Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Forrest for her consideration. Thank you for that. I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2022-2023.

The last 10 years have been a particularly challenging time for many Australians. It has become harder to rent, certainly harder to buy a house, and the cost of living has skyrocketed, with food and fuel at all time highs. The current CPI sits at 10.1 per cent for the 12 months to July 2022. That puts the cost of living at a crisis level. What does that mean in real terms? The current CPI sits at 10.1 per cent. What makes that a crisis? I'll tell you what I think makes it a crisis. It is a crisis when it is virtually impossible to find somewhere to call home, you can't find a place to rent, the dream of owning your own home truly has become a nightmare, let alone trying to live remotely near where you might work, particularly if you're in some of those very congested areas around our big cities.

But if you live in a regional centre, like the one I represent in the seat of Paterson, one of the things that have made it extraordinarily difficult for people is that we have had such a change in the population of our regions. We've warmly embraced that change. We've welcomed people to our regions. In fact, parts of my seat have recently become referred to as the 'nappy belt' because people who left Sydney, particularly during COVID, have come to the Hunter. We're one of the fastest growing regions in New South Wales. That means that the price of housing has skyrocketed and the price of rents has skyrocketed. To give you some idea of what that means in real terms, I went to visit Carrie's Place, which is a service for victims of domestic violence and for people who are experiencing real stress in trying to find a home. It's for women. It has now resorted to handing out tents and sleeping bags. Can you think of anything worse in Australia in 2022 than that a women's crisis centre has lost all hope of trying to assist women? The thought of trying to get them into emergency accommodation, of having affordable homes for them to rent, is so far down the track that it has resorted to having tents that people can pitch in parks, or sometimes in the backyards of family or friends, or to having sleeping bags for couch surfing. Seriously, where are we as a sophisticated First World nation when that is the answer for people? It is clearly not good enough.

We've all made comments about paying $11 or $12 for an iceberg lettuce, especially during floods and when droughts were crippling Australian agriculture, but the price of groceries has become so high that it is incredibly difficult. In fact, we've become the eighth most expensive place on the planet to buy groceries. It's just not acceptable. Food security is something that we don't often think about in Australia. It's not like in some nations around the world where you really do have to wonder where that next meal will come from. But for many Australians that is the case.

My thinking on this is that we have to do better. So I couldn't be prouder to support the most recent budget—the financial road map, if you like—that was presented by the Treasurer, because it gives Australians a sense of having a government that has not only an eye to their future but a very real eye to the present. We are actually working on increasing real wages. We know that wages have gone nowhere in the last 10 years, juxtaposed by the facts I've just given about rentals and housing going through the roof. We know that housing is the primary impost on a family budget. So we have to be able to help Australians get somewhere to live and have shelter. It's a primary need for all human beings to have a safe and secure place to lay their head at night and to raise a family. Even those people who are able to afford a family home and have a mortgage—and good on you for that—need us to make it less stressful for them. They are going to work every day. They should be able to earn a decent wage.

At this pivotal time in Australia's history, I'm actually so pleased that the last decade has passed us by and we can really embrace the change that will come under the Albanese government, where people who work hard will receive better wages for it. They will have a hope of being able to have a home to call their own, whether they rent it or are able to buy it. They will have hope for their children in the future to have a good education, whether that's through properly funded public education or the choice of being able to afford private education. They will have a good and positive outlook for having those children educated in tertiary education, whether that means getting an apprenticeship, going to TAFE or going on to university. These are the things that people think about every day. They're the hopes and dreams. Sometimes that word 'aspiration' is cast about.

In talking to people across my seat for the last six years, people really do want that Australian belief of a fair go. They want a good job. They want to be able to go to work. They want to afford to pay their way. They're more than happy to pay their way, but they want to know that they're being rewarded or at least acknowledged for having a go. That's why I am so proud that we've been able to put forward a budget that gives people that road map for the future. It says that there is hope that you will earn a decent day's wage for a decent day's work. There is a hope that you can afford to have a home. There is a hope that, if you have children, they can be well educated, and, if you don't, that those children who are being well educated might care for you in your dotage.

With a little bit of good health management, some amazing health care, perhaps some good luck and, if you believe it, divine intervention, we all hope to live to a ripe old age. But we've seen aged care in Australia go so far back in the last 10 years that I'm sure many people are fearful of what would happen to them if they needed to be in aged care. When you have a royal commission titled Neglect, I think it's so important that we put more resources into aged care. I'm particularly proud of what the Prime Minister has said in this regard. We are going to see increased investment in aged care. Better food is a basic tenet of having someone in aged care. We're going to have better nutrition for our nursing homes. We're going to have nurses in nursing homes. We're really working hard to build a better framework for people as they age, whether they do it in their own homes or in an aged-care facility.

I know that we're rapidly running out of time in this debate tonight, but the other point I wanted to touch on is the economy. There's been a lot made of cheaper child care. I know that that's the phrase that has been coined on this, and we all talk about it as 'child care', but, really, it's early education. We're wanting to make it more affordable. I couldn't be a teacher or a preschool educator for love nor money; I just don't have the patience, though I love children. Those people do an extraordinary job and they're setting up our young people for the future. I personally want to thank all of those people who work in early education in my home town and the seat of Paterson because they do such an extraordinary job. We're relying on those people. They need to be paid better. They need better resources.

Most importantly, it is extraordinarily important that the parents who entrust their children to those places are able to go to work and contribute to our economy. I want to thank those parents for doing that. It is a big deal to put your little one into a place like that and think: 'Right, now I'm going to go to work. I want to be able to trust that they're going to, firstly, be well cared for and, secondly, learn something.' They're going to learn to get on with other kids and other people and have a terrific start to their life so that those parents can go off to work and make a contribution to our economy. That is just such a vital part of this. This is not just cheap child care; this is a really important economic platform for our country.

My great hope and my great aspiration in supporting this appropriation bill is that we are paving the way for the next 10 years in Australia so that we can look back in another 10 years time and say that we've done a better job, we didn't waste those 10 years and we set our country up not only to be more prosperous but also to be more considerate and to be a happier place and a healthier place that rewards all Australians. I'm particularly proud to be part of a Labor government that is doing that. I know that my colleagues join me in congratulating the Treasurer and his team on delivering a budget that casts the net wider and that really creates a better environment for all Australians in the coming decades.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:32

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