Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Schools) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution to debate on the appropriation bill. I am very pleased to have been here for the contribution of the member for Kingston, the shadow minister for early years education. I'd really like to echo some of her remarks before moving on to some other issues of importance to constituents in my electorate.

The government's failure to support early learning is something for which it stands condemned. The remark she made about the hollow boasting of the minister in terms of fee increases and affordability of child care are one element of a much wider and very, very serious problem. I am also concerned, as she is, that we have only seen a bandaid applied in terms of four-year-old kindergarten, or preschool—it's called different things in different states; kindergarten in Victoria. We know how absolutely vital this early learning is for life opportunities. It is simply unacceptable that the government applies a bandaid and, indeed, offers no sense of certainty for ongoing funding. It's just one example of many of what this government's attitude seems to be to federalism: uncooperative federalism, particularly in the area of education. I'll touch on some issues that go to schools as well. I am deeply concerned, as is the member for Kingston, about the failure to offer long-term or even medium-term certainty for the provision of 15 hours of four-year-old kindergarten.

The issue of the activity test is also of deep concern to me. It is particularly concerning to many Scullin constituents. I think about the way in which this government fails to consider the developmental advantages of early learning. Child care is important for many reasons, one of which is, of course, workforce participation. On this side of the House we recognise that and see that as a very important public policy objective. But workforce participation, boosting employment participation, is only part of the puzzle when it comes to child care and early education. I am deeply concerned that a large number of kids, who start life, by reason of the lottery of life, without the advantages that others do, will not have the opportunity for quality early education and all that brings. They will start school behind. I'm very pleased to see the minister has made it over to hopefully enlighten us on the progress of this debate. I'm sure he was paying very close attention to the contribution of the shadow minister earlier. I hope that he was.

Moving on from early years, I hope he will stick around to hear my contribution on schools and higher education and the failings of the government in those regards as well. What is abundantly clear, as we participate in this debate, is that the agenda of the Turnbull government is a million miles away from the needs of people in Melbourne's northern suburbs. We see this at every level. There are some particular local issues. At the macro level this government persists, despite all the evidence and all the practical reasons, with its so-called Enterprise Tax Plan. This is a government with only one idea for Australian prosperity, and it's a bad idea. It's a bad idea on its own terms—that has been recognised by a wide variety of parties in this parliament as well as pretty much all the experts. The Prime Minister's contribution on this in question time really said it all. He resorted to low rhetoric and completely failed to engage in what is a really important debate. You'd think, given that he has no other ideas to boost growth to secure our living standards, he'd be up for a proper conversation around this, that he'd be up for joining in the debate about the evidence. What did he do instead in response to the revelations on the ABC? I call them 'revelations', but the reports produced by Emma Alberici, while important and significant, aren't really revelations because they continue to tell us what we knew already—that a very large number of Australia's largest companies are in fact paying no tax at all and also, despite the rhetorical position of too many government members, that the evidence about the link between inbound investment in the Australian economy and our headline company tax rate is very, very weak. There are big debates to be had about how we can boost investment. That is a debate we on this side of the House welcome. Again, it is telling and disappointing that the government is just banging on with its simple, reductive and, frankly, pointless messaging. The Prime Minister compounds this because not only does he fail to engage with this debate; he shoots the messenger. His attack on the ABC, our national broadcaster, in question time today was unwarranted and shameful.

To simply attack the messenger here is consistent with a much wider and deeply problematic attitude of the government to criticism or, indeed, unhelpful commentary at large. We see that in the victim-blaming attitude it extends day in, day out to people who are recipients of welfare payments. We see it in the extraordinary attitude of the government to the question of our charities, where the government will, on the one hand, laud the activities of not-for-profit organisations and, on the other, seek to deny them the financial capacity to carry on their activities. This is a government that won't engage in big debates. Whenever there is a dissenting view, it feels it needs to be shut down. That is the view of the Prime Minister. That is one thing that he has proved to be consistent on.

He's also been consistent in his attitude, to be fair, to these big questions of economic management. He is a neoliberal, pure and simple. He has wavered on just about every other attitude he's expressed—from the republic to marriage equality to pretty much anything you can pick—as he's been pushed around by reactionary elements in his party room and in his coalition partners. But the one thing he's been consistent on in his devotion to neoliberalism. One thing he said in question time today really struck me: he made the extraordinary assertion that company taxes are a tax on workers. You'd think, if he was prepared to make that statement at the dispatch box, he'd be willing to point to some facts to back it up. The truth is—and he should be well aware of this—that the relationship simply isn't there. What we are seeing in the Australian economy is a massive and troubling decoupling of company profits from the returns going to workers. The labour share of the economy is almost at a record low, and what does the government want to do about that? What does the government say to those Australians who work for a living? It says that they should get less reward for that work. The government accepts at a rhetorical level that there is an issue with wage growth but then does nothing about it as an employer, a regulator or, indeed, in its wider attitude to the management of the Australian economy. It simply repeats the same old canards and refuses to debate the evidence.

I want to talk now, briefly, about the government's record in the area of infrastructure, because these are questions that are critical to Melbourne's northern suburbs and vitally important to the people I'm so proud to represent in this place. Of all the failures of this government, its utter neglect of Melbourne, the fastest growing city in Australia and one of the fastest growing cities in the OECD, is absolutely shameful. Victoria has more than a quarter of Australia's population and yet is in receipt of well less than 10 per cent of Commonwealth infrastructure funding. This is particularly concerning in the suburbs that make up the Scullin electorate, with the suburbs of South Morang—which I share with my friend the member for McEwen the honour of representing in this place—by some reckoning the fastest growing postcodes in Australia and also with the extraordinary growth in the corridor from Epping North through to Wollert.

We need very significant Commonwealth infrastructure investment. It's absolutely critical to the wellbeing of the people I represent in this place. It's absolutely critical to the sustainability of our communities. The failure to invest in quality public transport and roads is a huge handbrake on our productivity. About 50 per cent of full-time jobs created in Australia in the last five years have been created in and around the CBDs of Melbourne and Sydney. Getting in and out of those CBDs from the suburbs is an absolute priority, as is finding ways to secure quality jobs outside of the CBDs. That's why the ideologically driven attitude of the member for Warringah when he was Prime Minister, delaying vital public transport investment, has played such a role in holding back productivity growth and in damaging lives in Melbourne suburbs.

There are some projects underway. The Minister for Urban Infrastructure and Cities talks about the M80, which has been delayed for the better part of three years by the intransigence of this government. Similarly, the O'Herns Road interchange project, which is finally underway, would have been completed, but for the attitude of this government, if Labor had stayed in government. This government is unconcerned about the issues that affect people in the suburbs of our major cities. This Prime Minister, in particular, is unconcerned about anything that matters to Victorians and anything that matters in Australia's second city, which is soon to be, as I said before, our largest and fastest-growing city.

The sins, in terms of infrastructure investment, have been compounded by other decisions, such as when former Minister Nash effectively abolished the Northern Melbourne RDA. This was a body that was doing really important work. It was working with local governments across the northern suburbs of Melbourne—communities that represent more than a million people and an enormous amount of economic activity—to build a regional understanding of infrastructure needs and develop a blueprint to secure the future of our regional economy and to secure the wellbeing of people who live in Melbourne's north. Defunding the RDA and amalgamating it into one organisation that will service the entirety of Melbourne is a retrograde step that is already having an adverse impact on the communities that I represent. A government that is serious about its obligation to the people in Melbourne's northern suburbs would reconsider and, indeed, reverse this decision.

Beyond infrastructure, I want to touch very briefly on issues in education that impact on people in the Scullin electorate. I've talked about early learning and the cavalier attitude to funding four-year-old kinder and the impact of the activity test. On the activity test, I should focus particularly on our first nation Aboriginal kids in the Scullin electorate, who are being disproportionately affected and risk being shut out of participation in early learning through the attitude of this government. The cuts to schools will impact very significantly on those schools most in need. Although the minister is no longer with us, it is worth highlighting again the uncooperative federalism that has characterised the attitude of this government to the education portfolio. The blanket rule around only funding 20 per cent of the cost of educating kids in state schools is presenting huge stresses and strains. It will impact more significantly on the schooling system and outcomes in states like South Australia and Tasmania than on Victoria, but in Victoria we are seeing the huge impact of the cuts and the consequences that go beyond them. Some really vital programs will be affected, and the uncertainty that has characterised the government's attitude to this vital area of policy-making from the time they walked away from the bipartisan consensus around real needs based funding has put schools, parents and kids in an invidious position.

It is a particularly invidious position when it comes to the circumstances of students with disability in my electorate and more generally. A significant change, a change that was well intentioned and proper, to move away from a purely medical diagnosis of disability to an approach that recognises judgements about adjustments that are required to support learning has shown an enormous and increasing gap between the Commonwealth funding allocation and the needs of students. I'm deeply concerned that the government is not taking its responsibility to those students seriously. Other speakers on this side have spoken about the uncertainty—compounded, of course, by the swingeing cuts to higher education and the fee increases, which will shut too many of my constituents and my colleagues' constituents out of the tertiary education that they are entitled to pursue.

I will finish on this note: across all of this, as I go around the communities I represent, there is a deep sense of frustration and alienation. We have a government that not only is without a plan beyond a company tax cut for big business, the $65 billion giveaway, but also is simply not engaging with the needs of Australian people. That's a sentiment that is very strong in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. The Prime Minister fails to listen to it at his peril.

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