other amazing thing about this budget, which I hear members opposite proclaiming as good thing, is the Building Better Regions Fund—it has cut out the electorate of Lalor, a major growth corridor. We cannot apply for those funds now. In the past we could, but now we cannot. It is another slap in the face for the people who live in the electorate of Lalor, a slap in the face for the west of Melbourne and another slap in the face for the people who are doing the hard work of raising families and paying their taxes.

In this country it is time we had a conversation about tax—a really hard conversation about tax. In my electorate people are predominantly PAYG wage earners. They pay their taxes and they have minimal deductions they can make for the tax they pay. Yet here we have a budget that takes the deficit levy off millionaires and gives them a $16,000 pay cut and puts on a Medicare levy where people earning $20,000 a year will be paying more. This government simply fails to understand what the priorities are for people raising families and going to work every day—absolutely fails to understand it.

This is a government that held ice forums around the country, going from electorate to electorate to talk to people about the scourge that is ice. I have listened to government members come in here and talk about the forums they ran, and what is their answer? Is their answer increased access to the kinds of support that communities like mine need when they are faced with this? No. What they introduced were punitive measures to address what is an absolute scourge in communities across this country. They went out and listened but I just do not know who they were listening to, because when I listen to the people on the ground in my electorate who are doing the hard work at the coal face with people with addiction problems, they reject what this government announced in the budget. They were not listened to, so I am not sure who they were listening to.

I want to talk about what is happening in this budget with education, and I will have another opportunity to talk about that legislation a little later tonight. But across education what we have here are cuts—cuts to fund tax cuts for millionaires; cuts in a once in a 100 year opportunity to get funding right in schools, to ensure that we have accessible and affordable higher education and to ensure that we rebuild our TAFE sector. None of that is important to this government and this budget clearly proves it. They are paying absolute lip service to the power of education, without any understanding. When it comes to education this government understands the cost but they have no understanding of the value. In regard to health, they talk a big game about health. They told us they were legislating and it was going to be enshrined to protect Medicare. They told us that they were going to stop the Medicare freeze, and then we get to the budget and 'Wait a minute, not for another two years, not from another three years, depending which rebate we're talking about.' It is a sham. It is smoke and mirrors that are being delivered by this government, while they are intent, and their budget proves it, on continuing to deliver largess to the big end of town.

Labor has a different attitude to tax. One of the things we are committed to is the $3,000 cap on deductibility of tax agents or lawyers who give advice for tax deductions.

An honourable member: That's fairness.

It sounds fair to me too. This government wants to pretend that it is fair, but we know that there are millionaires in this country who pay a million dollars for tax advice and then claim that million dollars and end up paying zero tax. If you want to talk about fairness, then we need to talk about our tax system. I do not know what happened in the homes of those opposite when they were being raised, but I was raised on a really simple thing: if everybody paid the taxes they owed, people would pay a lot less tax. It is a really simple concept. If everybody paid the taxes that were required of them, it would be a fairer system. Everybody uses the roads; everybody uses the schools; everybody uses the hospitals; everybody uses the facilities and the infrastructure those tax dollars put on the ground, so everybody should just pay their fair share.

Look at the government's $65 billion in tax cuts for big business. We asked what modelling it had done. It claims it will create jobs, and yet the modelling shows that the impact is out in the never-never and it is minimal—statistically irrelevant. It will make little to no difference to the people in Lalor finding a job. I will tell you what would make a difference for the people in Lalor: if Victoria got its fair share of infrastructure spending. What would make a difference in the seat of Lalor is schools getting the money that they have been told they were going to get by this government and not having it ripped away. That is what would make a difference, but this government is oblivious to that.

I want to go to something that I have spoken on in every appropriation speech I have made since I joined this parliament, and that is this government's shameful attitude to women—the attitude that means that it no longer prepares a women's budget statement and that it no longer looks through that lens to see what impact its budget will have on 51 per cent of the population in this country. Since 2013, Australia has fallen from 19th to 46th place in the global gender gap report. I stand here proudly as a member of the Labor Party. I stand here with Deputy Speaker Claydon, who chairs the Status of Women Caucus Committee for Labor, to say that we will not forget and that we will continue to look through this lens. What are some of the things that we see through this lens? There are some scary stats when you look at this budget through the lens for women. The government needs to spend $400,000 to unfreeze funding to the National Women's Alliances.

In 2015 and 2016, we saw a 17.5 per cent increase in older women seeking help from homelessness services. That needs action. I have not heard one member opposite stand up and tell us what this government is going to do about homelessness. I have not heard them telling us what spend they are going to make there. All they have in terms of housing is a plan that undermines the superannuation scheme and a plan that will get people to save $30,000. I live in the most affordable electorate in Victoria. The most affordable place to live is in my community, where we build thousands of houses every year. Thirty thousand dollars will not get you a deposit in the most affordable suburbs in Melbourne; it certainly will not get you a deposit in Sydney; and I would not have thought it would get you a deposit yet in WA.

This government needs to take a step back from its ideologically driven tax-cut mantra, have a serious look at fairness and equity in this country and tackle some of the big issues in this country. It needs to tackle the things that matter. It needs to make sure that it is creating jobs. There are 700,000 unemployed people in this country as we speak and 1.1 million who say that they are underemployed. Your $65 billion tax cut is not going to put a dint in that. This government should hang its head in shame.

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