Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I have got to hand it to the member for Dawson. He must have a hide like a rhinoceros to come in here and move a motion like that after the budget that his side handed down. He talks about the abandonment of workers in Central and North Queensland. That's exactly what this budget did. There's nothing in the budget for the workers of Central and North Queensland. It's almost like the further you live away from the Prime Minister's mansion on Sydney Harbour, the less you got in this budget out of this government, because those workers got nothing out of this budget. All they got was cuts—cuts to schools, cuts to hospitals, cuts to universities, cuts to TAFE.

Here are the facts. They're ripping $100 million out of schools from Gladstone to Cape York. They've pulled $32 million out of hospitals in Central and North Queensland. They've taken $38 million from Central Queensland University and $36 million from James Cook University. And, on top of that, they're taking $270 million out of TAFE in this budget alone. In the last five years, the government have ripped $3 billion out of TAFE, and they've got the hide to come in here and talk about the abandonment of workers.

They talk about abandoning workers. Who do you think trains workers? TAFE—and they're ripping $270 million out of it. They're ripping the guts out of it in this budget. And what do you get as a result of that? There are 9,000 fewer apprentices currently training in Central and North Queensland because of their cuts to TAFE. On top of that, there are 36,000 people in Central and North Queensland today who work earning penalty rates, people who potentially are earning less today than they were last year because the government wouldn't step in to stop them getting their penalty rates cut.

They talk tough. They come in here and talk tough about jobs. But in reality they're about as useless as an ashtray on a motorbike. They do nothing when it comes to supporting the people they purport to represent. There is nothing for them in this budget. There are 40,000 people in Central and North Queensland who don't have a job at the moment, people who are struggling to pay the bills, struggling to pay the rent, struggling to pay their mortgage, and one mine is not going to employ all of them.

We need a lot more projects than that if we're going to get the economic development we need and if we're going to get those people jobs. We need things like widening the channel to expand the port of Townsville, building Rookwood Weir, extending the port access road in Gladstone, building the flood levee in Rocky, building the next stage of the Mackay Ring Road, extending the Bruce Highway in Cairns up to Cairns Airport, upgrading the Rockhampton to Yeppoon road, installing hydropower at the Burdekin or making sure that Townsville's got the water it needs for decades to come. But there's none of this in this budget.

And here's the biggest kick in the guts. Three years ago, to much fanfare, they announced the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, five billion bucks to invest in infrastructure in the north, and guess what? Three years later, not one cent has been invested in an infrastructure project yet in Queensland—three wasted years, three years where they could have invested in projects to create jobs in areas where unemployment's high, and nothing's happened. No wonder the people of Central and North Queensland feel abandoned by the government.

I was in Gladstone last week. I was at a coffee shop. I asked people there, 'Does anybody think we should give $17 billion to the big banks?' And—surprise, surprise—no-one did. But that's what the mob over there want to do. They want to give a $17 billion handout to the big banks.

Well, it's not what we'll do. If we're fortunate enough to earn the trust and support of the Australian people at the next election, I tell you what: we'll reverse the cuts they've made to schools and hospitals in Central and North Queensland. We'll remove TAFE fees for 100,000 students who want to do courses in areas where we've got skills shortages at the moment, and we'll build the infrastructure projects that I've just talked about. We'll do all of that and more, and we can do that because, unlike the Liberal Party and the National Party, we're not going to give a $17 billion tax cut to the big banks.

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