Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Budget number 3 from the Treasurer is very consistent—big on political spin, short on actually delivering for the community. It's almost like Doctor Chalmers' PhD was focused on politics and was focused on the former leader of the ALP Paul Keating, because that's what he is focused on—political spin. He spent his life working in this House as a staffer and as member for parliament. He talks about being in 18 budget lock-ups like it's something that is a great thing for the Australian people. But what it has done is it has allowed him to understand the mechanisms of the budget and how you can make things appear like they are doing one thing when they are actually not.

There is no greater example of this Treasurer's spin than the $300 energy bill rebate and his continual line that it will bring inflation down. There are two parts to this spin, but let's be really clear: in a cost-of-living, every dollar that the Australian people can get is needed. The first part of political spin from the Treasurer and those opposite and the Prime Minister is that they've said this week you'll get $300 from today. Well, you'll get $300 over 12 months—you'll get $75 a quarter. They could at least be a little bit honest about that. Anyone who has received their power bill recently will know that $75 a quarter is not covering much of that bill. I had many residents reach out to me about that.

The second part of the spin—and this is the much more important part in terms of the impact it will have on the Australian people, which he doesn't want to talk about it—is he talks about how it's going to bring inflation down. But it is not. What it is going to do—and even the RBA June board meeting notes say this—is it will temporarily reduce headline inflation. It will artificially and temporarily bring that inflation number down, but it's not actually going to treat the symptoms. It's actually not even treating the cause. There's a reason he wants to bring the headline inflation down. There is a reason he wants to do that, and it's pure politics. The headline inflation number is the one that many in the media report on and talk about. It is the two to three per cent band that everyone talks about the RBA aiming to get to. But it's actually not the key measure that the RBA use. They use many other factors, including the trimmed mean inflation, which is a much more realistic number. So this is what this Treasurer is trying to do as I stand here in July 2024—and let's review this in a few months time, at the end of the year. He is trying to temporarily and artificially bring the headline inflation down so the articles in the papers will say that it's within the band. Then those opposite—not the Treasurer himself, because he's smart enough to know that he can't verbal the RBA governor—will start to put pressure on the RBA governor to bring interest rates down. Then, when the RBA governor doesn't do that—because, as we saw last week, inflation has just picked up from 3.6 to four per cent—those opposite will start to blame the governor for interest rates not coming down. That is the cynical political ploy that this Treasurer and this Prime Minister are undertaking. Let's see how that goes.

Unfortunately for the Australian people, even that political ploy is unlikely to work, because, as we saw last week, inflation is ticking up because, as the RBA's internal notes say, the government are running an expansionary budget. They are running an expansionary government when inflation is above the target band, when they should be running a contractionary budget. The government's decisions are driving inflation higher. If we see an interest rate rise—as many are predicting for August or September—be under no illusion: that interest rate rise is because of the decisions and the economic mismanagement of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer of this country. But all the Treasurer has got is the political spin of trying to get a temporary reduction in the headline inflation.

But it's not just at the national level that this budget lets down the Australian people. My electorate of Casey is 2½ thousand square kilometres, and we don't have an emergency department within our community. It's very hard to get access to a doctor. Earlier this year, the Prime Minister in question time talked about adding 29 new urgent care clinics in the next budget. He announced them in the budget. I've been working with my community. I've been campaigning to get an urgent care clinic into our community. We need a place where the community can go to get that support because, as I said, it is 2½ thousand square kilometres, and most of my community have to drive 30 or 40 minutes or even an hour to get to an emergency department. So I've been watching with interest.

We've been campaigning for this. We've written to the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Minister for Finance. They're aware of the campaign. The finance minister referenced it in Senate estimates, so they're aware of it. We've now had the announcement of 29 urgent care clinics. Ten have been launched and slowly dripped out to get the media headlines. I've watched with interest where those locations are. Shock, horror—out of the 10 that have been announced since the budget, eight of the locations are within Labor electorates. Eighty per cent are within Labor electorates—shock, horror! Another one is an Independent seat that was a Labor seat, which they're looking to get back. And then there was one in a Liberal seat. It seems like there is a very strong political element to the allocation of those. That's 10 out of 29, so we're a third of the way through. You would think that something like health and access to emergency departments would be above politics. I'll continue to work with my community to run our campaign calling for an urgent care clinic in Casey. I thank those who have added their names to the petition, added their support to show how much this is needed. I'll watch with interest as more sites continue to roll out, and we'll see what happens with the political breakdown of those.

One of the reasons that my community needs an urgent care clinic is that it's harder and harder to get to a doctor. We don't have an emergency department, and it's harder and harder to get access to a GP. We only have seven bulk-billing clinics in the community. What this government doesn't like to talk about with bulk-billing rates is that, since they came to government, bulk-billing rates across the country, including in Casey, have actually declined. That's the awkward fact that they don't like to talk about. But we also know that there's an expectation that there will be a shortage of around 11,000 GPs by 2031. And there's more we need to do. I speak to and visit many of my GPs, and they're struggling to get new GPs to be able to fit in more patients. Many GPs are having to forego their lunch break just to try and see extra people that are calling up wanting to get a place.

That's why I'm really proud to be part of a coalition that committed to investing $400 million to provide junior doctors who train in general practice with incentive payments, assistance with leave entitlements and support for vocational training. This is an investment that will help close that gap and that will help get more young doctors to become GPs and to move, particularly, into regional, rural and peri-urban areas. In my community, it's quite a challenging situation, where they can't get access to their GPs.

In this budget, we also saw that the government were completely silent on productivity. Productivity is crucial to our economic growth as a country. Since those opposite came to power, productivity has dropped 5.2 per cent. The reality is that to bring inflation down and actually treat the cause, not the symptoms, you need to drive productivity growth, because that means employers can continue to pay their employees more, which is a good thing. But they offset that increased cost by greater output—greater productivity—which brings the unit cost of that good or that service down, which means people can get paid more and the businesses, particularly small and family businesses, can remain profitable, which is crucial when they invest their own capital.

The final price that consumers pay doesn't need to go up. But this government—this Treasurer and this Prime Minister—are silent on productivity because they can't treat the cause. It is political spin to try and show that they're making a difference, but the Australian people know they're not.

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