Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before the debate is resumed on this bill, I remind the Committee that it has been agreed that a general debate be allowed covering this bill and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2005-2006.

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Since 1947 the hands of the doomsday clock on the cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have been used to warn the world of the ever present danger of nuclear catastrophe. At present the hands again sit at seven minutes to midnight, the same position they were in when the magazine first appeared at the start of the Cold War. In 1946 Albert Einstein wrote that ‘the unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe’. There is a new menace: rogue states and transnational terrorist organisations that have sworn to destroy the West by any means possible, including nuclear weapons. In 1939 Hahn and Strassman discovered nuclear fission in uranium, and the potential for a weapon was immediately obvious to the belligerents of the Second World War. In fact, the designers of the Hiroshima uranium bomb were so certain that it would work that it was deployed untested—a possibility that we must be aware of today when facing the chance of a nuclear terrorist attack.

The quality of uranium required to construct a workable Hiroshima style bomb is quite small. Just four 200-litre drums of yellowcake contain sufficient fissionable uranium-235 isotope to build a bomb with an explosive yield of approximately 15,000 tons of TNT, equivalent to the Hiroshima bomb. Extracting the explosive uranium-235 from natural uranium requires complex chemical and physical processing—not the sort of thing that can be carried out in a backyard or bunker but quite feasible for a Third World country with Western trained scientists.

The scientists who worked on the Manhattan atomic bomb project were in many cases profoundly concerned about the use of the weapon but were motivated by the real possibility that Nazi Germany would be the first to acquire a nuclear bomb. These days the potential construction of nuclear weapons by rogue states or terrorists would not be possible without the participation of highly trained technicians and scientists who may well have ideological commitments that lead them to ignore any scruples or concerns about the consequences of their actions.

A constituent of mine has recently expressed concerns to me that university level postgraduate research students from countries such as Iran have been receiving training in the kinds of technologies that may be useful to bomb makers without any exposure to ideas that could affect their preconceived attitudes. Now that these particular students have returned to Iran, it is not possible to determine if they are contributing to the evident Iranian nuclear weapons program. If members think that this is of small consequence, they should realise that the notorious Pakistani atomic bomb maker, Dr AQ Khan, employed his postgraduate students not only to source Western knowledge but also to produce materials and components needed for his bomb-building research laboratories.

Some years ago the FBI arrested two so-called students after they had attempted to buy high-strength steel for the construction of equipment designed to isolate uranium-235. These days Australian university engineering and physics departments appear to be recruiting foreign fee paying students, as dictated by the government, and to be concentrating on the provision of advanced practical training while neglecting the broader education of these students. Before the universities were corroded by the government’s commercial imperatives, engineering and science students, at least in some universities, were required to take subjects in the humanities as part of their compulsory course work.

All students, foreign and Australian, attending university should be exposed to challenging ideas. The current exclusive concentration on technical studies, especially in the engineering faculties, is producing highly trained but not well-educated graduates. We should remember that Osama bin Laden studied civil engineering at a Saudi university in the late 1970s. His attack on the World Trade Centre demonstrated that he had been well trained in the design and demolition of buildings but that he had never received what many would regard as an education. So the universities should seriously be putting additional funding into the broader education of both foreign and Australian students.

Another area where there is a shortage of funding is that of child care. In January this year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released figures that showed something like a quarter of a million women across Australia wanted to work but were unable to work because they could not find adequate child-care services. Last week the Barriers and incentives to labour force participation survey was released, and it revealed some very instructive issues: (1) child care is one of the top barriers to work; (2) problems finding suitable or affordable child care is the No. 1 reason women who want to work are not looking for it; (3) almost 98,000 mothers who want to work are unable to start within four weeks because child-care and family factors prevent them; (4) another 160,500 women who want to work or work more hours and consider themselves available to start immediately are not looking for work due to child-care factors; and (5) a lack of jobs with suitable conditions was the reason another 80,200 have difficulty obtaining work or more paid hours—a response the ABS noted ‘may reflect the need for more flexible working arrangements’.

When we were on leave in the middle of January the member for Lindsay raised the issue of child care—and I was very pleased that she did. She talked about, in particular, the problems for the care of the under-fives. In my view, four major reforms are needed to increase the amount of affordable high-quality care for the under-fives. We could start by collecting data on the shortages, because currently the government does not assess the unmet demand. The reforms include: direct investment in long day care places; government assistance in establishing centres in areas of chronic shortages, including the inner city and low-income areas; removing the disincentives for employer investment in child care by extending the categories of employer expenditure on child care that are fringe benefits tax exempt—currently, fringe benefits tax must be paid by employers on all child-care assistance to employees, unless the employer operates the whole child-care centre. Another area where the government could spend money would be to increase the child-care benefit.

There is enough money for the federal government to do more for child care. We are running a surplus in the order of $12 billion in the current year. In relation to child care, important findings by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show how inadequate the federal government’s funding and policy is, because child care is not keeping pace with the huge increases in child-care fees. In its report Australia’s Welfare 2005, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found that new data shows that over 61,000 children have been turned away from a child-care service because there were no vacancies, more than 30,000 children are not in child care because fees are too high and 22,000 children could not access child care because there was no service in their area. The institute also found that since 2006 the cost of child care as a proportion of disposable income has increased for all family types except couple families with high incomes. In the new, extreme industrial relations environment that the government has visited on Australia, this will allow employers to require parents to work irregular and family-unfriendly hours—including early mornings, nights, weekends and public holidays—without overtime or penalty rates.

In my own electorate of Lowe in the inner west of Sydney, there is a very great shortage of child-care places. One centre just up the road from where I live, the Abbotsford Long Day Care Centre, currently has a waiting list in the order of 200 parents. The biggest problems are for those parents attempting to place toddlers under two years of age because parents are waiting at least 12 months and much more if they are to get the toddlers into child care at the Abbotsford Long Day Care Centre. I know the great job that the Manager of the Abbotsford Long Day Care Centre, Ms Michelle Sidoti, does and the great care and interest that she shows in promoting this problem. I have visited this centre many times over the years and I have a clear understanding of what the problems are for Ms Sidoti and those parents who want to get child care. Currently, it is costing between $80 and $100 per day per child. Parents find that there is no financial benefit in returning to work because most of their income is being taken up in child-care fees. They are facing the dilemma that if they fail to return to work in a reasonable amount of time not only has their employment position gone but also, if they extend their maternity or paternity leave, their skills are lost and their re-employment prospects are diminished.

Further, at the Abbotsford Long Day Care Centre, parents of children with special needs find that extra funding for their children is insufficient or nonexistent, with the end result that these children with special needs are being disadvantaged as well as the other children in centres that create spaces for children with special needs. Also in relation to Abbotsford Long Day Care Centre, early childhood teachers provide quality work, with most centres like Abbotsford having a well-developed mixture of experienced and newer staff. But with the low salaries there are fewer and fewer quality trained staff available, and we must ensure that the staff who are caring for and educating the future of Australia are adequately and fairly compensated for their labours.

I know that Ms Sidoti at the Abbotsford Long Day Care Centre has been on a crusade to get a salary increase for these staff who do such a very important job in forming the lives of very young Australians at an important time of their lives. I would hope that, as we approach the budget, with the message that is coming not only from Abbotsford Long Day Care Centre in the inner west of Sydney but from all around Australia—and clearly out in the west of Sydney, where the member for Lindsay has made her position clear to the government—the government does something to provide more funding in the coming budget.

I would also like to raise the issue of the plight of the public broadcaster. A few weeks ago the general manager of the ABC, Mr Russell Balding, once again submitted his triennial funding submission, in which he called on the government to give an extra $38 million to the public broadcaster. When you look at the totality of the government’s budget, particularly bearing in mind the huge surplus, an extra $38 million to help the public broadcaster is not, in my view, very much to ask. The additional funding is clearly going to be required over the next three years if the public broadcaster is to meet the objectives in its act of parliament and provide news, information, entertainment and drama—all the quality programs on the ABC that we have come to know and enjoy.

It is going to be terribly important to give that extra money to the public broadcaster so that it can better compete with the commercial players. We know that the government is planning to release its media policy, which might impact on the new-age media in Australia. On many occasions over the past five years I have expressed my grave concerns about the implications of the cross-media ownership legislation for media proprietors. If we let the ABC wither on the vine, we will be doing a great disservice to the public interest and the future of our democracy. The ABC has a very important role in Australian life, particularly in keeping people informed and entertained. I would ask that the government give serious consideration on this occasion to giving that additional funding to Mr Balding because we all benefit from that. I make that point because, as I have also said on many occasions, all the messages coming from the government are that it is looking after the two biggest and most powerful media companies in Australia.

The final issue I want to raise in this debate on the appropriation bills is that Sydney will desperately need a second airport in the near future. Yesterday and on Monday I got stuck into Mr Max Moore-Wilton, who now works for Macquarie Bank, which bankrolled the purchase of Sydney Airport for the Southern Cross Consortium. I am extremely alarmed by the expansion of the commercial operations of the airport and the implications for the people I represent and the people of Sydney at large. Quite plainly, Macquarie Bank paid far too much for that airport, and clearly the agenda of Mr Max Moore-Wilton—who went from being Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to Chair of Sydney Airport Corporation Ltd to working for Macquarie Bank—is to make that airport make every dollar it can in the interests of fattening the salaries of all the directors and shareholders of Macquarie Bank at the expense of the people I represent.

The government are allowing this to happen. It is an absolute outrage to think that hotels are going to be built on that land and they are proposing to build cinemas and so on. What a lot of nonsense! This is an airport. This is not a shopping centre but, clearly, it is being developed as a shopping centre so that Macquarie Bank can make vast amounts of money. If you go and visit the airport, you know how much you have to pay for food or service or if you want to buy clothing or anything at that airport. People are being absolutely ripped off. Doubtlessly, Macquarie Bank is charging huge amounts of money for the leases for subletting those businesses out at the airport. And the government are doing nothing about it. The consent for all this development rests with the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, Mr Truss. I ask for a message to be taken back to him to come down heavily on Macquarie Bank and do something decent and make sure that the long-term operating plan is put in place and funding for a second airport is provided to take pressure off Sydney airport. (Time expired)

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A key constitutional principle is involved whenever parliament is asked, as it is at the moment, to approve appropriation bills such as the ones we are debating today. That principle, often forgotten in the day-to-day work of the House, is that it is parliament’s job to control government expenditure.

In a country of dominant executive government this might seem a little anachronistic, but I want to explore the protection it is meant to give taxpayers and my fears that one of the most basic and important constitutional concepts in the Westminster system, arguably the bedrock of responsible government, is disappearing from view and practice—and with it accountability to the people is disappearing too.

In 17th century England, this principle was hard won, with blood spilt in support of parliament’s rights. This history, of course, was very well known to the framers of our Constitution, who tried to set down in black-letter law parliament’s control of finances, principally in sections 81 and 83 of the Constitution. Unfortunately, as a result of changes to budget processes made by this government and compounded by a recent High Court decision, this constitutional principle has been reduced to little more than symbolism. The Howard government has ridden roughshod over this principle and rendered the whole parliamentary budget process, especially the additional estimates process, almost entirely meaningless.

The erosion of genuine parliamentary control of finances started with the introduction of accrual accounting in 1999. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with accrual accounting, but the change happened to coincide with another unrelated change—the outcome/output structure for the budget documents. This system of setting out the budget involves allocating money against general outcomes, written in terms that are so vague as to mean almost anything, and only slightly more clear are the outputs.

The problem was illustrated in the most startling way this year, and I want to spend some time on this. We can now actually see that the effects are reflected in Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2005-2006 today. As the House is well aware, last year this arrogant government wasted millions of taxpayers’ dollars—$55 million so far, we are told—on a partisan, inaccurate and misleading advertising campaign for its extreme industrial relations changes. It was a despicable campaign. It was a gross misuse of taxpayers’ funds to force Liberal Party propaganda down the throats of those taxpayers who were actually funding the campaign. It was wasteful because it achieved nothing but making prime time TV viewing a very irritating experience for several months. Australians already knew what they thought about the IR package, and $55 million or more on advertising was not going to change that. It was wasteful, unethical and party political. I suspect we have not seen the end of it.

Under the 300-year-old principle that parliament controls the purse strings, you would have expected that this type of expenditure would have been contained in the budget papers passed last May. So of course I looked. It was not there at all. There was no talk of a public campaign of any type, an industrial relations information campaign or any of the euphemisms the government uses in other circumstances. There was nothing even close to a big, expensive Liberal Party propaganda campaign that we might have expected to feature somewhere under some name in the budget papers.

Together with Greg Combet of the ACTU, I launched an action in the High Court on the grounds that the government was spending money that had not been appropriated by the parliament. We took up an important fight on behalf of Australian taxpayers to stop this rort. But this was when the full constitutional ramifications of the 1999 budget changes became clear. In its defence the government made the extraordinary claim that it did not have to show any reference to the advertising in the budget papers, simply that it went toward one of the outcomes in the appropriation act. The one that it identified was the outcome ‘higher productivity, higher pay workplaces’.

We argued in the court that, because the appropriations act referred to the portfolio budget statements, the court needed to look at those documents to find what ‘higher productivity, higher pay workplaces’ meant, given that it is such an amorphous, if not meaningless, term in this context. To assist our argument we relied on actual parliamentary practice—for example, the critical role that the PBS play in Senate estimates and the constitutional principles set down in sections 81 and 83. The government’s argument was tantamount to saying that the PBS are not worth the paper they are written on: at any time the government can diverge from the spending plans that parliament was given when the budget was passed. This made a mockery of parliamentary scrutiny, and it made a mockery of the institution of parliament itself.

As it turned out, the High Court was split. Only one judge, the Chief Justice, accepted the reasoning of the government. Two judges accepted our argument: Justice Kirby and Justice McHugh. The other four judges took an entirely different approach with far more radical implications than even the government’s own submissions. Justices Gummow, Callinan, Hayne and Heydon looked at one small part of the appropriations act—in fact, an interpretative note—and decided that the government did not even have to stick to the broad outcomes, let alone the portfolio budget statements. Those judges held that it was enough to show that the money was ‘departmental expenditure’—that is, money spent by a department. In effect, this could mean that the executive government has complete, unfettered discretion to spend all the money in appropriation acts allocated as ‘departmental expenditure’ on any purpose, including on extreme ideological propaganda—even, in this case, when the industrial relations law had not even been presented to the parliament, let alone passed by the parliament.

With great respect to those judges, I have to disagree with that decision. Their reading of the appropriations act could just as easily and rationally have gone the other way, and the constitutional context was a very powerful reason to do so. Indeed, the effect of the decision is to do what, in 1945 in the pharmaceutical benefits case, Chief Justice Latham said the Constitution could not allow: providing an ‘appropriation in blank’. Until 2005, that was settled constitutional law of Australia. Chief Justice Latham went on to describe what he meant:

An Act which merely provided that a minister or some other person could spend a sum of money, no purpose of the expenditure being stated, would not be a valid appropriation Act.

But, according to the current High Court, an appropriation of exactly this type is not only valid but to be preferred in the event of ambiguous drafting.

Let us be clear about this: not even the government had that interpretation of its own appropriation acts. It is the result of a particular reading of a particular way in which the appropriation acts have been drafted since 1999. It is, in other words, an unforeseen side effect of the coalition’s new style of presenting the budget—and it needs to be fixed because it is doing serious damage to our constitutional arrangements, reducing parliament’s role in overseeing the budget to the extent that we are simply being asked to write blank cheques for the executive. In fact, as Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2005-2006 shows, it is not even limited blank cheques that we are being asked to write: we can also be asked to pick up the tab after money has been spent on ways we were never asked to approve. This bill contains an additional estimate of over $100 million for the ‘higher productivity, higher pay workplaces’ outcome. This is to reimburse the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations for the money they have wasted on this advertising campaign. For all we know, it was more than the $100 million that is being sought to supplement the department’s expenditure.

This is what the centuries-old principle of parliamentary control of finances has come to in John Howard’s Australia: parliament has next to no control or opportunity to scrutinise the spending plans of government at all. The annual budget is effectively reduced to a blank cheque, and if the government overspends on that amount they can simply come back in the additional appropriations round for a top-up. The Howard government, with control of both houses, now has absolute power, and it has taken no time at all to become absolutely corrupt in its budgeting process. It is treating consolidated revenue as a Liberal Party slush fund. This abuse of parliament’s budget scrutiny role is, as we know, only one example.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Gellibrand, ‘slush fund’ is a term that has always been considered unparliamentary. I think you should withdraw that.

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw. The government is treating consolidated revenue as a fund for its own political purposes, and I think this is only one of many examples we have seen. These developments should worry all of us in this House, not simply as parliamentarians deprived of our ancient and important role. It should concern us all as Australian taxpayers, knowing that our government has the power, the opportunity and the inclination to waste our money on keeping itself in power.

I would like to turn now to a separate issue, which goes to the additional appropriations in these bills of over $350 million for the Department of Health and Ageing. I want to see more of that money go towards preventive health care for children. It is patently obvious to Labor that we need to address preventive health care in childhood, and we have outlined some plans in our recently released discussion paper entitled ‘Goals for Aussie kids’. Labor’s plan for the future health of Australian kids is through early intervention and prevention. We have outlined a range of programs to address childhood health issues, ranging from allergies to mental health. The issue I want to talk about today, which is also raised in our paper, is that of childhood obesity, which Labor has committed to addressing in our goals for Aussie kids policy. I am aware that the government has recently launched an advertising campaign aimed at children to encourage them to switch off the television and get active. This is a good message, but you do have to ask whether there a single problem in this country that the government does not think can be fixed by advertising.

In my view, to tackle childhood obesity and encourage healthy food choices in youth it is essential to establish long-term healthy eating patterns and an interest in food and cooking. This then becomes an important part of preventive health care. Obesity is a complex problem which requires comprehensive solutions. The literature on the subject suggests that a complex interplay between cultural, social, behavioural and economic pressures influence the incidence of childhood obesity. Around 17 per cent of Australian children and adolescents are overweight, and a further six per cent are obese. Over the past decade the percentage of overweight children has almost doubled, and the percentage of obese children has more than tripled. Obese children are eight times more likely to become obese in adulthood, and entrenched obesity is very difficult to treat. It is well documented that childhood obesity leads to a range of health problems later in life, and we need to begin to address this issue now. Obese children are more at risk of developing diabetes in childhood and cardiovascular disease in adulthood and to experience premature mortality.

It is imperative that we encourage better nutrition and healthier lifestyles to avoid health problems related to obesity in childhood and later in life, not only for the health and wellbeing of Australians throughout their lives but also because the costs of obesity related illnesses down the track will have an impact on all of us. I am interested in a project that has been established for a range of reasons, and in one main part it tackles childhood obesity. It is a program to introduce children to healthy eating, gardening—a result of which is a number of environmental issues, including water conservation—and the social benefits of sharing a meal with other people.

Last year I attended the launch of  the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation. The project is an innovative program currently running at Collingwood College in Melbourne’s inner city. It aims to create positive eating experiences and engage kids in the process of producing food, through growing and cooking their own meals.

The kids are involved in planting, tending and harvesting an extensive vegetable garden and then cooking with the produce. They spend a period a week in the garden and a double period in the kitchen. The program brings together physical outdoor activity with education about food, the environment, healthy eating and social interaction.

This program has the potential to engage kids and teach them in a unique way, and to introduce them to food, cooking and healthy habits which increasingly—and unfortunately—fewer kids are experiencing at home. It was wonderful to attend the launch and to see the passion and excitement of the children involved in this project. Stephanie Alexander was there and told of the excitement and disappointment at growing their own food—what happened when an animal ate the large watermelon they had been tending so carefully. She said that some of the children were trying these vegetables for the first time and going home and talking to their parents about meals that could be cooked at home as well. It is a very exciting project which has the capacity to transform many children’s lives.

To run the Kitchen Garden program for children in years 3 to 5 costs approximately $60,000 a year, not really a large amount of money for a program that can have such an impact. At this stage there is no specific funding source to which a school can apply to establish a Kitchen Garden program, even though the pilot work has been done through the establishment of the program that has been running at Collingwood College.

In 2004, this government allocated $15 million to the Building a Healthy, Active Australia package.  This program was designed to grant schools a one-off payment of $1,500 to fund activities such as ‘developing canteen menus, establishing school vegetable gardens, healthy cooking classes and awards for students’. At the end of last year only $760,000 had been spent. Today I want to ask the Minister for Health and Ageing whether he is prepared to make this money available, and in more generous amounts, to schools which want to take up the kitchen garden idea. Clearly it is consistent with the objectives of the program when it was first introduced. There has not been the take-up rate that was expected, perhaps because there has been an underestimation of the cost to keep these projects operating in an ongoing way.

I would like to see the government investing in programs in areas such as my electorate of Gellibrand where socioeconomic disadvantage is high, where the health outcomes still rate poorly and where there is plenty of enthusiasm to make things change so that we improve health and social outcomes—particularly for children in our area. There are so many benefits from a program like this that it is worth revisiting how the money already allocated could be spent. I have to declare an interest, as a committed foodie from a foodie family: I think the benefits of teaching and encouraging children to eat with each other, understanding the aspects of talking during a meal and taking pride in sharing hospitality, is important not just for their health outcomes but also for their social outcomes.

I know that the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation has been inundated with requests to establish the Kitchen Garden project at many schools across Victoria. It seems a pity that the federal government cannot get the same level of response to its program. I think we can assume that this is due to a fairly serious and gross underestimation by the health minister of the resources that it takes to change entrenched behaviour. The piecemeal program that the government has in place does not do anything to address what the World Health Organisation is calling the ‘obesity epidemic’.

It is time to start looking further afield for fresh ideas because the ideas the government is using have become a bit stale. This is a good fresh idea. The hard work has been done. There are plenty of people who are enthusiastic and interested in setting up the program. They just need a little help from the government to get the projects off the ground. I invite the government to consider making this money available for the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation projects and for these sorts of projects in general. We will be writing to the minister to follow up this suggestion further.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The federal government provides around 47c of every dollar that state governments spend on hospitals. We provide money but we have no say in how they spend it. In my electorate of Mackellar the major hospital is the Mona Vale Hospital. It does not get its fair share of spending. It is starved of funds by the state government and, as a consequence, we have a state government that wishes to close it and build a single hospital on the northern beaches. That would mean that the people in my electorate would be sorrily disadvantaged and have no local hospital where their lives could be saved, as the hospital does now. I have been very much part of the movement to save Mona Vale Hospital and, indeed, to have it declared by the state government as the major hospital site and have a level 5 hospital there with a second, level 4, hospital elsewhere on the northern beaches.

I have never ever deviated from that principle. There have been strong rallies that I and others have addressed. We recently lost our local member, Mr John Brogden, when he resigned. We had a by-election on 26 November. The mayor was a leading proponent in the Mona Vale Hospital movement and stood on that platform during the whole of the by-election, saying that the Liberal Party candidate would not promise a level 5 hospital and would not promise to keep the hospital at Mona Vale upgraded. Therefore, he said, he was the only one who would go and fight for that hospital, and he was elected on that platform. He has not been in the job for more than two months and he has done a complete backflip and come up with a so-called alternative site in Warriewood. In other words, he has agreed with the state government that one hospital will do and that they can sell Mona Vale Hospital. The land is hugely valuable—clearly, the state government wants to get its hands on that land and has always wanted to.

They have agreed in this so-called backflip that certain parts of the Mona Vale land may be sold. This is something that we have all railed against for years, and he has betrayed the electorate. Mr McTaggart, who promised to resign as mayor, has now said he will remain as mayor. Presumably, he did make a comment to the local newspaper that by winning the election he was getting—pardon the expression—a ‘shitload of money’. Presumably, he thinks that the mayoral payment adds to that accumulation of money. Should he be re-elected at the next election, because of the way the state government superannuation scheme works he will be on a pension for life. So he will probably fight hard to get some more of that money.

As I said, he has lied about his promise to resign as mayor and is not doing so. His biggest lie is that about his commitment to Mona Vale Hospital. Having stood and said that he was the only man who could be elected for that, he has in fact deceived the entire electorate. Now we have a third one. This morning, he is reported as saying that I have sought an alternative site for the Mona Vale Hospital. That is his third lie. I simply say, ‘I have not.’ I have spoken to the general manager this morning. Mr McTaggart said the general manager had told him I had sought another site. That conversation took place this morning, with me on speaker phone so it could be overheard by my chief of staff. He listened to that conversation. During that conversation the general manager told me that he had briefed the mayor about his meeting with me last Friday when he came to brief me on the council’s proposal for the new site for a hospital.

I made it quite clear in that meeting that I always had supported, do support and will support the Mona Vale Hospital as the continuing hospital and the perfect site for a level 5 hospital. The general manager agreed that he had been verballed by the mayor and apologised to me. I accepted that apology. During that briefing last Friday with the Pittwater Council general manager, the general manager disagreed when I said to him that his duty was in fact to serve the people of Pittwater. He said that no, his job was to serve Pittwater Council.

What has happened as a result of Mr McTaggart’s backflip, deception and betrayal of the people of the Pittwater state electorate is that he has totally used Pittwater Council and its officers as an extension of his political arm. He has politicised the council itself. Mr McTaggart has taken over the office of Mr Brogden and has removed the name of Mr Brogden but has not put his own name on the office so that nobody really knows where to find him. Most of his announcements are made as the mayor. The state government makes provision for members of parliament to have offices set aside and to properly serve the people. I am afraid Mr McTaggart does not know how to separate his mayoral job responsibilities from his parliamentary responsibilities. As I said, he has been a state parliamentary member for barely two months and in that period of time he has totally backflipped on the one thing for which he said he was the only one who could represent Pittwater, which was to save Mona Vale Hospital and which he has now totally left.

In the course of that briefing, I was also told by the general manager that Mr McTaggart had had a meeting with Mr Iemma one week before the by-election. In that conversation he was made aware that the state government was about to make an announcement on the new site for the hospital and Mr McTaggart asked could they please put in a new submission and please could it not be announced before the by-election. So the people were totally deceived. Mr McTaggart knew that the state government was going to move away from the Mona Vale Hospital. He stood for the election and said, ‘Vote for me, I’m the salvation of the hospital,’ knowing that the state government was not going to back it and was then not prepared to fight—not even a skirmish, not one—not a speech, not a press release, nothing. There was no reaction to a new proposal to move Mona Vale Hospital a short distance down the road to Warriewood so there will only be one hospital and the land at Mona Vale can be sold off, which we have fought against all the time.

I can simply say that what Mr McTaggart has done is to betray the voters. Quite frankly, that makes him unfit for public office. He has said he will not resign from his mayoralty. Perhaps he should stay mayor and resign as the state member for Pittwater. Let us have a fresh by-election and elect someone who will not get elected on a lie and, when challenged subsequent to his election, continue to lie and utilise poor innocent members of his council’s staff as dupes. It is an absolute disgrace, and I will continue to fight for Mona Vale Hospital. It is the proper place for that hospital to be and it is land that must not be sold by the state government for more development, which is their ultimate aim.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How much is he paid—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is paid as an alderman and has a mayoral salary as well and other perks that go with it. I cannot tell you the precise figure but I am damn sure he could.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2005-2006 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2005-2006 and support the amendment moved by the shadow minister for finance. The amendment we have before us gives voice to the serious concerns about this government’s economic management and its economic credentials. This government is asleep at the wheel when it comes to managing Australia’s economy. Currently we are experiencing record commodity prices yet, at the same time, we are experiencing a record current account deficit and a record trade deficit. These are hardly signs of an economy that is in good shape and hardly pointers to an ongoing economic success should the economic boom come to an end at any time soon. While the government may dismiss the growing current account deficit, saying that Australia’s foreign debt is held by the private sector and mostly the debt is in Australian dollars, there is still a looming storm sitting on the economic horizon.

November’s trade deficit was $2.5 billion. That is one of the worst on record. Imports grew at a whopping 7.2 per cent compared to the export growth of a mere 0.6 per cent. The current account deficit continues to run at six per cent of gross domestic product. Household debt is at record levels, and people live in fear, quite frankly, of the slightest lift in interest rates. All of this adds up to a potential disaster. The Australian economy has benefited as other Western economies have acted through monetary policy to stimulate their economies. Borrowing has no doubt been cheap and we have taken advantage of that. However, the combination of events that have presented such great opportunities could come to a halt just as quickly through a sustained fall in the US dollar. The current account deficit will certainly matter then, and it is something that ought not to be currently ignored.

The potential for a disaster and for the Australian economy to be hit harder by external shocks has grown as we have taken advantage of the highly liquid international capital market. The government’s willingness to ignore the possibility of increased impacts of external shocks calls into serious question the government’s claim to be great economic managers. The government is not using this period of record high commodity prices and a resources boom to invest in Australia’s long-term economic future.

The trade and current account deficits are not the only economic indicators that this government is trying to sweep under the carpet. As noted economist Paul Krugman once said, ‘Productivity isn’t everything.’ But he went on to say, ‘But in the long run it’s almost everything.’ Sadly for Australia’s long-term economic growth, this government has seen fit to ignore the need to encourage productivity growth. Australia has once again fallen more than 20 percentage points behind the US efficiency levels after our dramatic improvements that occurred in the 1990s. It seems as though this government has a fundamental problem with driving productivity growth. In the decade that it has been in office, its claim to fame when it comes to promoting productivity growth is the introduction of labour market reforms culminating in the extreme Work Choices legislation. I am sorry, but the slashing of take-home pay and conditions of Australian workers does not constitute, to my mind, a serious attempt to improve the productivity ratings of this country. It constitutes a serious attempt at tearing at the very social fabric of Australian society, and it does not in any way, shape or form constitute a real solution to Australia’s declining productivity. At the end of the day, productivity growth is the only means through which real incomes can rise over the longer term. It is pretty straightforward stuff and I expect most economic students have come to terms with that. Despite this, the government continues to refuse to tackle Australia’s declining rate of productivity growth.

The opposition is not alone in voicing its concerns when it comes to productivity performance or lack thereof. Recently, the chief executive of the Business Council of Australia, Katie Lahey, said the following about Australia’s declining productivity:

This is the pointer to where our economy is heading. It is clear that after sustained growth, Australia’s productivity is in decline. This indicates that the benefits of past reforms are waning and we now need a fresh wave of economic reforms to reverse this trend.

It has also been reported recently that the Business Council of Australia—an association which is constituted of leading business executives—is also concerned about a culture of complacency developing within this government. It comes as no surprise to me that there are concerns about the complacency of this government creeping into the views of various leading economic and business groups. It certainly comes as no surprise to me that constituents in my electorate have expressed concern at this government’s complacency when it comes to assisting with their economic development.

I would like to refer to a case in point, that being the Hume Highway and the on-and-off ramps on the Hume Highway at Ingleburn. Efficient and adequate infrastructure is essential to support the development potential of towns and regions. Recently, the south-west of Sydney has benefited from the construction of the new M7 motorway. It is expected that, within three years of opening, the Westlink M7 will generate an additional 24,000 jobs in Western Sydney. That is certainly welcome news for those of us who live in the west. An efficient piece of transport infrastructure that bypasses up to 56 sets of traffic lights is going to make a considerable contribution to the future of Western Sydney. It is an important point—and I hope it is not lost on the government—that infrastructure supports and enhances employment opportunities. It is for this reason that I am extremely disappointed that the federal government has decided to throw away the longstanding protocol to fund infrastructure works around federal highways by forcing, in the case of the Hume Highway, the Campbelltown City Council to pick up one-third of the tab for the new on- and off-ramps at Ingleburn. Residents and business operators alike have been waiting for a long time for this important piece of infrastructure. These on- and off-ramps will improve access to industrial estates at Ingleburn and Minto, supporting the growth of local businesses and creating local employment opportunities. The ramps cost $13.8 million and the Campbelltown City Council will be forced to contribute $4.5 million to the construction of these ramps; otherwise, the ramps will not be constructed.

On the one hand, the federal government was willing to support the construction of the M7 motorway and bask in the reflected glory of the employment opportunities that will be created, but when it comes to the issue of the Ingleburn on- and off-ramps to a federal highway it has decided that in this case it needs to have a cost-sharing arrangement. There are not many councils around that have a spare few million to contribute to a project like this—a project that they ordinarily should not be expected to pay for. The money had to come from somewhere. In this case it will come from a special levy on the businesses in the industrial estate at Ingleburn and Minto.

The problem associated with the on- and off-ramps is not the only dereliction of duty on infrastructure by this government in my electorate. The government is also dragging its heels on the completion of the widening of the freeway north of Raby Road, particularly in the section north of Brooks Road. The widening project on the southern side of the freeway is well on the way—in fact, it is almost complete—but I have yet to receive any advice from the government as to when the additional northbound lane might start. The benefit of such an additional lane is clear to anyone who travels in the area. Currently, there are significant delays for northbound traffic during the morning peak, and these delays are being exacerbated as motorists and transport operators seek to use the Hume Highway as an access point to the Westlink M7 to cut out, as I said earlier, up to 56 sets of traffic lights that would otherwise need to be negotiated.

The additional northbound lane from Brooks Road will not only assist in reducing traffic congestion; it will also improve the safety in the area and contribute to business growth as local businesses are able to efficiently and effectively transport their goods through Australia’s global cities and to the world. Campbelltown City Council has estimated that the financial benefit of a third northbound lane from Brooks Road would be up to $18.5 million annually by the year 2021. I call on the government to commence this project immediately. It concerns me greatly that this government goes about its merry way, ignoring serious threats to our economic future, ignoring the prospect that the salad days of the current resources and liquidity boom will one day end and ignoring the real and serious need to address underlying structural and economic problems. Instead, it concentrates on implementing an agenda based on some ideological social engineering. Instead, we have two appropriation bills before us today that seek to allocate more government money to advertising.

I understand that there were only two policy initiatives that this government had up its sleeve when it came to government this term—one being industrial relations and the other the privatisation of Telstra. But I have to ask: is there a need to spend an additional $110 million on advertising associated with these industrial relations changes? When residents in my electorate are struggling to get prompt access to a GP because there are not nearly enough of them to serve the population, would it not be better to take some of that $110 million and open up more places at university? Members opposite may claim that this was done last week with the COAG agreement, but the agreement was only for the creation of additional full fee paying medical degrees. I do not know many people in the south-west of Sydney who have a spare couple of hundred thousand dollars to allow them to send their sons or daughters to study medicine through a full fee paying degree.

In addition to the increase in taxpayer funded media in these appropriation bills, there is another $52.4 million to cover the increased costs of the highly disadvantaged in the Job Network. I welcome any additional spending to assist people to get jobs, particularly local jobs. Unemployment has almost become an intractable problem in the south-west of Sydney, and various reasons underpin that. But local unemployment rates are consistently above those in the rest of Sydney and they rank among the highest in the state. By way of comparison, the national unemployment rate in January rose slightly to a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.3 per cent. In the Fairfield-Liverpool and other outer metropolitan Sydney region, the statistics in December of last year showed that the unemployment rate rose to 7.8 per cent. That is another 2½ per cent above the current national rate. I note that these regional figures are not necessarily seasonally adjusted, but I would suggest that the comparison is not without merit.

In the December quarter last year, in outer Western Sydney the number of unemployed increased by 4,400. These figures could best be described as disappointing, but even more disturbing are the statistics for youth unemployment. At a national level it seems that progress on youth unemployment has stalled. Nationally, the male youth unemployment rate is more than 17 per cent—some two per cent higher than it was a year ago—while the female youth unemployment rate is 14.3 per cent, up one per cent from the previous year. But locally, in the south-west of Sydney, the rate is much worse: it is a staggering 17.9 per cent. Immediate action needs to be taken by the government to address this situation.

The government’s response to matters of unemployment is the same as its response to corrections within the Australian labour market—that is, change the industrial relations system to see whether forcing down wages and conditions will prompt employment gains. No evidence has been presented to support that case. No-one, except the Prime Minister, is expecting thousands more jobs to be created by cutting wages and conditions back to the bare minimum.

What is required is real and serious commitment to training and skills development. Earlier, I reflected on the need for the government to get serious about halting the decline in productivity growth, and I take this opportunity to remind the government of the importance of investing in its human capital. While I welcome the additional funds that will be dedicated to the Job Network to help people with disabilities find work, often the biggest barrier they face is access to training. The OECD noted:

... the single most important finding of recent economic research might be that new evidence from longitudinal microeconomic data reveals that firms that innovate more consistently and rapidly employ more workers, demand higher skill levels, pay higher wages, and offer more stable prospects to their workforce.

No matter how much money is dedicated to job search activities, it will not be worth nearly as much as investment in improving the skills of those seeking work to make them more employable. Lowering the cost of labour does not make people more employable; it makes them more expendable.

Australia’s economic future—its capacity to grow and thrive—hinges on our ability to innovate and, through that, to improve productivity—to be better than the best. Innovation, research and development and the key drivers of economic growth in an age of the global economy interaction stem from skilled workers applying those skills. Innovative firms are able to grow much more rapidly than those who do not innovate, and growing those firms has to be a priority.

Research and development spending has been allowed to fall to 0.89 per cent of gross domestic product—nearly half the OECD average. This gives Australia a rank of 15th in the OECD when it comes to research and development. It is not a proud record, and it is not a situation that is going to be corrected by Work Choices. No matter how you look at it, the long-term economic prosperity of this country is being squandered by this government. (Time expired)