Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

From 1 July, the Albanese Labor government will be delivering a tax cut for every Australian taxpayer. That means every one of Newcastle's 78,000 taxpayers will receive a tax cut. On average, Newcastle taxpayers will have, come 1 July, an extra $1,642 in their pocket. That's because the Albanese Labor government wants Australians to earn more and to keep more of what they earn. Our bigger tax cuts for more taxpayers will help make that happen. Nurses, teachers and truckies are some of those who will most likely benefit, among the more than 95 per cent of taxpayers now getting a bigger tax cut. And, from 1 July, all Newcastle households will have a $300 credit automatically applied to their electricity bills. That's a $75 credit each quarter. Then there are around one million small businesses who will receive $325 off their electricity bills over the 2024-25 year. This builds on the cost-of-living measures we've already put in place, like cheaper child care for families, tripling the incentive for GPs to bulk-bill and creating local jobs and getting wages moving again.

To support renters in Newcastle who are doing it tough, we're delivering the first back-to-back increase to the Commonwealth rent assistance in more than 30 years. We're increasing the maximum rates of Commonwealth rent assistance by 10 per cent, benefiting some 7,810 households in Newcastle. This builds on the government's 15 per cent increase in September last year. Combined with indexation, since the Albanese Labor government was elected, rent assistance has now increased by more than 40 per cent.

We're making student loans simpler and fairer, reducing the debt of more than 25,000 Novocastrians and backdating these savings to 1 June 2023. That date is important. We're making sure that student debt never grows faster than someone's wages or their ability to pay it off. Last year's indexation spike was unfair. Under our changes, that won't happen again. We've fixed the problem, and we've also backdated the fix to 1 June 2023 to take account of that big inflation spike that really hit students last year.

For the first time ever in Australia's history, we're introducing a new Commonwealth prac payment to support teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students who are undertaking mandatory work placements as part of their degree. This payment will provide around 68,000 eligible university students and over 5,000 VET students each year with a payment of just under $320 per week during their clinical and professional placements. This will be in addition, of course, to any income support they might already receive and will help up to 5,200 students who are enrolled in teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work at the University of Newcastle.

The Albanese Labor government is committed to delivering cheaper medicines. We know that six out of 10 PBS scripts go to pensioners and concession card holders, so we're freezing the cost of their medicines for five years. That means that no pensioner or concession card holder will pay more than $7.70 for their PBS medications for the next five years. Everyone else with a Medicare card will pay no more than $31.60 per script for PBS medicines both this year and next year.

We've got a budget that takes important steps to build women's health into the very foundations of our stronger Medicare. As part of our dedicated women's health package, we're cutting the cost of a revolutionary new breast cancer treatment from $100,000 to just $31.60. We're establishing new Medicare items so that we make sure that women have got that affordable access to the longer specialist consults for endometriosis and complex gynaecological conditions like chronic pelvic pain and polycystic ovary syndrome. We're establishing new Medicare services for mothers to see midwives before and after birth. We're improving education on miscarriage support services and collecting data on miscarriages to improve care and support. More health practitioners will be undertaking training to deliver long-acting reversible contraceptive devices such as IUDs. We're improving the treatment of women going through menopause by training our health professionals. We're tackling period poverty by providing free pads and tampons to women in rural and remote First Nations communities, and there will be more access to professional indemnity insurance for midwives, which will improve birthing-on-country services for First Nations mothers.

We're also putting mental health at the heart of a stronger Medicare. Almost half of all Australians will experience a mental health concern in their lifetime, and everyone's experience is different. Our $361 million package means Australians will get the right level of care for their level of need. Measures that shift away from the one-size-fits-all approach and relieve pressure on the Better Access initiative include: a new national early intervention service that anyone can access for free whenever they need to; an upgraded nationwide network of 61 Medicare mental health centres to offer free walk-in access for adults with more complex mental health needs; funding for primary health networks to work in partnership with general practices to commission mental health workers to offer wraparound care for people with high needs, in between their medical appointments; and a new national peer workforce association to help unlock the potential of the workforce.

We're making big investments to support women's safety. Rates of intimate partner violence remain at epidemic proportions in Australia, with a quarter of women experiencing this in their lifetime. We know that violence isn't inevitable, and the high rates of gender based violence demand our full attention as we work to tackle the deeply ingrained social, cultural, political and economic factors that lead to violent behaviour. The National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children continues to guide the efforts of all Australian governments to end gender based violence within one generation. Funding in this budget brings the Labor government's total investment to support women's safety and the national plan to over $3.4 billion.

I know that people's eyes gloss over when they hear these big figures. So what do they actually mean? They mean we're improving and making permanent the Leaving Violence Program. Too often financial insecurity can be a barrier to escaping violence, and this investment will help people experiencing intimate partner violence to leave those relationships. It will provide those who are eligible with access to up to $5,000 in financial support as well as important referral services so that they have access to safety risk assessments and proper safety planning. These are services that women are not currently accessing. We need to make sure that when women make the very difficult and brave decision to leave a violent relationship—because we know that's when they are most at risk—they have access to the financial means to get themselves and their children to safety and that they undergo risk assessments and safety planning.

We're strengthening the social safety net through the back-to-back boost to Commonwealth rent assistance and by expanding eligibility for parenting payment single. Single women, including single parents, make up around 51 per cent of those claiming Commonwealth rent assistance, and they are now going to be eligible for this additional rent assistance. The maximum payment they will be able to receive will have a really positive impact on vulnerable cohorts such as women and kids leaving violent relationships.

The budget also includes a new decision to direct $1 billion of funding from the National Housing Infrastructure Facility towards crisis and transitional accommodation for women and children fleeing violence, and for youth. We know we must do more to prevent violence from occurring, and indeed escalating, including targeting high-risk perpetrators and the risk of homicide. To address this, this budget provides funding for a rapid review of targeted prevention approaches to violence against women, with a panel of experts to provide advice to government on preventing gender based violence, including a focus on homicides. We're putting more funding into Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety, ANROWS, to further build the evidence base on pathways into and out of perpetration of family, domestic and sexual violence.

We're establishing the National Student Ombudsman to help eradicate gender based violence from our universities, and we're establishing the National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence. This budget also delivers investments to support the National Criminal Intelligence System, which provides Australian law enforcement and our intelligence agencies with secure access to a national view of criminal intelligence and information, including on domestic violence perpetrators.

Whilst this announcement didn't make the headlines, one thing we wanted to see in this budget—and that I, especially, wanted to see in this budget—was an expansion of the primary health networks' domestic and family violence primary health outreach program, which has just been trialled on the Central Coast. I am thrilled that an investment of $6 million over two years has been included in the budget. This will allow the program to expand both within the Hunter New England Central Coast PHN and across five other PHNs. This fantastic program provides trauma informed health care to women and their children residing in refuge accommodation. This care includes a GP, a mental health nurse and a paediatric speech pathologist working in partnership with the domestic and family violence sector. Its expansion means that women and children in temporary accommodation and refuges across our region will have access to trauma informed primary health care for the first time in a very long time—possibly the first time ever. The PHN team rightly argued that children and their mothers in refuge accommodation were some of the least likely to access health and early intervention services. Without attendance at early intervention nursing checks, unique developmental needs were not being identified until school age, resulting in children missing out on the important window for early childhood intervention prior to formal schooling. I look forward to seeing the continued success of this as it evolves across our region.

We know that there is a massive housing shortage in Australia. Whether you're renting, buying or building, more homes are necessary for more security for everyone, especially those people I represent in Newcastle. That's why we've got a very ambitious goal to build 1.2 million homes by the end of the decade. I know that there are some people who scoff at this bill, but I say that, if you do not dare to be ambitious about addressing this housing crisis, then you are wasting your time in this chamber.

If ever there was a region well positioned to do the transition to the net zero economy, it's Newcastle—I spoke earlier tonight on another piece of legislation on that—but this budget before us tonight is a budget for all Australians. It's not just for some; it's not just for the precious few. We know that there is much more to do in all of these areas I've outlined this evening. Our commitment is that we will work every day to deliver for every Australian.

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