Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Before I speak on the appropriation bills, I would like to reflect briefly on the recent tragic events in Manchester, in the United Kingdom. Earlier this morning, I was privileged to attend a memorial service to the victims of the bombing attack in Manchester, at the British High Commission, hosted by Her Excellency Menna Rawlings, the British High Commissioner to Australia. I and many parliamentary colleagues, including the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, as well as members of the defence forces of Australia and the United Kingdom and members of the diplomatic corps, together offered our silent condolences to the families and friends of those brutally murdered in Manchester on Monday night. Together, we offered our support to the government and the people of Britain, who yet again face the horror of a terror attack in the heart of a vibrant city, an attack which strikes at the heart and soul of every society around the world—children, teenagers, young people and families. In Manchester, a city of music, a city with a great musical tradition, the attack earlier this week sought to ruin so brutally that which we as humans so enjoy, music and song. We may differ vastly in our tastes, but nonetheless music and song are part of our humanity. They lift our souls and they tell our stories. Music and song will continue as ever in Manchester, as they will everywhere.

Her Excellency Menna Rawlings reflected this morning on the relentless resilience of the people of Great Britain, a people who lived with war and then with the deadly terrorism of the IRA over many decades. It was just over a year ago that I had to relinquish and renounce my British citizenship in order to stand for election to this parliament. It was a sad day for me, as it felt like breaking a link with the memory of the life of my father, but of course it did not break anything. There will always be our connection to the people of Britain and my personal fondness for Britain and its people and their remarkable and relentless resilience. Today I pay tribute to that resilience and offer my sincere condolences to all those affected by this terrible bombing in Manchester. I stand, along with all of us in this place, in solidarity with the people of Britain at this very sad time.

An honourable member: Hear, hear. Well said.

Thank you. I will turn to reflect on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018 and related bills now. I, like many others in this place, am concerned about the impact that this year's budget will have on everyday people who are doing their best to get by. Hardworking people, students, parents with kids at school or TAFE or university, older Australians and people living with disability—this year's budget impacts them all. Like every budget, budget 2017 is a representation of the government's social priorities. They are the social priorities that reflect the direction the country will follow in the coming years. This direction will affect every person in this country, one way or another. People will be affected both by what is included in a budget that is supposedly reflective of social priorities and by what is, sadly, quite clearly lacking in that same budget: the social priorities which a just, fair and equitable society expect and deserve. Through this budget, we on this side see—as do the mums and dads, the pensioners, the students and the workers—how Prime Minister Turnbull and his government have prioritised their needs. We see how higher education funding, infrastructure funding and penalty rates have been prioritised—and by 'prioritised' I, of course, mean 'cut and ignored'.

The government has seen fit to cut funding to schools, to TAFE, to vocational education and to apprenticeships yet again. One of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's 2017 social priorities is to cut more than $600 million from TAFE and vocational education over the next four years, compared with current arrangements. This comes on top of an almost $3 billion in existing cuts to TAFE skills and training and a loss of more than 130,000 apprenticeships since 2013. The budget confirms that Prime Minister Turnbull will cut $22 billion from schools in an attack on education. This means that every Australian school will lose an average of $2.4 million over 10 years. It is the equivalent of 22,000 teachers losing their jobs.

However, it is with an ironic disbelief that I say that the Prime Minister has shown he is leading an equitable government when it comes to education—equitable in relation to attacks on education, that is. The government is not content with slashing funding to schools and vocational education; universities too have gone under the knife of this budget. Funding to universities will be cut by $3.8 billion, student fees will be hiked by eight per cent and graduates will have to pay back their HECS debt much earlier than before. We have heard the government try to defend their attack on universities and students, but have the government heard or listened to the reasons these measures are so damaging?

I can tell you that providing young people with the means to access a university education is a necessary foundation of any clever country. Higher education is a pathway to a world of opportunity. We should be aspiring to ensure that Australia is a country that does not limit that pathway and world of opportunity to only those who can afford it or whose families can afford it. Australia should be a better country than this. We should be a fairer country than this. There is nothing clever and nothing good about limiting access to higher education for students who are struggling financially. By increasing fees and financial pressures on university students and by lowering the threshold at which graduates have to repay their loans, this government is putting in place barriers to higher education for poorer students, their families and their communities.

Let me be clear: this government is not talking about denying access to university based on a student's academic ability and merit; it is putting a system in place that places barriers to higher education based on nothing more than an ability to pay or a future ability to pay. Due to increasing costs in this sector, students are having to seriously consider if higher education is something they can or should do. This is what people say to me every day in my electorate of Brand. They need to consider if it something they can afford or if higher education is now out of reach. These cuts to funding, the lowering of the repayment thresholds and the increases fees are a double whammy for students, because they are coming at the same time penalty rates are being slashed, damaging the wages students earn at work. In Brand, the challenges facing young people going to university are real. Through talking to families and young people in the electorate, I know high fees are a real barrier. An increase in fees is further enforcing the barriers, making it even harder for students and their families to consider university as an option.

Again, I want to be clear: increases to fees will not go to universities. They will not go to improving the student experience. Increased fees paid by students will not go to facilities that might improve students' learning outcomes. Increased student fees will not go to employing any more lecturers or professors, nor will it go to building facilities that might improve everything. This extra cost to students goes straight to consolidated revenue. It goes to the budget bottom line of these economic vandals who have tripled the deficit. This extra cost, borne by students and the young people of Australia, will go straight to a $65 billion tax cut for big business. It is a disgrace and it sells out young Australians. As a result of the lowering of the threshold for repaying student loans, young people will have to seriously consider whether or not the financial hit is something they can take on. At a time when they are looking to establish their adult lives, be that starting a family, buying a home or even just affording to rent a home, these young people will also have to find the money to pay off their HECS liabilities, at a lower income level than before—and with lower wages growth we know their wages will not be able to help much. There are no winners, only losers, when a government sees university education as the preserve of those who can most afford it. Society is the loser when universities become bastions of learning for the well-off.

We can see also how the Prime Minister's unfair 2017 budget will prioritise big business and the banks, delivering tax handouts to multinationals and millionaires while at the same hurting everyday families, workers and pensioners. Make no mistake, this budget does not care much about everyday people; it does not deliver on prioritising their needs, not by a long shot. It is a budget that rewards big business and the banks with a $65 billion tax cut, while it cuts funding for schools, universities and TAFE. It is a budget that increases taxes for those who can least afford it, while reducing the taxes paid by higher income earners, who can afford it. People earning $65,000 a year will pay $325 more tax in two years' time while someone on a million dollars a year will pay $16,400 less tax this year, with the withdrawal of the deficit levy.

Holding to ransom funding for the National Disability Insurance Scheme against the increased taxes of working families says a lot about the social priorities of this government. It says a lot about this government's attitude towards the everyday working people of this country. This is a government that is handing a $65 billion tax break to the big end of town instead of funding the NDIS for the benefit of some of the most vulnerable people in our communities. I really am mystified, and I know I am not the only one, about how this government can see no problem in hitting the everyday worker with an increased tax burden to fund the NDIS while there is a $65 billion tax break being handed out to big businesses and the big banks. These are the same people, the taxpayers living in our electorates, living in the cities of Rockingham and Kwinana, who are already struggling with cost of living pressures. These are the workers who are having to cope with massive stresses on their household budgets, thanks to underemployment, unemployment, increased cost of living pressures and cuts to penalty rates. This government continues to show its contempt for workers by supporting these cuts to penalty rates instead of showing the political will to stand up and protect the wages and living standards of those among us surviving on the lowest wages. It shows how really out of touch the Prime Minister and his Liberals team are.

This budget fails the jobs test, with the forecast for unemployment higher, while forecasts for employment growth, wages growth and GDP growth are all lower. Nothing in this budget delivers good jobs now at a time when the unemployment rate is the same as at the peak of global financial crisis, yet the government expects people to keep working on until they are 70 years old! It is an out of touch government that thinks labourers, brickies, childcare workers, and care assistants will be able to continue working well into their old age—until the age of 70, and beyond. There are not enough jobs as it is for those seeking work, without forcing people in their late 60s and 70s to remain in the jobseeker pool. It is a disgrace that Australia will soon top the list of having the oldest pension age in the developed world. This is a dubious accolade that the Prime Minister is seeking for our country, yet it is one that reflects the direction that this government wants the country to take.

The direction set out by this budget is harsh. It is one where people who have less, people who are struggling, will continue to do so. It is one that does not prioritise the needs of those who need assistance most. Prime Minister Turnbull's budget will axe the Energy Supplement to new pensioners, people with disability, carers and Newstart recipients, slashing $365 from a single pensioner or $550 from a couple's annual budget. New cuts to family tax benefits will leave thousands of families worse off. It is distressing that the Prime Minister's social priorities do not call for an immediate cancelling of the freeze on Medicare rebates. The government has delayed reversing its unfair cuts to Medicare for three years, meaning patients continue to pay more for health care. The costs incurred by doctors in providing medical services continue to rise and, with this freeze, it is patients who are having to pay more when they visit the doctor. Failing to drop the freeze on Medicare rebates immediately impacts on many vulnerable patients, including those needing critical oncology treatment, obstetric services, and paediatric treatment.

I might turn for a moment to investment in infrastructure, in jobs and in the future? What of this government's responsibility to build for the future needs of the country—to provide the roads, the ports, and the infrastructure required for economic growth, for future jobs and for progress?

This budget has in fact cut infrastructure investment by $1.6 billion in this year alone to $7.6 billion, and infrastructure investment will continue to fall to just $4.2 billion by the year 2021. It is no wonder the peak body Infrastructure Partnerships Australia has slammed the government's budget, saying that it 'sees infrastructure funding at its lowest level in more than 10 years'.

The trouble is that we cannot even trust the government to deliver on the little that they do promise. I would like to be able to hold the Liberal government to account for the election promises they made to the people of Brand, but you rarely see a senior Liberal deign to visit Rockingham or Kwinana, and they certainly do not care enough to make any election commitments to this community.

In 2016-17, WA was promised by the Turnbull government an investment of $842 million in infrastructure funding. This has not happened. We are $200 million short, according to the 2017-18 budget papers. The lauding of the previously allocated Perth Freight Link funding to WA as new infrastructure funding is a joke. It is not new funding; it is redirected old funding. It is funding redirected from a dud road to nowhere, a Liberal government project, to a forward-thinking, public-transport-congestion-easing Labor government Metronet project. We need to invest in infrastructure such as Metronet, a public transport plan that will improve the lives of many people across the metropolitan areas of Perth. It connects people by connecting them with jobs and services while reducing congestion on our roads.

I call on the government to consider other infrastructure projects that will work for the betterment of people not only in my area of Kwinana and Rockingham but also across the metropolitan area of Perth—infrastructure projects like the Kwinana Outer Harbour. It is a forward-thinking project which would be the catalyst for investment needed to generate jobs for generations to come. It will enable WA and the country to compete internationally, with a facility that will be on par with the best in the world. But, unfortunately, this much-needed infrastructure project is not a priority for this government, and neither are the many other social priorities that I spoke about earlier. It is a disgrace, and it is a sad day for Australia.

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