Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018 and related bills. Since early May, we have heard nothing from this government except for the word 'fair' thrown about with lots of gusto and abandon. It is a reminder of the 2016 election campaign. Back then, all we heard from the Prime Minister of the government was 'jobs and growth'. Wherever we went, on every advertising sign, on every placard and at every press conference, you would hear those three words: jobs and growth. The government is very good at repeating these slogans—especially three-word ones, for some reason. If you go back a few years, a lot of them add up to three words. Especially with the last slogan, 'jobs and growth', they have shown that they do not have a clue about what either jobs and growth or fairness, which is the word that is being thrown about at the moment, are.

If there was ever any doubt, this year's budget shows that the Liberal government under this Prime Minister is the most out of touch in history. How can the PM talk about jobs and growth while at the same time refusing to do anything to protect the nation's most vulnerable and lowest-paid workers? At the same time as we are hearing about fairness and jobs and growth, there is a pay cut to some of the most vulnerable workers, cuts to penalty rates and a $65 billion tax cut to the highest end of town. This government's refusal to support Labor's Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Take Home Pay) Bill 2017, which was in the House the other day, will seriously hurt workers, especially those low-paid workers that rely on weekends.

Figures show that my electorate will be very hard hit by this government's refusal to stop the Fair Work Commission's cut to penalty rates. I have said before in this place that more than 12,586 people, or one in six workers, in the Hindmarsh electorate that I represent in Adelaide's western suburbs work in the retail, pharmacy, food and accommodation industries. These people will be hit the hardest. These people will have an average of $77 cut from their pay, while, at the same time, the government is proposing a $65 billion tax cut to Australia's wealthiest people. That is over 12½ thousand workers in my electorate who could lose up to $77 a week because of this government's cuts. Retail is the second biggest industry in my electorate, employing 7,749 workers. Food and hospitality is the eighth biggest industry, employing 4,837 workers. Hurting these workers will be bad for the economy and bad for South Australia and does nothing to assist the economy of this nation.

I go back to the three-word slogan that the government was using in the last election: jobs and growth. So much for jobs and growth when you are cutting from the lowest-paid workers in our nation. Then we come to the words 'wages growth'. 'Jobs and growth' was the slogan, but wages growth is at a record low in this nation. With this cut to penalty rates, workers will now have even less money to spend in local shops, restaurants and other businesses. If there is less money around—for example, in my electorate 12,000-odd people will be earning less than they did before the penalty rate cuts—that means that there is less money in the economy, so the economy does not benefit from it; all this is doing is cutting money from workers.

The government are giving the top end of town a $65 billion tax cut, which will not get spent in the economy anyway. The top end of town have already got enough money. They are earning very high wages or have very big incomes, and that money will continue to roll as it did two months ago, three months ago and six months ago. This is where it will hurt, because there is less money going straight into the economy. I think the PM is selling out our lowest paid, most vulnerable workers in order to give billionaires a $65 billion tax break. It is unacceptable that more than 60 members in this place, including the Prime Minister, have called for penalty rates to be abolished or cut.

We on this side of the House understand just how much this will hurt workers. The Leader of the Opposition has introduced a bill opposing it, because we will not stand for it. The effect this will have on families, not only in my electorate but in all the electorates around the country, will be devastating. As I said, up to 700,000 Australians will lose $77 per week. People will have to work longer for less pay. Women will be disproportionately affected, because a lot of women are part-time workers who work on weekends. Regional communities will have less money spent in their economies.

But it is not only vulnerable workers who will suffer under the government's cuts. Pensioners will be hit particularly hard. There was nothing in the May budget for seniors. There was nothing but cuts. There was nothing for aged care. We still have massive shortages of aged-care packages around the nation. We are ageing at a rapid pace, yet nothing was mentioned in the budget for our most elderly and vulnerable. And, of course, there was nothing for welfare recipients.

Not only does this government want to raise the pension age to 70 years, the oldest pension age in the developed world; it also wants to scrap the energy supplement for pensioners. That will leave pensioners, carers and Newstart recipients $550 a year worse off. For some of these people, that is the difference between paying a bill or ensuring they have food on the table. It could make the difference in whether or not they can pay their medical costs. For an age pensioner, $550 is a lot of money. This comes on top of other harsh cuts to pensioners as a result of this government's new assets test. How is that fair? We have heard the word 'fair' thrown about by the government constantly in the last couple of months, but I see nothing fair in this. Where are the jobs and the growth that Prime Minister Turnbull spoke about during the election campaign? He is cutting from the most vulnerable, lowest paid workers.

I will go back to pensioners. I have one of the oldest electorates in the country. I have pensioners in my electorate who have worked extremely hard all their lives. Some have fought in wars, and they have paid their taxes their entire life. They have built the foundations that we today stand on to lead the lives that we do. They have contributed to our economy and to our society, and this government is hanging them out to dry. They deserve to be treated better and not as poorly as they are by this government.

We also cannot trust the government when it comes to health. Pensioners and other vulnerable Australians will be hard hit by the government's continued attacks on Medicare. In the lead-up to the last election, the government tried to bring in co-payments. They failed. They then tried to bring in co-payments through the backdoor by extending the freeze, which failed. They then decided to outsource the IT of Medicare. The government say they are committed to Medicare, but there are three examples of how they are not. The only reason those things did not come to fruition is that the opposition opposed them and people in the Senate opposed them. But, believe you me, had the government had the numbers to put those measures through, they would have put those measures through and we would be much worse off today.

I have a lot of doubts and questions when I hear the government saying they are guaranteeing Medicare. We all know that they have opposed Medicare from its inaugural days in the 1970s and have continued to do so over the years. They have tried to meddle with it and do whatever they can to clip at the edges of it until there is not much left. As I have said, they have failed to drop the Medicare freeze immediately, meaning that bulk-billing rates will continue to fall and vulnerable people will have to pay more to see their doctor. It is not uncommon for me to hear people saying that they used to be bulk-billed when they went to their clinic but now they have to pay. It is a regular occurrence that constituents come to my electorate office to tell me about their medical centre and how they are now having to contribute towards their bill. How is that fair for pensioners, for whom every single cent counts? They have a budget and all of a sudden they are hit with higher medical costs.

If this coalition government were seriously committed to jobs and growth, they would ensure that our schools were properly and adequately funded. We know that, without adequate funding for our schools, we will not go on to create the jobs of the future. We will not go on to have high-tech jobs created. We will not go on to have cutting-edge industries, which we are falling behind in around the world. We have to fund schools appropriately. School is where children get the education that they require and learn the things to go on and create those cutting-edge jobs. There was another slogan in the lead-up to the 2016 election. High-tech jobs were to be created in the IT sector, STEM and a whole range of things. To do that you have to educate the next generation of Australians. You have to ensure that there are adequate funds there, not cut $22.3 billion from education, as is being proposed.

We see the government are not interested in ensuring that every child in Australia is adequately supported to achieve their full potential. They clearly believe it is more important to give big businesses a $65 billion tax cut than adequately fund our schools and the next generation of Australians so that they can go on and create the cutting-edge jobs of the future. I do not see how that is fair.

Under the government's plan, school students, parents and teachers will miss out on $22 billion worth of funding. This is funding that was to go to students who need extra support in numeracy and literacy to bring them up to an adequate standard so that they can achieve and basically benefit from the education system. It was also there to help teachers support students with additional needs. What we are getting instead is a $22 billion cut to our education system. That means on average $2.4 million from every school in Australia over the next decade. That would be the equivalent of sacking 22,000 teachers—teachers who make a real difference in the lives of our children. This equates to around $265 million being ripped from South Australian schools in 2018 through to 2019 and, in my electorate of Hindmarsh, a cut of over $10 million in public schools alone. That is just the public schools, let alone the Catholic schools and the other independent schools.

As I said, it is not just the government school sector that is enraged. Catholic principals and educators from all over the country are warning us that parents face fee hikes of thousands of dollars and some Catholic schools may even close. The government continue to talk about fairness. We hear that word 'fairness', yet there is nothing fair in anything produced in this budget. They have demonstrated over many years that they are not interested in fairness in schools. They are not interested in needs based funding that will create a fair, level playing field for our students.

What is more, the government has completely ignored South Australia in this budget. There is approximately $70 billion for roads, rail, ports and airports across the country but not a single dollar for South Australia, and we have projects ready to go, projects that will create work and assist in infrastructure. For example, this means nothing for our roads. Marion Road has been earmarked for some infrastructure works. Before the 2016 election, the Liberal candidate and the Prime Minister were out there spruiking it, saying that they would look into this, do a study and ensure that they fix this terrible mess which is the congestion between Mooringe Avenue, Marion Road and Cross Road, and there is a tram that goes through. I have yet to see a single thing on it. I was hoping I would on budget night. I sat there waiting for the words, 'Marion Road, Plympton: the intersection.' It was promised before the 2016 election, but there was not one cent for infrastructure for South Australia.

We have the proposal for the AdeLINK tram extension which would go right through the middle of my electorate. That proposal is ready to go. It would create 2,000 jobs and open up transport. It would be a link between the tram service in the CBD and the coastal suburbs of Henley Beach with a spike into the Adelaide Airport, giving Adelaide Airport the infrastructure it requires for public transport. But there was not a thing on it in the budget. This is ready to go. It would create, over its life, 2,000 jobs in the infrastructure area. But, of course, we remember the goading of Holden to leave Adelaide back in 2013 by Mr Hockey— (Time expired)

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