Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought mass unemployment was a John Howard Treasurer phenomenon, but we will leave that to one side.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition will come to his question.

Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Has the Treasurer read the comments of the Chief Executive Officer of the National Family Day Care Council, who said in today’s Sydney Morning Herald:

“You can have all the theoretical places in the world, but if you can’t find carers then they remain political promises ...

Treasurer, if there is a shortage of qualified carers, how will the places you talked about in your budget address be delivered? Isn’t the Treasurer misleading parents and raising false hopes when the truth is these places will not be delivered, because they cannot be?

Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I said in the budget speech on Tuesday night, in 1996 there were 300,000 child-care places; in 2009—wait for it—there will be 700,000 child-care places in Australia. That is a more than doubling over the last 10 years. How does the government go about child care? Firstly, with the child-care benefit; secondly, with the child-care rebate which will become payable—30 per cent of out-of-pocket costs up to $4,000 per annum per child—and, thirdly, with no cap at all on places. That means an eligible church, an eligible council or an eligible private operator can set up in any area where there is excess demand and can have a facility which will attract government funding. This is broad ranging, wide term reform which will mean that the opportunities will come to create those child-care places for Australian families.

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Would the minister inform the House and my Ryan electorate how this week’s budget reinforces the government’s commitment to the Medicare system? Are there any alternative policies? What is the government’s response?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to say to the member for Ryan and to his constituents that this has been a great week for Medicare. This week’s budget commits $1.9 billion to mental health, there is $250 million to the health workforce and there is $500 million to the Australian Better Health Initiative, as well as a record $905 million in new money for health and medical research. In a year when our economy is tipped to grow to $1 trillion, federal health spending will reach $48 billion. And there is a clear message in this: Peter Costello is the best Treasurer Medicare has ever had.

I have been asked about alternative policies, and let us give credit where it is due. I applaud the Leader of the Opposition’s belated decision to finally dump the Medicare Gold policy. It takes a bit of guts for Mr Twenty-Four Per Cent to ditch the policy belonging to Madam Thirty-Two Per Cent over there, but that is what he said last week. This week the member for Lalor was asked, ‘Will you be maintaining some of the principles of Medicare Gold?’ and she said yes. And just this very day I go onto the ALP website and I see a reference to a Medicare Gold ad which has the voice of Mark Latham saying: ‘No more delays, no more waiting lists; this is an important extension of the universal coverage of Medicare. We call it Medicare Gold.’ So they have taken his hat off the website but they have still got his ad on the website. And the website encourages people to play this ad over and over and over and over again, so you have got the ghost that walks, you have got the policy that talks and it is still on the Labor Party’s website. I will say this: a political party with no health policy whatsoever will never be in government. It will never be in government, and it does not matter how many speeches he gets Bob Ellis to write for him.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Treasurer, how many of these child-care places will be delivered to parents and filled by children in one year’s time?

Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That depends, of course, on the amount of demand and the number of people that are going to supply them. But we said in our budget that we expect to have 700,000 in 2009, an additional 25,000 places, which makes it 400,000 more than ever existed under the Australian Labor Party.

Alan Cadman (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Would the minister advise the House how the new budget measures strengthen Australia’s consular services and crisis response capacities?

Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member very much for his question and his interest. Australia provides excellent consular services. They are at least as good if not better than those of any other country, and I think other countries appreciate and recognise this. We have 173 consular locations around the world—that is, DFAT posts, Austrade posts and honorary consulates. We also have a consular-sharing agreement with Canada at 24 different posts.

There has been an enormous growth in the demand for consular services. Australians make almost five million overseas trips a year, and that represents a 40 per cent increase over the last three years. In 2005 DFAT managed an unprecedented number of major overseas emergencies. Honourable members will recall the tsunami, the London and Bali bombings, the Douglas Wood kidnapping in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina, to name the most important of them. In the six months to December 2005 consular operations assisted some 10,800 Australians, following on from the 25,000 Australians who were assisted in the previous 12 months.

I just make the point that there is enormous demand for these services, and it is important that the government does its best to try to meet that demand. Obviously there are circumstances where we are limited in what we can do. Nevertheless, in the Treasurer’s excellent budget we have committed an extra $80.2 million over four years to manage the growing demands of consular casework and to enhance our contingency planning and crisis response capabilities. Included is funding for additional DFAT as well as Austrade consular staff in Canberra and overseas, backed by an enhanced training program and a major upgrade of DFAT’s crisis and case management systems and the DFAT crisis centre.

In conclusion let me say two things about this. First of all, we as a government have been very committed to providing good consular services. That has been a very high priority for me, for the department and for the government as a whole. Second, and I often say this, ultimately there is a limit to what we can do. Certainly, when it comes to the law, there are no special laws for Australians overseas. Australians are required to abide by the laws of the countries which they visit. If Australians do at least allegedly breach those laws—certainly if they are convicted for a breach of those laws—there is very little we can do. It is not possible for the Australian government to spring people out of foreign prisons. People have to adhere to the laws of the countries or the jurisdictions within which they find themselves.

Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Does the Treasurer agree with Mr Peter Hendy, the chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, that skills shortages are ‘the No. 1 complaint of investors in this country’? Why then do the Treasurer’s own budget papers show that funding for vocational education and training will fall as a total proportion of Commonwealth expenditure, from 0.75 per cent in the current financial year to 0.67 per cent in 2009-10?

Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This government has put in place a system of training and apprenticeships which is better than anything Australia has had for a decade. The budget includes $1.4 billion in initiatives to promote vocational education and training, including $537 million to extend youth allowance to apprenticeships. It has $350 million for 25 Australian technical colleges. It has $143 million to improve careers advice. It has $120 million for tool kits and $106 million for the Commonwealth trade-learning scholarships. The total funding for VET has more than doubled over the last 10 years, from $1 billion in 1995-96 to $2.55 billion in 2006. So funding has more than doubled since the Australian Labor Party was rightly thrown out of office. This support is delivering results. The total number of new apprenticeships doubled from 156,700 in 1996 to 397,800 in September 2005. The number of new apprenticeships in traditional trades increased from 120,000 in 1996 to 168,000 in September 2005.

So on any measure, whether it is spending, whether it is apprenticeships, whether it is VET or whether it is Commonwealth investment in technical colleges, the Commonwealth has a bigger investment now than it has ever had in the past. One of the good things is that, if you are training at the moment and you do get a trade or a skill, your chances of getting a job are very good. I have been in this House since 1990, and I never, ever heard anybody complain about the difficulty of finding workers for jobs back in 1990. I heard a lot of complaints about the fact that there was mass unemployment and a shortage of jobs for workers. In the six years of Labor government that I experienced whilst I sat in opposition I never, ever heard anybody ever suggest that there was a problem in finding workers for jobs. Why? I will tell you why, Mr Speaker: unemployment was at 10.6 per cent. If I had the choice between an economy in which there were more jobs going than workers and an economy in which there were more workers going than jobs, I know which one I would choose. I know which one the Australian public would choose. I know what the Australian public would think the better problem was: a shortage of labour rather than excess labour. Let me say it again: the Labor Party is a party of mass unemployment. That was its record in 1993. The Liberal and National parties in the coalition stand, above all else, for jobs, and there have been 1.7 million new jobs in Australia since 1996.