Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

The 2017-18 federal budget was a budget from a Prime Minister who has lost the confidence of the Australian people and is fighting for his political survival. The Prime Minister delivered a budget with one objective in mind: to save his own job. It is a budget that purports that the Prime Minister is listening to the Australian people when in fact the Prime Minister is simply listening to the polls that are published in the newspapers every week or so. This is a budget, when carefully analysed, that has no clear direction for anyone: there is no underlying strategy, no long-term plan or vision and no core values to it. It is a budget that is—to use a common term—'all over the shop'. It provides no certainty or confidence for any sector in the community.

The Prime Minister has indeed abandoned the unfair cuts that were on the agenda since 2014. He abandoned them because he knew that they were unfair, he knew that there were harsh and he knew that they had been rejected by the Australian people. These were cuts like those proposed for paid parental leave or the five-week wait for Newstart, cuts to young people between the ages of 22 and 24, scrapping family tax benefit part A and part B, scrapping the pensioner education supplement and entry payment, and cutting the pension to migrant pensioners. These were all propositions that for the last three years have been constantly rejected by the Australian people and in turn opposed by Labor. Because of that constant opposition the government finally got the message that they would never get through this parliament. That is the only reason that they were cut only earlier this month. It is not because this government has changed its views on those issues or that it has softened its heart on them; it simply walked away from them because it knew it could not get through the parliament.

Budgets are not only about priorities but also about management of the nation's finances. It is a responsibility that this government has failed badly on. Let us not forget the government has now been in office for four years. This constant rhetoric about fixing up Labor's mess, in my view, has run its course. After four years, if the government is unable to balance its budget and get its finances in order, it has no-one to blame but itself. Indeed, with respect to the government failing badly, only yesterday again we heard that as recently as this budget, it appears that there is another $2 billion shortfall as a result of their so-called bank tax that was going to bring in some $6 billion plus. It now appears that those figures themselves are questionable. In the space of a couple of weeks we have found a $2 billion problem with the proposal, and again that is because the Treasurer and the Prime Minister simply do not know what they are doing. They put up proposals on the run that have not been carefully worked through, which, unsurprisingly, when you analyse them, simply do not stack up.

Let us have a look at this budget. It is a budget that brings in revenue for the coming year of $433.5 billion. The expenditure is $459.7 billion, which leaves a deficit of $29.4 billion this year. The government claims that the budget will return to surplus in four years time in 2021. I make two observations about that claim. Firstly, it is dependent on three per cent growth. That in itself is an optimistic assumption if you look at the figures in recent years. Secondly, I doubt very much both the Prime Minister and the Treasurer will be here in 2021 to be held to account for those claims. It is easy to make claims and projections when you will not necessarily be there to be held to account. It is also a budget that has a gross national debt that will peak at some $725 billion in 10 years time. That is a staggering figure. I can recall when gross national debt was $200 billion or $300 billion, and everyone was standing up in this place saying how terrible that was, yet this is a budget that will preside over a gross national debt that is going to reach three quarters of a trillion dollars.

We have the tax revenue to GDP ratio currently at 23.8 per cent, and that will rise to 25.4 per cent. Again, that is the highest tax revenue to GDP ratio in a decade, and this is a budget that again raises taxes as well. If you look at all those statistics, you can see for yourself—and it paints a very clear picture—that this government has in fact lost control over this budget. It is a budget where we see $22.3 billion of education funding being cut and we see increases in university fees that force graduates to pay more and to repay their HECS debts even sooner, as well as the cuts to TAFE funding. On all the education levels we see huge cuts, but we do not see the same applied to big business, which we are going to provide with a $65 billion handout. It is a budget that also does not lift the very hurtful Medicare freeze for another two to three years, and I want to talk about that in more detail in just a moment.

All of these harsh measures are being included in this budget, while simultaneously the government talks about a $65 billion cut to company taxes. We know that $24 billion of that has already gone through, but there is some $40-odd billion still to come. The reality is that most of that cut will go to big corporates and to investors that probably reside overseas, so there is likely to be very little benefit to the Australian economy as a result of it. Indeed, my understanding is that, at best, it might be a benefit of one per cent over the next 20 years, if you can believe government figures, and personally I do not. Even if you did, that is at best what it is likely to produce, when simultaneously we make billions of dollars off cuts to education, which would have otherwise added to the GDP of this country by a much higher amount than that.

I want to turn to the health portfolio for just a moment, because the government seems to be making a big deal about the fact that it is going to lift the Medicare freeze. So it should, given that the freeze has now been around for several years. But the freeze is only going to be lifted for children under 16 and concession card holders from July 2017—that is, from this year. The freeze is going to be lifted for very few people. In fact, I believe it has been costed at around $9 million. That is the total sum of the so-called freeze for this year. For GPs and specialists, it will be a year later when the freeze is lifted. For specialist procedures and allied health professionals, the freeze will be lifted in 2019—in two years time. For diagnostic imaging, perhaps it will be lifted in 2020.

The freeze is already hurting people throughout the country. I have no doubt about that at all, because doctors cannot continue to maintain their fees on the basis of what they were several years ago. I want to quote from a letter from a podiatry provider in my region, who has several outlets. I am not going to name the podiatrist, but I quote directly from a letter that has been provided to the patients of that service: 'Due to the federal government's decision to continue with the Medicare freeze on medical and allied health Medicare rebates, we can no longer continue to bulk-bill Medicare patients. Given this change, the full service fee of $63 will need to be paid on the day of the appointment. This was not a decision taken lightly; however, due to the short-sightedness of the federal government and their decision to freeze the rebate for an unreasonable eight-year period, we had no choice.'

That letter says it all. They have put up with it for several years, but they cannot continue for eight years at one level of rebate from Medicare. So they have had to increase their fees, which now means that when patients go to that service, unless they can pay the full $63 up-front, they cannot get the service. Patients that cannot afford the $63 clearly will not be able to get the service at all, because they will not go there. Yes, with the $63 there will be a Medicare rebate, but the issue is that it has to be paid up-front.

In a similar vein, I turn to the aged-care sector. I frequently speak to aged-care providers and people who have family members getting aged-care services. The message I get back very clearly and very loudly is that the ACAT assessment process is in total disarray. The allocation of packages has become a nightmare. In fact, it is more spin than reality. Level 3 and level 4 packages for the most needy either are simply not available or are available in a year and a half or two years time when, regrettably, the person in need may not still be with us.

I want also to turn to another matter that affects the aged, and that is the Meals on Wheels service throughout this country. They asked for $5 million in additional funding in this budget plus another $300,000 over two years to support their structure. Madam Deputy Speaker, as I am sure you would know, members from all sides of this House come into this place and talk about the value of the Meals on Wheels service for their communities across Australia. It is a value that nobody would deny. But it is one thing to talk about how important the service is and how good it is, and it is another to come into the House and stand up for it. The government is clearly not standing up for it with this budget, because it is my understanding that the $5 million in funding has not been provided to Meals on Wheels.

This is an organisation that in my own electorate has 145 volunteers delivering meals to about 210 people. Fifty to 80 per cent of the cost of the meal is actually paid for by the person themselves, and these are quite often people who are confined to their own homes because of limited mobility. They are elderly people who need a bit of support, and you have volunteers providing it. It comes at a cost saving to the government, when you carefully analyse what they do, and yet it cannot find $5 million to ensure that they get the service without having to put their hand in their own pocket again. I think it is damning of this government that it could not find that money.

With respect to local issues, I will talk about the Northern Community Legal Centre, in my region of Adelaide. Again, because of the cuts in past budgets of this government there is uncertainty about what that service can do beyond this financial year. Its services are in limbo. This comes at a time when the service is going to be confronted with its greatest need, because GM-H is going to be closing later this year, and the centre is in the midst of the region that will be hit the hardest by that closure. It is a service that, undoubtedly, will be needed more than ever before, yet it is uncertain about its future because of funding cuts made by this government in previous budgets. Yes, I am aware that there has been some money reinstated, or that cuts that were proposed will not go through as a result of a reversal made by this government, but the original cuts do stand, and that is hurting this service.

In the moments I have left I will talk about the issue of this budget and South Australia. Once again, South Australia has been dudded by a budget of this government. I heard the member for Wakefield earlier make similar remarks, and he is absolutely right. If you look at the budget, you will see that there is not one new infrastructure project funded in this budget. I have heard South Australian Liberal members come into the chamber and try to defend the budget position by talking about some minuscule projects that have been provided in previous years or in the lead up to the budget. The value of those projects is a drop in the bucket. More importantly, they claimed that the reason there are no infrastructure dollars for South Australia in this budget is that the South Australian government did not put any bids in. That is absolute nonsense. There were bids in already from previous years. But even if you want to accept that as being the fact, where were the South Australian Liberal members when they should have been standing up for their state and putting in their own bids? I remind them that it was only two or three years ago that the former member for Boothby put in a bid for the extension of South Road—down the Flinders hospital end of South Road—worth, I think, $1.7 billion. He came into the chamber and claimed credit for having done that, although that project was not a priority project for South Australia. The point I make is simply that if members want to blame the South Australian government they need to look at themselves first, because, unlike previous members of their party who stood up for South Australia and came into this chamber with projects, the current ones did not. So do not blame the South Australian government—that in itself is dishonest—but look at yourselves.

Finally, yes, there have been a few dollars returned to South Australia in the form of the reinstatement of the SA local road funding supplement. I say again: do not crow about that, because that is money that was always there, that was taken away for two years and has now been reinstated. How generous is it when you reinstate something that you had already taken away? As I said at the outset, this is a budget that is designed simply to save the future of the Prime Minister.

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