Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That was when the member for Warringah was Prime Minister. Then they put two back. A bloke with a monocle and a top hat living in Point Piper singing about Cristal and truffles for everyone said, 'Look, you've got more funding than ever.' But the reality is—and I hope those opposite learn this—this bit is still missing. The government have taken money from education. They have never put any back. As a result, students and education are worse off.

Mr Pasin interjecting—

Obviously we can dumb it down, but the member for Barker has arrived and even I cannot dumb it down that far.

In my electorate, each and every year Wallan secondary school is set to lose around $700,000, Gisborne secondary school is set to lose around $800,000 every year and Sunbury College will lose around $800,000 as well. Ask the principal at each of these schools what it means. It means fewer teachers, higher class numbers and less individual attention to every student.

My electorate has over 53 government schools, and each and every one of them is set to be the biggest loser under the Turnbull government's budget. Apparently the government expects us to believe that the cuts are needs based and means tested. It is just not true. Last Friday I sat down with the leadership of St Patrick's in Kilmore. They, like government schools, are devastated by the impact that the government is having on Catholic schools. It is ridiculous. These schools are shaping the future doctors, lawyers, builders, nurses, farmers and even politicians. They are developing our nation's leaders through STEM. Schools such as Whittlesea Secondary College are the frontline of technical training. How do we expect students to learn and grow in an environment where teachers are not even sure if their own jobs are safe and where schools do not know which programs they will have to cut next year because there is no stability in their budget?

Last week I attended an education seminar alongside dedicated teachers and principals of schools around Australia. One school in particular has stuck with me, and I hope it will help the Turnbull government realise its funding of schools is about lives, not just learning. The principal told us that for years their all-girls school has been running an integral mental health program to help students cope with anxiety, depression, eating disorders and the stress and pressures that they experience during schooling. She told us that the cuts put forward by the Liberal government mean they will no longer be able to run this program. She teared up as she told us this and explained that they have lost students in the past, and this program has helped them detect mental ill-health earlier and give students the support they need. How do those opposite to sleep at night knowing that their government is jeopardising revolutionary programs throughout Australia that are changing lives? How does the Liberal government not understand that schools are nonnegotiable? Funding cannot just come and go at the whim of the Prime Minister. All Australian students deserve access to the best education.

Another thing that has been completely ignored nonstop by this government is housing affordability. What does it matter if your family misses out on a tax benefit when under the Liberal government they will probably never afford a house either, right? That is wrong. Home ownership is the lowest it has been in 60 years. The rate of home ownership for 25- to 34-year-olds is collapsing. Under this government it is now below 40 per cent. It is a disgrace the government will not commit to tackling skyrocketing house prices throughout my electorate and across the country. Since the Liberals came to government, house prices have risen 30 per cent throughout Australia, and they are still going up. They are going up alongside the rising unemployment rates, the rising debt and the rising mortgage stress. The Liberals had a chance to reform negative gearing and capital gains, and they had a chance to fix the housing problem, but they lacked moral courage. They did nothing, and now it is the rest of us who are left to pay. In my community, the mortgage belts like Mernda, Beveridge, Donnybrook, Doreen and Craigieburn are left wondering: what is this government actually about? What they have delivered is a grab bag of poorly planned measures and hasty reactions, instead of careful plans that will address key drivers of housing, like winding back negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts.

Once again, the government fails the fairness test. The plan announced in this budget is not a solution. It is a false hope for people who do not have rich parents. We are not supporting this cruel hoax, but we will deliver on our plan for affordable housing by driving construction of some 55,000 new homes over three years and creating 25,000 jobs every year. While the Liberal government has been content in tearing apart services to find every last hidden cent behind every corner, on this side of the House we are fighting for what actually is fair. We are fighting for a healthcare system that does not require a platinum credit card. We are fighting for a schooling system that does not discriminate based on where you were born or who your parents were. We are fighting for a tax system that does not rob from the poor and give to the rich like some sort of reverse Robin Hood. We are fighting for affordable housing for thousands of Australians who work day in and day out to save in hopes of getting out of the exorbitant rental market.

On this side of the House, we are committed to this fight. We are not going to stop the battle against this budget. This not a fair budget. This is a budget that forgets about the people of my electorate of McEwen, just as this government has done. In three terms, we have not seen the Liberal Party or this government commit to any major infrastructure funding in the fastest growing areas of Australia—not one cent. As I said earlier, we have seen Minister Nash come out and admit that round 3 of the Mobile Black Spot Program became nothing more than a pork-barrelling exercise, and they actually washed away all of the government's own criteria.

The government is desperate for one job to be hung onto, and that is the job of the member for Wentworth. He has failed and he has been a fizzer, and there is absolutely nothing in this budget that will turn that around. When a government comes into this place on budget night and announces it is going to give the Prime Minister an $8,000 tax cut while making a family on $65,000 a year $400 worse off, you have to sit there and ask, 'What's fair about that?' There is nothing fair about it. If the government was half-serious or had any credibility or moral courage, it would have left the deficit levy for high-income earners. It would not have given millionaires tax cuts at the expense of pensioners. But this is a government that is by millionaires, for millionaires and only cares about millionaires. It never has and never will care about pensioners or people who are struggling to make ends meet. It is time they got out of the way, and it is time that we got a Labor government that puts people first.

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