Justine Keay (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the comments of my colleague, who is a very strong advocate for the state of South Australia. I will be putting my case in the context of my great state, the state of Tasmania, which seems to have been completely forgotten in this budget. I think I need to give every member of the coalition a map of Tassie, because it has been completely wiped off the national map—although I cannot recall Tasmania seceding to join Antarctica or anywhere else. This budget has been a huge disappointment for my state. In fact, it was quite telling that the Treasurer's speech on budget night did not mention Tasmania once.

The previous speaker, my colleague the member for Kingston, talked about the lack of infrastructure projects in her state. I can tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that there was nothing new in the budget for infrastructure for Tasmania. In fact, what was in the budget for Tasmania was an $85 million cut to Tasmanian schools, including about $65 million cut from Tasmanian public schools. The Premier of Tasmania, who was obviously watching on budget night, tweeted: 'What a great budget this is for the state of Tasmania.' What a joke! It was a cut to public schools.

The Medicare freeze is to remain in place for years to come, which will have a huge impact on the health of the people in Tasmania and in my electorate of Braddon. As a mentioned, there is not one new cent for job-creating infrastructure, and there are continued attacks on our pensioners. I have a disproportionately high number of pensioners in my electorate, and they are certainly not happy. There are massive cuts to TAFE. Considering where we are with the huge reduction in the number of apprentices and trainees in my electorate, that is very disappointing.

And there is a higher cost to higher education. Particularly in my electorate, where we have low educational outcomes, to try to then whack it onto higher education and say, 'Well, I'm sorry, but you're going to be paying more for this,' sends a signal to the people, potentially: 'You shouldn't be going to university.' That is detrimental to my state.

And, just to rub their noses in it, Tasmania is a state with lower than average wages, lower than the rest of Australia. An increase in taxes is a huge hit. But, on the other hand, the government is giving millionaires a tax cut. The priorities are completely wrong, and they could be no further wrong than in the state of Tasmania.

On jobs, health and education, this budget is a failure for Tasmania and for my electorate of Braddon. From the young to the old, this government has spared no-one. It is little wonder that not one coalition minister and not one coalition assistant minister or even parliamentary secretary has come to Tasmania since the budget. Not one visited the state. But I have to say that I can reel off, probably on two hands, the number of Labor shadow ministers that came to the state, including leader Bill Shorten. The 'Bill Bus' came to Tasmania to tell the people what this budget meant for them, and it was disappointing for them to hear the facts. Only an alternative Labor government will deliver for my state. I have to ask: why did they not come? Is it because they were too ashamed? Did they have nothing to sell the people of Tasmania? They are not really rhetorical questions, but I think that, if you were to answer those questions, your answer would be yes. This budget for Tasmania is a dud.

Last week I spoke about the government's cuts to education and what they meant for Tasmanian schools. Today I want to talk about what these cuts mean in a social and economic sense for Tasmania. Economic commentators and local businesses are on the public record saying that improving our educational outcomes is a key to my region's and the state's future. Sadly, Braddon and Tasmania generally have some of the worst educational outcomes in the nation. Writing in The Australian earlier this year, respected economist and University of Tasmania Vice-Chancellor's Fellow Saul Eslake stated:

The proportion of Tasmania's population with a bachelor's degree or higher is 6.2 percentage points below the national average, while the proportion of the population with no qualification beyond Year 10 of high school is 10.4 percentage points above the national average.

In December last year, Mr Eslake launched his second Tasmania report, a document that maps Tasmania's social and economic performance. The news headline from the launch of this report reads 'Boosting engagement in education is key to lifting living standards in island state'. In launching that report, Mr Eslake said the single most important thing that needed to be done in order to improve Tasmanians' living standards relative to those of other Australians was to increase the levels of educational participation and attainment. Mr Eslake went on to say:

Higher levels of educational participation and attainment won't solve all of Tasmania's economic and social challenges — but they will make them less difficult to solve, not least by sustainably increasing the resources which can be used to solve them …

Given the social and economic challenges facing Tasmania, can anyone in this building explain why it makes sense to cut $84.4 million from Tasmanian schools in the years 2018 and 2019? The silence is deafening.

The coalition said they were on a unity ticket with Labor when it comes to education—remember that, in 2013? They said they would match Labor's education funding dollar for dollar. Clearly, they were not being truthful. Labor's plan to fully fund the original needs based funding model is already making a difference in my electorate and Tasmanian schools. In my electorate at Ulverstone High School, as I said last week, the school association have told me that their additional needs based funding has meant that they are able to provide extra support for students in literacy and numeracy and, most importantly from my perspective, provide support for disengaged students.

Ulverstone High School, with the support of Labor's needs based funding, are doing just what Saul Eslake and others are suggesting. They are engaging in education the very students who may fall through the cracks, the same students who more than likely would not go on to a post year 10 qualification and most certainly would not go on to a tertiary education. It makes no economic sense to punish the students of Braddon by cutting, on average, $2.4 million from every local school. It makes no social sense not to support disengaged students as best we can.

I am running out of time, and, as the previous speaker said, there is so much to talk about. Let me talk about TAFE. You would think investing in local skills should be a priority for this government but, again, in this area the budget is a dud. The budget cuts more than $600 million from TAFE and vocational education over the next four years. This comes on top of almost $3 billion in cuts to TAFE skills and training since this government came to office. As at September last year, when the National Centre for Vocational Education Research reported, Tasmania had lost 1,700 apprentices since the member for Warringah became Prime Minister back in 2013. That is not a great record. I challenge those opposite, particularly those from regional areas, to step forward and explain how cutting a further $600 million from TAFE would help young people in their communities.

The triple education attack on Tasmania's future in this budget is complete with the decision by the coalition to cut university funding and increase fees. As I have already said, Tasmania has the lowest rate of participation in tertiary education of any state. The University of Tasmania, or UTAS as it is known, are still assessing what a national cut of $3.8 billion will mean to them. On top of this, Tasmanian students are already facing significant barriers to tertiary education and are now facing increased costs and demands to repay their HECS debt at lower income levels. How on earth are they meant to get ahead in life? How on earth does it make sense for the government to invest $150 million in Labor's policy to support the expansion of UTAS in Launceston and Burnie but at the same time send a signal to potential students that they will pay more to attend. On the one hand, I do welcome the government's commitment in the budget to lift the cap on associate degrees, which is very important for the Cradle Coast campus of UTAS, but, on the other hand, students will have to pay more. It just does not make sense.

I want to move to health, a very important issue for Tasmanians. We are now seeing, under a Liberal state government and coalition national government, a crisis in our health system. Braddon has an ageing population and a disproportionate number of people who are on benefits, and they rely on Medicare for support. But in Tasmania bulk-billing rates continue to drop. People are paying more to see the doctor. You only have to go around to the GP clinics in my area to see the signs in reception areas telling people they will no longer be bulk-billed. The community have to wait until 2020 for relief on the cost of going to see a doctor, if at all, and they have to wait more than two years for the freeze on specialist procedures and allied health services to be lifted. On this issue alone, the budget fails the people of Braddon.

I want to move on to some last comments, because I am running out of time—although I could talk on this all day long. Let's go to infrastructure. You would think that infrastructure was a mechanism for growing a state's economy and actually creating the jobs that we need in our state. But the important job-creating projects, like the Cradle Mountain Master Plan, which is in my region and a No. 1 priority for all my local councils, did not see any additional funding under this government. That is quite strange, because the tourism minister in the previous parliament was from my electorate in the state of Tasmania, yet there is no additional money for this project. According to Deloitte Access Economics, this project will generate about 140 long-term jobs and $29 million per annum of additional economic activity in my region, which is a rural and regional community. That is massive for the people in my electorate. Despite commitments from the state government and the federal opposition, the best this government can do is a measly $1 million for a feasibility study. This project is a public-private partnership potentially worth $160 million, and this government does not send any signal to private investors that it is worth funding, worth putting their money into. I can tell you now: that is not the opinion of the opposition. But even this study has not been completed. Again, you have to wonder what the state government has been doing to secure additional Commonwealth investment—clearly nothing.

To top things off, not one cent has been offered for important road upgrades on the Bass Highway at Latrobe or between Marrawah and Wynyard. Fixing the entry to and exits off the Bass Highway at Latrobe will open up that community's industrial estate for development, giving further job opportunities. I am sure my colleagues in Bass, Lyons and Franklin will also highlight the infrastructure neglect by this government in their electorates. It really demonstrates that the coalition has abandoned Tasmania.

The state government's response has been weak, if not laughable. While the education minister of every other state, including the coalition state of New South Wales, criticises the budget, Tasmania's Premier and its Minister for Education and Training have welcomed it. It just goes to show how the Hodgman government does not have the gumption to stand up to the Prime Minister like its colleagues in other states. The bungling Minister for Infrastructure at state level, Rene Hidding, also promised he would fight for a better deal with infrastructure projects—again a failure. I have to ask the question: what are our Tasmanian Liberal senators actually doing? I do not know. I do not see them. I do not hear from them. The silence from them is deafening.

As I have said before in this place, Braddon has a disproportionate number of pensioners and an ageing population. How does this government want to treat them? Make people who have worked in some of the most challenging circumstances—at sea, underground, on the land or on the factory floor—work until they are 70. In many cases this will not be physically possible. To top it off, the government remains committed to axing the clean energy supplement for pensioners.

The Prime Minister says this budget is about fairness. He can say the word, but the reality for pensioners in Braddon is that this budget is not fair. This budget is about choices. You can choose to look after people, or you can choose to look after big business. This government chooses to give away $65 billion to big business while cutting almost $85 million over the next two years from Tasmanian schools. It chooses to give millionaires a tax cut while a person in my electorate on the average income will face a tax hike. The government chooses to still make the sick and elderly pay more to see a doctor. Clearly none of this is fair. When I talk to people in my electorate it is clear what choices they would like to see: investment in health, in schools, in hospitals, in jobs and in infrastructure, and that is not happening.

See this speech in context