Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Alan Kohler is a very respected economist. He pointed out that the last time a new government brought down its first budget was in 2014 and it was a disaster for all concerned. He pointed out that spending was cut by $14.2 billion over four years and receipts were increased by $3.2 billion—an extraction of $17.4 billion. As a result of that disastrous budget the then Treasurer, Joe Hockey, the member for North Sydney, was diminished. He never recovered. His reputation was in tatters. Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the member for Warringah, was gone within a year or two as well. He was rolled by the then member for Wentworth, Malcolm Turnbull. It goes to show that, if you get the budget wrong, things can go very wrong, and it did with that government at that time. In 2013 they got elected. They had no mandate to do anything much—except, of course, saying that there would be no cuts to the ABC, no cuts to the SBS, no cuts to the pension and no cuts generally. But they had a commission of audit and then inflicted a massive amount of cuts on the Australian public. It was a shocking betrayal.

This Albanese government's budget is focused on a better future for Australia and delivering our election promises. There's responsible cost-of-living relief—and I will point that out in my speech. There are some targeted investments to build a stronger and more resilient economy. There are some efforts being put in in terms of budget repair. This responsible fiscal budget provides some economic stability and I think some of the security that we need. It's critical that we hand out a budget that is responsible in really uncertain times. We've a war in Ukraine and energy chaos in this country caused, I might add, by 22 failed policies by those opposite. The NEG didn't even last 12 hours. That's a classic example of the failure of energy policy by those opposite. Those political parties denied in large part climate change and then celebrated when the price on carbon was taken away. We have natural disasters, with climate change on display for all to see.

Rising inflation and rising interest rates have had a big impact on our economy. There's a really strong emphasis in this budget on the cost-of-living package. We're delivering childcare reform to 1.26 million families. Some 8,900 families in my electorate of Blair will benefit. There's an expansion of the Paid Parental Leave scheme to 26 weeks for working parents. We're cutting the costs of medicines in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and slashing the PBS maximum general co-payment to $30 a script. What a difference that will make to average Australian families. We're making housing more affordable by helping more people to buy their home. There's the Housing Australia Future Fund of $10 billion.

There is extra assistance to First Nations women fleeing domestic and family violence. It's part of a $1.7 billion package to assist women and children in particular fleeing domestic and family violence. That's very dear to my heart because I was an accredited specialist in family law and practised in family law and child protection for such a long time before I came to this place in 2007.

The 20,000 affordable homes that we're going to construct under the National Housing Accord are really important. It's critical to get wages moving after nearly a decade when wages flatlined. We heard speeches in the House of Representatives in the last 24 hours by those opposite. They believe in some sort of New Jerusalem or Valhalla and that all of a sudden you can operate as a government and wages will go up magically without any initiative or effort; somehow people will roll over and provide the wage growth that didn't happen in the last 10 years. They deliberately kept wages down. It was a deliberate design feature. That is exactly what former senator Mathias Cormann said. Those were his words. He said it was a 'deliberate design feature' to keep wages low. So, down there in the chamber, in the other place, they are talking about this legislation that will provide assistance to representatives of workers and workers generally—the lowest paid workers in the country and the heroes of the pandemic—and those opposite can't even bring themselves to support that legislation.

Here we are with two great decisions being handed down in the period of time since this government came to power: the decision to give the lowest paid workers—millions of people—a 5.2 per cent increase in the minimum wage and the 15 per cent increase for aged-care workers announced in the last week or so in response to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. This is a government that supports those increases for low-paid workers, who are mainly in feminised workplaces like child care, aged care and a whole range of areas like that. Those opposite did nothing about that in nearly a decade in office, and they can't even bring themselves to support legislation that will help women and low-paid workers in those areas who really need help. It's critical that we get wages moving. There wasn't a budget paper in the last nine years under the coalition where the wage outcome wasn't lower than the budget papers stated. The level of wage wealth—if I can put it like that—compared to profit wealth in the share of GDP has never been lower in this country. So we've got to get wages moving. It's critical, particularly in circumstances where inflation is close to eight per cent.

As part of this budget, we're investing in a whole range of things that will help my electorate. In particular, TAFE Queensland South West will benefit enormously from the hundreds of thousands of extra fee-free places. That will help working-class kids and battling communities in suburbs like Ripley Valley, Springfield, Bundamba, Ebbw Vale, East Ipswich, Basin Pocket and Booval in my electorate get access to TAFE places. There are 20,000 additional university places for disadvantaged Australians. That will help USQ, Springfield USQ and Ipswich USQ. That will be really critical. They do great work, and they're much-loved institutions in my electorate.

There is also the Powering Australia plan to invest in cleaner and cheaper energy and transmission networks. I am really strongly of the view that we need community batteries in my electorate in Ipswich, and I'm looking forward to lobbying and have already started lobbying the responsible minister for that. It's absolutely critical. There is also a $120 billion investment in nation-building infrastructure, and there are a number of road projects in my electorate, including the final stage of the Ipswich Motorway. The Queensland government wanted the money, so we gave them $12.5 million in the budget for planning works for the final stage from the Oxley roundabout towards the Centenary interchange. It's absolutely crucial. Each day, 100,000 vehicles go through that part of the Ipswich Motorway between Ipswich and Brisbane, and that money is absolutely vital.

There are some responsible budget improvements. There's some stopping of Liberal Party waste, there's some delivering of infrastructure projects in a more responsible timeline, there's some restraining of government expenditure, there's some improvement in terms of the quality of spend in the budget and there's some improvement in the integrity and fairness of the tax system, clamping down on multinational tax evasion. It's what the Australian public wanted going forward.

There is also an expansion of the NBN, particularly mobile coverage, which has been the bane of my existence in my time in parliament here. I struggled with the former government to get better connectivity and mobile phone coverage in country towns in the Brisbane Valley and places like Linville, Moore, Esk, Coominya and Toogoolawah and also in rural Ipswich. So I really appreciate the fact that we put hundreds of millions of dollars in this area to support the expansion of mobile phone coverage, and also farm connectivity. It's so important for the primary producers in my electorate.

There is some support also for veterans, which is so critical. I'm looking forward to the veterans hub in the Ipswich and Springfield area. I've been working on that project with the member for Oxley, and I think that's absolutely vital. I thank the RSLs for what they do—the Ipswich Railway sub-branch and the Ipswich sub-branch of the RSL. I will be at the Ipswich sub-branch on Friday for Remembrance Day, and my staff and volunteers will be at other places like Springfield and Pine Mountain. I want to honour and thank the veterans for what they do. I want to thank all the people who work at the RAAF base at Amberley. They really make our community a much stronger and better place in which to live. I'm really pleased that we've got bipartisan support for the expansion of the RAAF base at Amberley and what we've done. This is so important.

There are a number of important projects in my electorate that I'm looking forward to, which are in the budget. There's the $12.5 million for Cytiva for the Springfield BioPark project. That will advance medical manufacturing. When that biopark is up and running and Cytiva is up there we're looking at about a thousand jobs in that region. That's really important.

In Springfield we've provided the funding that Ipswich City Council wants for the next stage of the business case for the Ipswich to Springfield rail line, $3.4 million, as part of the city deal. We're honouring that. There's funding in the budget for a Medicare urgent care clinic. There's one in Ipswich to take the pressure off the Ipswich Hospital emergency department by providing care from a doctor or nurse for things like strains, sprains, broken bones, stitches, wound care and minor conditions.

I'm also deeply appreciative of Simone Jackson, the CEO of Kambu Health. They do a great job in my electorate helping First Nations people. There's $2.5 million to support our local Indigenous community to relocate the family and children's centre, which I got $1 million for some years ago. They're going to relocate that out to Silkstone and expand the Kambu clinic in Ipswich with more treatment rooms and better administration. That will expand 10,000 to 12,000 patients' options in Kambu in Ipswich.

There's more money for flood recovery and resilience projects. There's $4 million to upgrade the showgrounds in Ipswich. Of that $4 million, $1.5 million is to improve amenities for the local emergency relief centre. I'm looking forward to working—and I am working—towards a better outcome for the people in that little part of Brisbane in my electorate around Karana Downs and Mount Crosby, who, I think, get cut off all the time and get forgotten by the Brisbane City Council. They're cut off from Ipswich, Colleges Crossing and Kholo. If the road goes under, they're cut off with Ugly Gully as they go towards Brisbane. They call themselves the Crosby island. We're looking at some funding there under the Disaster Ready Fund, the $200 million we're putting aside every year. I'm looking forward to working with the local community to get money towards that.

There's some money that I think is really critical for our local area. There are small grants like the money we got for the toy library in multicultural Ipswich. Redbank Plains is the fastest-growing suburb in Ipswich. It really is growing. There are more people living in Redbank Plains than in the city of Maryborough in Queensland. There's a huge number of people. It's really growing quickly. New schools are going in there, and that money is important.

The Indian community do a fantastic job. In the eastern suburbs of Ipswich, we're seeing a very large Indigenous community grow and an Indian community grow. We have a very strong presence of both Indigenous and Indian communities across Ipswich, particularly in the eastern suburbs, where the Indian community is so large. We've got $3.5 million for India House, which is a project that I want to thank Jim Varghese and a lot of people for. Maha Sinnathamby has been behind it as well. We have organisations in the Ipswich community and across South-East Queensland who do a fantastic job in helping the Indian community.

We have nearly 60,000 people in the Indian community living in South-East Queensland. I want to praise and thank the Federation of Indian Communities of Queensland, the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin, or GOPIO, the Australia India Business Council and, particularly, the Australia India Community Charitable Trust, who have lobbied me very hard.

We recognise the active participation of the Indian community, and I've been to a number of Diwali events, such as one at the BAPS temple in Logan. There are about 150 families from my area worshipping at that temple in Logan, and I go there regularly. I've been to a number of Diwali events in Brisbane, and I was very pleased to launch a new charitable trust in Indooroopilly last Saturday evening. I thank them for the work they do.

India House will be a place to meet and a place for the business community to get together, but there will also be some social and community assistance. One thing they're very keen on doing is supporting women and children and those fleeing domestic and family violence. I've had some very extensive discussions with the Indian communities and some of those organisations I referred to earlier. I want to thank them for the work they do. So whether it's the Indigenous community in Ipswich, in Springfield, or the Indian community, I'll be there for them. This budget provides assistance, across a range of projects, that fulfils Labor's commitment to those various communities, but to other communities as well.

So I'm very pleased to support this appropriations legislation. It fulfils just so many of the commitments I made during the course of this campaign. And I thank the Treasurer, my friend the member for Rankin, for the work he does.

See this speech in context