Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2017-2018 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2017-2018. The difference between the Turnbull-Joyce government's idea of a fair Australia and the Shorten-Plibersek-led Labor government's idea of a fair Australia is becoming more obvious and clearer day by day. The centrepiece of the 2017 Turnbull-Joyce budget is a $65 billion big business tax cut—a tax cut that will cost $15 billion a year by the end of the medium term. Think about that: a $15 billion tax giveaway annually.

It has been revealed in media reports today that Qantas has not paid any tax for almost 10 years—none, nada, zip. The tax rate for Qantas has been zero for most of the last decade. So if you believe the Turnbull-Joyce government's economic theory, the wages of Qantas employees would have correspondingly increased with this decrease in their tax rate, but the wages of most Qantas employees have barely kept pace with inflation. In fact, their wages have increased less than three per cent over the last decade—with one exception. The Qantas CEO's salary has almost doubled from an already lofty $12.9 million to a sky-high $24.6 million. So much for trickle-down economics! Within Qantas there is a serious drainage problem—some blockages.

We have a $65 billion tax cut for big business. It's not fair budget reform. A handout to big business when working Australians are reeling from cost-of-living pressures and record low wages growth is unfair and, dare I say, un-Australian. People in my electorate of Moreton are doing it tough. They want to see their wages increase. They want their cost-of-living pressures eased. They want their children to have a good education and they want affordable health care. That's what I'll be fighting for.

The Turnbull-Joyce government is making health care more expensive and less accessible for Australians. You cannot trust this government with health care. We know that. We've seen it over the last 40 years with conservative governments. The Turnbull-Joyce government is intent on cutting Medicare, cutting public hospitals and failing to stand up to big-profit health insurers. The out-of-pocket costs for people living on the south side have never been higher. The Turnbull-Joyce government has not dropped any part of their freeze on Medicare. The rebates for GPs, specialists and allied health services all remain frozen until 2020 even though the costs they experience are going up. The government is ripping $2.2 billion out of Medicare over the next four years. Before the last election, Prime Minister Turnbull promised Australians that they would not pay any more to see the doctor due to his freeze on Medicare. That was incorrect. Queenslanders are now paying about $7.50 extra to visit a GP. People in New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia, Northern Territory and the ACT are all paying more to see a GP or a specialist.

I do acknowledge that Australia has a world-class healthcare system, but private health insurance plays an important role in making sure that everyone has access to the care they need. The premiums for private health insurance have increased 27 per cent since the Liberals were elected in September 2013. That is an average increase of $1,000 to the annual private health bill of Australian families—$1,000 extra that has to be found every year by families doing it tough. As a result, Australians are walking away from private health coverage. Coverage has dropped to the lowest level since 2011.

This is a crisis for our healthcare system, and the Turnbull-Joyce government is failing to address it. Once again we see where their priorities lie. The private health insurance industry raked in $1.8 billion in pre-tax profit last year, and the government gave the insurers $1 billion in savings. But the health insurers still increased the premiums of Australians by twice the CPI. This is unfair. Labor has a plan to stand up to private health insurers and shift the balance back to consumers, back to Australians, back to families who are doing it tough. Under Labor's plan, families would save $344 on their private health insurance.

Australia's public hospitals are the work horses of our health system. I say that as the son of a nurse. In my electorate of Moreton we have the QEII hospital and, right across the road, the PA hospital, servicing much of Queensland. I would also mention in passing the Sunnybank Private Hospital. The two public hospitals I mentioned are crucial in providing good health care to the people living on the south side. But last week we saw the Turnbull government try to lock in seven years of public hospital cuts. This is a government that fundamentally is not supportive of health.

Under the Turnbull government's watch, waiting times for elective surgery are the worst they have been since records have been kept. Patients requiring urgent medical attention are being left in the emergency departments of our hospitals longer. In the last financial year, only 66 per cent of urgent emergency department patients were seen within the recommended 30 minutes. More than 50 per cent of public hospital doctors are working unsafe hours, putting these doctors at significant risk of fatigue and burnout. The AMA has complained that:

The strain and pressure on our public hospitals is having a detrimental impact on the health of our doctors.

The Turnbull-Joyce government does not think that our public hospitals deserve to be funded. Instead, we have a Prime Minister who wants to give big business a $65 billion handout. Labor will always fight for health care. It is in our DNA. We believe fundamentally in health care.

In recent months, my office has received a number of phone calls and emails from Moreton locals wanting to know what is going on with the NBN, the largest infrastructure project in Australia's history—something kicked off under Labor. Under the last Labor government, every Australian was set to have access to internet speeds of 100 megabytes per second. Under the last Labor government all Australians in every electorate could easily go to the NBN's website and find out when the NBN rollout would begin in their suburb. For so many Moreton suburbs that was supposed to have already happened.

Putting aside the substantial delay and blowout in costs that occurred because of Prime Minister Turnbull's leadership, there's actually a more pressing problem for the people of Moreton. Well over 80 per cent of my electorate is set to receive a technology called 'hybrid fibre coaxial'. HFC is what the government likes to call a 'legacy' technology. If I can translate this for everyone to understand, it means old technology. HFC uses old cables built—and, in many cases, poorly maintained—by Telstra and Optus in the 1990s. In November last year my electorate, like the rest of the country, got the surprising news that there would be a pause in the HFC rollout and the NBN. That's right: the second-rate NBN coming to Moreton is being delayed further because Prime Minister Turnbull can't actually give us a technology that works. Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise, considering how terrible the Turnbull government's NBN policy has been.

The introduction of HFC has been of great concern for people in my electorate, and very few of them have actually been able to get connected so far. Lack of access to broadband for local homes and businesses has reached crisis point. Feedback from local residents and businesses has been loud and clear—the substandard copper NBN rollout is simply unacceptable in 2018. Moreton locals have told me about their terrible internet connections and how it's affecting their everyday lives. Richard, who manages a business in Acacia Ridge, contacted my office following a horror experience on the NBN. His business is heavily reliant on internet connectivity, and NBN problems seriously damage his operation. Neil in Tarragindi told me his daughter is doing a summer semester at university to help her get ahead in her degree and eventually her career, but she can't access her work or submit her assignments over the network because it is unreliable. This is in 2018 in an inner-city electorate. Unfortunately, these stories from locals that I have shared are not surprising, and that's not the end of it. I could give you many more examples.

In August the Senate heard that the HFC cabling had 50 times more network downtime than fibre connections. Mr Turnbull's NBN is a joke. It needs to be fixed. This government needs to do something about it. The costs have blown out under the Turnbull-Joyce government and so too has the time frame for its delivery. The fact is this: under Labor, all of Moreton was scheduled to get world-class fibre-to-the-premises NBN, delivering superfast internet speeds using fibre optic cable to every home, every school and every business. This would mean superfast internet supporting future curriculum resources and benefiting education for our kids and schools. A modern network with 21st century technology is the key to preparing students for the jobs of tomorrow with digital learning and online research and collaboration—the hallmarks of many future careers.

Also we know that fast and reliable connectivity is going to be essential for the jobs of the future. We know that. But more pressing are the advantages for local small businesses that should be available to them right now. The NBN will enable businesses to access markets well beyond their current reach, helping them grow from small businesses to medium-sized and then bigger. I know local businesses in my electorate demand more fibre, the modern and reliable technology to set them up to compete and succeed on a larger scale. They've told me this election after election and meeting after meeting. I'll do everything I can to fight for more fibre in Moreton. Fibre is the technology. I ask everyone who has written to me or called me, frustrated about their terrible internet, to join me in the fight. Let's get the best possible NBN rollout for our local suburbs. Let's fight for more fibre.

As a former teacher and the parent of a high school student and a primary student, education is very important to me and to my family. Education is important to every one of my constituents—their own education, their children's education and the education of all those who provide services in our community. Tragically, the Turnbull-Joyce government is ripping funds out of the schools that need them most. Eighty-six per cent of the cuts will actually be to public schools. Low-fee Catholic schools will get 12 per cent of the cuts, and independent schools—including some elite, high-fee-paying schools—will get a cut of just two per cent. Compare that—86 per cent cut to public schools, 12 per cent cut to Catholic schools and two per cent cut to the rest. In my electorate of Moreton, $15 million will be ripped from public schools and $8.6 million will be ripped from Catholic schools. These cuts will mean fewer teachers, less one-on-one attention for children and less help with the basics of reading, writing and maths.

I was at an event in Parliament House last night for the Parliamentary Friends of Australian Books and Writers. I am a co-chair of this group. The theme for our event was education. Professor John Hattie spoke at the event about his work around how children learn. He spoke of the importance of positive teacher-student interaction for effective teaching. Teachers are crucial to the education a child receives. Fewer teachers will have a dramatic impact on the quality of teaching and education and, therefore, outcomes. At the same time that the Turnbull-Joyce government is ripping money out of our schools, it's making life easier for big business and millionaires by giving them tax cuts. This is short-sighted. Investing in our schools will benefit everyone in the long run.

In January I had the pleasure of visiting Sunnybank Hills State School with the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Tanya Plibersek. Sunnybank Hills State School has nearly 1,400 students. That probably makes it one of the biggest P-to-6 schools in the country, but it's an outstanding example of government provided education. On our tour we visited year 1 and year 5 classes to see their robotics and coding courses. I learnt things about coding from kids in grade 1! As coding and robotics will be critical for the jobs of the future, it's important that they learn this stuff early at our schools.

We also visited a prep class to see the innovative phonics program that is used to help children from non-English-speaking backgrounds to get up to speed and then get ahead. This genuine needs based funding at Sunnybank Hills State School means these prep kids are getting really intensive one-on-one help. In fact, we were in the prep classroom looking at groups of five or six children being taught by one teacher. This start will stay with these children throughout their whole schooling. It will provide a firm foundation from which they can springboard into lots of opportunities.

But Prime Minister Turnbull has made his choice. He wants a $65 billion tax giveaway for multinationals, big banks and wealthy companies, while slashing $17 billion from schools. What does this mean for Sunnybank Hills State School? It means a cut of $1 million over the next two years alone—and other schools in my electorate will suffer a similar fate. All the school programs we visited at Sunnybank Hills State School could be at risk.

Labor will restore the funding to schools that Prime Minister Turnbull is cutting. This means that we'll put back the $1 million cut from Sunnybank Hills State School and ensure these essential learning programs, which are so important, can continue for our kids. Labor believes in fairness. We believe in everybody having a fair go. Labor believes in everybody being able to achieve their potential. That's what I'll be fighting for as the member for Moreton.

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