Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

It's a pleasure to be able to speak in this debate on the appropriation bills. We heard the Treasurer's speech and we had the budget reply. I want to commend the Leader of the Opposition for his speech and his commitment to a plan for Australia's future, unlike what we saw in the budget. I'm not so churlish, though, as to not acknowledge the investments which the government is making through this budget—needed investments into my own electorate and into northern Australia around roads and other infrastructure; investments into national parks in my electorate, at Kakadu and Uluru and on Christmas Island; the investment to address the issue of ghost nets; money for Rum Jungle rehabilitation; and of course the ongoing commitment to defence infrastructure in the North, which is a common view across the parliament and something which is unsurprising.

As we know, we're all Keynesians now. I had the pleasure of being here in the global financial crisis, when the now government were definitely not Keynesians.

An honourable member: I thought you were going to say you met Mr Keynes!

I'm not quite that old! I'm getting close. I remember well the oppositionist views which were expressed by the then opposition, including the now Prime Minister, which I thought then were a sad indictment of what should have been a more bipartisan approach to addressing the crisis that was induced through the collapse of the financial instruments. Nevertheless, I think it is important that we accept that the world has changed significantly and that those who were then critics of us and bleating about deficits and balanced budgets have now understood that, in times of crisis, as we had then and as we have now, it's important to invest government resources into developing the economy and addressing infrastructure.

Nevertheless, this budget will rack up—as you well know, Mr Deputy Speaker Zimmerman—$1 trillion in debt and, I think, a forecast $1.7 trillion over 10 years. That's an enormous commitment of Australian future wealth. But, with all that, as the Leader of the Opposition has observed, this doesn't do enough to create jobs. The budget fails to build for the future and leaves too many Australians behind. That's really sad. We know that the millions who are left behind will include 928,000 people over 35 on unemployment benefits, who have been deliberately excluded from hiring subsidies. There are no real plans for child care. There is no proper plan for aged care. There is no proper plan for energy, one which would drive down costs and provide investment certainty for businesses. There is no plan for the future of JobSeeker recipients—and I'll come to that in more detail shortly—leaving 1.4 million recipients, as at 25 September, with an uncertain future as to whether they will go back onto the old rate of 40 bucks a day. I invite any member of the government to tell me or tell the Australian community that they think that's a fair cut—40 bucks a day.

I want to concentrate on an area of particular need, in my view, and that is the failure of the budget to address the needs of Indigenous Australians, our First Australians. The budget fails to offer any funding that will make substantial and overdue improvements for First Australians. Some of the many areas it fails in are housing, closing the gap, access roads to communities, communications, providing Indigenous jobs, reforming CDP, improving social security, building clinics and reducing incarceration and inequities in education. On the need: only this week, communities out at Arlparra, north-east of Alice Springs, were cut off for over five days as a result of wet weather. Not only did they lose complete access to the community for two days; there was a substantial period where they had no communications and no access to EFTPOS. No access to EFTPOS meant, apart from anything else, they couldn't make purchases at the local shop. In addition, it meant they couldn't actually undertake their Centrelink obligations because they couldn't get onto the internet, and they become penalised. This budget doesn't address any of those issues. It does not address those issues. It doesn't address the poverty that exists amongst First Nations Australians.

Before the onset of COVID-19, in 2016, more than half—that's 53.4 per cent—of First Australians lived in very remote areas and were living in poverty. In urban areas, in 2016, the average First Nation household incomes were only three-quarters of what they were for the rest of the population. In 2018-19, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey found that more than a third—that's 38 per cent—of very remote First Nations households experienced hunger. This means they ran out of food and could not afford to buy any more. There's nothing in this budget for that. And it makes me cranky. Forty-two per cent of the population in my communities are Aboriginal people, most of whom live in remote communities, most of whom are dirt poor, most of whom live in overcrowded housing. This budget does nothing to address those issues, except to raise uncertainty around whether or not, as I said, the JobSeeker income will fall back to 40 bucks a day.

The failure to address the stupidity of the current Community Development Program scheme, the job scheme, the Work for the Dole scheme, which operates in remote communities, is appalling. It is a failure. It is an absolute failure. We've been continuing to bring this to the government's attention, and they've continued to ignore us. It's discriminatory, and it doesn't work. It needs to be chucked out, and the government need to start again. There's nothing in this budget to fix that.

An area which is totally underfunded is housing. The government has committed, along with the Northern Territory government, I think $2.8 billion over 10 years for housing in the Northern Territory. The view is that the government's expenditure into housing will reduce overcrowding by a level of 25 to 30 per cent by 2028. Well, tell me how that works if you've got a household of 14 people? How does it work? Does it mean a quarter of them will move into another house? That means there are still 12 people living in that house. Yet this is common practice in remote communities. And what this investment by the government does not anticipate or plan for is the decrease in mortality in Aboriginal communities and the high birth rates. While the population is growing—the curve is going up dramatically as a result of natural increases—the housing curve is going down. There is a disjunction; they're moving apart. And, if we want to address the health issues in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, we need to address the issue of housing. This budget provides $150 million through the Aboriginal business organisation for house purchases. That will have no impact—absolutely zero impact!—on the poverty I've been speaking about or the need for housing in remote Australia. We need to be a lot better than that. We need to be a lot better than that!

As I said, the CDP scheme—well, what can you say? It doesn't work. And, despite the criticism that the government receives on a regular basis, we don't see change. I've offered and am happy to sit down with the government at any time to work in a bipartisan way to try and address these issues, but the government's got to be fair dinkum, and, frankly, the government isn't. And that's a problem.

How do you address this issue? The government did what is, on its face, a good thing in this budget. They provided $39.8 million for extra funding for the Clontarf program, an education program based on attracting young Aboriginal men to go to school, stay at school and complete Year 12. On its face, that's very good thing. But that's it. Nothing—zero—in this budget for equivalent girls' programs, one of which—the Stars Foundation— I know very well. It is at least as good as Clontarf. If you don't understand, if this government, if the Prime Minister can't see the need to educate young women, the mothers of the next generation, what are we talking about here? What we should have seen was an equivalent amount of money—$39.8 million—for equivalent girls programs—not dodgy ones, not part-time things, but ones that have an outcome. They are about retention and getting young women through Year 12 and providing for their welfare, such as Stars does.

So I'm disappointed. If you look at this through the prism of those most disadvantaged Australians, you have to say they have not done well. There is a drastic need across this country for improving health outcomes—we know that, obviously—with all the close the gap targets, which clearly have not been met. But to do that you need infrastructure. We know there is a substantial need for investment in First Nations clinics across this country. There is nothing in this budget for any substantial increase in expenditure on providing primary health care services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people around Australia.

I could go on and on. I could and I would if I had more time. I won't have time to address the issues around the deep policy fault lines that exist between us and the government around the Uluru statement. It's not addressed in this budget: the need for a voice, the need for treaty, the need for truth-telling, the need for a makarrata commission. We can do a lot better than this. As I say, I am prepared to accept the bona fides of those who are prepared to work with us, but where deliberate decisions are made which leave the interests of First Nations people outside the door, not in the room, not at the table, with no-one to speak to, without a voice, there's a problem. This budget does nothing to fix that problem.

I end where I started and commend the Leader of the Opposition for his contribution in his address in reply. I say to the government, I know it's not common practice. Unlike you—that is, the government—when you were in opposition around the GFC, we want to be constructive and productive. Listen to what the Leader of the Opposition has put forward. It's a way ahead, a strategy for improvement of the Australian community and the Australian economy. I ask you to look at it seriously and not just disregard it.

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