Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2023-2024 and to reflect on this government's first full-year budget. The budget had strengths. It put real resources into dealing with the challenges Australia is facing today and for which there is strong community support for change, and this is a credit to the government.

This was true in the health portfolio. One of the issues my community of Wentworth have raised with me is access to bulk-billing appointments with local GPs about prices rising and clinics closing. So I was pleased to see the government triple the bulk-billing incentives for GPs. I think that's absolutely critical. This will go a long way to ensuring that there are more bulk-billed appointments available and that we don't lose more GPs from our area.

The aged-care changes are important too. The pay rise for aged-care workers will firm up the workforce and provide more and better care for older Australians, which is a really important issue and of concern to my community. I was particularly pleased to see that the budget included significant funding for households that are managing the energy price shocks of recent years.

I have been calling for more support for household electrification since I was elected, and I was so pleased that the government decided to heed those calls. Providing $1 billion in low-interest loans for solar panels, electric hot water systems and energy efficiency will have a real impact on our emissions. Importantly, it will have a real impact on household power bills and inflation. I hope this turns out to be a cornerstone investment in electrification, one that is built on in future budgets and by future governments.

The budget also featured a commitment to fiscal management by insuring a significant portion of surplus was put towards budget repair. All this was welcome, and I acknowledge the hard work of the Treasurer and finance minister in making it happen. But this budget was also not without disappointment. So much of the budget was about dealing with the challenges facing us today, rather than intergenerational issues that we face today and will face in the years to come. These include housing, tax, productivity and climate and environment. These are issues we are failing to address or are not addressing significantly enough. These are issues that produce and perpetuate inequality and unfairness from one generation to the next. These are issues that we all ought to be working on to resolve once and for all.

I am sure there's not an issue that causes Australians more worry than housing affordability right now. People worry whether they'll be able to afford a home, particularly one close to their families, their communities and their work. The median Sydney home now costs more than 13 years of household income. It is the second most expensive housing market in the world. That is not a list we want to be at the top of, the second most expensive housing market in the world. With dwelling approvals falling to their lowest level in a decade, housing will become even less affordable. There are lots of changes that could make a difference, but the problem is ultimately one of supply. We can ration our housing stock by other means than price, but we cannot overcome a shortage without a supply.

If the government has a target of one million new homes in the next five years, this sounds impressive but it's only 20,000 more homes than we built in the last five years. We need to be more ambitious if we are going to ensure that the next generation is able to access affordable housing. If Australia had as many homes per person as the OECD average, we would have an additional 1.5 million homes right now. If we factor in population growth, we would be aiming to deliver two million homes by 2030. This is a big target. I'm not saying this has to be the target, but we need greater ambition. Greater ambition will require effort from every level of government. It will require the industry to grow, to innovate and to invest. I believe it is achievable, and, more than achievable, it is necessary. The budget didn't have enough in terms of driving housing supply. There could have been an opportunity for the government to use their significant budget heft to incentivise zoning in states and local governments in building more supply. That is what I hope to see in future budgets. I think that was the missed opportunity in this budget. We need to solve the problem of housing affordability before we lock an entire generation out of the housing market.

The second thing that I think was missing from the budget was significant tax reform. There are long-term challenges with our tax system. It is unfair, unstable, uncertain and doesn't drive business investment and innovation. More of our tax burden is falling on skilled workers, and this will rise in the coming years as more of our population age out of the workforce and become consumers of government services rather than funders of them. Forty years ago there were 6.5 workers per older Australian, today there are four and in 40 years time there will be 2.5. Without reform, the burden on workers will rise substantially. We must act today to rebalance our tax system to provide fairness, certainty and sustainability.

Sadly, I wasn't expecting major tax reform in the budget, but I hoped preparatory work would get underway. The fact that it wasn't included tells us that we won't get tax reform this year, the next year or probably during this parliament. Like housing supply, tax reform is a problem that is being kicked down the road. This means it has to be solved by a later parliament or a later government. But the longer you put it off the harder it gets to deal with. Tax reform isn't easier today than it was when Ken Henry wrapped up the last major tax review. It won't suddenly become an easy problem to solve. We may as well get on and do the work.

The third thing that was missing from the budget was a strong enough productivity agenda. Productivity has been languishing in Australia for many years, and we see the consequences of it in stagnant wage and economic growth. There are no silver bullets to restore productivity growth, but that doesn't mean there are no answers. The government has made some positive steps, such as skilled migration and their focus on skills and apprenticeships. I applaud the government for those actions, but it's not enough to raise productivity to where it needs to be.

One thing the government should do is respond to the Productivity Commission's five-year review published in March. They won't do everything the Productivity Commission has recommended, but they could tell us what's in, what's out and their reasons for it and lay out a productivity reform agenda. There's no reason why the government can't do this, other than a lack of desire to do so, so it is disappointing to see the government not take this up. Productivity growth sounds dry, but it is what leads us to better opportunities and more prosperous lives. Productivity growth raises incomes and lowers prices. It improves lives, which is exactly what parliament should be focused on.

Finally, I'd like to talk about climate and the environment. There were positive aspects in climate action in this budget. I applaud the government for starting key action on climate change. It is absolutely a critical issue that Australia is facing. As I said earlier, I support the work that the government has done on household electrification, a key area for us. But the budget was significantly lacking in terms of ambition on the environment in particular. I think that where the community was really expecting investment we were really sorely disappointed. At the same time, the government could have gone much further on issues such as household electrification to further drive our climate action as well as ensuring that we are providing the right investment environment for the clean energy revolution that we absolutely need. We need to raise our ambition in terms of climate action. While the budget was relatively positive on climate, it was not pushing us further than 43 per cent by 2030, and certainly the science shows that we need to go further, and certainly the economy shows that we need to go further, too.

To sum up: I welcome most of the changes announced by the government in this year's budget, but I was disappointed that there wasn't enough progress on solving some of those significant challenges facing Australia, particularly on the difference that this budget will make to future generations. The future generations, the ones that come after us, don't necessarily vote. They're still finding their political strength—even the ones who can vote now. But it is our job in parliament not just to look after the current generation but to look after the future generations. On housing, on tax, on productivity and on climate and the environment, this budget was not ambitious enough. We need to go further. These challenges will continue to be with us, parliament after parliament, unless we face them head-on and truly address them and have greater ambition in terms of what we are going to achieve. I think it is time for concerted government action, and I hope we see the start of that action before the year is out.

See this speech in context