Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise today to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2019-2020 and related bill. Can I start off by saying that this gives us an opportunity to basically talk about what's been taking place in the appropriations in the last budget, what the government has delivered, what it hasn't delivered and where we are at this point of time in the government's life span. I've got to say, it is of great concern when talking to a lot of my constituents, as a lot of people do in this place, to hear the things that they're saying to us, not only over the last few months but also over the last six years whilst this Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government have been in place. If you have a look at every aspect of the health, ageing and welfare systems, we're seeing that they're increasingly being hacked away by this government. There've been unprecedented cuts and changes, which I would say are cruel, which are being made by this government that are vital to services—health services, pensions, Medicare and aged-care policies. I've also got to say, it is of great concern when you see money being pulled out of services that are required, especially when you think about the NDIS—we were only talking about that the other day—where $4.6 billion has been ripped out of the NDIS from people who are some of our most vulnerable in our society, where that money was meant to give them the dignity that they deserve.

We see a Prime Minister who was a previous salesman, a marketing manager. We're looking for leadership qualities—not just us here in this place but all of Australia—and unfortunately they're extremely lacking. I think Mr Morrison, the Prime Minister, is a very ineffective Prime Minister running a do-nothing government. If you have a look at the history of this government from 2013—as I said, the Abbott, the Turnbull, the Morrison government—there is not one agenda item, a big ticket item, where you can say, 'This has changed the nation. This particular policy has changed people's lives or will change people's lives.' There is absolutely nothing that you can actually talk about that has happened that will actually change people's lives.

What have we seen? We've seen the lowest wage growth in the history of our nation, and we know without wage growth the economy will not kickstart. We know without those extra dollars, in low paid workers' pockets that will go straight into the economy, nothing will happen, yet this government has sat about for the last six years and said that, basically, nothing is in that scope to try and pull some levers to ensure that we have some wage growth so people can spend some extra money in the economy and get the economy going.

I know that there are no plans for jobs, there are no plans for wage growth and certainly there are no plans to address climate change. In fact, we had a Prime Minister, who was Treasurer at one point, who came in here with a hunk of coal and proclaimed how proud he was of it. That is very embarrassing for a nation like Australia, who has always been a leader in the world. To see the Prime Minister of this country today, who then was Treasurer, come in with a hunk of coal, hold it up high in this House, be proud of it and say, 'This is our future,' was absolutely embarrassing. I feel embarrassed as an MP and I feel embarrassed as an Australian, a citizen of this nation, knowing that that man today is our Prime Minister. He's trying to backtrack on this. He's trying to backtrack and say that they do believe in climate change, but we know that he denied climate change many times in the past. As I said, there are no plans for jobs, there are no plans for the economy and certainly no plans for climate change, which is one of the most fundamental issues that's facing not just us but the entire nation.

We can look back at many other things as well. Productivity is at the lowest it has ever been. Unemployment is growing at a fast pace. We know people are underemployed, perhaps working part-time jobs but not earning enough to pay their bills and to put food on the table. Those numbers are growing. Then you look at the absolute stuff-ups that have taken place—things like robodebt, where many Australians, through no fault of their own, were sent notices saying that they owed money to Centrelink. We've seen what's taken place with that, where the government has backtracked. They've gotten rid of the system, but it took close to 2½ years before they admitted that it was wrong. No matter what we said in this place on this side of the House, where we raised the issue continuously, where the Leader of the Opposition raised it continuously in the media and in questions in this place, what we heard was: 'There's nothing to see here. It's all above board.' Yet today we find out that the whole system of robodebt was a complete mess which put a lot of pensioners and a lot of people that were on payments in a lot of distress. You can imagine someone who's an age pensioner in their 80s receiving a notice from Centrelink saying, 'You haven't done the right thing and you owe us X amount of dollars.' With many constituents that we saw and that we represented on this particular issue, we had their debts reduced or they were told that they owed nothing. Imagine the thousands of people who, because they're good, hardworking, honest Australians, just went to Centrelink and paid that debt. There'd be thousands of them. We saw these debts were often lacking in detail. They were void of a breakdown of costs, and information was really difficult to access. This was one of the biggest stuff-ups that I've seen since I've been here—taking money off innocent Australians when it was not their fault. But it's not only that; there is the trauma that they were put through.

One particular constituent whom we had contact with back in September of last year has yet to be provided with any clear information or explanation as to how the governance of Centrelink arrived at an allocated robodebt figure of over $1,300. We're talking about someone who is on a minimal income—one of the Australians that is right at the bottom end of the income that they receive compared to the rest of the nation. Basically, they just simply referenced it as an overpayment of a family tax payment in the previous years—no detail, no figures to show where and what. Despite this family's best efforts and ongoing quest to have such information provided, no clear explanation has been forthcoming to date.

This takes me onto another saga that's taking place right now before us, and that's the 2020 sports funding rort. We've heard much about that. We heard that the former minister, Bridget McKenzie, wrote to the Prime Minister, directly attaching the spreadsheet she intended to approve for round 3 sports rorts. She did this, as we heard in this House yesterday, on 10 April, the day before Scott Morrison called the election—the very day before the election was called. We know that the minister then sent the final brief, signed, to Sport Australia on 11 April at 8.46 am, after parliament was dissolved and caretaker conventions commenced. After this revelation, the Prime Minister told the parliament he did not approve the projects and they were signed off by the sports minister on 4 April 2019. There were 136 emails over a 6-month period between the PMO and the sports minister's office about sports rorts, yet the Prime Minister comes in here and denies that he was hands-on with this particular grant. He was knee-deep in it, and what was told to the parliament here yesterday proves it.

We have many sporting clubs in my electorate of Adelaide that are desperately seeking money and are desperately doing community work. Kids are playing sport from under-10s right through to their senior teams. One club is the Broadview Football Club. They have done specular work for the community in my electorate. They are one of these sporting clubs that may well have unfairly missed out. How could they possibly have received a grant when these rorts were taking place? How could they have possibly ever received a grant? And they are a great club. So I feel for the clubs that are doing the right thing and perhaps aren't in a marginal seat or are not in a seat where there's a member of the government that represents it. It's just an outrageous practice, where we're funnelling money away from clubs that need it to clubs that perhaps may not need it, or are getting it for electoral benefit, which is wrong.

Other dedicated, highly visible and most productive sporting clubs within my electorate which also appear to have been disadvantaged and had no show of ever receiving any grants and missed out as well include Croydon Kings Football Club, a club that really desperately needed some funding to relocate because DPTI—the transport department—was taking their land and they were left without a home ground. We tried everything we possibly could to get some funding for that great club, yet nothing came of it.

The Adelaide Comets is another one. Or take the Adelaide Lutheran Sports Club. Go and see their change rooms: the ceilings are falling down. There is no women's change room. The women have to change in their cars during training and during games, which is totally unacceptable. Here are some clubs that deserved some sort of funding, yet they had no show at all. The Ghan Kilburn Soccer Club is a great club started by the Afghan community in the northern parts of my electorate. They have many young people playing who have come here as refugees without parents, on their own, some as young as 15 or 16 years old. It is a great club doing great work. They are after funding, yet they received zero after us writing to the Prime Minister, to the Treasurer, to everyone. These are clubs that should have been looked at. They should have been judged and they would have been deemed as being needy clubs for the community. They not only provide sporting facilities but also provide community contribution. The Ghan Kilburn Soccer Club does amazing work, not just on the sporting field but within the community as well. Without the support of this club, who knows what many of these kids would be doing if this club wasn't there to give them that camaraderie and that family feel.

Then we get onto the waiting list for home care packages. We know that this saga has been going on for a long time and we welcome the extra funding that the minister has put into this area. But still, when you have 120,000 people waiting for a package at any one time to receive some care that they need within their homes, it is not acceptable. Yet we're no closer to resolving this unacceptable state of affairs. Our seniors and frail elderly citizens have been faced with extensive waiting lists with little regard for their health or wellbeing.

Over the Christmas period last year a woman called us who had a carer that was looking after her. This particular woman was in her 80s and had an amputated leg, diabetes and a whole range of other health issues. She needed someone to help her shower in the morning—not every morning; just two to three times a week was all she was asking for. Over that Christmas period the carer for some reason told her that she wouldn't be coming for two weeks because she was on a break. They could not get someone else. We rang the minister's office, we wrote letters and finally, with a lot of angst, we got someone through a package to go and see her. It's not fair, it's not right when you have an elderly person who has worked all their life and paid their taxes, through no fault of their own they have very bad health, they have aged and have no-one else in this world, and yet we couldn't find someone for her, which should have been systematically and automatically done for about a week after Christmas. For a week after Christmas this woman stayed at home, not showered, and who knows what she was eating. It was an unacceptable situation to be in.

Some people passed away before they got their packages, or their relatives received a letter saying a package had been approved or was about to be started, yet they had passed away whilst waiting for their permanent or home care packages to become effective. This is not good enough. We need to look after our elderly. We need to look after those people that built the foundations of this nation that we enjoy today, where we pick the fruits of their hard work today and live the lives that we do. These people have worked, they have paid taxes and they deserve the dignity that we should give them in their twilight years. It is wrong that a person in their mid-80s with an amputated leg and a history of illnesses had no care for over a week.

In another situation, one of my constituents from Croydon Park contacted me about his father, who suffers from a range of health and medical conditions, including osteoarthritis, cardiac ailments, poor memory, dementia, reduced mobility, walking and balance issues— (Time expired)

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