Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

This budget represents the very worst of everything Australians have come to expect from this government and this Prime Minister. When they were in opposition, their Treasury spokesperson, Joe Hockey, the former member for North Sydney, said he would deliver a budget surplus in the first year of government and every year thereafter. The information that is produced by the Treasury papers and the official figures show the following. Just five days ago it demonstrated that gross debt was up $220.8 billion since the September 2013 election and that gross debt, incurred mainly under this government, is now up to $493.8 billion. Decisions this government has made have increased the gross debt.

They parade themselves as economic managers who are fiscally responsible. Financial rectitude is what they go on about. We heard an absolute claptrap of nonsense from the previous speaker, the member for Dunkley, about the fact that they made savings and they were finding the money for it. They are borrowing money to pay for it and they are giving away $65.3 billion in corporate tax cuts. Do they really listen? If only they looked at the documents in relation to their education announcement. I suggest that they have a look at this document about education funding. It is a government document produced by the Turnbull government. It is headed: 'Key funding figures quantified 30 April: agreed cost.' It shows a saving—a cut—of $22.9 billion in education funding. So they are actually restoring some money from the $30 billion in cuts they inflicted in the 2014 Abbott government budget. Mind you, those cuts came after he said in that wonderful statement at the Penrith football stadium just before the election that there would be no cuts to education and no cuts to health. They inflict a $30 billion cut to education; restore some money, admitting in their own documents it is a $22.9 billion cut; and then want to give themselves a pat on the back for being so good. They do this dodgy figure in the estimator.

What is happening for the schools of the previous speaker is that they are slashing funding for state schools, private schools, Catholic schools and independent schools. They are slashing funding for schools, and they want to pat themselves on the back. That is why conservative governments in New South Wales and elsewhere are up in arms about it. The Catholic sector, which did special deals under the Howard coalition government, is up in arms as well. There have been headlines about the Catholics declaring war on the Liberals—honestly. That is even from news outlets that are favourable towards them.

This budget has an appalling set of numbers. They are giving millionaires and multinationals tax breaks but are hurting vulnerable families, schools and workers. They are doing nothing about the fact that, from 1 July, 700,000 Australian workers are going to get a $77 cut to their wages, on average. Australians are feeling left behind by a government that is treating them with utter disdain. Unemployment is at a near constant 5.9 per cent. That is what it was during the global financial crisis. So unemployment is up and underemployment is up. There are 1.34 million Australians who are underemployed—that is 8.7 per cent, the budget papers show. Wages growth is down. At 1.9 per cent, it is the lowest on record. Economic growth is stagnant. Yet those opposite have this optimistic idea that, somehow, wages will grow by 3.75 per cent, according to the budget, and that that, magically, mysteriously, like some sort of elixir, will get them back into budget surplus.

They have given away resources and funding from the carbon pricing scheme. They have given away billions of dollars by getting rid of that. They straightaway gave away $8 billion or $9 billion to the big banks, when they came to power. What they have done since then is make budget decisions that have not been good. They do nothing about capital gains tax reform and nothing about negative gearing, which could bring in about $37 billion. They give away $65.3 billion of taxpayers' money, for what? For an increase in wages of about $2 a day in about 10 or 20 years time. Honestly, there is not a shred of evidence that they can produce to show that this big tax giveaway will have an impact on wages or economic growth of any substance at all in the foreseeable future.

This government is bereft—it exists for one purpose only, to keep the Labor Party out of power. There is no reason for conservatives who are worried about prudent economic management to vote for this government. It gives them no reason whatsoever. It has betrayed its own base and is trying to be like us. Those opposite come to the middle, give a bit more money, restore a bit more money in relation to the Medicare rebate indexation freeze—but only seven per cent is actually going to be restored—but they do it over time. They throw a bit more money towards education. They make it look like they are a bit of an infrastructure government by saying, 'I've got this great idea for an inland rail scheme.' There is only a few hundred million dollars across the forward estimates towards the Inland Rail project, by the way. They have no infrastructure projects on the go at the moment, and look at how they have completely stuffed up the NBN. This government exists for one purpose only. It exists so that Labor cannot be restored to the treasury bench. Every single reform, as the member for Grayndler said earlier today, that has made a difference to the lives of Australians has been implemented by the Labor Party. Think about native title, Medicare, superannuation, the age pension system, the minimum wage, the big infrastructure projects—all under Labor.

This government puts the AAA credit rating at risk. And why in the world are they giving millionaires a $16,400 tax cut from 1 July? For the life of me, I cannot understand why they are doing that. In my home state of Queensland, we have a situation where, since their Medicare rebate freeze, the cost of visiting a doctor has skyrocketed 11 per cent. That means patients pay $7.70 more every time they see a doctor. We have data from the Department of Health and the Australian Bureau of Statistics. We know that 804,000 Australians are putting off seeing a GP because they are worried about the cost. We know that 600,000 are putting off seeing a specialist for the same reason. But, to add insult to injury, the indexation is finally going to be reintroduced but it will not apply to 93 per cent of scans, including ultrasounds, X-rays and MRIs. As a result, no more than a laughable seven per cent of tests will become cheaper. It is an extraordinary thing. It is a broken promise by the Prime Minister, and he should hang his head in shame for the failure.

On top of that, there is education, which the previous speaker lauded. On average, schools are going to lose about $2.4 million as a result of their failure. That is the equivalent of sacking 22,000 schoolteachers. In my home state of Queensland, we have a situation where state schools will lose $300 million in the next few years. They will be worse off than under the current arrangements. There is no significant funding to Queensland schools until 2027. But, thanks to these cuts, local Catholic parish schools will be hit hard, and parents will face fee hikes and potentially even closures of schools as a result of this. We do not need Gonski 2.0. We do not need another report from this government. We need equitable, substantial, needs based funding in this country, and we need it right now. We cannot afford to strip away $22 billion in investment in the social capital and the future of this country, denying our children the education that they need.

We are going into the 21st century. If we are going to take our place in our region, we have to do it by using our ingenuity, our creativity, our intelligence. We have to do it because our workers are smarter and they work in a cleverer way. We are not going to drive down wages—at least, under a Labor government, we certainly are not going to do it. We have to do it because we are smarter. We will invest in our children. That is an investment in the future. That is clearly the case. The Australian Education Union has said that the Prime Minister's new school funding model is fast becoming exposed as a con which leaves schools short of the resources they need. I support what the Australian Education Union has said.

I was there on election day in 2013. Who could forget those corflutes and the bunting we saw on polling booths from LNP candidates in my home state of Queensland and from Liberal and National Party candidates. They said they would match Labor's Gonski needs based education funding dollar for dollar. That is what they said. They then proceeded to cut $30 billion from the budget, and they are still keeping a cut of $22.9 billion. It is extraordinary what they have done across the space.

In my electorate of Blair I would like to see upgrades to the Willowbank interchange. I would like to see extensions of rail lines from Springfield Central out to Redbank Plains, the biggest suburb in Ipswich. I would love to see infrastructure projects beyond stage 1 of the last section of the Ipswich Motorway between Darra and Rocklea completed. I want to see stages 2 and 3 back towards the Oxley roundabout done and I want to make sure that all these service roads in and around that area are done. I acknowledge the bipartisan commitment of $200 million in the budget towards the initial stage of the last section of the Ipswich Motorway from Darra to Rocklea, but there are other infrastructure projects I want to see done.

The 2016 budget promised $9.2 billion in commitment to infrastructure. They spent $7.6 billion on projects and they quickly have dropped it down to $4.2 billion by 2020-2021. I am not making up those figures; they are actually in the budget documents. They are the official government figures. Infrastructure falls off a cliff. When infrastructure falls off a cliff, guess what happens? In regional and rural areas and in cities around the country and in places like the Somerset region and in Ipswich in my electorate jobs go. We have got a very high unemployment rate locally. Apprentices are going. We have 130,000 fewer apprentices in this country under this government than we had when Labor was last in power. They are not investing; they are cutting. What is $600 million in terms of TAFE funding? They have cut $3.8 billion from higher education funding in this budget on top of the $22.9 billion they are cutting from primary and secondary schools. It is simply astonishing that this government is not an education government. It is not about doing anything.

On top of that, they then have this extra funding for the Building Better Regions Fund. In my area, the Somerset Region to the north is eligible for the funding, but the area around Ipswich is not. I have written to the minister about this. I wrote to Minister Nash, the Minister for Regional Development, back in January asking her to reconsider Ipswich's eligibility for Regional Development Australia. I would like to see projects in areas around Ipswich, like the exhibition and flood evacuation centre at the Ipswich Showgrounds and the Woollen Mills arts precinct, potentially funded. I would like to see those sorts of projects eligible for funding, but no. I got a letter back from Senator Nash saying, 'We'll review this after the budget.' I have written back because, in the budget, I see that Ipswich is not eligible again.

Under this government's former National Stronger Regions Fund, places like Ipswich were eligible. Under our Regional Development Australia funding, Ipswich was eligible. Why should places like Ipswich be excluded and discriminated against because this government does not want to provide funding in Labor voting electorates in urban areas? When we were in government, we did not discriminate in relation to Regional Development Australia funding. We made sure that even if you were in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan or, indeed, the Moreton Bay Region in Queensland you could apply for Regional Development Australia funding on good projects with evidence based funding. I call on the government to do the right thing and review the eligibility.

It is about time the government did the right thing. This budget is not doing the right thing by the people of this country and certainly not by the people in my electorate. I think they have some real questions to answer in terms of the recent evidence in relation to the bank tax as well. We have asked those questions during the time. It is time for the government to wake up to themselves—to have a look at a budget that works for all Australians. It is time for them to implement a tax system that is fair and equitable. It is time for equitable funding and needs based funding for education. It is time to immediately lift the Medicare rebate freeze and to do the right things in terms of infrastructure. And, for heaven's sake, how about we get a NBN that actually works and that the people of Australia can be proud of?

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