Emma Husar (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wasn't sure where that member was from. I have never heard him make a contribution before, so thank you for pointing out where he has actually come from.

Labor will deliver bigger, fairer tax cuts for 10 million working Australians. Labor's tax refund for working Australians increases the tax cuts currently being offered under the government's current tax offset proposal. As our shadow Treasurer has said—I am proud to call him our shadow Treasurer—we will support the government measures that begin on 1 July this year. A Shorten Labor government will deliver bigger tax cuts from 1 July 2019, and they will be permanent. That's because we know that's how you actually help families and help the economy. With Labor, working and middle-class Australian also pay less tax because tax cuts for families are more important than an $80 billion tax giveaway to the donors of the Liberal Party. Everyone earning less than $125,000 a year will receive a bigger cut under Labor compared to the Liberals. I hear no interjections. Obviously, they know I am right. More than four million people will be better off by $398 dollars a year compared to under the Liberals.

In the health space, the Turnbull government has cut $2.8 billion from hospitals. Now, as I said before, that is just over $5 million ripped out of the Nepean Hospital, affecting the delivery of really critical health services for the people of my community. There would not be a week that goes by that I am not contacted by somebody who has needed the services of the hospital. They constantly tell me about how overworked the doctors and the nurses are, how underfunded the hospital is and how we need to do better for the residents in my community. We need a great hospital in Lindsay. We have huge disease burden rates and the hospital is just not coping.

When you cut $2.8 billion out of hospitals in favour of $80 billion for banks and multinationals in some trickle-down fantasy, this means longer wait times, longer waitlists and less doctors and nurses for every single patient. When you don't look after the health of your community—surprise, surprise—they can't go to work. Surprise, surprise, they can't get an education because they are too busy trying to get by when they are so critically unwell. What we have said to this government is they must drop their Medicare rebate freeze immediately. They must scrap the tampon tax once and for all. It is probably pretty hard to understand what that means with the low representation of women over on the other side. They also must fix the health insurance affordability crisis. We will cap the private health insurance premiums at two per cent over two years.

I already mentioned the education inadequacies and the cuts to education. We know—certainly, I know, coming out of a background as a former aspiring teacher—a great lifetime begins with a great education. We believe that it should not be determined by where you live or who your parents are. This government is cutting $17 billion from schools. Now, that is not logic that actually supports a ticket to a lifetime of good opportunity. In Lindsay, we will be $21 million a year worse off, thanks to these funding cuts. There will be $1.2 million out Cambridge Park High School, $1 million out of St Marys North Public School, $1.1 million out of Kingswood High School and $1.7 million out of schools in Emu Plains.

The schools in Lindsay are crying out for resources. I know firsthand that Cambridge Park High School, which I just referred to, was able to teach a group of year 9 boys how to read with the extra funding that they were given under the Gonski funding model, which saw more money flowing into schools. That program and others like it will not be able to come to fruition in the next few years, because of these cuts. It is incredibly galling to me to see Malcolm Turnbull take funding away from the education of our kids to pay for these massive handouts that are going to multinationals, millionaires and the big banks. I want to know: how is Malcolm Turnbull, the Prime Minister, actually able to look at himself in the mirror and justify making it easier for big business to pay less tax rather than supporting some of our most vulnerable Australians? Only Labor will restore the fair, needs based funding and replace the full $17 billion that we have seen cut out of the education system.

We also have a crisis in TAFE. Out in my area, TAFE is one of the most preferred methods of tertiary education, but in this budget we've seen another $270 million of new cuts to TAFE, on top of the $3 billion that has already been ripped out of TAFE. The government is just going in there and gouging it out. Instead of investing in local jobs and skills, instead of investing in people, the government continues to cut funding and vocational education. Since the Liberals came to office, there are 140,000 fewer apprentices and trainees in Australia—that is, 140,000 fewer than when you guys came to office. These cuts have affected my community. The decline in the number of apprentices and trainees is about 37 per cent, and it is continuing to climb. The Liberals are failing to support the apprentices and the trainees, yet again, and are relying on 457 visa workers to come into this country and fill what is going to be a huge skills shortage in future years.

We have said that we are going to invest $470 million to boost TAFE apprenticeships and skills for Australians. The Liberals are cutting $2.2 billion out of the entire university budget—that is $98 million out of Western Sydney University, of which I am a very proud alumni, and 10,000 fewer student places next year. A huge number of the students who go to the University of Western Sydney are female. Another huge cohort at that university are those who are the first in their families to go to university. They are not blooded into this system. They have overcome many things in their lives, and they are the first in their families to go to university. When you cut $98 million out of a university that is providing those kinds of opportunities, you are not really giving those people a fair go or a ticket to a lifetime of opportunity. Instead, you are going to give the multinationals an $80 billion lifetime to an opportunity at something, which is probably for their shareholders, their corporates and the pay of the CEOs.

Honourable members interjecting—

Oh, you know, 'all of those mum and dad shareholders' is what I am hearing on the other side. The other area of concern for me is the $2 billion cut from residential aged care. The government have dumped the $1.2 billion workforce compact and supplement. There are 105,000 older Australians who have been left waiting for care at home. For four years, the government have tried to increase the pension age, as we know, to 70. It might be fine if you have been a banker all your life to work until you are 70, but if you've been a brickie, a mechanic climbing under cars or a truckie climbing in and out of the cabs of a truck, it is probably not going to be in your best interest or your physical health to work until you are 70; if you are a banker, maybe that is okay. We've fought and we're going to continue to fight the government's proposal to make people wait until they are 70 before they can access the age pension. In its first four years, 375,000 Australians will have to wait longer before they can access the pension. This is a $3.6 billion hit to the retirement income of Australians. I hear that those on the other side of the chamber are so concerned about shareholders, but how about $3.6 billion towards the retirement of older people who have worked their whole life in this country? We see that the government are cutting $7 each week out of the energy supplement. They are cutting $7 a week from the pensioners of this country. We cannot trust a single word that this Prime Minister says. He's more interested in an $80 billion tax break to big business and the banks than he is in helping out the pensioners of this country, who have earned their pension.

It should also come as no surprise that there is no comprehensive strategy to deal with people movement in Western Sydney. We have a Liberal government in New South Wales who just want to toll and toll and toll their way to prosperity. We've seen this government come up with an airport plan for Western Sydney, but no infrastructure to go with it, and no money to build the railway line. We had a really fanciful announcement, but there was just $50 million in that budget to prepare a business case—not to actually lay a single piece of the rail line that is needed or the infrastructure. That is $50 million just to prepare a business case.

This government are not doing enough. They're letting down the people of my community, and I'm going to fight that every single day.

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