Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are purportedly sitting in a country of plenty—so much plenty, according to this government, that you can throw money around like water, almost indiscriminately. It seems this government thinks that what is important in Australia is finding where to spend more money and where to take it from. These are the priorities of this government. The Treasurer wants to be the magic giver, apparently throwing money at everybody. But let us see where those funds are going, who is actually getting the largesse. My constituents have said they would rather have the services than minuscule tax cuts.

Let us have a look at the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, a method of subsidising those very important lifesaving drugs that people need in this country of ours. The Treasurer said after the last budget that we cannot afford the PBS in its present form, that we had to change it, that it had to be cut back and reduced. The result was that in 2005 we saw a dramatic drop in the number of prescriptions being filled—almost two million fewer scripts than were filled in 2004. This does not signify that people are getting better. It means that both Abbott and Costello have targeted the PBS to deliver savings—

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

Order! The member for Lyons will refer to members by their seats or by their titles.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

without considering or explaining the impact these measures will have on sick Australians. With an increasing and ageing population it is irrational to argue that people in our community would be requiring fewer medicines. The PBS should and must be a priority to ensure that all people have access to medicines and that it is not a question of cost that prevents them from seeking assistance with their health problems. The PBS is one of the great things that we do for the people of Australia, and we should protect it, look after it and not cut it, as is being done by this government. Everybody is feeling the skills shortage crisis—

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

Order! Is the member for Ryan seeking an intervention?

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

Yes.

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

Will the member for Lyons accept an intervention?

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

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

I wish to ask the member for Lyons if, by his comments, he infers that he opposes the government’s measures to reform the PBS to make it more affordable for the Australian community.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not a matter of having good reforms and doing what one can to make the PBS a better system. I know that there are people who are not getting their scripts because they have been cut back by this government.

As I said, there is a skills shortage crisis. Whether it is with builders, electricians, plumbers, doctors, teachers, nurses, dentists or chefs, to name a few—all those skills are scarce in Australia. Yet this government have boasted that they have set up some additional colleges around the states. That was about a year ago. This is to solve all the shortages that we have. But where are they? And where are the new tradespeople? I think we are looking at four colleges struggling to come up at the moment. I understand that there might be one in Queensland, which has one student. And there are others that have students where they come from and that has given a boost to the numbers. But there are still very small numbers coming out of the four that are up. I think it will be 2010, and probably more like 2015, before we have anybody really coming out of these colleges.

Yet we have a perfectly good TAFE system in the state system. Some immediate funds could have gone into those establishments. We could have had courses going and we could have had students coming out in 2008-09. These colleges were mooted for political reasons—

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

Is the member for Ryan seeking to make an intervention?

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

Yes, I have a question.

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

Will the member for Lyons take the question?

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I will not take the question. I want to make some points. These colleges were set up for political reasons to try to attack the technical teachers union, who were not happy to sign AWAs. The private colleges have problems being set up to teach trades. My concern is that they are going to break the traditional depth of skills that we built in our tradespeople in this country down to where we have some mickey mouse scheme where people get very little training and are turned out as tradesmen. I think that will be a very sad day for Australia and will not do the country any good in the long term.

I think employers do want skilled people. The problem that they have, of course, is that they do not want to pay for training. We all remember the old training levy days when the Hawke-Keating government tried to improve training in this country by getting employers to pay. We do not really want to go back to levy days, but we do not want to go back to where we are importing all our trades men and women either. We really do have to train people in this country and we have to find the right ways to do that. We have to train them properly, because the country needs those basic skills for the long-term future and not five- or six-week courses or three-month courses after which people are turned out that we call tradesmen—but who are not tradesmen at all.

Arrangements could have been made with the states. Negotiations and the failure of the federal minister to negotiate with the states to get a deal through the TAFE system could have achieved the same result—or a better result than we presently have. Of course, Labor has said that it will abolish TAFE fees, state fees, so that we really encourage people into the TAFE area. We will also assist unemployed people into training in areas of need, and TAFE will continue—

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

The member for Ryan is seeking to make an intervention. Will the member for Lyons accept the question?

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

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

Thank you. I just wish to clarify with the member for Lyons if he understands that TAFE falls under state jurisdiction. I am wondering how a federal Labor government would abolish fees in relation to state governments.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will negotiate in a proper, sensible and responsible manner with the states and offer them the money to abolish TAFE fees—what the government, under the former minister, should have done instead of setting up these federal technical colleges, by negotiating with the states and getting an agreement with the states to improve the skill level of this country. And they failed. It is a failure by the federal minister to negotiate properly with the states to achieve things. Federalism is about negotiations between the states and the Commonwealth and, of course, our other tier of government as well. When that fails, you have stupid things set up, like these federal technical colleges.

TAFE does an excellent job in the states, but it could do better if it had more funding and federal help. I heard an example only the other day when I was talking to the Tasmanian state minister David Bartlett, who said that the TAFE teaching delivered to the students enabled them to experience some real work practice through working with clients, developing a brief and negotiating a successful outcome. He was telling me that a number of students that he had just been talking to had won a design award to promote Tasmanian wine by designing wine labels for a client. I know Labor will be providing assistance once we are in government, and we will abolish fees to make life easier.

We also need to do a lot of work to develop new apprenticeships and trade skills in many areas and to look for ways to encourage people to finish their trade training. I understand that we also need to encourage people to finish their training in technical areas, right through to certificates V and VI and diploma levels. That is something that has been totally missed by this government.

Communications is probably at its lowest ebb yet. We have a situation where Telstra has been struggling with providing broadband. Australian technology is becoming antiquated. We are now slipping behind other countries in the world in this fight for technology and in having technology where it should be so that people can increase productivity and increase their opportunities for training and education through fast, efficient and effective technology at the right price.

Poor old Telstra is now struggling to compete because the basic infrastructure is not there. We have cut off all the options for putting Telstra’s energy and skills into rolling out new infrastructure for broadband across the country because we have sold off half of Telstra and we are now attempting to sell the other half. We need to get rid of all the sales items around the provider and get on with renewing the copper wire and looking at how we can improve fibre optics, wireless delivery and satellite access. We really have to lift our game as a nation. This government has failed to do anything in this budget to assist in this area.

Business in Australia is climbing up the wall trying to get proper services out in the regions, as you would know, Mr Deputy Speaker Causley. People are not able to do what they want where they want to do it. They cannot live and work where they want to. I know this only too well in my electorate of Lyons. One of the biggest issues is the lack of access to broadband and all other IT innovations. I could say the same about free-to-air TV. Why these two cannot somehow come together to approach and use technologies to make people’s lives a lot better, I just do not know. There is nothing in this budget to help. There is nothing at all from this government to help us in this area. And this is about productivity, it is about training, it is about education and it is about improving our country.

As it is, I have people in the Lyons electorate who have no broadband within 20 minutes of the capital city. That is disgraceful. I have people in northern Lyons who get no free-to-air television—none, zip—and they are within 40 minutes of Launceston. I noticed in one of yesterday’s news clippings another whole section of people in north-west Tasmania who suddenly have no television. They have lost it because of broadcasting changes. This is just ridiculous. A few of the millions that are being allocated to tax cuts and other things could have been better employed in making sure that communications in Australia are better delivered, that we have a plan to do the whole of this country and that we get broadband at a price that is comparable with the price in rest of the world. Labor plans to make this happen, to give Australia an opportunity to compete on equal terms with other countries.

No funds have been allocated to infrastructure and there is no vision for nation building in this budget, just cheap hand-outs for buying votes and trying to stay popular so that the Treasurer has an opportunity to have a crack at the leadership of his own party. That is how the Treasurer is looking at Australia. No budget items were allocated to help boost superannuation. There is no further encouragement for people to save for their retirement, despite the removal of the tax on the end benefits. We should be encouraging people to save more.

This brings me to the statement that the Prime Minister loves to make, especially in the parliament—and yet it is so wrong—that wages were so much lower under Labor. He is trying to imply that people are better off under the Liberal industrial relations policies. How wrong can he be? Costs were lower then so in comparison wages were higher, and the workforce put a proportion of their wages into superannuation. There were trade-offs, and tax cuts were put into superannuation. So, although the weekly payment may have been lower, workers were building on their future payments by saving in superannuation.

I believe the individual was a lot better off under Labor than under this government. We will see that as we go on, with some of the stuff that is starting to emerge. The Spotlight example, where people are losing $90 a week, is a prime example. At least in the old days they had a living wage, not a make-believe amount that the government gives with one hand and takes away with the other. We looked to the future when we introduced compulsory superannuation for everybody. That will make a lot of difference to young women just starting out in the workforce now. But there should be a greater contribution from both employers and employees, and we can do that through tax cuts. That would give a lot of people more opportunities for the future.

The other area that is a disgrace is the funding for defence forces and veterans. There have been comments made lately by the federal Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Bruce Billson, that Defence Force personnel should be more emotionally resilient. He was criticising the troops from the past as being misfits and ne’er-do-wells. What the devil does that mean? I do not understand, but I think I have some idea. Our very highly trained and efficient defence forces are sent into areas of conflict and at times become affected by what they experience and see. They should be emotionally affected; if they were not they would probably be robots, just primed to kill and nothing else. That is not what our troops are; in most cases they play great roles in peacekeeping and as trainers. They are human beings, so it is not surprising that when they are faced with atrocities these things affect them.

As veterans they should have the same resources as those that are physically injured. Mental injuries are just as long lasting and are more likely to affect their families and be passed down to their children. Today our defence forces are spread all over the place, with long tours of duty because recruitment is down, and we are running out of troops. Inevitably some will not be able to cope as well as others.

We are wasting our time in Iraq. I think we are spending $1 billion plus there. We have all these problems in our local areas, like East Timor, the Solomon Islands and other parts of the Pacific, where we could be playing a lot more of a role and spending that money on diplomatic work, aid, training and making better governance. We seem to be able to spend money on war zones, but not in our own area looking after our own troops, either serving or retired. Not only is this government not looking after them but it is insulting those on the front line. It is heartless and thoughtless and should be strongly condemned. My veteran constituents are demanding an apology from the member for Dunkley for his insensitive comments.

Cameron Thompson (Blair, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He didn’t say that.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is what the veterans in my electorate believe, and they are asking for him to apologise. That is what the emails that I have received from my constituents say. We have a budget that has been thoroughly wasteful in some parts and downright stingy in anything to do with community services, the elderly, health and education, the very areas that need the most attention. I guess these people are expendable to the government. Contrary to the Treasurer’s closing comments, this budget does nothing in the way of taking this nation forward with infrastructure, with training and with human consideration. Labor can do a lot better. We will not have a whole pile of hidden cuts and changed programs. We will respect the people who have served us and we will deliver on key needs for a more equitable and fair society.

David Fawcett (Wakefield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will try to respect the request to keep the length of speeches to a minimum, but I wish to cover so many positive aspects of the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2006-2007 and cognate bills. This budget builds on a number of others that have benefited so many people in Australia, and particularly the people in Wakefield.

After 10 years, many people are now starting to take for granted the fact that there will be budget surpluses, record low unemployment, low interest rates and low inflation. Yesterday I had the privilege and pleasure of opening a conference on the helicopter industry in Australia and the Pacific, and we had a number of industry participants from North America, Europe and Asia. They remarked a number of times on the economic management in Australia and the strong conditions that this government has created for industry, employment and people, and they observed that people here in Australia enjoy a high standard of living. Those comments were remarkable. But what does this budget, building on previous budgets, mean for the people of Wakefield?

Firstly I would like to highlight the point that people continue to benefit from the underlying investment ongoing in areas such as health and aged care. Investment in health and aged care, for example, has doubled since 1995 to well over $40 billion. Investment in skills training, in real dollar terms, has increased from around $1 billion in 1995 to over $2½ billion now. These measures build cumulatively and people benefit from them. For example, with tax cuts, people often look at a budget and ask, ‘Where is the tax cut for this particular group?’ But, cumulatively, you see that people individually are paying less tax now. Many people say that this is the highest taxing government ever but they ignore the fact that, while the revenue from tax may be high, it is because there are more people in work now than ever before; hence there is a larger base for the revenue. Individuals are not footing that bill per se.

I would like to take this opportunity to recap some of the specific things that this economic management has meant and some of the factors that underpin it. One of the things that has characterised this coalition government is the fact that local members and the government try to remain connected with people at the local community level. Communication is important. Individually, I have taken that up by continuing my regular presence at train stations, listening posts and shopping centres and by doorknocking, as well as having regular structured meetings with local government to optimise the outcome for regional developments and investment. So the CEOs and mayors from the Wakefield Regional Council, the Light Regional Council, the Clare and Gilbert Valleys Council, the District Council of Mallala, the Town of Gawler Council, City of Playford, City of Salisbury Council and I have regular meetings to discuss how we can best work together at both an Australian government and a local government level to see investments that are not opportunistic but really will benefit the health and prosperity of people in the region of Wakefield.

I also facilitate the Wakefield Forum, which is an opportunity every six to eight weeks for people involved in particular sectors—whether it is health, education, aged care, tourism, small business or defence—to come together with the appropriate minister so that they can hear first-hand some of the government’s policy initiatives and the background and thinking behind them. And, importantly, they then have an opportunity to provide direct feedback on those things that they perceive are working well and those areas for which they believe policies can be enhanced. They have proved incredibly popular because people value the opportunity to directly connect with the ministers of this government to make sure that our policies truly work to the benefit of people.

Not only have we listened but we have acted. Nationally, unemployment is at an all-time low. In Wakefield, there are areas where unemployment is as low as 1.5 per cent. There are also areas, however, where unemployment is near 10 per cent and we have some of the classic problems of substance abuse, dependency and intergenerational unemployment. Having connected with and listened to people and tried to find solutions that they believe would work, I am pleased to say that this budget supports a number of measures that have been brought in by the coalition government.

The technical college which will be located in Elizabeth West has received terrific support, both from the community and also importantly from the business sector—and not just peak bodies, but individual employers who have signed up to be on the board and who have committed to taking on apprentices. Based on recent developments in the southern part of Adelaide and the feedback we have had from other parts of the country, we expect to be well and truly oversubscribed in terms of the people who would like to take up trade training.

We recognise, though, that there are some young people who, because of the barriers they face, do not have the capacity individually to even stay at school or move into something like the technical college. Having looked around to see who is delivering effective outcomes, not just making good promises, we have funded Boys’ Town to the tune of more than $600,000 to come down and set up in the city of Playford to make that strong connection with youth who have disconnected from education and ongoing training. Based on what they do in Logan, Boys’ Town have a fantastic record of connecting these kinds of young people with meaningful employment by shaping their attitudes. Most employers tell me that, if they get a young person with a good attitude, they will give them the particular workplace skills that they need. The Boys’ Town program works hand-in-hand with employers to achieve that outcome. Some 80-odd per cent of the people who go into their programs get the kinds of outcomes that we are looking for.

We have also, through things like the Sustainable Regions program, given over $1 million to the Northern Advanced Manufacturing Industry Group. This is a group of employers and manufacturers who work together with high schools in the area to give hands-on experiences to young people. They can come out and see how the kinds of things that they learn in school such as maths, science and physics translate into the workplace and what kinds of career opportunities there are. We have employers leveraging off this program and coming up with things like the Concept Creation program, where these young people are encouraged and given the opportunity to develop their own innovative abilities so that they have a purpose to stay connected to school and to move into the workplace.

Then there is the Investing in Our Schools program. There is a strong connection here. This meets the needs of local communities, because they have identified that the structures that are often put in place by the state governments do not meet the real needs they have. This has been incredibly well received. Then there is federal government funding going to individual schools. For example, in Kapunda, the high school science labs were downright dangerous and out of date. Some $2.3 million went directly to that school project. The coalition has funded simple things, such as the connecting of communities with early childhood education. Early childhood education is important, but many people cannot access that if they do not have a second car in the family or even a first car. The government has funded groups like the Playford council for a bus so that they can move young mothers and their children and connect them to some of these early learning opportunities.

There are more opportunities in child care. There is incentive funding to establish child care in Kapunda. We are working with people in Clare to make sure that they have adequate child-care services. There is more vacation child care at St Thomas Moore, for example, in Elizabeth. Importantly in this budget, out of school hours care and family day-care have been uncapped, which will provide great opportunities.

Programs such as Work for the Dole have seen the township of Gawler benefit from renovations at the Gawler train station. The Elizabeth Lions facility has been upgraded. Then there are things like Green Corp. I have been involved with a number of Green Corp projects now and have seen the life-changing impact on young people who have been put into an environment where they are encouraged and mentored to develop the life skills and the habits that will make them employable. I have been pleased to have been able at the end of that to take some of these young people who have not yet picked up work and connect them with employers. In fact, only last week I received a phone call from an employer saying, ‘I just want you to know that that young man is still with me.’ Despite all the issues that he was facing, the basis of the Green Corp program, coupled with an employer who was prepared to encourage and mentor him, has created an opportunity for this young man that will transform his life.

With regard to infrastructure, this budget continues the vision of AusLink in building infrastructure for this nation. Communities have long bemoaned the fact that there has been a disjointed approach to infrastructure planning in this nation. It is one of the great achievements of this coalition government that we have put in place a program where local governments, state governments and the Australian government, along with user groups, come together and look at transport corridors and put down in order of priority the connections and the infrastructure that they need to ensure goods flow and that safe travel for people is possible.

The coalition government have done specific things for local communities: the Black Spot funding for Hoskins Corner on the Balaklava-Mallala Road; the new northern approach to Adelaide, which will take traffic off Main North Road and make it a safer, cleaner environment and more effective for the transport of freight; and, with regard to West Avenue, allocating some $5 million to link Elizabeth West and Edinburgh Park so that we can see further investment by industry and creation of jobs for the people of Northern Adelaide. There has been cooperation and leadership from the federal government over things like flood mitigation. There have been programs that cost some $20 million where, under the original formulas, local governments just could not afford to invest in. Leadership from the coalition government has looked at changing the funding formula so that the federal government and the state government picked up a larger amount, which has seen the Gawler Regional Flood Mitigation program now funded after more than 12 years of inaction because of a lack of structure, leadership and guidance at the local and state levels. I commend the local governments who have come together and worked within this new framework to reach agreement, which is going to benefit all of the people along the Gawler River floodplain.

There are other areas I could cover with regard to infrastructure, such as health care out of hours funding, skilling Australia’s defence industry, new facilities for Vietnam veterans, the ex-military rehabilitation centre and aged care, but I am out of time. In summary, I want to confirm the fact that one of the reasons I so strongly support this government’s approach is that it seeks to connect with people. My objective in the electorate of Wakefield has certainly been to connect with people, listen to them, bring back their ideas and see effective outcomes that benefit the people of Wakefield and build a stronger Australia.

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my contribution to the discussion on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2006-2007 and cognate bills, I want to concentrate on the issue of work and family balance in particular. It is a major issue that affects a lot of constituents whom I represent in this parliament. It is an issue about which much has been said by the government. I can recall some years ago the Prime Minister saying that this issue was a real ‘barbecue stopper’, and the Treasurer certainly raised expectations when he said in the lead-up to the budget that we ought to be looking at making this nation the most family-friendly place on earth. I agree but, when you look at the budget provisions, you will see that there are very many identifiable gaps. I want to suggest today in my contribution some initiatives that might inform the government about practical ways of addressing the work and family balance if they genuinely want to achieve progress in that area.

Interestingly enough, a recent Relationships Australia survey found that 89 per cent of Australians agreed that relationships do suffer because of work-life conflict and 40 per cent of parents felt that they had no real choice regarding their ability to balance paid work with family responsibilities. Around 95 per cent of men and 63 per cent of women with children under 15 are now in the labour force. As we know, there has been a steady increase in women’s labour force participation, which is particularly marked in the employment rates of mothers. That is why the balance between work and family life is so important and a particularly pressing issue for women.

Despite many profound social changes, women’s labour force participation is far more sensitive to the presence of children than men’s, reinforcing the historical role of women as bearing the primary responsibility for managing family life. Though the traditional family model of the male breadwinner out at work and the female homemaker at home looking after family now represents only a minority of couple families—around 30 per cent—it is women who have had to make the major adjustments in the balance of work with family life. The most prevalent household arrangement in families with children today in Australia is the female secondary earner working part time and the male being the breadwinner. That is certainly the largest group of couple families with children in the electorate of Throsby. Some 4,526 families that I represent fall into this category. I know that mothers work on a part-time basis so that they can take care of children. Their workforce participation rates increase as children get older. One-third of mothers are employed when the youngest child is under one, more than half are working by the time the youngest reaches primary school age and 70 per cent by the time the youngest child reaches secondary school age.

Women’s diverse requirements and choices about their transition back to work following giving birth require appropriate government support to facilitate those options. However, I find that ‘choice’ for some women I represent is a meaningless concept because of economic and financial pressures to return to work as soon as possible. It is also important that as legislators we do not miss the message revealed in recent HILDA Wave 3 unpublished research that, of the mothers who are not at work with children under two, 62 per cent indicated that they did not want paid employment at that point in time. These facts speak for themselves and call for a rethink of government policies, bearing in mind the different aspirations of women.

Specifically, I urge the government to extend the 52 weeks of unpaid, job protected parental leave following the birth or adoption of a child to two years; extend to eight weeks the simultaneous unpaid parental leave for both parents; and ensure compliance with the ILO convention on paid maternity leave, noting that in 2004 only 34 per cent of women had access to paid maternity leave in their job, which is an appalling situation considering almost 100 years have passed since the ILO first adopted its basic standard of leave for mothers. It is much to our shame that we are one of only two OECD nations that have not complied with that basic ILO convention. We ought to look at the British experience of providing parents the right to negotiate suitable hours of work following parental leave, with the proviso that an employer may reject such a request only if it is reasonable to do so. The experience in the UK shows that this can work well.

The juggling act for women is exacerbated when they run up against relatively unchanged institutions and workplaces that have not adequately responded to women’s increased participation. In the absence of responsive family-friendly environments, people are often forced to make hard decisions about starting families or deferring parenthood and very often end up with smaller sized families than they would prefer.

The OECD has noted that there is only a low penetration of family-friendly work practices in Australia. In the past, test cases before the Industrial Relations Commission, such as on parental and carers leave, introduced the minimum standards for all workers, but this option will be cut off in future under the Work Choices legislation. There are few statutory minima in Australia and only one specific family-friendly provision in the federal government’s new safety net—that is, the 12 months of unpaid parental leave, hardly nirvana. Most family-friendly benefits are in fact available only to a minority of employees, primarily composed of higher skilled workers in large and/or public sector enterprises. Recent ABS data, for example, show that only 27.6 per cent of women who work in the private sector claim to be entitled to paid maternity leave, and I represent many such women in my electorate. I think this highlights just how difficult it is to spread family-friendly conditions across a whole workforce in the absence of test case decisions with national application.

I made mention earlier of the high rates of part-time employment of mothers with dependent children. Quality part-time employment is a condition of employment widely sought by mothers whom I represent. But there are considerable problems currently with the quality of part-time employment, primarily because of the strong overlap of casual with part-time employment. Indeed, over 60 per cent of all part-time employees in Australia today are employed on a daily casual basis and, as we know, casual employment, by its very nature, represents a significant gap in eligibility for family-friendly benefits. Casuals today lack even basic entitlements such as paid annual leave.

This is a major issue which government policies and the budget fail to address when you consider that today 40 per cent of women with children under 12 who are employees are in fact casually employed. We are getting to the stage where nearly one in every three women who work is being employed as a casual. The irony is that casual employment today is disproportionately made up of the very people who have particularly strong needs for family-friendly benefits and, regrettably, they are precisely the people missing out. Unfortunately, as it operates today, part-time employment too often represents a trade-off for many women, whereby, in return for the opportunity to work reduced hours, women tolerate poor conditions and lack access to family-friendly benefits.

Time does not permit a detailed analysis of all the family unfriendly provisions contained in the Work Choices legislation, but it is absolutely correct to assert that the employment standards of many women will only be as strong as prevailing minimum legal standards and no stronger. The Spotlight AWA, to which we have made much reference, is a classic example of that contention. Experience to date shows the pitfalls of individual bargaining. Data from the department show that the level of provision of family-friendly arrangements in AWAs in 2002-03 was pathetically inadequate. From a random sample, we learnt that only eight per cent of AWAs had paid maternity leave. Only five per cent had paid paternity leave. Only four per cent provided for unpaid purchased leave, with only a quarter of AWAs providing for some form of parental leave, be it paid or unpaid.

As an immediate step, I suggest that the government, if it is serious about work and family, should firstly expand the safety net in the Work Choices legislation to incorporate family-friendly provisions, guarantee the payment of penalty rates, shift loadings and overtime, give priority to collective over individual agreements, restore the right of national test cases to be handled by the Industrial Relations Commission, introduce legislation along the lines of the UK Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations which ensure that part-time workers are not treated less favourably in their terms and conditions of employment, and investigate the reasons for the very high levels of casual employment among women and the options for their conversion to permanent part-time work.

With an ageing population, the issue of workforce participation is a key economic consideration for this government and for the opposition. In this regard, the government needs to appreciate that Australia’s female participation rate of 56.6 per cent is only moderate by OECD standards and is particularly low among mums and women over 55. The OECD has described motherhood in Australia as having a particularly marked dampening effect on women’s employment. This low participation rate may represent a choice willingly made by some mums. However, as we know, there are constraints that impact on their choices. For example, a shortage of suitable child care, inflexible welfare and often unsuitable work provisions combine to discourage potential second income earners from returning to work.

Just as there are considerable costs for women who leave the paid workforce to have children, the decision to re-enter work also has significant financial implications. The effect of taxation, loss of government payments and benefits as earnings increase and the escalating costs of child care act as a disincentive to many mothers whom I represent who want to return to work. According to a recent study by Professor Apps, second earners in Australia—overwhelmingly women—face an average tax rate of around 50 per cent, the second highest in the developed world. Often women I represent come to the judgment that there is no economic incentive to return to work because of the impact of these high effective marginal tax rates. Let me quote one of my constituents, who said:

I’ve looked at going back to work part time but we are near the means test maximum. So if I did go to work we would lose the staying home allowance, and any family payments. These amounts are tax free so after going back to work, paying for child care, holiday care and all the costs of travel, uniform etc earning a wage but then paying tax I am not that much better off ...

So there is no doubt that, among current government policies—or lack of effective ones in areas like child-care provision—there are constraints that act as significant disincentives to women’s increased labour force participation in Australia. It may well be time for this government to consider the replacement of the family tax benefit scheme, with all its complexities and in-built disincentives, with universal payments for all children aged one to five years. Such a scheme was recently introduced in Austria and appears to be working well. It is time also that all governments guaranteed universal access to pre-school education in the year before primary school age.

The Treasurer has often argued in this place that demography is destiny, and we all appreciate the economic consequences of Australia’s declining fertility rate. There is now, however, strong international evidence that a good work-family balance has a positive effect on a nation’s birthrate. Today countries with higher employment rates for mothers also have higher fertility rates, and it is precisely these countries that provide a range of positive policies to support a better work-family balance. It is an important message for the Howard government, and one they cannot ignore.

As I said at the start of my comments, the Prime Minister identified work and family issues as the barbecue stopper. Unfortunately, his barbecue stopper has become a fizzer. In the lead-up to this budget the Treasurer promised a lot, saying we ought to be looking at making this the most female-friendly place on earth. We can all agree with that noble sentiment, but it takes more than just rhetoric to achieve good outcomes. This budget fails to make any significant advances in enabling parents to balance their work and family life and their obligations, and with the introduction of the regressive Work Choices legislation that balance will become even more problematic in the future. The international evidence about public policy settings that assist employees, households and employers to achieve work-family balance is clear. The case for serious action by this government is compelling.

Cameron Thompson (Blair, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is great to join the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2006-2007 and cognate bills in the wake of such a well-received, positive and innovative federal budget, and to speak on issues that arise in part out of it and which directly affect my electorate. The No. 1 issue in my electorate, and something that is being resourced through the Commonwealth budget and addressed by the Commonwealth, is the question of dealing with the problems of the Ipswich Motorway. There is continuous commentary on the Ipswich Motorway coming from a range of Labor members in my area. I am sure that the Deputy Speaker would be relieved to hear that these Labor members are not hypocrites in their approach to these matters; they just continually express mutually exclusive views and objectives in the way they present their arguments.

In particular, there is the question of the Goodna bypass, which is overwhelmingly recognised by the people of Ipswich as a good thing. It is time that those people who represented the community of Ipswich and surrounding areas worked for it and did what they could to speed and progress work on the Goodna bypass. Lately I have been very pleased to read some comments from the Mayor of Ipswich, Paul Pisasale. I will quote from the local newspaper, Ipswich’s Own:

Cr. Pisasale said he would be in favour of any bypass option right now. ‘I understand the Federal Government has got to make a decision and as Mayor, I will support any option they choose. It’s their money, I’m happy for them to spend it as they see fit and take responsibility for their choice. And I’m happy to work with the Federal Government. Let’s just get on with it.’

That is a breath of fresh air in the debate compared to what we hear from Labor identities in the Ipswich area.

There has been an awful lot of community support, and I think that the Mayor of Ipswich is finally starting to tap into that when he uses the words that he did in that article. The state government and its generally Labor representatives should give the people of Ipswich and our region a bit more credit than they do. The community is not fooled by the continual delays, incompetence and rhetoric that we get from the Labor Party. The community of Ipswich recognises the benefit of the bypass not just when it comes to the practicality of dealing with traffic in a sensible manner—moving all the heavy interstate freight onto a road designed specifically to cater for it and allowing local traffic full access to the existing Ipswich Motorway. That involves meeting the needs of both types of traffic; facilitating the flow of interstate freight on a route designed for it so it is not going to inconvenience or burden local people, but allowing local people full access to that great road network that currently exists and not closing off exits, as has been proposed by the Labor Party and its Department of Main Roads.

Business in our area recognises the advantages that will come from being able to use a reliable transport corridor that will connect them with where they want to go and allow them to avoid the delays caused by congestion and accidents. The thought of seven years of such delays caused by digging up the road is more than frightening to local businesses, and that is precisely the prescription that the Labor Party and their fellow travellers continually seek to represent to our community. They seek to misrepresent it by trying to tell everybody it would be good for them if the road that they are trying to drive on were dug up. A few people in the community are starting to cut through the Labor dross. The community want trucks out of our suburbs. They want a bypass that will give arterial and heavy traffic an alternative route that does not cut through the middle of our residential suburbs. There is evidence of this in a letter to the editor by a resident of Redbank, Ken Lloyd. The letter was published in the Queensland Times on 14 May, and it was headlined ‘Super highway will ruin homes’. It read:

It is ridiculous for State Transport Minister Paul Lucas to suggest that anybody other than himself and Bernie Ripoll are responsible for ‘betraying’ the residents of Ipswich.

It is their ill-conceived super highway, up to 14 lanes in places, through the residential suburbs of Gailes, Goodna, Redbank and Riverview, that has ‘betrayed’ the voters of these suburbs.

It’s obvious to anyone that has intelligently studied the motorway fiasco that heavy through traffic must be separated from residential areas. A bypass must be built around residential areas to provide a route for heavy traffic that now has no alternative but to pollute our suburbs.

Messrs Lucas and Ripoll should remember that the loyal Labor voters of these suburbs mistakenly believed that they would have their quality of life protected by their elected representatives.

The Federal Member for self-promotion should get off his bike long enough to represent his electorate, not destroy it with his flawed personal agenda.

Those were the words of Ken Lloyd in the Queensland Times. I think he tapped into the concerns of the community and expressed them quite well. The letter also recognises the roughshod manner in which Ipswich residents are being treated by the state government, who despite their pleas to the contrary are determined to push ahead with their upgrade plan—despite the harm it will cause to every motorist, resident and business in the region.

I note that Mr Lloyd talks about 14 lanes in places of this super highway. In order to get the 14 lanes, Mr Lucas would have to count the fact that he is planning to take up ordinary local streets—like Brisbane Terrace and Smith Street—and ram traffic down those streets, as if they were part of the motorway complex. Those streets are currently available to local residents who want to go shopping. That will not be the case under the Lucas and Ripoll plan. You will have all of this through traffic congesting the suburbs in the streets that the residents are entitled to use for their own purposes. The maximum number of lanes on the full length of the motorway itself—that is, if you want to drive from one end to the other—will be six. The maximum number of cars that could drive abreast in each direction will be three. There will be a total of six lanes. You could only get 14 lanes by dragging into the super highway local streets and filling them up with heavy transport, much to the chagrin of concerned residents like Ken Lloyd.

Ken Lloyd makes a mockery of the state minister Paul Lucas’s assurance of 2004, which I mentioned in the chamber earlier this week, that the state government would support the progression of the Goodna Bypass following the feasibility study conducted by Maunsells. In fact, the comments that he made were very reminiscent of those recently made by the mayor. Paul Lucas, the state transport minister, said in his press release:

... Queensland welcomed the appointment of ... Maunsell Australia to independently evaluate the proposed Ipswich northern bypass.

“The Queensland Government will do all in its power to cooperate with the Federal Government in delivering their roads priorities, including the northern bypass,” he said.

“The simple fact is that the Australian Government is providing the money for the national highway and they decide how their money is spent.

“The Queensland Government’s position has always been that we must upgrade the Ipswich Motorway regardless of whether the northern bypass is feasible or not,” Mr Lucas said.

…            …            …

“If the feasibility study indicates the northern bypass is not a viable project, Queensland and the Commonwealth will need to look again at how we address traffic congestion on the Ipswich Motorway.”

Unfortunately, those words escaped from the mouth of Mr Lucas and then—I don’t know—they took them around the back, beat them up and turned them into something else, because, ever since, much to the disappointment and anger of people such as Ken Lloyd, he has been pursuing this stupid upgrade plan of wanting to dig up the road that people are trying to drive on, spend seven years or something like that doing it, take over their over local roads, ram traffic through there and close as many of the local exits as possible. This is completely anti local business and anti the local residents. There are plenty of other locals angry about it and they have been writing letters to the Queensland Times. I could run through a list of those locals, but I do not think I will. What I will talk about is the latest effort by one of the local Labor luminaries to try to pump up some community support for their ridiculous scheme.

The latest effort came from Rachel Nolan, the state member for Ipswich. She has produced what she calls a ‘petition’—a postcard asking for the motorway to be fixed. On one side of the document, she invites those in receipt of this postcard to ‘sign the petition’. But, if you turn it over to where people actually sign, it says ‘names will not be released to any third party’. How can it be a petition, if you are never going to tell anybody who signed it? I think this is a moral quandary for the member for Ipswich. Honestly, I go back to what I said earlier: these members are not hypocrites; they just continually express mutually exclusive views and objectives.

Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to speak on the appropriation bills. I note that I am following the honourable member for Blair. I want to compliment him as he is one of, I think, three members of the Liberal Party who have courageously stood up and said that a merger between the National Party in Queensland and the Liberals is the way to go. We know that today that has been abandoned, but let me say to the member for Blair, ‘Congratulations; I think as times goes by you will have the last laugh.’ Like the member for Blair, I also want to comment on our trade deficit situation, but I will do so a little later.

Mr Deputy Speaker, it will come as no surprise to you that the fate of the employees of Spotlight stores is making the national news and, particularly, the new store that now is proposed to be opened at Shop Mart in Zoe Place, Mount Druitt, I think on 15 or 16 June this year. The Prime Minister has said that the 6,000 Spotlight employees—the mums and dads who are working in Spotlight—are facing, immediately and over time, a loss of significant parts of their conditions of employment. Let me just run through those conditions: no provision for any penalty rates, no provision for any overtime, the elimination of paid rest breaks, the elimination of breaks between shifts, the elimination of maximum and minimum shift lengths and a cap on the number of consecutive days worked. For all this, they will be paid an extra 2c an hour.

In question time, the Prime Minister has suggested, firstly, that the opening of the Mount Druitt store is somehow a function of his new IR laws. For the sake of comparison, I could take China, Thailand or some other country, but I will just take India. In 2003 Indian workers were earning approximately US80c an hour, which equates to $A1.05. Is anyone suggesting that, because of the low rates of pay for workers in India, we will now see 1,000 Spotlight stores bloom all over India, China, the Philippines or Indonesia? Of course not. Mr Deputy Speaker, if I tried to run an argument by you that new stores are opened based on the rates of pay of the workers who will work in them, you would laugh me out of court. You open a new store where there is a market and, to be fair, workers’ rates of pay are not taken into account when considering and planning to do so.

The critical point in the Spotlight argument is one that the Prime Minister totally evades. Yes, it is good news that we are getting 30 new workers. I am thrilled about it. I certainly regret they are going to be so low paid, but I am always pleased to see people enter into employment. However, they are entering into employment on the backs of the employees in 100 other stores—that is, 6,000 employees—losing all of those conditions: no penalty rates, no overtime, the elimination of rest breaks, no breaks between shifts, no maximum and minimum shift lengths and a cap on the number of consecutive days work. For all that, they get an extra 2c an hour, but, compared to the award, they are actually losing $90 a week. That is what the essential unfairness is.

It is true to say that not every one of those 6,000 employees will face that dilemma immediately. We know what is happening in Coffs Harbour. We know of the employee there—a lifelong supporter of John Howard—who thinks she has been bitterly deceived by him and these extreme IR changes. Every one of those 6,000 employees is going to face this loss. My friend and colleague the member for Calwell knows that people who work in Spotlight stores do not earn very much money. They are not the highest paid workers in the land, but what the government is saying is these 6,000 employees should take a $90 a week pay cut. Families are facing unprecedented prices for petrol to run the family car, to use the car to go backwards and forwards. In my part of Western Sydney and in Western Sydney in general, you will always find a family that has a car, and often two cars. The car is required for work, it is required to drop kids off at school, and it is often required so mum can go to work. So they are really facing a great impost.

The other thing I want to point out is interest rates. Just before the budget was delivered, we had a 0.25 per cent increase in interest rates. Mortgages in Western Sydney are very large. They are not as high as the inner city, they are not as high as the North Shore and they are not as high as the eastern suburbs of Sydney, but the honourable member for Lindsay would agree with me when I say that for us in Western Sydney they seem to be particularly high for families moving into a new home. And people are very sensitive to the slightest rate increase. It is those same families, those same poor workers not on flash money, who have had an interest rate rise and who are facing increasing petrol prices and a loss of $90 a week in their take-home pay.

This budget, because it has lavishly spent something like $58 billion over four years, has most commentators predicting the certainty of a future interest rate rise. Depending on what is happening in America over the next 12 to 18 months, one could almost say it has also called into question a second rate rise. In a period of 12 to 18 months, we are therefore going to be faced with mortgage rates going up by not just 0.25 per cent but three times that—0.75 per cent. The increase before the budget, on a modest mortgage of $200,000, meant an increase of $32 a month and $384 a year. The budget, I regret to say, has guaranteed another interest rate rise and the possibility of a third.

Jim Lloyd (Robertson, Liberal Party, Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Lloyd interjecting

Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am glad that the minister interjects because I wanted to talk about foreign debt as well because this has not been addressed. I know that the Treasurer says, ‘Look, Australia is in a very healthy position because there’s not any federal government debt.’ It is a good thing that there is no federal government debt. But, whether Australia’s debt burden is due wholly to government, wholly to private enterprise or to a combination of both, what you have to look at is what our foreign debt is. It is now half a trillion dollars. In fact, that 0.25 per cent increase has meant that on that foreign debt we will be paying something like $283 million a year extra just on interest payments. Foreign debt, which has absolutely ballooned in the 10 years of the coalition, means that Australia now has a burden of $24,276 of foreign debt for every man, woman and child in Australia. I will repeat that, Mr Deputy Speaker, because you probably do not believe it, but it is the figure. There is $24,276 of foreign debt for every man, woman and child in Australia, and there is no prospect of it diminishing.

It is all very well to say, ‘Look, it’s reputable banks that are borrowing that money from overseas.’ Yes, it is, but we still have to pay the interest. Whether it is banks or anyone else, Australia still has to earn sufficient income to be able to pay that. As the chief executive of Bluestone, Alistair Jeffery, said, this problem is a ‘bus smash waiting to happen’, and it is unaddressed in the budget.

I wanted to talk about our trade deficit because the honourable member for Blair, a member of the coalition, has courageously raised this as an issue. Why wouldn’t he? We are now into our 49th consecutive trade deficit. We are heading for half a century, and again there seems to be no plan in this budget to try to rectify it. The Minister for Trade said that in his watch as Minister for Trade he wanted to double the number of exporters. That is a very worthwhile objective and is certainly one that is totally supported by the opposition. But the reality is that, far from increasing the number of exporters by one, we have actually gone backwards. The number of exporters has diminished. No wonder the honourable member for Blair says we have a king-size problem with our consecutive trade deficits.

There is so much that we believe could have been done in this budget, like building our skills base so that we can become a far more productive country. There is no need for us to import Chinese apprentices into Australia to overcome our skills shortages. There are many young Australians that are only too happy to take up those opportunities. I will have one last word on Spotlight. The Prime Minister says these low wages encourage employment. He used Mount Druitt as the example. Why then in the budget forecast is unemployment forecast to grow and not diminish? This is a disappointing budget.

Jim Lloyd (Robertson, Liberal Party, Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to make a few comments on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2006-2007 and related budget bills today. As honourable members would know, the speaking opportunities for ministers in the House on local and electorate issues is quite limited, so I plan to use the opportunity today to speak on issues that affect my electorate.

But, firstly, I would like to commend the budget and commend the Howard government’s sound economic management of this country. Economic management has an impact on the lives of each and every one of us in Australia, and the fact that we are now running significant surplus budgets and that we have paid off Labor’s $96 billion debt has a positive impact on all Australians. By paying off that debt, we are now saving some $8 billion in interest payments, and all of us who have a credit card debt realise what a waste it is when you are paying interest on that debt. That $8 billion can now be turned back into infrastructure building and into positives for the Australian community.

It is also interesting how there is an expectation now that when the federal budget comes down there will be tax cuts—benefits the Australian government can provide to the Australian community. That is very good, but I guess I am at an age where I can remember the fact that, when previous governments brought down their federal budgets, people used to have this fear and trepidation of the Australian government bringing down its budget, particularly when Labor was in office. People would say: ‘What’s going to increase? What taxes are going to increase?’ I remember the front pages of the Daily Telegraph 15 years ago when they would say: ‘Smokes up. Beer up. Petrol up. Increased taxes.’ They covered a whole range of issues about what the Australian government was taking away from the community. How that has changed under the Howard coalition government. Now the expectation—and the rightful expectation—is that the benefits of sound economic management will be returned to the Australian community in increased infrastructure spending and increased tax cuts. In fact, some $36.7 billion in tax cuts are being returned to the Australian community.

A good, sound economic position enables us to invest in infrastructure. Obviously, as the federal government’s Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads, I was delighted that we were able to secure an additional $307.5 million for the very popular Roads to Recovery program. This program provides additional money to all the 703 councils around Australia. The initial four-year program was for $1.2 billion. This current four-year program, now with this additional $307.5 million plus the additional $100 million for the strategic component of Roads to Recovery, means that over the next four years there will be approximately $1.7 billion for local councils to invest in local communities.

Certainly in my own electorate and on the Central Coast of New South Wales this means that Gosford City Council will receive an additional $968,000 on top of the funding they would have received for this year. Neighbouring Wyong Shire Council will receive an additional $903,000. Importantly, this $307.5 million will be paid in advance to councils. It will be paid this current financial year. All councils have works programs. They all have jobs that they can start working on straightaway, so the money will be paid to them to get on with the job.

Another part of the budget that I was delighted to be able to announce as the federal roads minister was the increase in funding for the widening of the F3 freeway south of the Hawkesbury River. As honourable members would know, a large percentage of the population and residents of the Central Coast commute daily either by rail or road to Sydney for employment. It puts significant pressure on our community life. Those who drive to Sydney can spend an extra three or four hours of their working day travelling—1½ to two hours in each direction. It puts a great strain on their families when they are trying to provide for them.

One of the major objectives that I have had since being elected to parliament some 10 years ago was to ensure that we had three lanes each way on the F3 freeway, to end the congestion that happens on a regular basis. We have been successful in widening the F3 in the Mount White region, and that has made a tremendous difference, but we still have the bottleneck south of the Hawkesbury River. I am very pleased that we have been able to announce that $105.8 million is available to widen the freeway south of the Hawkesbury River.

This project had a total cost of $132 million, and I am very pleased that the New South Wales government is contributing to this project for the first time. Under our AusLink agreement, there is now shared funding on the national highway network, and I am pleased that the New South Wales government are now contributing. It means that we can fast-track this project. Already preconstruction activities are under way, including the stripping back of the rock cuttings, and it is now expected that this project will be completed and open to traffic by mid-2008 or towards the end of 2008—in about two years time. It will make a very significant difference to the families on the Central Coast who commute down the F3.

Of course, I was also pleased that—again, under the roads portfolio—we have been able to announce a continuation of the black spot road funding program. This is also a very successful program which, to my surprise, was scrapped by the previous Labor government. One of the first things we did when we came into government in 1996 was to reintroduce this very important program which does save lives. One of my major objectives as roads minister is to save as many lives as we can on our roads, whether it is our local roads or our national highways. We still lose far too many people on our highways. Even though under our National Road Safety Strategy we have reduced the road toll significantly over the past few years, there is still a lot more to be done. One of the ways in which we can do this is through the black spot program.

In the electorate of Robertson, my electorate, we will be able to provide to the councils there $1,290,000 from the Australian government over the next financial year for black spot improvements. That is part of the $44.5 million in the current financial year. In recognition of the success of the black spot program, the Australian government has extended the program for a further two years to 2006-07 and 2007-08 at a cost of $90 million. I am pleased that my electorate could also benefit from the black spot program.

Whilst we are talking about Roads to Recovery, there have been so many positive comments from councils all around Australia, and I have a couple of those comments with me. The Loddon Shire Council in Victoria, when talking about the Roads to Recovery program last year, said:

It is one of the best programs that has ever been introduced to support the maintenance and upgrade of local road infrastructure in rural areas. The Howard government, and particularly your ministry, are to be congratulated on understanding the needs and finding the resources to support rural councils.

Another comment that I really did appreciate was from Paul Bell, the President of the Australian Local Government Association, ALGA. At his roads congress in 2005, he said:

We very much appreciate the federal government’s assistance for this task, and will continue to work with the Australian government to ensure this program continues to address the massive backlog in local road maintenance work.

Another result of sound economic management and the fact that we actually have a surplus for the Australian government to be able to invest in infrastructure has been the Australian investment in water infrastructure. Obviously, in many parts of Australia, we are suffering significant water shortages, and New South Wales is no different to many other parts of Australia. The Central Coast is one of those areas where you would not expect droughts as such—we are on the coast and we do get a fair bit of coastal rain—but our water supply is being depleted and is now under 20 per cent. This is a real worry for a rapidly growing area, where we have significant investment, a massive increase in residential construction and new businesses coming to the Central Coast all the time.

I am very pleased that we have been able to secure Australian government funding of $6.61 million towards the construction of a water pipeline between the Hunter and the Central Coast region. This is a massive project. It is some $37.76 million in total. The project involves the construction of a pipeline between the two water supply areas from the Hunter and the Central Coast. It will have a capacity to transfer some 20 megalitres of water per day. I understand that is about one-quarter of the Central Coast daily usage, so it is very important. The Hunter system, because it has a major river involved in the system, replenishes its water supply much quicker than the small catchment areas of the Central Coast. So, even in times of water shortages, there will be water available from the Hunter system that could be utilised for storage and use on the Central Coast. This agreement between the two areas will benefit and serve a population of some $800,000 people. One of the objectives that I have as a local member on the Central Coast is to ensure that we can secure our water supply and ensure that we do not restrict growth, investment and job creation on the Central Coast, because we still have far too many people who are commuting from the Central Coast to Sydney. We need more local jobs and local investment.

Speaking of investment and returning the surplus back to the community, again because we have managed our economy well the Howard government were able to create the Investing in Our Schools program, which is in addition to the money that we provide to the state governments to run public education in the states and territories around Australia. Certainly the Central Coast schools have benefited greatly from Investing in Our Schools. In one of the latest rounds, I was able to announce that some 15 schools located in the Robertson electorate will be receiving $1,450,587. It is a very important program.

I will list some of the benefits for some of these schools. These are for what in many cases are relatively minor upgrades, maintenance or facilities that possibly the P&C would have had to raise money for because the state governments were not providing these facilities. These are just some of the grants. The Gosford Christian School at Narara is receiving $68,000 for the completion of fire precautions at their wood tech area. The Brisbania Public School at Saratoga is receiving money for installation of airconditioning so that the children are not sitting in hot conditions or in freezing cold rooms. They are receiving $89,454. We have the Chertsey Primary School, a great little school in a unique area where there is a whole socioeconomic range of families, some from underprivileged areas and some from middle-class areas. They are also receiving money for installation of airconditioning: $94,329. Gosford High School, for a shade structure and classroom and ICT upgrade, is receiving $150,000. Narara Valley High School is receiving money—and this is a project that I had supported and fought very hard for the money for—for the installation of a school stage: $99,999, close enough to $100,000. They have a wonderful musical group and they have a great performing arts section at that school. I could go on, but people are looking at me here and saying that time is of the essence. I just want to commend the budget and the appropriation bills to the House and highlight how important this is to the people of Robertson.

Peter Andren (Calare, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to concentrate on several key issues in the budget reply. I will not go into the details of my objections to the massive tax cuts in this budget and the complete distortion of priorities away from much-needed school, hospital and transport infrastructure in favour of cash in the pocket for those in least need, but I make a few comments. Notwithstanding the minister’s remarks a moment ago on the welcome initiatives around some road funding, local government continue to receive but a fraction of their needs to replace ageing transport infrastructure. It is a state problem as well as a federal problem, but it is after all a problem of national significance. The doubling of Roads to Recovery funding for the next year is but an extra $300 million. That is about enough to reform and reseal 300 kilometres of road, so let us get the whole process of infrastructure refurbishment into some sort of perspective.

Any tax cuts for middle- and lower-income earners have been swallowed up by mortgage, rent and petrol increases within a few weeks. The polls show that the budget has not captured any widespread support. In fact, as I have said for a decade or more, and many others as well, most Australians want better services rather than money in their pockets that will disappear with cost of living increases. They want better hospitals, fairer health care coverage and more child-care premises which are community funded, not provided by a greedy private sector prepared to cut corners—not all the private sector do, I must say, but there are enough signs in the sector to show that there is an exploitation of what should, after all, be a community delivered service. In so many circumstances, we have seen the benefit of private shareholders. I have grave concerns about the possibility for exploitation of child care and aged care for the benefit of shareholders. The shareholders, after all, should be the aged and the children of this nation.

The constituents I talk to want all children to have equal opportunity and access to the best educational opportunities. An index of educational facilities and infrastructure is the sort of thing we need—a sort of barcode you could run against all schools, state and independent, and when the red light flashes it would suggest that there is something vital and crucial in the infrastructure of that school that is not there, that is outstanding, that needs attention. Until and unless those shortfalls are met, there should not be another dollar spent on the educational opportunities of others in our community. The take-up of the Investing in Our Schools grants scheme is symptomatic of the need out there in the public school system. The 2008 program has been brought forward to this year, such has been the demand for this very welcome and very necessary program. But like Roads to Recovery it suggests that we are only scratching the surface. Who should take ultimate responsibility for this? Of course the states have ultimate responsibility for the state education process, but we cannot stand by and play some sort of a blame game. Surely we should have an agreement at state and federal level on the absolute basic requirements of every school in the system—state or independent—and provide accordingly.

There are plenty of pluses in this budget. The mental health initiative is an outstanding one. I certainly wait to see the outcomes of increased residential care rather than the jailing option we see all too often for those who should be treated rather than criminalised, acknowledging as we must the violence involved in their behaviour. So often in recent years I have come across cases where the only option is the jail option, with all the horrific consequences that that involves in terms of the outcome for any sort of proper treatment of the mental health victim. With such a budget surplus surely more services for the physically disabled should be provided. This should not be just a state responsibility.

The forgotten people in recent budgets have been age pensioners. Let me read a letter from several constituents at Manildra, a village between Orange and Parkes. The letter is addressed to Peter Andren MP and says:

Dear Sir

…                …              …

We do not smoke or drink, we cannot afford to go on holidays or a night out.

By the time we pay our rates, Phone, & water Bills with G.S.T. on these. There is not much left. We have to pay $250 twice a year for sewage which we haven’t got yet—

in that village, which again is an infrastructure problem—

& at our age we will probably be dead & gone by the time it gets here.

Here in Manildra we have to pay 145.9 per litre for petrol per Lt. We have to have a car to get around for our Groceries, Doctors & specialist, Pink Slips go up every year for your car—

of course, they are a state responsibility for inspection—

& green slips go up as well. The Prime Minister said, they help with the pharmaceutical, yes! they might. But we have to spend over $250 Dollars before we can go on the free list. Every time you go to town for your Groceries they have jumped up quite a bit. So you can see there is very little that you can go out and have a good time on.

The Prime Minister can go over seas quite a few times a year. And going on the newspaper, pays over $9,000.00 Dollars a night, just for a bed to sleep in.

We would think it like Christmas if we could get away for a short holiday.

That is symptomatic of the pressures on the elderly out there and of the fact that the age pension is not keeping up with the cost of living. Surely in a time of such surpluses we should be able to properly adjust. I suggest that we should be looking at 27½ per cent of the average weekly earnings as a fair pension in this country, given the circumstances that have prevailed since the GST and given the current pressure of the cost of living.

I will reserve my comments on the plight of our Aboriginal Australians until my contribution to the debate on the Northern Territory land rights legislation. But I will say here that, until Aboriginal Australians are treated as equal partners in their own self-determination, until the top-down paternalistic, government-knows-best approach is abandoned, until we talk with and not about Aboriginal society and until we stop marginalising and defaming Aboriginal society, there is no way forward for a people whose spirit and esteem has been broken over and over again. Of course we need to address child abuse and family violence—as we should throughout our society. But the bigger challenge, as it has been for 200 years and more, is to address the legitimate grievances that go to the very soul of our Indigenous first nation and its peoples.

We stand up in parliament and describe the horrific attacks on children—which do occur; we know and admit that—but how often do we stand up and describe the attacks that occur on children, siblings and adults in our non-Indigenous society? I was appalled to see the degree of detail that it was felt necessary to use in question time to highlight the circumstances in some of the Aboriginal communities. Sure, there is dysfunctionality. But there is certainly dysfunctionality in many of our other communities, societies, suburbs, villages and towns. We need to take a far more measured approach in this circumstance because we are talking about people who are the battering ram of the most outrageous of racist attacks, not from the parliament but from too many Australians. Those Australians will grab hold of this information to further damn Indigenous communities and to further squash, tread down and erode any self-esteem within those communities. I beg caution in this debate, because we run the risk of fuelling the fires of racism in this country.

Let me turn to the energy crisis facing the country and the pathetic lack of commitment to alternative energy options contained in the budget. The Prime Minister was saying a month or so ago that he did not believe nuclear energy was on the horizon, or words to that effect. The argument went that with our huge coal reserves there was little need for energy from any other source—energy, that is, for power generation. It has been estimated that we have enough coal for 300 years. I would hate to think of the state of the world by then if coal was still being used, clean or not.

But on his road to Washington the Prime Minister had some sort of revelation and now firmly believes that nuclear energy is inevitable in Australia. Does this mean that he is also talking about nuclear powered cars, trucks, planes and ships? Of course not. But power generation accounts for but 30 per cent of our greenhouse problems and the resulting climate change. Transport is heading from 16 per cent towards 20 per cent and increasing rapidly. All the TV and video footage of smoking factory and power station stacks—much of it steam, incidentally, in the case of power stations—is very convincing. But the silent, often invisible, killer is coming from the engines of our cars—invisible, that is, until you look at the haze over Sydney at certain times of year, Los Angeles or New Delhi, where it gets down to around waist level.

Nuclear power stations would cost an absolute fortune and consume much energy-depleting fuel in their construction. They take 10 to 15 years at least to get up and running and then use huge amounts of energy to extract the finite and very impure uranium ore required to run them. Then there is that little problem of what to do with all that indestructible radioactive waste. This government has encouraged debate on nuclear energy—and I have no problem with that—but why has it refused to extend the two per cent mandatory target for renewable energy to at least five per cent, which most experts who know regard as the minimum requirement? Why aren’t we encouraging a mix of wave, wind, hydrogen and, most importantly, solar energy initiatives? It would not have anything to do with the short-term interests of the mining and oil sector, or the overseas companies lining up to build nuclear power plants around the world, would it?

Let me put a few points on the record regarding solar energy, a technology which Australia once led until lack of interest and support from successive governments forced it to seek encouragement in Europe, while we continued to promote quarrying of climate-destroying minerals for short-term and short-sighted economic gain. Indeed, talk about fool’s gold; this is fossil fuel fool’s gold. As the global crisis looms large, our government and most of the greedy West goes for a quick fix nuclear option, followed by emerging economies like India, China and now Indonesia—sitting as it does on the earthquake faults. All alternative energy sources on offer, whether they be hydrogen, ethanol or wind, have their limitations but a source of infinite energy shines on the planet every day and has the potential to fuel our homes and our transport.

The global oil crisis data suggests that all the conventional oil that has ever been consumed is equivalent to the energy of the sunlight intersecting our earth’s surface for just 12 hours. It is not as if the solar technology is not on the drawing board. The University of New South Wales School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering is an ARC centre of excellence and was the first organisation internationally to offer undergraduate training in solar energy. Professors Martin Green and Stuart Wenham are the developers of the world’s most efficient solar cells. The Uni of New South Wales school of renewable energy engineering is talking with Chinese production interests about the development of photovoltaic energy, the Chinese group being a major producer of silicon wafers.

At ANU, the Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems has developed Sliver solar cell technology, aimed and claimed to reduce dramatically the cost of developing photovoltaic cells. There is much happening in solar research, but one can be forgiven for not knowing anything about it, given the government’s commitment. Solar is an obvious source of renewable energy, and the lazy and dangerous rush to nuclear defies logic. We need to conserve energy. We need to promote alternative clean energy, and the Prime Minister is talking up nuclear and selling off our national hydro scheme—short-term economic reins. Energy policy is no longer about planning; it is about handing over crucial responsibilities from the state to the market, and that is shameful.

Let me read into the record a letter I received from Doug Nicholas, who was in Parliament House this morning delivering letters to every member of parliament. He is a man who has put his business on hold to take up the cause of the Snowy Hydro issue. He attracted quite a deal of attention in the front foyer of this parliament about an hour or so ago. He writes:

… Mr Andren,

I am an engineer with no axe to grind who has put aside his business for a while to do something that matters more. Although the Snowy was, and remains, something of an environmental mess, it’s our mess and we’re beginning to clean it up. The robber barons are circling as this silent sale proceeds but I think there is still just a chance that broad public outrage could bring the three parliaments to their senses and perhaps allow a conscience vote or two. I have little doubt as to what the outcome might be.

Well, I have some doubts, but he continues:

To raise public awareness above the dismal 25% that I found out here—

this was a month ago—

amongst even the fairly well read, I am endeavouring to bring 100 widely respected Australians together to pen a collegiate letter to those parliaments and to all the people they serve.

That was three weeks ago, and that awareness is way up there above the 50 per cent mark now.

I had a meeting yesterday—along with some backbenchers from the government side and the member for New England—with the Prime Minister, Senator Minchin and others, including Mr Turnbull. It started out as, ‘There’ll be no inquiry,’ but I think the notes taken, the glances exchanged and the comments afterwards suggest that something is afoot. The only thing that the public will accept is a proper and open inquiry into this whole charade. We have legislation before the parliament now which was forced on the government by the public outcry. There was never going to be legislation. There was only a motion because it was built into the corporatisation act back in 1997. The states did not have to refer the privatisation to parliament. No, they looked after that facet of the whole thing. We now have legislation ostensibly to cap foreign ownership, but it also goes to the normalisation process that was supposed to be contained in this rushed-through motion that not even the backbenchers knew anything about. Not many people know much about the ramifications of this privatisation anyway.

Here we have an opportunity for legislation that, under normal circumstances, would go to a full parliamentary inquiry. Let us see if the government is prepared to send it to an inquiry. Let us see if it is prepared to call off any engagement with the states in this sale until such time as all of these outstanding issues and concerns are addressed and the people have had a chance to have their say. They will have that chance in Sydney next week and here in Canberra on 13 June. The Prime Minister must back off. He must agree to a public inquiry, not only to sort out the outstanding holes in the sale process, not only to review the corporatisation process, not only to address the fact that New South Wales has already breached the snowy corporatisation legislation by failing to set up a scientific committee and report as required—not only for all of those reasons—but to satisfy the demands of the electorate. They believe that this is a piece of national, iconic infrastructure that is absolutely crucial for the three things that we in this country are engaged in at the moment: the environment; clean energy, and the ability of a privatised operator to manipulate the peak demand in this country; and that crucial resource of water. They say we are not handing over the ownership, but we are certainly handing over the control of it.

Jackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Lindsay, like you, I have been in this parliament for 10 years. We came in together—at the same time, on the same day. We were elected to this place. At that time, in 1996, we as a government had a $90 billion debt. We as a government were paying $8 billion each year in interest, which was the total of what we spent on schools and hospitals. Today, with these appropriation bills, that $8 billion in interest payments has been eliminated. We no longer pay interest. We are a net worth government. We have $18 billion in the Future Fund. We have the proceeds of Telstra yet to go in, and I am relying on Sol Trujillo to get that share price back up to $7 so that the Future Fund is even more substantial from the sale of Telstra.

We are looking forward to the surplus from this budget and the surpluses of future budgets from this government going into that Future Fund so that, by the year 2020, we can fund completely our superannuation liabilities. That means we are a net worth government. We are a government in control, with capital that we can push out into the economy when the economy turns. Although we have had a remarkable resources boom, I believe it is on the turn. As with all booms, there is a bust. I believe that, over the next two years, things in the economy will be a lot rougher. But we as a government are in a position to invest and make good any shakiness in the economy.

Whilst we have been getting all of these things in order in the 10 years that we have been here, we also have seen substantial tax cuts. Every year that we reduced the amount of interest that we paid, we could reduce the amount of tax we had to take from the taxpayer and give back to the taxpayers of Lindsay and Herbert. Today, with these bills, someone earning between $25,000 and $75,000 will be paying 30c in the dollar in tax. That is pretty much the majority of people in my electorate. They know that, when you are earning between $25,000 and $75,000, it is 30c in the dollar in tax. It does not matter; they are not going to be going over. In 1996, they probably went through three different tax brackets—42, 45 et cetera. It was an incredibly confusing personal income tax system, and there were major disincentives to taking an extra job, because you really did not see it. Once your family tax benefits cut out or your government family payments cut out and your tax rate went up, there was very limited gain in taking on extra responsibility and moving into more productivity and being of more value to your employer.

Today, with these bills, the family tax benefit will end at $40,000 rather than $33,000. Large families now include families with three kids. Believe me, with two young children at school, we look at the mums with three kids and go: ‘Wow, that’s a big family! How do you organise it?’ Everything is set up around two kids: most of our vehicles, holidays—everything that is marketed to mum. It is about mum, dad and the two kids. So, when you have a third child, it is difficult. With this budget, we recognise that and give the large-family supplement to those Australian women who have more than two children, who take that extra step in their commitment to their family, their children, their husbands, their new partners.

Importantly for me, we did something on child care. We uncapped child-care places right across the board. Where we uncapped them, we have seen an explosion of child-care centres. Family day care and out of school hours care have been uncapped. Hopefully this will lead to further family day care places and an OOSH program in every school. I say ‘hopefully’ because it is difficult to recruit family day care mums, especially in my electorate. We are losing family day care mums at the rate we are recruiting them because of the complexity of being a family day care mum. You almost have to be a centre supervisor. It used to be that you were a great mum; you did a good job and everyone else recognised that by the product. The word was basically in your children—you had raised a couple of good kids and parents would come along and say: ‘You’re a good mum. I like your kids; I like your home. Can you look after my kids in a family environment?’ In that environment they are around your feet in the kitchen and they are exposed to dangers such as a stove or a boiling kettle. They are around your balcony where they are exposed to dangers such as heights. They use stairwells. The glass that you have is clearly glass; it is not shatterproof glass.

Today, for very valid reasons, family day care has been affected by legislation which has regulated where and how in relation to the safety of children in other people’s homes. In family day care today, kids are largely kept in a restricted area of the home, away from dangers such as stoves. You need shatterproof glass. Kids need to be kept away from stairs. Most mums now have an area of their home which meets the regulation, and the children are kept in that. It is not quite the same family day care as it was, which is a loss because I think a lot of mothers like that family option. It is a very successful option. The family day care mum becomes an integral part of a woman’s support network. The children adore their family day care mum. It works up to be a very special relationship between the families and often goes on long after the children have gone to school. It is an important mix. I think we really need to look at some of the reasons and how we can expand that option, because it also offers some critical options to shiftworkers. Family day care is one area that offers shiftworkers some scope which is not available in long day care.

The opposition just carry on and on about long day care: ‘Let’s put long day care in every school.’ A long day care centre in every school would eliminate all of our current private providers. It would cost governments an enormous amount of money to operate, whereas currently the private sector is running a very efficient, positive and qualitative industry that is meeting women’s needs. It is still only one of the solutions that women need.

I was very pleased to see Peter Debnam, our opposition leader in the parliament in New South Wales, come out with a very comprehensive preschool policy that has put enormous pressure on the Labor government to fund its preschools. The Iemma government has come out with an early announcement for next year’s budget about preschool funding. As usual from a Labor government, it is being funded from a deficit. That is my concern. I know that our party can deliver child care substantially to the women of Australia with a net worth for all of Australia, without taking ourselves into deficit, debt and interest payments. Eight billion dollars in interest payments—this is what Labor is offering. It is running around in the child-care debate promising, willy-nilly, unthought-out, uncosted policies in the hope that it can grasp government from mothers who are feeling the pressure in terms of cost, accessibility and general ease of use. Mothers do not use just one option. In 12 months we use many forms of child care; we have an extensive support network that allows us to deliver to employers, deliver to our parents who may need care and deliver jobs to each of our children.

There is a joke in my family where Dad comes home and he sits down and says, ‘Mum, I’ve got a problem,’ and he gets to cogitate on that while he solves this problem. Mum comes home and if she has a problem it is because the kids have all delivered a problem to her: it is drama tomorrow and they need an outfit; it is sports day and this has not been fixed or they need a button sewn back on; little Jakey is going to that child-care centre, and you would like to go with him because he has got school this way; we have got netball tomorrow; and this reader or the library books have to be in—it is incredibly complex. So by the time you have got your kids to bed and everything sorted, and you have done all the other things that need to be done in the family, when do you get time to resolve your workplace problems? We need to really integrate the workplace and the family areas.

I commend Working Mother to the House, a magazine in America that regularly lists the 100 best companies in America for a woman to work for. Some of these companies are in Australia, and I challenge the companies of Australia to have a look at that list and at what their American counterparts are doing and to look at delivering those types of services into the homes in Australia. My personal favourite is Avon. Seventy-five per cent of the staff are women, including 52 per cent of the executive staff, and 56 of the highest-paid jobs in Avon are held by women. That is an outstanding position. Of course it has on-site child care; I do not think you even get on this list without on-site child care. These companies deliver a number of other options into the home such as flexitime and working from home. There are even some companies that deliver online and pay for your broadband in your home to allow telecommuting. They offer people the opportunity to go home and wait for the repair man to come. They offer in-home nanny services when your children are sick. There are some really innovative policies that we need to encourage businesses in Australia to get on board with. Therefore I am looking for our government’s second instalment in this area to release employers from fringe benefits tax when they deliver family benefits to their employees.

Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Despite the enthusiasm of government backbenchers, this year’s budget is really a fraud. This government had the potential to do things that will have a long-lasting, beneficial effect on the Australian economy and the Australian community. The Treasurer has fallen at the first hurdle. The Treasurer fails to understand that if he believes his own spin and that we are going through a period of economic sunshine then it would have been appropriate at this time to do things that will have an effect way into the future, rather than taking measures that are for immediate effect. This begs the question whether these are measures taken in the pursuit of good politics rather than good public policy.

There are many things that the government fails to mention when it discusses the challenges that confront Australia. When it talks about our appalling trade performance, it clutches at things that it believes will lead us to nirvana and get us out of the doldrums. But consistently coalition governments have a view of trade that is stuck in the resources and primary industry sectors. The favourable budget position that the government finds itself in is purely because of the way in which commodity prices are booming. There is no thought given in government discussions to what will occur when that boom deflates and when global conditions mean that the sale of our primary produce is not as favourable. When will the government discover that one of the problems is the decline in our manufacturing industry—the de-industrialisation of Australia, as some have called it? Will it wake up to the fact that the immediate challenge for Australia is to make investments not only in capital but also in our human resources and in the skilling of Australians? Skilling is needed not only for people on the production line and for people who work with their hands but for people who work with their minds. This is something that Labor, from its position in opposition, has been emphasising for some time, and slowly but surely if not the government then the people of Australia have come to understand that this is the challenge that confronts us.

When we look at the number of apprenticeships we see that nationally they continue to decline. That is not good enough. This year there are only 389,000 new apprentices in training—a continued drop in positions in training over the past few years. An electorate like mine can offer the human resources that are needed. Various people are willing to make a contribution and would welcome being given training opportunities which will improve their skills and ability to make a forthright and important contribution to the way in which we develop. These can be our young people, for example. The latest figures from the north-east region show that teenage unemployment is 18.7 per cent.

The member for Calwell spoke in the Main Committee today. In the north-western region of her electorate unemployment is at something like 30-plus per cent for that age cohort. These people have great potential. They should not be put in a basket where they are not given the opportunity to develop skills. It is no good for this government to continually point the blame at everybody else. If it is not the states, it is somebody else. The closest it ever gets to saying that it is partly its fault is to blame its own bureaucrats. That simply is not good enough. It is simply a challenge that this government needs to take on board and it is failing this challenge in spades.

The reason that I am very interested in the plight of the manufacturing industry is that it remains the major sector of employment in the region that I represent in this place. If we are to continue to see about 25 per cent of those in employment being employed in manufacturing, the type of support the Victorian government is giving manufacturing has to be replicated by the Commonwealth government. This will ensure that not only our young people are given the skills to participate but also innovative businesspeople are given the encouragement to investigate not only niche markets in the domestic markets but markets overseas.

I have every faith that through cooperation in the workplace employers and employees can achieve those outcomes. That is why we are greatly concerned about the changes being made to industrial relations under Work Choices. The benefits, not only to employees but to the nation as a whole, are illusory. In their heart of hearts, enlightened employers know that the type of industrial relations regime that this government sponsors is not going to lead to the conditions that are required to ensure that Australia goes forward. That requires cooperation between those who do the toil and those who make the decisions. If we do not have that cooperation, when that commodity price boom bursts we are going to be in a great deal of trouble.

We need government support for skills acquisition and innovation. If we take as an aspect of that the availability of and access to broadband, the government has tended to wash its hands of that. The only impetus for the government having any involvement in this area has been the selling of Telstra, with the government using broadband as a trade-off to certain sectional interests. That has been the only initiator of any proposals from this government about ensuring that our telecommunications infrastructure can take us well into the 21st century and will not keep us stuck a couple of decades behind in the 20th century.

In the city of Whittlesea, which is part of my electorate, progressively the access to home computers, and therefore the access to the internet, has increased. But it has now stalled. The level of ownership of home computers has levelled off at 60 per cent. There is a similar figure for those using the internet. About 60 per cent of households use the internet. Of those, about 54 per cent use it from their home computers and another six per cent have other sources. The worrying thing about those figures is that, after several years of progress, they have both levelled off. If you go to the source of connection to the internet for those households, you would be surprised that, in an outer urban area of a major metropolitan city like Melbourne, 53 per cent are on dial-up connections. If we are to go forward as a nation, we have to do better than that.

There is a need to look at the way in which the national government can ensure that the provision of high-speed broadband connection is possible. In the past, we have tended to talk about connection to broadband through ASDL or cable and talked about speeds which, if we compare them to overseas conditions, are deplorable. That is why I was very pleased that the Leader of the Opposition in his budget reply indicated that a Beazley Labor government would deliver a broadband plan that would ensure that the majority of people throughout Australia would have a high-speed broadband connection available.

As I said, when we are talking about broadband connection, we are really talking about broadband connection that gives us an ability to compete with overseas countries in not only the levels of connection—that is, penetration, the number of people and households that use it—but speeds that are comparable. That is one of the things that has been missing from this debate. We have not compared what we see as acceptable in the Australian context with what other nations that we are competing with see as acceptable.

Looking at the figures, Australia is ranked 17th of 30 countries surveyed by the OECD for the take-up of 256 kilobits per second broadband. The World Economic Forum ranks Australia’s available internet bandwidth at 25th in the world and Australia’s network readiness at 15th and falling. Another survey, by the World Bank, confirmed that Australia had access to some of the slowest broadband in the developed world. That is why the investment that was foreshadowed by the Leader of the Opposition is so important.

I have had cause to remind the House on a number of occasions of the deplorable fact that there are pockets in the electorate of Scullin, which is less than 20 kilometres from the GPO of Melbourne, where people cannot get, even at the slower, deplorable rates, access to broadband as we know it in the Australian context. These are in new estates being built in greenfield sites, and moving into those suburbs are people who will do part of their work from home and people who know the educational benefit for their families of having access. So why do I continue to get letters from people living in an electorate on the urban fringe that say that they cannot get beyond dial-up connections and that their cries are falling on deaf ears?

There was an estate just around the corner from where I live which, because it was 3½ kilometres from the exchange, was told that even on pair gains they could not have a reliable connection. This was an infill subdivision and it was being told that the infrastructure was not good enough. What were they told was the alternative, in a metropolitan context? They were told to buy a satellite dish. What happened was that the Country Connect guidelines were loosened up. That allowed Telstra to sit down as a provider with that small neighbourhood community and they got an outcome.

But this has not helped the businesspeople in semirural suburbs like Yarrambat and Plenty that cannot make the connection to businesses that they might be running in the electorate of the member for Calwell, in Campbellfield and Somerton. There they at least get Australian levels of broadband connection, which are deplorable by international standards. But they cannot get them at home and they cannot connect back and forth between their businesses.

I see this as an area that exemplifies the slothfulness of decision making. It does not envisage Australia going forward well and truly into the future and competing against our near neighbours, even in the area of IT technology. What I would like to emphasise about the budget is that it fails Australia; it fails areas like the electorate of Scullin because it does not recognise the regional disparities in the way in which the global economy is having an impact; it fails to mention manufacturing industry, which will be so important post the commodity boom; and it simply lacks vision and a sense of reality and indicates that the government is out of touch about the major challenges that confront us. I hope that at some stage we will start to see decisions being made by this government that are based not on immediate good politics but on long-term good policy.

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the limited time that I have, I would like to speak briefly on two subjects in this debate on the appropriation bills. The first one is following on a debate which I had in the House last week regarding the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. As I said, I am the chair of the parliamentary friendship group with Sri Lanka. Since that debate, I have had an enormous amount of email from and contact with the Sri Lankan community. Even this Monday, there were some 400 members of the Tamil community demonstrating outside this place because they are concerned about the listing of the LTTE, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, by the European Union. As a result, quite rightly, a number of people from the Tamil community in Australia demonstrated, as they did all over the world, about this potential listing by the European Union. Three members of that protest group came to my office to talk to me about my speech in this House. I was very happy to talk with them and I have undertaken to talk with them further, because I need to be balanced in the position I hold.

However, what I am telling the House today is that I intend, as an addition to my speech last week, to write to both the foreign minister and the Attorney-General to ask that Australia consider proscribing the LTTE as a terrorist group. I find it quite unusual. In December 2001, the foreign minister listed the LTTE; however, the listing of the LTTE does not have the same definition and the same sanctions as does the listing of a proscribed terrorist organisation. So I will be writing to those two ministers, asking that we take that on board, as has been done by the United States, Britain and Canada. Can I say that I will be suggesting to the foreign minister and the Attorney-General that they list the LTTE using the same model as the Canadian model, which has variations from the US model and variations from the British model.

I am concerned about the fact that, while the British may have listed the LTTE, their sanctions do not seem to be as strong as they could be, because I understand that this weekend in Britain the Tamil terrorist leader Prabhakaran will be in London celebrating his daughter’s 20th birthday. I find this quite unusual. He is putting on a lavish function for her birthday in London, yet this listing is supposed to do something about stopping travel and the flow of money to terrorist organisations. As a result I find this quite unusual, quite bizarre, and I would be surprised that the British would be very supportive of this. Here he is living a lavish lifestyle, yet the child soldiers that he forcibly recruits to act on his behalf have to carry cyanide pills around their neck in case they are caught. So I find that quite disappointing as well.

Secondly, with all the emails that I have received in response to my speech last week, as I said, obviously the overwhelming amount support me in my statements regarding the LTTE. However, of course, there have been several emails which have not. I have received an interesting one from a Mr Wilson Mervin Reynold. I will read what he says to me regarding, ‘Australian MP blasts LTTE in federal parliament speech’. It says:

Don Randall, the Liberal Party MP for Canning, and Chairman of the Australia-Sri Lanka Friendship Group in parliament, blasted the LTTE’s spokesperson in the Australian Federal parliament, John Murphy (Labour - MP for Lowe) for making allegations against the democratically elected Sri Lankan government and aligning himself with a terrorist organisation.

Those are his words. This is a man that is having a go at me and who has listed Mr Murphy as the spokesman in this place for the LTTE! I put that on the record because, if that is the way the supporters of the LTTE seem, he has a problem. At the end of the day, can I make it very clear that in general the Tamils in this country, as I have said before, are harmonious, peace-loving people who integrate well, as they do in Sri Lanka. However, there is no way in the world that Australia can support a terrorist group and fund a terrorist group, and that is why I am calling for the proscription of this group by our government. I could say more, but I will move on.

The other issue I wish to speak briefly to is the development of Preston Beach in my electorate. Since I spoke about the environmental concerns for the development of Preston Beach I have found further information. I am looking at the proposal to the Waroona Shire Council, which says that when the Department of Environment was asked to comment it returned the letter with no comment on it. The Department of Health was also asked for comment but declined to do so. I find this very unusual. As I have said, the BioMAX system that is being proposed for these 135 units is basically being ignored by the two state government departments, which should be very concerned about the treatment of sewage in a very pristine environmental site, a fragile Ramsar wetland site. I want to ask why these two state government departments have basically washed their hands of this issue. As I have said before, I have written to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Ian Campbell, to see what issues can be raised as part of his federal responsibilities for the environment. I understand the department is still looking at that.

The other issue I want to raise is this. I do not mind people making money; I think enterprise is good, but under this proposal 135 shacks in a beachside hamlet of 400 will be under a timeshare arrangement. No-one will be allowed to live there for more than three months. In other words, the owners cannot stay there for more than three months. The timeshare units will place into a small beachside community a transient population for the rest of the year. This does nothing for the community and does nothing for amenity. I have some grave concerns about the fact that this development has gotten under the guard of the Preston Beach Townsite Strategy. As part of that strategy there is meant to be a contribution to infill sewerage, transport and all other infrastructure, such as gas and roads et cetera. Potentially there is $41 million to be made from this project. I understand that 30 of the units have already been presold at $309,000 each. I think it is a grave injustice that these people can be given a walk-up start before the Preston Beach Townsite Strategy is in place, and I will continue to raise this point.

The last thing I will say in the time left concerns the public open space requirement for this development. The council have given them the land. When I say they have given them land, they have not actually given it over to them but have signed over a piece of council land approximately 25 by 40 square metres in size. To start off with, I think public open space which is only half the size of an Olympic swimming pool for 135 dwellings is inadequate, but for the council to give this land as such to the developers means that they do not have to develop the public open space on the land that they own. It gives a huge commercial advantage. Why would a council give away this sort of land to a developer? I think there is something quite wrong about all of this. In fact, to me, it smells somewhat. I am going to continue to dig and expose where I can the issues that are involved there. I will be meeting the developers from Preston Beach next week and I will say that to them. I think the people of Preston Beach and that area deserve far better governance by their local authorities, and I will be raising that wherever I can.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I start by thanking the member for Canning for his gracious and diligent observance of the clock so as to give me an opportunity to have some say today on the effects of the federal budget on my electorate. I have listened to a number of government speakers in particular talk about the budget and, as is to be expected, government members like the Treasurer and the Prime Minister hail the budget with great aplomb and excitement. I beg to differ on behalf of my constituency. The budget for 2006-07 has been treated in a pretty ordinary way by the people in the federal electorate of Calwell—and this despite the massive surplus and also the new comprehensive tax reform measures that see tax cuts given to a much broader base of income earners. Despite those two major features of the budget, many of the people in my electorate and no doubt the Australian public generally have not been as enthusiastic and excited about the goodies that have been on offer in this year’s federal budget. The reason for that is fairly simple—that is, people and in particular families are struggling. They are struggling to make ends meet, despite record budget surpluses and the infamous tax cuts.

My community, like the rest of Australia, knows very well that the tax cuts given in this budget will disappear well before they can be of any benefit, because such is the pressure that our families are under that it will take a lot more than just tax cuts to relieve the burden of the rising cost of living. Tax cuts—and I need to make this point—are of no benefit to those people who are not earning an income. I in particular have a large number of unemployed people in my electorate. I have a large number of sole parents and pensioners who face even greater uncertainty as the government’s Welfare to Work and IR policies begin to kick in.

Household budgets in my electorate, like everywhere else across Australia, are straining under the recent increases in interest rates. In my electorate in particular, we are a significant growth corridor and we have a high mortgage belt, and therefore interest rate rises are felt very quickly and they are felt strongly. You need to add to this the skyrocketing cost of petrol and of course the imminent threat to wages from the government’s industrial relations changes, and you get a community which is becoming increasingly more concerned about its future security and less excited about the Treasurer’s budget surpluses and his tax cuts.

Many of the people in my electorate are asking me and others and themselves: if the economy is doing so well and the budget is in such spectacular surplus, why is it that we are paying more and more for the cost of living? I believe that this particular angst that my constituency is experiencing is not restricted to them alone. My constituents are bracing themselves for the mounting assault on their wages and working conditions. As story after story comes to light about people losing their jobs or their entitlements or copping wage cuts, people are beginning to wonder—quite fairly I guess—why at a time of record company profits and record economic growth the Prime Minister asserts that they should cop the pay cuts for the good of the economy.

I am afraid that average Australia is so highly geared and mortgaged that it is not prepared to make any more sacrifices. That is why this budget has failed to excite people in the way that the government would have hoped. The government is aware that the budget has not excited average Australia. The PM knows this, because I read an article in the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday which stated that, in the party room on Tuesday, the Prime Minister told his party room to hold their nerve, reassuring them that the big bounce will come after 1 July when the tax cuts kick in. The Prime Minister is a very astute politician but I think that on this occasion his antenna is being pointed in the wrong direction, because the average income earner understands clearly that tax cuts will not offset the mounting costs and pressures on family budgets. So I think the Prime Minister and his party room might be waiting around for a big bounce to nowhere.

There is concern in my electorate. I want to talk about some of these areas of concern where the budget in particular has failed to deliver. However, there are two areas where the federal budget has been of benefit to my constituency. I am always pleased to talk about the benefits of federal budgets to the electorate of Calwell. Firstly, I want to speak about and indeed thank the government for the recent provision of $51 million to Ford Australia as part of Ford’s $1.8 billion project investment in Australia over the next 10 years. This is a very welcome contribution by the federal government because the Ford plant in Broadmeadows that employs about 5,000 people, most of them locals in my electorate, is a very important employer in our community. Manufacturing, as in the electorate of the member for Scullin, is also a very important employer in the federal seat of Calwell.

There was some talk amongst Ford workers that Ford may begin to scale down its operations and even some fear that Ford may actually abandon its Broadmeadows plant. The reason for this, as bizarre as it may sound, is that in the last 12 months in my electorate we have seen nearly 700 manufacturing jobs lost overseas, in particular to Chinese markets. Five hundred of those jobs were at the Autoliv seatbelt-making factory, 40 at Kozma Industries and over 150 when Kraft Broadmeadows finally decided to close its shop and move overseas. Broadmeadows in particular is an area where the unemployment rate is very high—often at 14 per cent. So these job losses are devastating to our community and, needless to say, our community is feeling incredibly vulnerable and concerned at this point in time.

Of the $51 million which was the government’s contribution to Ford, $12.5 million will be used to build a new design and engineering centre at the Broadmeadows plant in my electorate, which will of course have immense benefits for Ford employees and the local community. This assistance package is expected to create 273 jobs and will extend the potential life of the Broadmeadows and Geelong plant, which is good news at a time when, as I have said, manufacturing jobs are being lost to overseas markets at a rate which could see the car manufacturing industry disappear from Australia altogether in the next 15 to 20 years. This is a major issue of concern not only for my constituents; it must also be a major issue of concern to government. It is important that the government keeps its eye on the ball and remains proactive in this matter of manufacturing, because it is a national concern. It needs to remain proactive and not become reactive.

The second issue that has been of benefit to my electorate in this year’s budget is the announcement by the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Senator Amanda Vanstone, that the government was shelving the proposed building of an immigration detention centre in Broadmeadows, at the Maygar Barracks. This particular measure was first announced in the 2004 budget, and it took our community by absolute surprise. Since then, we have waged a very strong community campaign to convince the government that the building of a 200-bed detention centre at the cost of $120 million is not only a waste of public money but totally unnecessary in our community.

We are happy that we have scored what we think is a victory. We are a little concerned, however, that in her letter to me the minister says that she has shelved plans to build the detention centre facility at this stage. It is those words—‘at this stage’—which take the gloss a bit out of what would have been an overwhelming community victory. At this point, I am hoping that the minister for immigration will consider getting rid of or expunging completely the idea of building a detention centre in Broadmeadows. We do want to take this opportunity to urge the federal government to reinvest the $120 million that it earmarked for this detention centre back into the community of Broadmeadows because we need as much money and as much government investment as we can get our hands on because there are a number of areas which need to be addressed—and I will be talking about those areas when I get the opportunity to continue my speech. At this point, I seek leave to continue my remarks when the debate is resumed.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.