Celia Hammond (Curtin, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very happy to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2021-2022 and highlight the impact that this budget will have in my electorate of Curtin. From the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic early last year, this government has understood it and dealt with it as both a health and an economic crisis. It has been and continues to be an extraordinary challenge for all around the world, testing our health systems, testing our economies and testing us individually and collectively.

At times such as these, the prime role of the government is to ensure the safety and security of the nation and its peoples and to preserve and protect their health and wellbeing. Any steps which are taken and any measures introduced by government, be they health, economic or national security measures, need to be carefully measured and they must factor in and effectively weigh up all potential risks and consequences. This risk action assessment can't simply be focused on the here and now; it must also factor in future consequences and future effects on the country and its people. While governments must govern for the here and now, they must also be stewards for the future.

By way of example, as we have seen over the past 12 months, border closures have been extremely effective in Australia at slowing the spread of the virus. But we also know that they have come at a cost. Some of these costs are comparatively easy to identify and calculate. For example, the decrease in tourism has had a huge financial impact on tourism related businesses. But there are also costs which are less easy to quantify, such as the long-term impact on our social fabric, on our wellbeing, as people have been unable to see or visit loved ones who are not resident in Australia.

This government has also understood, right from the start of the pandemic, that the assessment as to what steps to take is not a perfect science or something which should be set, fixed and forgotten. The key to responding in times like these is to take a measured and proportionate response and to retain the flexibility to change and adopt when the circumstances require. There is no hiding from the fact that our response to COVID-19 has come at a significant fiscal cost and that net debt is anticipated to grow to 40.9 per cent of GDP by June 2025. The dollars involved are enormous and, again, there is no hiding from the fact that it will impact on all of us for many years ahead. I would, however, note that this net debt to GDP will still be far less than that which is anticipated in both the UK and the USA.

As the Treasurer said in his budget speech two weeks ago, the 2021-22 budget is one that's designed to secure Australia's economic recovery. It is a budget which is focused on both the here and now and the future. A lot of money is being spent, but it is being spent in direct and targeted ways. This budget, and the economic plan which underpins it, will continue to set the right environment for the creation of more jobs, more innovation, more investment and greater confidence, all of which are needed to ensure that we continue to deliver essential services and rebuild our economy. There are too many initiatives in this budget for me to go through line by line. All of them, in fact, deserve to be highlighted. I want to mention a number of key initiatives which do impact on the people in my electorate of Curtin.

The first of these is tax relief. An estimated 10 million low- and middle-income earners in Australia will receive tax relief of up to $1,080 in the 2021-22 financial year, and there will be tax relief of up to $2,160 for dual-income families. There are over one million people in Western Australia who will benefit from this, and, in my electorate of Curtin, there are 52,400 taxpayers who will benefit. The second group of initiatives in this budget which are of particular importance to those in my electorate are those which go to incentivising businesses to invest, creating more economic activity and more jobs. During last year, over 9,000 businesses in Curtin accessed JobKeeper, and 24,000 employees were supported by this mechanism. Around 6,600 businesses benefited from the tax-free cash flow boost. Local businesses, such as the Herdsman markets, Deli Chicchi and Barchetta—all of which I visited in the last couple of weeks—used these initiatives to invest back into their businesses. This budget continues to deliver benefits to those businesses in my electorate. More than 25,000 businesses will be able to write off the full value of any eligible asset they purchase. About 12,000 businesses will be able to use the extended carry-back measure to support cash flow and confidence. Despite being seriously impacted by the pandemic and, I have to say, despite being continuously anxious about the potential for future lockdowns, the extension of these two schemes gives the businesses in my area the confidence to back themselves and their businesses for the future.

The HomeBuilder grant, as you know, Deputy Speaker Irons, has been extremely popular in Western Australia. There have been over 17,000 applications, and I would note, in this context, that the extension to the construction commencement qualifying date was a move roundly applauded by the state of Western Australia, which is suffering from a shortage of skilled labour at the moment—a fact which jeopardised the capacity of a number of builders to start work in the appropriate time frame, thereby jeopardising the grant going to the people who were relying on it. Likewise, the increase to the excise refund scheme cap from $100,000 to $350,000 is a significant initiative which will provide significant support to Australia's small distillers and brewers. I may be biased, but one of the best new distillers in Australia is located in West Leederville in my electorate. Bad Penny Distilling, run by locals Nicole and Damian Clement, uses botanicals sourced from Rottnest Island to create Rottnest Island Gin. Damian told me: 'These changes will make a profound difference to our business. It will enable us to market and promote our product more widely, invest in new equipment and infrastructure, and advance-purchase a new range of consumables. Most significantly, by helping lower our production costs, it will help lower the cost of our product to the consumer and aid us to compete more evenly with the large distillers.' As a big fan of Rottnest Island Gin, I am looking forward to the reduced prices.

The government has a long commitment to supporting medical technologies from their infancy—that initial world-changing idea—all the way through to commercialisation. We are doing this currently through the Biomedical Translation Fund and the Medical Research Future Fund, and through R&D tax incentives. The 2021-22 budget will continue to support Australian companies to keep their ideas in Australia through the patent box, which will tax income derived from Australian medical and biotech patents at a 17 per cent effective concessional corporate tax rate. Curtin is home to some of the best researchers, start-ups and medtech and biotech companies in the country. One of those is OncoRes, which is developing an intraoperative imaging technology that translates the surgeon's sense of touch, improving surgical accuracy and reducing complication rates. This will help them thrive and grow. As the CEO, Dr Katharine Giles, recently said to me, 'This measure makes it more attractive for us to grow as a business, and it's just another part of government support that is helping to create a strong anchor for us to stay in Western Australia.' Medical and biotech companies are also very enthusiastic about the government's new global talent visa and temporary activity visa, which will directly support their efforts to attract critically skilled staff to relocate to Australia.

On the topic of medical research, I want to note the significant investment this government continues to make in medical research. There will be $6.7 billion over four years, with an additional $228 million in new grants and program openings for our world-leading scientists to find cures and treatments. I want to give a particular shout-out to the Women and Infants Research Foundation in Subiaco, which is led by Professor John Newnham. They have been granted $13.7 million across four years to take the successful work that they have done to reduce preterm birth in WA to a national scale through the Australian Preterm Birth Prevention Alliance. This is literally a life-changing program, as preterm birth is the single greatest cause of death in young children and one of the major causes of lifelong disability, including cerebral palsy, blindness, deafness and behavioural and learning problems at school age.

The third measure I wish to highlight relates to our investment in skills and training to fill skills shortages and to provide Australians with the skills they need to get a job. The expanded JobTrainer fund will support 500,000 new places, upskilling jobseekers and young people. We already have 680 new apprentices in Curtin, and these new measures, with expanded wage subsidies, will lead to more opportunities for trainees and apprentices. The owner of a local training provider told me late last week that this program is, in his words, 'a real winner' and that many of his clients—from small firms to national firms, in fields as diverse as pathology, mining and infrastructure—were using this initiative, which is benefiting them and a countless number of Australians to develop new skills.

Finally, I just want to note the significant investment being made through this budget in the essential services that we rely on. Over the course of the last year, over 3.4 million telehealth services have been delivered to patients in WA. There have been over 180,000 telehealth consultations in Curtin, and these services have been continued. In the last year, over 1.5 million free or subsidised medicines have been delivered in Curtin through the PBS. This budget will see more, with the government listing more medicines to treat breast cancer, lung cancer, osteoporosis, migraine, eczema and asthma. This budget is delivering a record $17.7 billion investment in aged care. It is responding to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety and is establishing a once-in-a-generation reform for our senior Australians. This will help the 23,000-plus senior Australians living in Curtin. There will be more home-care places, more funding for residential aged care and a strengthening of the monitoring and enforcement of standards across aged-care providers. There is a $2.3 billion investment in the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan. This is the largest mental health investment in Australia's history, and it is needed now more than ever.

By way of conclusion, COVID-19 has impacted all of our lives over the last 12 months, and it continues to do so. Through this budget, the government is continuing to ensure the safety and security of this nation and its people and to preserve and protect their health and wellbeing. It is addressing what we Australians care most about: our health and the health of our loved ones; our financial security now and in the future; and the financial security and stability of the country now and in the future. It is a budget which continues to create the settings for people to have the opportunity to fulfil their potential and to live their best lives, and to ensure those who cannot provide for themselves are supported to live in dignity.

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