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

In the lead-up to this year’s budget, the Treasurer conned Australian women into thinking that the government might address some of the issues facing them both at home and in the workplace—perhaps by starting to address the child-care shambles that they have created or introducing tax rates or other incentives that would make it easier for parents to balance their work and family responsibilities. The Treasurer said to the Press Club on 1 March 2006:

I think that we ought to be looking at making this the most female friendly place on earth.

He is very happy to talk about being family friendly and female friendly, but this budget is the exact opposite. This budget offers no solutions to some of the key problems facing Australian women. Of course, the tax cuts were welcome. Labor welcomed the tax cuts. But it is worth saying that those tax cuts were very quickly spent on higher mortgage repayments and higher petrol costs. With the insecurity and cuts to wages that people are facing with the new Work Choices legislation, those few extra dollars certainly evaporated very quickly. It is interesting to note that, when you look at the massive superannuation tax cut, most of that money will in fact go to men because men are generally higher paid than women and have higher overall superannuation payouts. They are not as likely to have disrupted work patterns as women are.

I have spoken in the past at some length about the issues facing the child-care system. I do not propose to dwell on that today except to say that there were such very high expectations of this budget. The minister responsible, the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Mr Mal Brough, had been out there hyping this budget as the solution to the child-care crisis in this country. We have had statements from the Treasurer. Can I say: what a disappointment this budget was! I think that Australian parents who are holding their breath for some relief from the very high expense of child care or who are looking for a place and cannot find one or who are worried about the quality of the child care were extremely disappointed by this budget.

This budget also does nothing for skills. There are shortages in a number of traditional female employment areas as well. The budget does nothing for any of those traditional trades. Look at the disgraceful situation with the private TAFEs that the government was trumpeting at the last election. One of them has one student! That is a terrific contribution to improving Australia’s skills base.

However, there were a couple of issues that were startlingly absent from the budget that I want to focus on today. The first is a complete lack of interest in initiatives to tackle violence against women and particularly violence against Indigenous women and children. We had Minister Mal Brough and other members of the government out in public in recent weeks saying that this is a national disgrace. We have known for some time that this is a national disgrace. Indigenous leaders have been telling us for some time that it is a national disgrace and that they need help to address these serious problems. There was nothing in this budget in that respect.

There is also a serious lack of funding for community legal centres. I want to address that because one of the best things that we can do to actually provide justice for excluded and marginalised people in Australia is to give them equal access to the law. That is what community legal centres are set up to do, and that is what they do. They have received little or no support from the government over the years.

I turn to the issue of violence against Indigenous women and children. An international survey conducted in 2003 on violence against women found that 57 per cent of the women surveyed had experienced at least one instance of physical or sexual violence over their lifetime. That is a staggering figure in itself. The picture is even worse for Aboriginal women, who are 12 times more likely to be victims of assault than non-Indigenous women. A number of quite shocking cases have been focused on in the media recently. It is important for us to say two things: firstly, in many Indigenous communities it is indeed the Indigenous leaders, particularly the older women, who are leading the fight against this abuse; and, secondly, when we talk about the causes and the background of this sort of abuse, we are not making excuses—you need to understand a problem to be able to fight it properly.

A couple of weeks ago, the Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research at Central Queensland University hosted an Indigenous family violence prevention forum titled ‘Men, Women and Community—Partners’. The forum was attended by 110 people from urban, rural and remote Queensland communities. Most of them came from Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander communities and a lot of the participants were men. A unique part of this year’s program was the yarning circles, where people were able to discuss the issue of violence in a less structured way. There were a lot of important addresses from Aboriginal people who work in Aboriginal communities in Northern Queensland and the Northern Territory, as well as Torres Strait Islanders.

They talked about examples that were working in their communities, such as: increasing the numbers of domestic and family violence units and liaison officers; setting up an integrated government approach to violence; employing Indigenous court workers to coordinate services to address offender needs and behaviour and not relying on community volunteers; mandating programs for offenders in custody, including parenting, healing, cultural and Indigenous art programs; and setting up alternative sentencing and periodic detention programs—for example, work on outstations for adolescents to provide them with real life skills and to discourage  recidivism. Those are some of the things that leaders in those communities argue are needed in their own communities. I hope that people who are interested in this issue, as the government have claimed to be in recent weeks, will take some notice of what Indigenous communities themselves are calling for.

In the past 15 years there have been about 50 reports on violence in Indigenous communities and related issues. I do not think that we need another report or summit. We need to start taking notice of the recommendations that are made in those reports and meetings by people who know what works in their own communities and actually backing some of those success stories. I have come across examples myself, such as: a community where men are dropped from a very popular and successful local cricket team if they get an apprehended violence order made against them; tiny country towns where they have a rally against child sexual abuse—something that was previously a taboo issue that nobody talked about—and where the community stand together and say, ‘This is not acceptable in our community’; and night patrols where older women patrol, often on foot, and diffuse potentially violent or dangerous situations before they escalate. Those are all things that we should be looking at.

We also have to look at what is happening when it comes to legal support for the people who have the bravery to come forward and say that they have been victims of sexual assault or child sexual abuse. Sexual assault and child sexual abuse in particular have notoriously low conviction rates. It is impossible to imagine even the most articulate and confident person going through the legal system and braving the questioning of defence lawyers and so on without proper legal support. Without proper legal support it is just impossible. Police services are important, of course; but police are only part of the equation when it comes to dealing with the unfortunate end of abuse and sexual violence against women and children.

When you look at the work done by Indigenous women’s legal services—there is one office in each state, and between them they share $1 million in funding—you see how important it is to have accessible and culturally appropriate services that not only look at criminal behaviour but also support Indigenous people in dealing with some of the surrounding issues. When you look at the shocking lack of support for community legal centres in general in this year’s budget, you see that it is another glaring omission that deserves to have the attention of the public brought to it. A number of state-wide services operate from my electorate, so I am fortunate enough to have 19 community legal centres operating from my electorate. They operate on a number of different issues, such as credit and debt, disability discrimination, arts and entertainment law, and welfare issues.

Community legal centres have not received a service funding increase in any budget since 1996. In some budgets, they have not even received the CPI increase. In this year’s budget, the government has allocated a tiny $22.2 million to the national community legal centres program. That is an increase of only two per cent on last year; again, that is less than the CPI increase. That means that community legal centres are, effectively, going backwards. I know that many of them are struggling to remain viable even though the service they provide is of a high quality and done with an absolute minimum of overheads. Community legal centres have told me that over the last few years they have been forced to slowly reduce their services, and that is a very disappointing outcome. Many solicitor positions are now only four days a week, not five, and many community legal centres have cut their administrative staff. That means that centres are operating less efficiently because solicitors, instead of seeing clients, are doing administrative work.

More importantly, with less money and fewer staff, operating hours of centres are being cut back. Of course, fewer hours open means that fewer clients are getting the help they need with their legal problems. Research conducted by the Institute for Sustainable Futures shows that for every dollar spent on community legal centres $100 is saved in avoidable costs to other government departments. Of course, the Treasurer and the Attorney-General do not see the economic sense in making that sort of investment. Indeed, the Attorney-General is not prepared to defend community legal centres, because he blames them for spending their time on political campaigns and ideological causes. I can tell the Attorney-General that community legal centres see a great number of clients and do very important work. When they get involved in a political campaign it is because they see the vast majority of their clients being disadvantaged by something that the government is doing. If the Attorney-General visited the centres occasionally he would see the real story. He would see what a good job community legal centres are doing, what long hours their lawyers are working and what low pay they are receiving to provide vital legal services for the issues that Australians face day to day. They deal with things like family law, credit card debt, medical negligence, disputes with banks, employment issues, being ripped off by companies, tenancy disputes and unscrupulous landlords.

There are people who cannot afford high legal fees. The government are spending $174 million in legal fees this year to pay law firms for their own legal advice, but they are not prepared to help low-income Australians to afford legal advice themselves. One firm alone is due to get $19 million. That is almost the whole budget of community legal centres in this country.

It is worth noting too that many of the disputes that people go to community legal centres to solve are caused by changes that the government has made to family law, industrial relations, and other recent legislative changes. The government is terrific at creating the disputes that send people to community legal centres but no good at all at funding the work done by those community legal centres.

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2006-2007 and related budget bills. As Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, I would like to focus my comments on those areas that are a particular responsibility of mine, namely multicultural affairs, citizenship and the upgrade of the technology system within the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. I would like to discuss some of these responsibilities relating to the broader budget.

In debating budget measures I think that it is important to reflect on the contribution of these measures to sustaining Australia’s economic prosperity and to consider the broad challenges that Australia faces and the role the budget plays in meeting those challenges. In a broader sense the 2006-07 budget includes a number of major initiatives which are critical to sustaining Australia’s economic prosperity. Firstly, the budget provides for an underlying cash surplus of $10.8 billion, the government’s ninth surplus since taking office and a very significant part of the underlying business and investment confidence and the general performance of the economy for so many years now. Ten years of sound economic management has seen the $96 billion of debt inherited by this government in 1996 eliminated, and in a very material way that is providing, year on year, in excess of $8 billion which is now available to fund community services and infrastructure and other important components of the budget.

The budget includes major tax reforms in superannuation, personal income tax and business tax, and is supported by measures to improve the integrity of the tax system. The budget also invests significantly in our roads and rail and water infrastructure. It invests significantly in skills training. It improves support for mental health services and it continues Australia’s leadership in medical research through very significant additional funding, close to $1 billion.

These 10 years of sound economic management mean that prospects for the Australian economy remain sound, with economic growth forecast to be 3¼ per cent in 2006-07, and already we are seeing the results of that with strong job market performance. Last week there was the announcement of a 4.9 per cent rate of unemployment, the lowest in over 30 years, and that is despite a corresponding increase in the participation rate during the period in which that unemployment figure was registered.

This is a remarkable achievement but one that needs to be built on. It shows what can be done. This budget needs to be measured in terms of its capacity to prolong for a long period of time the prosperity that we have enjoyed as a country. These budget measures and other changes embodied in legislation over the last 12 months—such as the Work Choices legislation—are critical to seeking to set Australia up for another 10 or 20 years of prosperity. This prosperity cannot be taken for granted, and it cannot be squandered and frittered away. We have to keep confronting the new challenges that come our way if we are to maintain the prosperity that we have now enjoyed as a country for some time.

Simply wanting to spend the proceeds of prosperity—as is being suggested on the other side of the House—and rolling back important initiatives without a view to the future shows our opponents are running true to form. We are starting to see it now at a state level, with many Labor governments that inherited strong positions and have had the benefit at a federal level of a very high level of economic performance for many years finding themselves in quite difficult circumstances, such as the New South Wales government and the ACT government. Labor are running true to form, and we are starting to see it in the policies that are being unfolded at a federal level, where they are taking this prosperity for granted. They are taking all the hard work for granted, they are taking the challenges of the future for granted, and they are not putting their efforts into policies that will deal with the problems and the challenges that Australia faces. Australia faces serious challenges, particularly the implications of an ageing population. It is expected that, in five years time, we will have 200,000 more jobs than people to fill them. That is with current, very high levels of immigration, a strong economic performance and significantly more money spent on skills training than ever in our history—200,000 more jobs than people to fill them.

In the OECD in the next 20 years, it is expected that nearly 70 million people will be in the retirement age cohort. In the same period of time, five million people across the whole OECD will enter the working age bracket. In Australia and across the developed world, we have a very significant and serious challenge that we must confront in terms of the ageing population and the implications that has for us in maintaining our quality of life, our productivity, our prosperity and our growth. This budget and many other policy initiatives are designed to confront these challenges and the challenges presented by an increasingly globalised world. The emergence of India and China as rapidly expanding nations in our region presents both threats and opportunities. To head off these threats and to take advantage of the opportunities requires continuing strong policy actions on many fronts.

The effective integration of the waves of immigration over the last 60 years have been a major contributor to the prosperity and the cultural richness of our great Australian family. We have moulded over many decades a dynamic and stable community from a very wide diversity of cultures with the benefit of a strong Australian democratic condition. There have been six million migrants since the fifties. We have also had many refugees, humanitarian entrants and many other migrants in those 55 years. While it has been our priority to maintain the strength of our economy, we also have a priority to maintain our ability to integrate people from so many different parts of the world. Today, 43 per cent of our population is made up of first or second generation Australians. Keeping our economy strong is critical to our proud record of taking in and integrating refugees and humanitarian entrants.

It is an expensive process. Australia is one of only three countries in the world that have consistently and without hesitation, year on year, taken in refugees from around the world. We have done this with a very strong program, but it is expensive. Some quarter of a billion dollars is spent on settlement programs each year in Australia. We have been very good at integrating people from the four corners of the world into our Australian family but, given the increasingly globalised nature of the world and the challenges of an ageing population, we need to become even better at integration.

It has not been their skills, perspectives and hard work alone that have contributed to the achievement that is modern Australia. We have received other great benefits from the many waves of migrants. As is being seen in Europe and other parts of the world, a longstanding, deliberate migration program, which we have in place in Australia and which has not been in existence in many other parts of the world, has been the secret of our success. Along with supporting integration and settlement programs, it has been fundamental to our success as a country. It is one of the many factors that underpin and support the prosperity that we have enjoyed over the last 10 to 15 years.

This budget seeks to build further on Australia’s very successful history. In the area of multicultural affairs, this budget seeks to further assist the effective integration of migrants from so many parts of the world. With an ageing population, and with the threats posed and opportunities presented by an increasingly globalised world, we have to focus strongly on our ability to integrate people from other cultures quickly and effectively. In this budget the government has allocated $32.8 million over the next four years to further enhance our cultural diversity programs, to assist with understanding, integration, English teaching and other factors in the programs. Of this funding, $20.5 million is allocated to the Living in Harmony initiative, $10.2 million to the implementation of cultural diversity policy and programs, $1.6 million to assist the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia, and $0.5 million to the Surf Life Saving Australia/Sutherland partnership to help with problems with integration in some parts of Sydney.

As well, there will be an increase of $4 million over four years to promote Australian citizenship. In the area of information technology, we are spending close to half a billion dollars within the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs to assist the effective management of literally thousands of databases across the world and around Australia which are an essential part of a smooth and effective immigration program.

Funding for the Living in Harmony initiative has increased from $14 million over four years to $20.5 million over four years, which represents an increase of $6.5 million. We have had a very successful program, with nearly 5,000 different initiatives taking place during Harmony Day. Close to 3,000 of those were school initiatives. Young people across the primary and secondary school system have embarked on programs to gain an understanding of different cultures, to assist those who have joined our country in recent years or who are second generation migrants, who are going to play a very important part in the future prosperity of our country. They play a very important part in building the richness of our culture and in Australia being able to tap in to the new cultural perspectives that their parents have brought with them from the countries from which they have emigrated. The Living in Harmony initiative, and especially those components which relate to our school community, has been extremely effective in this regard.

There has been an increase from $4.4 million over four years to $10.2 million over four years for the implementation of cultural diversity policy and programs, including the important appointment of 10 full-time dedicated community liaison officers, in order to build our network across the country and to support community outreach programs, especially in regional areas. A lot of regional migration is now taking place. It is an important part of dealing with the ageing population and the skills shortage. We heard today during question time about the importance of overseas doctors, nurses and others coming into many parts of regional Australia, along with their families. The community liaison officers within my department have the capacity to greatly assist in the effective integration of these people into local communities and to monitor and respond quickly to problems. They will also create stronger links with new refugees, many of whom have been settled in areas where there are jobs—for example, on the harvest trail and in abattoirs. There are also other places where we can get these people quickly and effectively into jobs. We need people who are dedicated and who are on the ground so that they can ensure that problems are identified and dealt with quickly.

The ethnic diversity program and other initiatives are very important. We also have an important commitment to citizenship. Over the next four years we will spend some $8 million on promoting Australian citizenship, again to properly and effectively integrate people from so many parts of the world. We need to reinforce the privilege of citizenship to ensure that citizens and noncitizens alike value it. It is at the heart of our success as a diverse society. Australia’s ability to get people committed to a core set of values is the glue to our Australian family, while drawing on the rich diversity of people who come from many parts of the world.

Finally, an important initiative that has been funded and committed to in the budget is the Systems for People initiative—the improvement of the systems which fundamentally underpin the running of our technology within the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. One of the problems in our area in the last two or three years has been the failure of many of our databases to communicate with one another. That has created a problem in the effective administration of many of our migration programs. We have embarked on a very sophisticated and significant program of reform in that area so that we can, in the years ahead, continue the proud reputation we have as a country with a very strong immigration program and as a country that has a network of bureaucrats and officials to run those programs and with the wherewithal to do the most effective job possible.

The strength of a culturally diverse community, united by an overriding and unifying commitment to Australia, is a proud achievement. It is one of the main things which has helped Australia to be in the strong position it is in today in having such a diverse, flexible, committed and effective workforce and community. The cohesion we have in our community and our commitment to Australia has been an important part of our success as a country. This budget in many ways seeks to build on that reputation and strength that we have as a country.

Joanna Gash (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to comment on the budget for 2006-07 and, more particularly, to give credit where credit is due, for this budget is the 11th successful budget delivered by a successful team that has overseen the prospering of Australia after inheriting a huge millstone from the previous government—a millstone worth $96 billion which has finally been put to bed, releasing us from the economic shackles by which we were bound. In fact, we have saved $8 billion each year in interest payments alone. This year also we celebrated the 10th anniversary of a coalition government that has delivered us from the threat of a ‘banana republic’.

Having arrived in parliament at the 1996 election, I ponder the many successes that have been realised and cast my mind back to my appropriation debate speech in 2001 which marked the half-way mark to today. It is appropriate for me to reflect now on what was said, because more often than not we tend to focus on the present rather than looking at the journey that led us here. At the time I said it was a fact that the previous government totally ignored the basic infrastructure of regional development, particularly in Gilmore, dividing families and creating a sense of dependency on government, rather than opening the doors to allow Australians to become competitive, generating needed investment and providing much-needed employment.

In the election of 1996, the people entrusted me with the job of making Gilmore a better place to do business in and to live in, creating those much-needed jobs and educational opportunities. It has also provided enormous challenges to expand our tourist industry, our manufacturing, agricultural and commercial base, not to forget one of our largest industries and employment bases and what our electorate is based on—that being defence—HMAS Albatross.

Today, Gilmore really is on the move as we, the government and the community, have certainly been getting the job done. As I look back over those years, I am impressed by what has actually been achieved: just on $2 billion worth of funding for projects in Gilmore. Some of the more notable and significant projects include: schools and education, almost $280 million; University of Wollongong school of medicine, $10 million; Main Road 92, $34 million; Princes Highway Kiama bypass, $34 million; roads and infrastructure, $250 million; Shoalhaven Cultural Convention Centre, $3.3million; Shoalhaven City Arts Centre upgrade, $440,000; Shoalhaven Youth Volunteering Initiative, $133,000; Currarong boat ramp, $100,000; the Gilmore Youth Leadership Forum; child-care upgrades; community water grants; University of Wollongong Shoalhaven Marine and Freshwater Centre for research; Nowra rugby park upgrade; HMAS Albatross upgrade; defence projects in general, including cadets, $820 million; aged care; environment; and much more.

Many of these are significant, not so much for the quantum of money they attracted but as a catalyst to build upon. For instance, the Gilmore Youth Leadership Forum brought together many future and potential leaders from 10 schools, both private and public, from across the electorate. This tied in with the Shoalhaven Youth Volunteering Initiative, with both projects creating a base from which we can build an environment to encourage a future engagement with the community by our youth. Two hundred young people each year, in cooperation with local schools, participate with the SES, bushfire brigades, National Parks and Wildlife, police, surf lifesaving clubs and other agencies.

Our role ultimately is to ensure that the generations that follow are not fettered the way we were when we took over government in 1996. That is why I have been such an ardent supporter of constructing a highway from Nowra to Canberra. I and many of my constituents could see that, unless we took steps to ensure better access to other commercial markets, we faced the danger of languishing far behind other regional centres. It has been a frustrating process, and the original deadlines have been compromised by a state government which really was not concerned with the welfare of Gilmore residents. However, I am pleased to inform the House that the Prime Minister turned the first sod to mark the beginning of the state government’s contribution to the construction of the Shoalhaven Highway. Six years it took for the New South Wales government to match funding, endangering the project owing to the depreciation effect on the original sum over that period.

I am also grateful to the Australian government for supporting educational initiatives by contributing funds for the development of the University of Wollongong Nowra campus, the medical school and the Sealab and for other contributions towards education, making this particular campus a centre of excellence. We will be working towards seeing some form of nursing training developed at the campus. Whatever contribution is made—and it has been generous—is essentially a work in progress as we continue to build on these achievements.

I would like to describe to the House some of the other projects we have running in Gilmore at this time. Firstly, there is the constant criticism over the Princes Highway. Finally the facts seem to be sinking in. People are starting to understand that the Princes Highway is a state road and it is up to the state of New South Wales to look after it. We have put millions into the road through the black spots program. It comes down to this: the state needs to have the plans in place when it approaches the Australian government for money. This is where the process has fallen down. The Southern Councils Group has a plan. The state government needs to support its plan, meet the dollar-for-dollar requirements of the program and put its money where its mouth is.

We cannot continue to be criticised for not funding a road that is not even a federal road when there is money available to the New South Wales state government and the RTA but they will not support proposed projects. On this issue, quite simply, enough is enough, and we are not going to take it any more. I will continue to fight for whatever Australian government money is available for the road, but it needs to be done knowing that the state government is prepared to meet its responsibilities.

Next, the old Anglicare Chesalon nursing home is on the market in Nowra. I believe it is the perfect facility to meet a multitude of needs in Gilmore. Under the right leaders, the facility could house respite for carers of the disabled, expanded special child-care facilities and potentially an expansion of Noah’s Ark services—and I believe it is the ideal location for the family relationship centre to be developed in Nowra. It is a large centre and one we believe can be adapted to meet the needs of such occupants. We are speaking with Anglicare to see what can be done. The early signs are positive on what shapes to be a long road, but a road well worth travelling. The Australian government has committed to improved mental health services and respite for the carers of the disabled, and the Chesalon centre looms as a logical choice.

One of the more significant initiatives, launched in March this year, is Blueprint Shoalhaven, which has been a series of minisummits addressing key sectors in the Shoalhaven economy. This local initiative came about as a result of confronting the prospect of a number of job losses that had to be faced earlier this year—job losses that came about as a result of businesses winding up or reducing their operations. Gates Rubber closed, Manildra had to cut jobs because of the anti-ethanol campaign that was being waged, the paper mill rationalised its operations, and the local Dairy Farmers milk factory ceased operations.

Then there has been the predictable downstream effect of supporting industries—reducing their participation as a result of their dependency on these large local enterprises. The effect is quite profound, so I needed to ensure that other initiatives were available to fill the gap. Blueprint Shoalhaven is an independent and bipartisan forum made up of industry and community leaders. They are working towards a solution—a practical and non-political solution—and I commend them for their dedication to breathing life into the local economy, upon which so many people rely. Tourism, health and ageing, public service, general industry and defence have all been addressed. Under the chairmanship of Noel Rosskelly, from Tyco flow systems in Nowra, Blueprint has brought together a team of professionals and people from across the region to put together action plans to build on the region’s successes and identify the success stories of the future.

The final plans will be presented on 26 June at a major function at the Nowra Anglican College. It will be the culmination of the first stage of Blueprint Shoalhaven, and once the plans are delivered they need to be acted upon. The project has won the support of the three levels of government, and those three levels of government will look closely at the plans to see where assistance can be offered. From the start, Blueprint Shoalhaven was a project for the people and by the people. It has been embraced and each of the minisummits has been a great success. I look forward to seeing the action plans produced and to doing all I can to assist in the next exciting stage.

Among the more successful programs introduced by this government is the Regional Partnerships program. At this point, I want to acknowledge the work of the Shoalhaven Area Consultative Committee and its chief executive officer, Milton Lay. Milton and his colleague Alan Mulley have been instrumental in delivering many projects, two of which I have already mentioned. The committee broke new ground in a number of projects, particularly the civilian cadets. The spin-off was a successful first-aid course, which was offered not only to the cadets but also to senior high school students from the region. It was a weekend program, and over 775 students and teachers participated. The net result is that there are another 775 individuals in the electorate who can render effective first aid if called upon.

Another issue of immense interest to the Gilmore electorate is the matter of biofuels and, more specifically, ethanol production. One of the largest ethanol producers in Australia is Manildra, which has a plant in Bomaderry, in the Gilmore electorate. The need to support such an industry has not been made any clearer than by today’s skyrocketing price of fuel, yet consumers continue to shy away from taking up ethanol-supplemented fuel. The Prime Minister’s recent intervention with the oil companies was a timely and necessary initiative, but the reality is that, until such a time as more outlets selling ethanol come into the market, the take-up rate will continue to lag.

I am of the view that the times are right to now pursue and develop alternative technologies rather than just talk about them. Federal members have fuel cards, which are able to be used to source ethanol based fuel. While that might be a token gesture, at least it is an action that sets an example. If the oil companies do not become more committed to promoting ethanol based fuel fairly soon, I will again be pushing to have ethanol mandated.

The Prime Minister has raised the issue of considering nuclear energy as part of the debate, and he is correct in putting it on the table. Even before the sun had gone down, there were people saying that they did not want a nuclear reactor in their backyard. There is no shortage of nimbys—those who say, ‘Not in my backyard’—and so passionate are they in protecting their self-interests that they lose sight of the big picture. In some way that reflects the response to ethanol. Who remembers the campaign to discredit the uptake of ethanol and Labor’s pathetic role in promoting a fear campaign? It was based largely, I would suggest, on their animosity towards Manildra’s owner. The prime fear tactic was the claim that ethanol would burn your engine out; many people were convinced without even bothering to check the facts. They neglected to say that it was in fact kerosene that was the culprit.

Suddenly, with the price of fuel escalating dramatically, ethanol is now more acceptable—exactly the proposition we were advocating based on overseas experiences. Even state Labor has come to the party, with the state government saying it will be putting ethanol in its fleet vehicles. The Labor aspirant for the seat of Kiama, the new boundaries of which will take in Manildra, has had an epiphany. He was always an ardent supporter of ethanol, or so he says, yet just recently he voted against the bill that would have mandated the use of ethanol in New South Wales. And why should I be surprised, particularly when the state government’s approach to water resources, as an example, sees them simply robbing the regional areas of the Shoalhaven and the Southern Highlands of their water? The only initiatives that they have come up with are water restrictions on domestic use in the Sydney metropolitan area, which affects a miniscule two per cent of water usage in the Sydney region, and plans for a desalination plant, which have now been shelved. The point I am trying to make is that, in preparing for future contingencies, planning has to start earlier rather than later, and short-term benefits may have to be compromised for long-term gain. It might be expedient to put aside the politically unpalatable, but that is not a responsible approach to governing.

This government has made a lot of tough decisions, often against the tide of prevailing opinion, but in persisting and standing firm in its resolve, we can now point to the benefits that eventually flowed. Good economic management has given us the wherewithal to build a strong foundation for future prosperity. In the future, I can envisage a modern boat harbour for the region, one that will attract businesses to it and that can capitalise on a new tourist market. I envisage a dedicated respite centre for the disabled and not just extra beds in an aged care home. I envisage an Australian technical college to train our young people so that they can look forward to better job prospects and, so that they can take advantage of what information technology has to offer, a complete broadband service throughout the Gilmore electorate. I can also envisage a school of nursing, much needed by our older Australians. These are my dreams for the next term, and I will be working hard with the assistance of government to realise them for the people of Gilmore.

John Cobb (Parkes, National Party, Minister for Community Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My electorate is the most drought affected electorate in Australia, so I want to refer to the government’s ongoing commitment to helping farmers as much as possible through what is without doubt the worst drought in my lifetime. Having regard to the budget that was recently handed down, it is an appropriate time to recap on just what our farmers are facing, particularly in western New South Wales.

This is now the fifth year of drought. While the drought in 1982-83 might have been as bad as ever existed, this one is certainly the longest in living memory. I probably do not need to remind the House of the actual effect it is having out there, but we should note the financial hardship being faced by people. Admittedly, there have been times in the last five years when there has been rain and people have had the promise of a start; there has been a crop here and a crop there. But nobody, in that five years, has been able to build on two successive crops or on the continuation of a season. They have started; they have never been able to continue.

At this time, it is very relevant to reflect on the Prime Minister’s recent announcement, reiterated in the budget, that we have put aside $1.9 billion to deal with mental health issues. I have to say that, while the drought in western New South Wales in particular involves financial issues of extraordinary proportions, it involves mental health issues of even bigger proportions. The effect on families, businesses and towns goes beyond anything in my experience.

I have spoken repeatedly in recent times to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry about this matter. The fact is that EC is not something that the government has capped; it is something that the government will continue. The federal government will continue to support those areas of Australia that are suffering from this drought. Certainly, the electorate of Parkes is at the forefront in this regard. As I said, I have brought this matter to the minister’s attention, particularly in recent times, as we approach the end of the current funding cycle.

I am somewhat surprised that in one minute New South Wales is withdrawing transport subsidies; in the next minute it puts them on. I think I am right in saying—I am not clear on this; it has certainly changed its position on numerous occasions—that at the moment it has decided to continue freight subsidies for those seriously affected by drought, as indeed it should. New South Wales, in a year’s budget, spends approximately what the Commonwealth would spend in a fortnight on drought in Australia.

I have had enormous trouble working out where our opponents are on some of these issues. The only member of the Labor Party who I have seen show serious interest in what is happening in terms of drought, and particularly in terms of regional issues, is Gavan O’Connor. He has been put to one side by Bill Shorten and his cohorts in Victoria, which I find surprising and very sad, from the point of view of regional Australia.

One of the issues which again was underlined in the budget was our commitment to what I call ‘commonsense conservation’ by way of the Envirofund. In the current rounds in the electorate of Parkes I am very happy to say that we have people putting in for commonsense programs such as to fence off areas which have trouble with erosion and that need to regenerate. We continue to help people to do that on a case-by-case, individual or collective basis.

At the same time, I have to look at what our opponents say. Instead of funding people to take commonsense, practical measures, such as using fencing to protect waterways and other measures to protect the environment, they want to fund green groups who simply want to become lobby groups at the expense of the taxpayer. Mostly they put out not scientifically proven issues but issues which they get carried away with. Because they do nothing themselves, they seem to find great delight in trying to have a go at those people who are involved in production and helping Australian people.

The other issue which was so incredibly important in the current budget—and I have to say it was very important to the electorate of Parkes—was the fact that a few things happened with water. One was a $500 million—half a billion dollars—commitment to the Murray-Darling Basin. For an electorate that is totally within that area, one that has the Darling River and places like Broken Hill, which has suffered so badly with some of the current policies at a state level, the water issue is important. I find it incredible that New South Wales are still to truly come out and say how they are going to cooperate with the Commonwealth on the water sharing agreement. We have already got the $2 billion which we are putting towards the three programs involved: $1.6 billion for Water Smart Australia, $200 million for Raising National Water Standards and $200 million for community water grants. When you combine that with the half a billion dollars that we are putting into the Murray-Darling Basin and all the other money that has gone into the Murray-Darling, you find that no government has ever shown such a commitment to Australia’s water issues and probably will not in the future. However, we do have to keep showing the lead and taking our states along with us.

The Water Smart Australia program—$1.6 billion—is there to accelerate the development and uptake of technologies which make us use our water in a way which helps people achieve greater water savings and efficiencies right across Australia. Then we have $200 million for the Raising National Water Standards program which is, in effect, about experimentation or showing technologies that will lead to better water usage. Finally, there is the community water grants program, which provides a culture of water-wise usage through the community, and that could be in commercial usage, urban usage or agricultural usage. It is to encourage and promote far better uses of water right across Australia.

In my electorate, the electorate of Parkes, where water is always at a premium—let alone at a time of drought like this—we have bowling clubs that are able to have far more efficient usage of water, whether it be putting in water systems which are computer driven, which are automatic and which make you spray rather than flood. Right around my electorate groups are putting in for what I have to say is one of the easier and less complex grants which schools and other community groups have been able to apply for.

While water is a big issue for inland Australia, and it certainly is for my electorate, there is also rural health. I have often said that it does not really matter how wealthy you are or what your lifestyle is—none of it matters very much without health. Nowhere is that more true than in the electorate of Parkes, in the far west and the central west of New South Wales. Health has always been a big issue and it is certainly a big issue now.

Under our government, there are more doctors and better service initiatives. Over half a billion dollars in an integrated package of measures provides for more doctors and better health services in our country areas. Ever since that package was introduced, and it is still current, we have continued to build on measures to assist rural communities. We have put in the specialist outreach program, bonded scholarships, the John Flynn scholarships and rural and remote nursing scholarships to assist country children to study and become registered nurses, which is a huge thing. Since we established the university at Dubbo, which is run by CSU in Bathurst, it is so much easier for kids in the bush. They only have to go to places like Dubbo or Bathurst rather than Sydney. It is such an advantage. It is so much cheaper, so much easier and they do not have to remove themselves mentally from the areas where they feel at home.

The Rural Australia Medical Undergraduate Scholarship scheme is run at the Dubbo Rural Clinical School. We now have city students spending up to six months in Dubbo and, from there, going to Broken Hill, Parkes, Lake Cargelligo and towns like that. We are finding that the more they come to the rural medical schools the more they find that it is not such a terrifying thing at all to go to the left of the Blue Mountains. It has been a huge success. I congratulate the health ministers who have made this is a reality. Apart from that, we have put the University of Sydney’s Department of Rural Health into Broken Hill and a similar program is being run there. It allows doctors who do not necessarily come out of regional Australia to realise that in today’s era of communications you can practise in the bush without a feeling of isolation and that if you need further guidance or help it is at hand.

One of the biggest things that we have done, which my colleague the member for Gwydir, the former Deputy Prime Minister, initiated—and he initiated a lot of things in his time, not only as Deputy Prime Minister but as Minister for Transport and Regional Services—is to give country kids the opportunities. I have to give credit to the University of Newcastle, the University of Sydney and others for assisting country and regional kids to do medicine. Over the last eight or nine years, entries from rural areas into medical schools have gone from around eight per cent up to around 26 per cent. Obviously, that makes it far more likely that we will have doctors in the bush in the future. But these things take time. There is a long time—probably nine years—of study before somebody is a doctor, free to practise where they will. It is only in the next few years that we will see the fruits of those efforts, but it will happen and I think it is currently happening.

Since the budget, one of the other things recently announced by the Treasurer in Broken Hill was that the Commonwealth is putting another $5 million towards the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Broken Hill to help them buy new aeroplanes. That is an enormous thing for Broken Hill and the whole of western New South Wales and south-west Queensland—a huge area that is serviced by the Broken Hill Royal Flying Doctor Service. Not so long ago, we put $5 million towards helping St Anne’s to update its aged care facility and to put two facilities together. Health-wise, that is an enormous thing to do for Broken Hill. Over the last couple of years, we have put $10 million into improving aged care and health services that are run out of that region.

At the same time, I should mention that the Royal Flying Doctor Service not only does emergency services in the region; it contracts to the New South Wales health service. It flies doctors to places like Tibooburra, Menindee, White Cliffs and Wilcannia on a regular basis every week—in other words, it provides fly-in doctor service clinics 52 weeks of the year. I am very proud to say that, in actual fact, most of those services in the outback are run by Aboriginal health services on behalf of New South Wales Health, and they do an excellent job. They are not just for Aboriginal people or white people; everybody uses those services. It is probably a model that could be looked at right around Australia. It works very well.

I have talked about some of the services that have been underlined by this budget. I talked about aged care a minute ago and the fact that the Southern Cross St Anne’s nursing home at Broken Hill got $5 million to build a new aged care facility in Broken Hill. I had a look at it a couple of months ago and have been led to believe that it should be ready to receive people in the next couple of months. As well, Condobolin, very close to my home, got $2 million to put in a dementia unit. That is very big funding for some smaller towns. Condobolin has no more than 3½ thousand people, and for a town that size that funding aids the council, which currently funds and looks after the very large aged population. The funding for all these services comes out of the capital grants program. For our aged care programs, especially after what has happened over the last five or six years, it has meant that not only do we have far better facilities and set standards which have to be met but we can be confident that people are being very well looked after in those situations, even in the far west, in the outback.

Talking about health and the need for doctors and nurses in New South Wales, particularly in country areas, one of the most astounding things I have heard is the announcement by the Leader of the Opposition that he was going to scrap skilled migration where it relates to section 457. This is the most incredible thing I have heard since I became a member of parliament. I was very involved in getting foreign doctors out to country areas when I was with the New South Wales Farmers Association. We had to work with state, federal and other governments to make that happen. The member for Brand clearly stated that he was going to scrap that and get rid of some 2½ thousand registered nurses who have come from overseas and who are working in Australia, particularly in country areas, and about 230 or 240 doctors—doctors who have made a difference. As a government we instigated changes to get more doctors out into country areas by way of education, and he has said that he is going to get rid of this opportunity for states. The New South Wales government would be the biggest user of section 457 to prop up their health service, but the fact is he wants to get rid of it. What is he saying to New South Wales and other country areas in Australia? He is saying, ‘It doesn’t matter what your health situation is like; you can go without a lot of the doctors and nurses you currently have.’

A lot of things have happened in recent times; Regional Partnerships and Roads to Recovery are doing marvellous things. The extra money to Roads to Recovery in my electorate is marvellous. Places like Lake Cargelligo and the shires of Lachlan and Bland are going to get over $1 million extra, and that makes a huge difference to the local road systems. When you have roads like the Hillston to Lake Cargelligo road, the Hillston to Rankins Springs road and the Tullamore to Narromine road, it allows the councils in those areas to do things they just could not otherwise do. The greatest thing that John Anderson ever did was to make that money go straight to those councils rather than having to go through the state government.

Kim Wilkie (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2006-2007 and cognate bills. Before I do, I would like to comment on one of the areas that the member for Parkes talked about. That is in relation to the money available for water for the Murray-Darling Basin. It is my understanding that, while the government might have allocated almost $2 billion for this project, none of that money has actually been spent. So it is another case of smoke and mirrors by this government in the Murray-Darling Basin, where it has  said this money is there but there is such conflict between the man who chairs the committee that oversees the allocation of the money and the minister that no-one can agree on where that money should be spent. To come into this place and say that you are allocating money to deal with the Murray-Darling Basin and associated water problems is an absolute furphy. It is just another case of the sort of smoke and mirrors that goes on whenever you hear this government talk.

I would like to take the opportunity of this debate to speak about some important economic issues that are pertinent to the state of the Australian economy and also my electorate of Swan. Let me start by commenting in an overall sense on the budget. While this budget gives long-overdue and much needed tax cuts together with some additional support to Australian families, and while it also reduces tax on superannuation, it fails to address Australia’s longer term economic challenges by insuring us against the day when the Chinese boom ends and we can no longer depend on our resources sector to the same extent we have over the past several years. As a former pig farmer, I was particularly struck by the editorial in the Australian that appeared the day after the Treasurer presented his budget to the parliament. The editorial states:

This budget brings home some taxcut bacon, but it also hocks the pig on the assumption that the Australian and world economies will continue to benignly suit Peter Costello’s political ambitions.

While the budget includes tax relief, there is no real income tax reform. Taxpayers are simply getting back the increased taxes they have paid through bracket creep, and for this our arrogant Treasurer expects them to be grateful. The truth is these tax cuts are quickly being eroded by spiralling petrol prices and rising interest rates. Added together, the impact of the hikes in petrol prices and increasing interest rates is quickly eating away any benefits of the tax cuts for the people in my electorate and for families across the country.

While the Treasurer makes much of his generosity in giving us tax cuts, the fact remains that the taxpayers of Swan are paying for his policy failures elsewhere. It is clear from the Reserve Bank’s recent statements that the bank remains concerned about the capacity constraints confronting Australian industry, in particular in terms of infrastructure and training policies. Whatever happened to the reforms that are necessary to ensure that in the longer term our economy’s capacity is maximised so that we can better withstand any downturns in international markets? Is there evidence in this budget of the government’s commitment to reform beyond its next parliamentary term? Apart from the superannuation tax relief, you would have to say this budget is very light on in terms of reform.

There is scant regard for the urgent need to fix Australia’s transport infrastructure. Last year the Prime Minister commissioned a task force chaired by Brian Fisher of the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics to advise him on the necessary changes to infrastructure policy to improve the competitiveness of Australian exports. The task force report was released last May. Aside from regulatory issues, one of the major constraints to efficiency identified by the task force was the lack of long-term planning and coordination in land transport policy. According to that report, it is quite clear that considerable efficiencies could be gained from the establishment of a national coordinating planning agency for infrastructure.

Of course, the Australian Labor Party has recognised this deficiency in current transport policy and has announced that when elected a Beazley government will establish Infrastructure Australia as an independent statutory authority to report to the minister for infrastructure. Infrastructure Australia would develop a strategic blueprint for Australian infrastructure and facilitate its implementation with state and territory governments. Infrastructure Australia would ensure that our nation’s infrastructure networks are developed to enhance and improve the competitiveness of our industries. The efficiency cost to all of our industries and our exports in the absence of national coordination and planning are substantial. This means that investment and work opportunities are being impeded. The current transport and energy networks are simply not working to their potential, and this failure is not doing the right thing by businesses and workers throughout Australia.

Why won’t the government implement a national framework for infrastructure? It seems eminently reasonable and sensible to acknowledge the problem, which the Prime Minister’s task force has done, and then to develop policy responses to fix it. But no—this government has once again squibbed this issue. We have had the Reserve Bank, the OECD and the Business Council of Australia calling for urgent responses from this government to our infrastructure crisis. But their calls fall on deaf ears. It seems that this misguided government is willing to attack the wages and working conditions of Australian workers, all the time claiming that these changes are necessary reforms, and yet, when it comes to a policy response as beneficial as establishing national coordination and clear criteria for infrastructure projects, this government will simply not deliver.

We know that the Prime Minister can be pragmatic when it suits him. He can quite happily reverse government decisions, even if it means humiliating his ministers, as he did on the Snowy project. So why won’t he address infrastructure concerns and implement the reforms that have been identified by the opposition, business, the OECD and the Reserve Bank? The answer, sadly, is that when it comes to transport funding the Prime Minister knows that he can buy peace with his coalition partners as long as they have a nice big fund from which to allocate funds to their road and rail projects.

Let me be very clear about my position on this: there are many road and rail projects which have been funded under AusLink that help to improve the efficiency and quality of our national infrastructure. But there are many potentially more beneficial projects which have not been approved. Unfortunately, because transport policy is a fiefdom of the National Party, expenditure has often been hijacked to fund some infrastructure projects which frankly would not be funded if rigorous cost-benefit analysis had been applied. As a result, these other potentially more beneficial projects have been given a lower priority.

Just before the Treasurer brought down the budget, there was a leak in the press about the additional $1 billion road-funding package. It was important to the hapless leader of the National Party, particularly following his abysmal performance before the Cole commission and his betrayal by Senator McGauran, that he and his colleagues were seen to have had a win in the budget, and this was it. Unfortunately, this means that the increased transport spending in this budget will not be allocated entirely on a merit basis. That means that good old National Party pork-barrelling will have undue influence in the determination of priorities for this funding.

In my home state of Western Australia, the problem is further exacerbated by the fact that we have no National Party members or senators to give our rural residents as much of a share in the pork barrel as those in the east. We have instead the member for O’Connor, and he goes against the express desires and wishes of his own electorate in advocating the dismantling of the single desk for wheat marketing. We have the member for Tangney, who is so enamoured of the nuclear industry that he embraces the idea of a nuclear plant in his own electorate. These are the types of coalition members we have in Western Australia: no National MPs to place their noses in the trough or in National Party slush funds but Liberal members who are completely out of touch with the wishes of their own electorates.

Given the extraordinary revenues the government is receiving from the resources boom, this budget was a golden opportunity to ensure that significant funding was dedicated to building up our industries’ competitiveness so that we can better weather any storms ahead. In particular, from the perspective of my electorate, my home state of Western Australia is putting $28 billion into federal coffers in the form of tax revenue and from the resources boom while we get back $24 billion in transfers. I call on the Western Australian members of the Liberal Party to get in there and start fighting for WA so that we can get that $4 billion back and put it into much needed projects in Western Australia. On any person’s arithmetic, WA is missing out. We are subsidising the states on the eastern seaboard. How is it fair that the state which is generating the export income and flooding Canberra with funds does not receive sufficient funds to finance much needed economic and social infrastructure?

In Western Australia, the Great Eastern Highway, for example, is the major arterial road linking Perth to the eastern states and the major thoroughfare linking Perth airport with the city. It is the lifeblood of Perth’s transport industry. In my electorate, the section of highway that causes the greatest concern is between Redcliffe and Rivervale and this is in urgent need of road widening for efficiency and safety reasons. But this government has unilaterally deemed that this section not be part of the AusLink national network.

The Southern Gazette community newspaper has been at the vanguard of calls for the need for the Belmont section of the Great Eastern Highway to be widened. Local residents are justifiably angry that their calls for funding to be made available have fallen on deaf ears in the federal government. The state government has commenced an assessment of the full cost of the works. I intend to pursue the federal government for a commitment to this project as soon as the cost study is completed. It seems to me that the residents of the city of Belmont, who are affected by the safety problems, congestion and time delays occurring in the absence of the widening of this vital road, are being treated as second-class citizens by the federal government. They are suffering the social and economic costs of a substandard road and this situation should not be allowed to continue.

Apart from infrastructure, the other fundamental flaw in this budget is the fact that it ignores skills and training. Instead of spending more on vocational education in the 2006 budget to address the skills crisis, the Howard government has actually reduced the percentage of the budget spent on skills and training. Peter Costello only mentioned skills funding once in his budget speech. Unfortunately for the nation, it was to reannounce the same money he promised in the last budget.

When the Reserve Bank lifted interest rates the week before the budget, it identified the shortage of skilled workers as one of the most significant constraints to our economy that is putting pressure on inflation and upward pressure on interest rates. According to the budget papers, spending on training has declined as a percentage of government budget expenditure to 0.73 per cent in 2006-07. In 2005-06 it was 0.75 per cent of government budget expenditure. This decline in investment in training is forecast to continue, dropping to 0.71 per cent in 2007-08, 0.68 per cent in 2008-09 and 0.67 per cent in 2009-10. This is nothing short of a national disgrace. More than that, it is an extraordinary display of arrogance and incompetence when everyone from the Reserve Bank to the OECD and the business community is sounding alarm bells on the dangers of ignoring the skills crisis.

Interestingly, just two weeks after the budget was brought down, the latest skilled vacancy figures were released, on 24 May, and confirmed that the shortage of skilled tradespeople and professionals is continuing to hurt the Australian economy. According to the skilled vacancy index of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, skilled vacancies continue to rise, with a 1.8 per cent increase for May. The index rose in all areas, with the trades vacancies up 2.9 per cent, associate professionals up 3.5 per cent and professionals up 0.1 per cent. This is clear evidence of the Howard government’s failure to invest in training in the 2006 budget and will, according to the Reserve Bank’s analysis, put further upward pressure on interest rates.

Make no mistake: Australia’s skills crisis is the result of bad economic management by the Howard government. Unfortunately, this budget is another lost opportunity, with Peter Costello continuing to import foreign workers rather than train young Australians. This illustrates that the Howard government is out of fresh ideas on education and training, unlike the opposition, which has spent the past year putting forward concrete proposals to address the skills crisis. We will address the skills crisis by introducing fee-free TAFE for traditional trades and child-care workers. We will equip our kids with the latest technology skills which they will need for the challenges of the future. Labor will also put our emphasis on training young Australians instead of importing foreign apprentices. Unlike the Howard government, Labor’s priority is to train Australians first and train them now. It is unforgivable that this government is treating with contempt the advice of the Reserve Bank to address the infrastructure and skills problems. Failure to heed these warnings will result in even higher interest rates.

Whatever the government’s rhetoric, this budget is not about reform. This budget should have been about putting in place the reforms which will build Australia’s capacity in both infrastructure and skills, thereby strengthening our economy and putting the brakes on interest rates in the future. But the government has failed to deliver a budget appropriate for our circumstances or one which serves Australia well.

Let us inject some facts into an issue which is often surrounded by coalition mythology. The fact is that interest rates in Australia are not low, compared to those in other industrialised countries. According to the OECD, Australia’s short-term interest rates are now higher than those in the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Canada and South Korea, along with many others. Moreover, the OECD forecasts that interest rates in Australia will continue to be higher than in all of these countries in 2007. In many cases, Australian interest rates are not only higher but significantly higher than those of other OECD countries. Far from believing that this budget sets in concrete his path to the Lodge, the Treasurer should hang his head in shame.

I read an interesting column about the budget by the Age’s economics editor, Tim Colebatch, published the day after the budget. In his column Mr Colebatch makes a number of salient comments. First of all he states:

There may have been worse budgets than this one for their times, but they were long ago.

He goes on to decry the budget for failing to address infrastructure, skills, export growth and industry development, finally concluding by saying:

This is a Government in economic drift. It is awash with tax revenues, yet it is so obsessed with buying votes that it is prepared to burn our future rather than build it. What a waste.

I fully concur with Mr Colebatch’s statements. But in my view there is another imperative in the budget which the government has ignored. Those of us who have run businesses in the past know that to keep our businesses profitable we have to constantly seek efficiencies, including using the latest technologies, to maintain our profitability.

To apply this approach in the context of government finances, departments and agencies should be under pressure to make sure that they are providing their taxpayer funded services as efficiently as possible. In the past, governments of both political persuasions at federal and state levels often sought an efficiency dividend from the public service to impose a cost-saving, efficiency-improving discipline. I am not saying that such an efficiency dividend should be applied to and within all portfolios across the board, but I believe that it is useful to seek such dividends from many departments and agencies. I know that the businesses and workers of my electorate are under pressure to deliver productivity improvement, so why not the federal Public Service? It is almost as though the government could not be bothered to ensure best and most efficient practices in its own Public Service. As Laura Tingle of the Australian Financial Review commented the day after the budget:

This budget has confirmed a general impression of policy laziness and sloppiness, matched by an unparalleled attention to political expediency ...

In conclusion, it concerns me and the people who live in my electorate that the government’s mismanagement of the economy is manifesting itself in higher interest rates, that economic reform in terms of a much-needed national infrastructure agenda has stalled and that urgently needed skills and training policies have been ignored. The people of Swan, and all Australians, deserve better. On behalf of my constituents I will continue to press the case in parliament for these issues to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the few minutes that are left for me following earlier abridged versions of my contribution to the debate on the appropriations bills, I would like to focus on one particular project. Last time I had the opportunity to speak I was able to point to the collaboration that is so essential to achieving outcomes in local communities; that rarely are there opportunities where one individual or one organisation can achieve meaningful things and that a partnership is needed. In our community in the electorate of Dunkley, on the northern Mornington Peninsula, we have had some good successes of late. I mentioned the basketball stadium for the Mornington District Basketball Association at the Mornington Secondary College. That is a collaboration that is seeing an important facility available to the southern area of the Dunkley electorate, and I used that as an example. There are many others. There is the rose garden in Mornington. There is the work that we are trying to do in securing support for the traders and community at Mornington on law and order initiatives. Our work is trying to make sure that our region, with its growing population and growing demands, has the policing resources that are required.

There is also the outstanding Investing in Our Schools program that has been a breath of fresh air for so many communities in the Dunkley electorate. These are communities that may have stable populations, but an ageing population has seen student numbers decline. Under the punishing formula that the Bracks government applies to capital investment in school infrastructure, if you are in an established area with static or declining student numbers your prospects of getting funding for capital improvements for your school are extremely remote. It is just devastating for those school communities that work so hard over so many years to accumulate funding themselves only to find that the process that the Bracks government oversees in allocating capital funding can be very punishing. Thankfully, through Investing in Our Schools, that collaboration and spirit of cooperation and partnership that has delivered so many benefits to the Dunkley community is alive and well. I am hopeful we can continue in that spirit into the future.

It is the kind of collaboration that has seen the unemployment rate in the Dunkley electorate decline incredibly. When I had the honour of being first elected to represent the people of Dunkley, the unemployment rate was of itself a source of great hardship. I have said before that our best export was capable people leaving to go somewhere else in search of work. Thankfully, that has now changed and the unemployment rate in the Dunkley community is around what the national unemployment rate is. There are genuine opportunities available within our region. I aim to keep working to make sure that a delicious world of possibilities is within reach of all people in the Dunkley community. That is what I aimed to do 10 years ago and it is what I aim to continue to do as long as the community supports that work.

An area that I would like to talk about today is the Frankston safe boat harbour. I am sure that the member for Isaacs and others have heard this topic in its various guises talked about for so many years. It is the time now where this project—this important community infrastructure—is going to be brought forward and transformed from a discussion, debating point or topic occasionally bringing derision and conflict amongst some. If it is ever going to happen, now is the time. Mr Acting Deputy Speaker Lindsay, as your community models itself on the Riviera characteristics of Dunkley, I am sure that you have been following with great interest this subject. You would be mindful of the fact that planning approval exists for what is known as option 3, which is not quite the full-blown option that some were advocating but which is a meaningful option for a safe boat harbour in the Frankston community.

Port Phillip Bay—a wonderful body of water, an important leisure and tourism resource and an important economic and ecological jewel for the Greater Melbourne population—is starved of a boating activity node in the area of Port Phillip Bay that I represent. With such a large, vast, wide body of relatively shallow water, when the weather turns it can be very dangerous. For people wanting to recover their boats at the dilapidated, run-down and terribly deteriorated boat ramp facilities at the base of Olivers Hill, just the act of trying to lift those vessels out of turbid water is very frightening. What have long been needed, particularly to cope with those changing weather conditions and to reinforce the seaside character and coastal destination reputation of Frankston, are some proper boating infrastructure facilities.

This has been discussed and there have been ideas to establish it at the mouth of Kannanook Creek. That in itself would have been an engineering feat of biblical proportions given the amount of lateral movement of sand. It would forever be dredged and it would change the beach character. All of these insights have been gained over the years. So the debate has delivered a clear benefit in that there is now a proposal that an area at the base of Olivers Hill, free of the lateral movement of thousands of tonnes of sand on the seabed from Olivers Hill around to Black Rock, just around the corner, is a location for a safe boat harbour. We know this is the place. We know it will serve an important function. We know that there are many in our community who would love to see that asset available. We are encouraged that the environmental assessment points to the fact that it can be achieved without detriment to the beach or the marine ecology in that area but to the benefit of our region.

The Frankston City Council has been conducting some work, because it rightly recognises that a facility of this kind needs many partners. Today I am calling for the Commonwealth to be a partner, for the council to be a partner and for the state government to be a partner, to build a foundation where the private sector can be tantalised with this delicious opportunity in the Dunkley community. We have planning approval for a facility. It is now at an important stage where market sounding, the concepts and approval framework and land use planning constraints can be put to the private sector, to commercial participants and partners, to verify that what we imagine and envisage can actually be delivered. That market sounding exercise will verify some of the figures that sit behind this project. That will confirm the feedback we have had from potential private sector proponents.

But it will also highlight the fact that this is a project that cannot afford too many passengers. The base infrastructure will always be a community asset. It is my firm view that the community, through its governments, should be making a contribution to those community assets. Looking at the harbour infrastructure, we see that a breakwater wall is required. Whatever happens on those facilities, whatever opportunities there are to generate economic and employment benefits, we need that breakwater so that the boat launch and recovery function of the current dilapidated Olivers Hill boat ramp can at least be remedied. It can be made good. It is my view that there is a role for governments in part funding that breakwater. That would then provide the basis on which the private sector could engage in the more commercially orientated activities. So this idea is to differentiate the private benefit to those that may be fortunate enough to store or berth their marine facilities and marine vessels there, but it also recognises that there is a public good and that public good is supported by a financial contribution towards the breakwater. So when the bay turns violent and aggressive with weather changes, and when those horrible north-westerlies blow in and people see vessels washed up on the foreshore, when people who see the bay as a leisure and recreational opportunity are terrified about how they are going to get to safe land when the seas change, they can be supported in those public goals by the breakwater. The state government also needs to participate.

Geoff Prosser (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Prosser interjecting

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a very long trip to Western Australia, but having just come back from there I can vouch for how magnificent it is. If you have troubled seas in Port Phillip Bay, seeking refuge at Fremantle is probably a suboptimal option, but an interesting thought, nonetheless. The point I am making is that this requires a partnership. The state government has to do something to stabilise the cliff face at Olivers Hill. Whatever happens, that work needs to be done.

There are road and access issues that need to be addressed and I have mentioned the appalling state of the existing boat ramp facility there for boat launching and recovery. That needs to be addressed. Why not turn that required investment into something that will be truly of advantage to the region that I represent? It is estimated that some of the employment prospects in construction alone may be as many as 350 full-time jobs over a two- to three-year period. During its operational phase, there are dozens and dozens of long-term employment opportunities in the operation of the harbour, the maintenance of facilities, hospitality, the visitor industry, recreational boating, even ferry and charter services. The economic benefits are quite significant and we should make a contribution to securing that potential, to making it real and to making it happen. I am calling on everybody to get behind the Frankston safe boat harbour project. Now is the time for it to be turned into reality. We have the prospect of making this an important additional facility for the Dunkley community, the Mornington Peninsula region and the leisure and recreational resource of Port Phillip Bay. Governments need to play a role but we need to provide a basis on which the commercial sector can be engaged to fund those personal goods—not the public benefits but the personal goods—that this facility may facilitate. (Time expired)

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am at a loss—and you may be able to help me—in trying to work out what we are actually supposed to be debating here. As far as I knew, I was coming up to debate the government’s Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2006-2007 and cognate bills. But today and previously—but particularly today—I have had to listen in when we had a compact little group of government ministers and a parliamentary secretary speaking on the appropriation bills. For all of the time that I have been a member of this place, bills Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6—this year for the year 2006-07—are about appropriations for the Commonwealth budget. But what I have heard instead, particularly in the last few speeches, are arguments about what happens later in the year when we get further appropriations. I wonder why it is that from the member for Dunkley—a government minister—we had an extended argument about a project in his electorate and whether or not it should be funded, with the  member calling on the federal government to make appropriations to support that project.

It is bizarre to have one government member after another—ministers, parliamentary secretaries and backbenchers—making adjournment speeches rather than appropriation speeches. I may as well turn my speech on the appropriations into an adjournment speech and congratulate the greatest soccer team that this country has ever had. The Socceroos 3-1 win last night is something that I have waited my entire life for. I played soccer until 1966, when I was 15. In that year I sat in one of Bankstown’s then existing theatres—a bit like the tax office and the immigration office we lost when the government took them away; the government was not responsible for taking away the cinema just as it is not responsible for the Socceroos win—and watched what the English did. The Socceroos have just done the same, but this time I was able to watch the event on SBS TV, a government instrumentality.

It brought me enormous joy to see Australia score not only the first goal but also the second and the third goal, a better score than ever achieved before by an Australian team. The Socceroos have shown in their game against the Netherlands—not in the first half but certainly in the second—their capacity to pin down and deal with the third best team in the world. They shortly will take on Brazil, who are regarded as the best. I wish all the best to all players, managers and supporters, including my two nephews who are lucky enough to be at every Australian game because they decided to go over early.

But I digress. I have made this short adjournment style speech as part of my appropriation speech because every government member whom I have seen talking today has made an adjournment speech. That tells me generally that this government is completely terminal. You make an adjournment speech when you are on your way out. In the House on Wednesdays between 7.30 pm and 8 pm, if we are rising at the normal time, or on Mondays and Tuesdays between 9 pm and 9.30 pm, if we are rising at the normal time, we have a series of adjournment speeches from government members. We normally do not have a series of ta-ta speeches or ‘I would like this before I go’ from one government minister after another.

In my experience, through most of the 10 years that I have been in this place—or at least I will have been come the 15th, which is in two days time—I have seen government ministers speaking on appropriations trying to defend appropriation bills that are part of their purview. I know that we will be going to consideration in detail and they or the parliamentary secretaries will have to front up and answer in that regard. But to make it so personal, so electorate driven and, in the case of the member for Dunkley, to talk not at all about ministerial appropriations in this area is bizarre, unless they are entirely terminal—and I think the indications of that being the case are in this series of appropriation speeches.

I will give another indication. If you want to do a bit of research into what is going on around the place, you can go to the Parliamentary Library. I thought our Parliamentary Library would be better resourced—but, by my reckoning, we now are in the middle of June and the budget came down on 9 May. If you look for material on the 2006-07 appropriations, what do you come up with? Seven pages on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2006-2007 and seven pages on Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2006-2007. There is nothing on appropriation bills Nos 3 and 4, which are the substantial bills regarding where the money will be paid out. Then again that may be because we have gone from cash accounting to accrual accounting. The fact is that you cannot find out what the government has done. Perhaps government ministers do not know even now what they are spending or not spending. Perhaps it is at the point where this government’s transparency has become so opaque that its ministers do not even have a clue or cannot even speak up and argue directly about what is proposed. So I went to the Parliamentary Library thinking, ‘What have they done?’ I could not find out from appropriation bills Nos 1 and 2 and there is nothing in appropriation bills Nos 3 and 4. If you look at the budget papers and remember the way in which the Treasurer presented the budget, this was a budget for just about everybody—maybe not everybody—a terrific budget, from which people would get so much money.

I know that the people in my electorate basically got the same out of this budget as they got out of the one in 2004: a $10 cut to their tax—10 bucks a week. The shadow Treasurer quite simply asked: ‘What do you get for that? You get one hamburger and one milkshake.’ He made that point time and time again; he has made that point over the last couple of years. What do the people of Blaxland get out of this budget? One hamburger and one milkshake. What do people on $100,000 get? What appropriations do they get out of this budget, in effect? They get 10 hamburgers and 10 milkshakes—10 times the amount that the majority of people in my electorate will get.

The Treasurer has said that in this budget he has done wonderful things in superannuation. I can remember him saying this: the greatest revolution in 20 years or more in Australian superannuation! What a complete load of tosh. I know this is a government given to exercising mendacity and some are more mendacious than others, but the simple reality is that the fundamental reforms in superannuation were made while Paul Keating was Treasurer and Prime Minister. The foundations were laid for nine per cent for the entire workforce—for guaranteed super—during his time as Treasurer and then as Prime Minister.

We have not got 12 per cent; we have not got 15 per cent, which is really the minimum that you need to guarantee to ordinary working Australians, whatever their situation—whether they are forced off awards or pushed out of enterprise agreements and onto AWAs in this government’s future, if it lasts. That is, if they are not as terminal as these adjournment speeches rather than appropriation speeches would suggest. What is here is a piece of overselling—of a simplification of superannuation rules—where they complicated them in the first place. They made them a lot harder to understand with that whole stack of things that they brought in. When they say, ‘This is a tremendous thing,’ what have they really done on super? According to Taxpayers Australia, the only thing in this budget that could be regarded as ‘reform’ would be the super area. What have they done? They are not going to tax it on the way out. Well, wacko! They are still going to tax it on the way in, and they are still going to tax it throughout the whole life of that money being invested. But they are not going to tax it on the way out. How terrific! It is a lump sum and it is your super, as long as it is from a taxed superannuation fund.

It is not often you will get a federal Treasurer—particularly a conservative one—of whom Taxpayers Australia says: ‘This is really overdone; this is a flummery. There is not actually much to it.’ I would like to, I think for the first time in 10 years, quote its overview of the budget. It indicates the highlights, and we know what they are: changes to personal tax, increased family benefits, a plan to simplify and streamline the taxing of superannuation and changes to depreciation rates for business. You will not be surprised to know they get a tick for the last one. It talks about the plan to simplify and streamline and it talks about the increased family benefits, but it says this in general:

While the Budget contains many proposals and changes, it is only the proposed changes to superannuation that could be considered as ‘tax reform’. The rest are merely continuing changes in line with political and budget imperatives.

I would hazard a guess that, if Taxpayers Australia got the message about what this budget was really about, and if there is some indication that the Parliamentary Library could not even get into bills 3 and 4 because there was not enough in them, and if the other indication was listening to government members when they could not find all that much in it, then there really is something substantial here in terms of just how vacuous this budget was and just how much of an attempt it was by the Treasurer to set himself up. The Prime Minister has had a lot of practice at setting the Treasurer up—I think he is doing it at the moment—but the Treasurer himself has set himself up because he has been fundamentally profligate in trying to win the accolades of people on higher incomes.

Taxpayers Australia says:

The changes to tax rates are welcome, but they do no more than return some of the bracket creep built into the system. It is noted that the budget surplus for 2006/2007 is forecast to be some $10.3 billion dollars. However, if the forecasts of the last few years are any indication, it would not be surprising, assuming economic conditions proceed as forecast, that we still get a budget surplus of $13 to $15 billion.

That was promulgated on budget night and then a couple of days after it by the tax association and others. Already the forecast surplus for next year is something in the order of $11 billion. But to argue that going from 47c to 45c and 42c to 40c is the most major and significant change you could make in the tax regime is an oversell. What this government has done, as it has consistently done before, is jack up the tax-free threshold and jack up the actual amount at which that level of tax is imposed. Those people released from those higher levels are released from the effect of bracket creep for a while, but they are not totally released, because it is utterly and completely true that they do not get full compensation for existing and previous bracket creep. They have put in, but they have not got back. Certainly they have not got back what they need and deserve. They have not got full measure from this.

With regard to super, the Treasurer touted this because, like the Prime Minister, he wants to go and grab something. If you have an economy fundamentally changed and completely transformed, that is run well and that is structurally dramatically different from the economies that conservative governments ran for most of the 20th century—and they have the bulk of time in running governments, in the order of 66 per cent of the time—you face the situation where the taxpayers association say about super:

The mooted changes to superannuation are also welcome, but it is emphasised that they are no more than part of a comprehensive proposal for the taxing of superannuation and it remains to be seen whether or not they are finally adopted.

Sorry? I do not normally repeat things, but:

... it remains to be seen whether or not they are finally adopted.

I was here on the night. The Treasurer was straight up. I did not expect him necessarily to be mendacious, but maybe he was. Maybe he was not really saying it as it was. Why do the taxpayers association say that? They go on to say:

The Government invites submissions from the public by 9th August 2006.

This is the Treasurer’s grand plan: we are not going to tax you on the way out. Big deal. He says: ‘We might do this. We’re not sure. It could be so significant and so difficult, we’re not sure. You tell us what you think of it. Write in: “Dear Pete; Dear Treasurer; Dear member for Higgins” Tell us: do you agree with this or not? Tick: do you want more or do you want a little less?’ I actually think that the terminal throes and the indications of that are reflected in that kind of approach as well. Treasury do not do this sort of stuff. They do not say: ‘Here’s a change. We’ll think about it, and we might do it, but it depends on what you say in the letters to the editor or, in this case, letters to the Treasurer.’

It is astonishing. Maybe this is an adjournment speech on behalf of a Treasurer not about to go to higher things but to exit stage left or right, whichever he chooses, because he has attempted to oversell something that is in essence a flummery—something where you get minister after minister in this government making adjournment speeches rather than appropriation speeches. My time is foreshortened, but this government is terminal.

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

I rise to speak in this debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2006-2007 and the cognate bills to mention a couple of things, but I would like to begin by talking about the real problem we have in federal-state relations. Let me say at the outset that the real problem is not horizontal fiscal equalisation, as we often hear New South Wales and Victoria bleat about. The real problem is vertical fiscal imbalance, which means, very simply, that the states are spending money which they do not raise.

If I go to that very nice read in the budget papers—Budget Paper No. 3, entitled ‘Federal financial relations 2006-07’—and look at the way in which we calculated, first of all, what we promised the states we would compensate them through and guarantee them as a minimum income as the GST was introduced—and as we know all of the GST is paid to the states—I see that in 2006-07 not one of the states or territories in Australia needs an adjustment payment to be made, because this year all of them have received via the GST more than the guaranteed minimum they were promised when the new tax system came into operation. I think a reading from this splendid document shows just how we arrived at that figure, and it tells just how dependent on Commonwealth money the states have become. It makes you realise that, when they bleat that something has gone wrong in their state and that it is up to the federal government to fix it, we have been fixing them up for a long time and that it is time they took responsibility for the things they are obliged to do under the Constitution.

So let’s have a look at what the compensation formula is. First of all, when the government said that it would pay them the GST, they had to forgo certain payments. The first one was that well-known figure of Financial Assistance Grants, FAGs. And then there were the revenue replacement payments, the financial institutions duty, the debits tax, the marketable securities duty—but you can deduct security needs from that marketable securities duty—and the accommodation taxes, for which they are reimbursed because they are no longer charging it. The cheque duty went out of operation so it is not relevant. Then you add to that the compensation that we pay to the states and territories for the agreement reached with them to reduce their gambling taxes because they would be receiving GST, which was payable by the gambling operators. They could not have a double-dip so they had to reduce the amount of their gambling taxes, and we reimbursed them for that.

We then add additional expenditure, with the First Home Owners Scheme. Although they purport, certainly in New South Wales, that it is somehow their initiative, in fact we pay the money to them and they administer it. Then there are GST administration costs, so they are receiving payment for that. Then we deduct from those promised amounts where there is reduced expenditure, such as for off-road diesel subsidies, savings from tax reform and low-alcohol beer subsidies. We then have the growth dividend from remaining state taxes—that is, as their remaining state taxes go up, that has to be deducted from what we guaranteed them. Then there is compensation for GST deferral, which occurred when we said that small businesses could put in their BAS statements annually instead of quarterly, which meant that there would be a deferral of the GST money and so we compensate them for that. So the total guaranteed minimum amount for 2006-07 was $37,257.4 million. Instead of that, they will actually receive $39,130.0 million. That means that every state has had an increase by receipt of the GST which is above and beyond the calculated guaranteed minimum, which was the share of tax that we used to pay them under the old system, plus all those adjustments. You then have to add to that specific purpose grants. Again if you go to Budget Paper No. 3, you will find that we pay them an additional figure of $59 billion.

If you express the value of Commonwealth grants as a percentage of state or territory revenues, it averages out at 45 per cent of their total. In the case of the Northern Territory, I might add, it is up near 76 per cent or 78 per cent. In the case of Tasmania, it is near 61 per cent. In the case of South Australia, it is about 49 per cent. You can see that the generosity, if you like, of the Commonwealth government in the amount of money that it pays to the state governments means that quite frankly they are awash with money. You can understand how people like me felt when the Premier of New South Wales said that we have to sell the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric scheme because we are short of money and then, when Mr Costa brought down his budget, said: ‘We have to go into deficit because we have not got any money. That terrible Commonwealth does not give us enough.’ We are providing close to half their entire budget. On the figures for this current year, they have a total budget of $41 billion and we the Commonwealth will give them something close to $20 billion.

The problem is that old principle of no taxation without representation. The problem is that the state and territory governments are spending money which they do not raise. When you are spending other people’s money, money that somebody else has raised and for which you are not accountable, you become profligate. The big question that is asked in my state of New South Wales—and I know that it is asked in others—is this: where has all the money gone? Where did all the money go from the one state tax where they do in fact raise a lot of money on their own initiative—stamp duty?

The fact of the matter is that we have had no money for infrastructure spending. I am afraid the rot began with one Neville Wran. It was he who discovered what he called ‘hollow logs’. The hollow logs were the money that utilities had put away for expenditure on upgrading infrastructure over the foreseeable future. That meant things like keeping our pipes for sewerage and water in good shape. Are they in good shape? Of course not. What are we told that we have to do in New South Wales? We have to ration water because we have not got enough: ‘We’re having a drought. It’s not in the catchment area.’ But in fact we lose more water out of leaking pipes every day than we now save by good citizens limiting their own water usage.

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

Shame!

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

It is a shame. All the money has been taken away and spent. Utilities have now been made into corporate entities and are therefore responsible to nobody. Take Sydney Water, a corporate entity. Is the minister responsible? Of course not. He is just a shareholder—the only shareholder, or maybe there are two. He is not responsible anymore. Where do they report to? A shareholder meeting cannot be called to bring them to account because they only have a government minister as their shareholder. They are accountable to absolutely nobody. If it were in the private sector—totally privatised—you would have not only shareholders asking for proper returns but perhaps class actions being brought against people for not managing things properly.

We have this enormous waste, and the Commonwealth government is funding the states and territories for at least half their budgets and in some cases more. We are providing in New South Wales 47c of every dollar spent on public hospitals, and yet the state government want to close down my hospital in Mona Vale so they can flog off the land and put a high-rise development on it. They also want to close down Manly hospital, which has a similar lovely site overlooking the harbour and out through the heads. They want to close them down, get their hands on the land and flog it off.

We got a miserable $2 million in the last state budget so that we could finally enlarge the emergency ward, which required a whole lot of equipment—and it required it 18 months ago. Within my electorate, with the help of good people who care about the hospital, I held a fundraiser. We raised $95,000 and we bought new equipment for the emergency ward because it could not cope without it. Yet on other hospitals there will be sums like $30 million spent. All they are interested in is depriving us of the services that we need. We got a lousy $2 million to expand the emergency ward.

At the same time, the state government is telling us that we must take a higher residential population, that we must have more high-rise development so that more people can come and live on this peninsula. Yet, at the north end of the peninsula, we are still surviving with a sewage farm. It only has secondary treatment. Do you know where the outfall is? Right at the rock face, right on the beach. When the rains come—and we have not had some for some time, so we have not noticed—what happens? We get solids in the water and deposited on the beach. One of my constituents came and told me how he went down to swim in the Narrabeen pool and there was all this brown stuff up against the side of the pool. Guess what it was. You are quite right. That is what it was—sewage.

There is a doctor in my electorate who will be able to tell you when it has rained and the sewage farm has not coped, because he gets the same people coming through his door with the same earache. He does not need to ask. He knows that, once the earaches are there, the sewage farm has overflowed. We have high-density housing now, right up to the gates of the sewage farm, and they are going to put in a retirement village. It has been approved. It will have elderly people, who are susceptible to germs. One of the conditions was that before that could occur they had to get an agreement that the overflowing ponds of the sewage farm would be covered over, capped, so that the solids could not flow out quite so quickly and the smells would not come into the area. I went to see it fairly recently. There is no cap yet. They have moved from a chlorine treatment to an ultraviolet treatment. Again, that was part of an insistence for development.

But here we are, in this day and age, with more and more population being forced upon us, with a downgrading of our hospital, with an outfall on the beachfront and we, the Commonwealth government, supplying half the state’s budget. They have twice as much money as John Fahey had when he was Premier and they are going into deficit funding. We have water rationing, no infrastructure, trains that cannot run on time and we are supposed to say that federal-state relations for fiscal management are in good order. The Premier has the hide to say that the problem is horizontal fiscal equalisation. At the time of the new tax system they agreed that there were mendicant states—that is the old-fashioned term for states that cannot raise as much money as the richer states—that they would share part of that money and that the Grants Commission would be the vehicle that we would use to do that.

We are talking here about a difference of around $2 billion, yet, since we introduced the new tax system, the increase in the amount of money that New South Wales has received above and beyond that which it otherwise would have received is 7.1 per cent. That is an average annual increase, a total increase of 50.8 per cent. To put that in money terms, it is around $4 billion. So the excuses are not enough. The fact of the matter is that there is no management left in my state, in New South Wales.

We have an election coming in March and the people will have an opportunity to have something to say. It will be difficult because the government have a very large majority. Nonetheless, I was almost disappointed when Mr Iemma said that he was now not going to sell the Snowy Mountains authority. I thought that a good thing we could have said was: ‘If you vote Liberal, the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme will not be sold.’ Make it a referendum; let the people say. But he saw the writing on the wall, didn’t he? As soon as we said that we would not sell our 13 per cent, he could see that the writing was on the wall and he could not get out of it quick enough.

So a time has come when the premiers with no clothes, the emperors with no clothes, who say ‘Follow me; isn’t it wonderful?’ have got to be seen for what they are doing—that is, walking around nude, without a fig leaf to cover themselves with.

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

Disgusting!

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

Yes, it is pretty disgusting when you think about it. But the fact of the matter is that the time has come for real reform in this area and we will have to find ways in which we, the federal government, can have a much greater say in the manner in which taxpayers’ money is finally expended. The classic agreement is the health care agreement—I said it was 47c in the dollar; it is now 50c in the dollar. The next time we negotiate that agreement we should not pay the money to the states; we should pay the money directly to the hospitals. We should say what is a fair share of the money we collect and is paid by way of a special purpose grant. We should say which hospitals are entitled to get money and not be starved at the whim of a government.

The fact of the matter is that the GST is completely without restriction; the states can spend that as they will—and they have a better growth tax than we have in income tax. In a report that was done for me by Access Economics, when I was Minister for Aged Care in the International Year of the Older Person, it was shown very adequately that indirect taxes are necessary to maintain a solid tax base. We have given this tax, with its growth, to the states and territories and they have been incapable of handling it in a responsible manner. They have spent it in a profligate manner which has left our states lacking in law and order; lacking in proper infrastructure for our water, sewerage and roads; and lacking in our transport systems.

The trains in country New South Wales now travel more slowly than they did 100 years ago. Do you know why? Because if they travel faster the vibration could cause the bridge to fall down. The reason why I have been a long-time convert of accrual accounting is to make people put the money away for the maintenance of their own assets. But have they done it? No. The hollow logs, started by Neville Wran, have come back to haunt us all. I am afraid that, with our giving this money untied in any way and forgoing the right to say how it is spent, we have just added to vertical fiscal imbalance. A solution has to be found. Those are some of the things that I give as examples when I say that we need tax reform.

Ann Corcoran (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This year’s budget represents nothing new from this government. The coalition has stayed true to form, with yet another round of vote buying at the expense of Australia’s long-term stability and prosperity. Two words define this budget: lost opportunity—a lost opportunity to invest in Australia’s future, a lost opportunity to invest in our children’s education, a lost opportunity to train our young people and a lost opportunity to upgrade our crumbling infrastructure. I support the tax cuts the government has announced in this budget. It is the least the government can do. That is the point: this government is doing the least it can do and nothing more. Rising petrol prices, reduced wages and working conditions, and growing interest rates have devoured the tax cuts even before they have been seen by most of us.

The government seems entirely focused on hoodwinking Australians into believing that everything is just fine, that the growing pressure they feel is an illusion and that an extra few dollars in tax cuts will solve all their problems. This is a government that taxes people to their absolute limit. It hoards our money, cuts our services, encourages fear and then, when it suits it, tries to buy our votes. This approach to the Australian community is wearing very thin.

The government’s so-called Welfare to Work scheme is a prime example of its willingness to marginalise and punish the disadvantaged. Under the current system, some of our most disadvantaged families are being punished financially for going to work. The tax and benefits system under the Howard government sees many low- and middle-income families losing 50c, 60c or even 70c in each additional dollar they earn to tax and to lost benefits. This is not a system of incentives, support and encouragement; it is a system that says to many families, ‘Work hard and you lose.’ The chorus of condemnation that this scheme has met from churches, charities and the social services sector reflects this dysfunction. It shows just how out of touch this government is or, even more sadly, perhaps how much it just does not care.

Poverty exists in Australia—this is a fact. If the Prime Minister thinks of Australia as a relaxed and comfortable nation, that is the Australia he chooses to see. It is his portrait of Australia and those who do not fit into it drift into the margins, rarely seen or heard and certainly not cared for. All over our nation thousands upon thousands of ordinary people are struggling to keep and, in some cases, even find a place to live. They are living week to week, trying desperately to feed and to educate their kids, to find a decent job, to build a future. The pressure that these Australians face is causing them to fade away, out of our community.

When you live week to week, you do not participate. You do not have the money to join sporting or social clubs. Even the price of a train ticket to visit family and friends can be out of reach. These pressures fuel the sense of hopelessness and despair that make it impossible for many people to claw their way out of poverty. The Howard government needs to truly realise that Australia is a society, a community and a culture, not simply an economy. We have seen over the past 10 years a government that was prepared to allow the growth of a new class of working poor. The casualisation of the workforce, the failure to invest in skills and training and the destruction of a fair system of industrial relations have contributed and will continue to contribute to this sad and ugly reality of Australian life. These developments are no accident. They are a result of policies that cater only to those who appear in the Prime Minister’s portrait of Australia. The changes to workplace relations and the creation of the new so-called Fair Pay Commission are set to drive average wages down, creating further hardship for those least able to cope. The changes to the welfare system will have precisely the same effect, placing even more pressure on some of our society’s most disadvantaged.

Let us be clear about the economic realities facing Australia right now. The government has received a massive windfall of revenue thanks to the resources boom. That boom will not last forever, but in the current climate Australia has wonderful opportunities to strengthen the fabric of our society and our economy. For parents raising their families, workers wanting to learn new skills, young people hoping for a decent education and all Australians who want quality, affordable health care, only Labor has a plan. The ALP is in touch with the lives of ordinary Australians and only Labor has the vision to improve these lives. To lead for all Australians—that is the key. Leadership needs a vision for the future, empathy with lives that are being lived now and a real sense of the range of everyday experiences that really shape Australian life. This is the essence of the difference between Labor and the coalition. While the ALP has begun to set out a comprehensive range of policies to meet the real needs of our society and to address the massive failings of this government, the coalition is only starting to try to buy our votes again.

Labor’s plan for school based child-care centres and extra places will mean that child care will become a reality for many families. This also means that parents will no longer have to deal with the dreaded double drop-off. I have heard some conservatives scoff at this notion and I am not surprised. This government does not understand Australian life or Australian families. A federal Labor government will provide $200 million to establish 260 new child-care centres on primary school grounds or other community land. Labor will ensure that these places go to the areas in our suburbs and our regional towns where there are child-care shortages. By improving the desperate state of child care we will also be able to address the nation’s shocking skills shortages. More people will be able to return to study, to training and to work.

The skills crisis in Australia is another result of this government’s ineptitude, neglect and lack of foresight. Under the Howard-Costello government 300,000 people have been turned away from TAFE training—that is, 300,000 people qualified to enter TAFE but for whom there is no place. This is an extraordinary waste of our resources from a society point of view. It is also an extraordinary waste of an individual’s skills and that person’s wish to use his or her skills to fashion out a useful and satisfying life for themselves and their family. In the lead-up to the 2004 election, Labor promised to create more places in TAFE, year on year. I will be working to ensure that this policy is in place again in the lead-up to the next election, in 2007.

The skills crisis will only get worse unless we begin to give Australians who want to learn a chance to do so. A Labor government will abolish TAFE fees for traditional apprenticeships. This is expected to benefit some 60,000 Australians beginning apprenticeships each year. Labor’s skills account policy will further encourage the uptake of apprenticeships. We will make an initial deposit of $800 per year, for up to four years, in an apprentice skills account. This will essentially get rid of the up-front TAFE fees that can be a barrier to learning for many Australians. A federal Labor government will also get rid of TAFE fees for eligible child-care courses by making an initial deposit of $1,200 per year, for up to two years, in a trainee skills account. Young people training to teach and care for our children will be able to use this to pay up-front fees at TAFE or other eligible providers or they can use it for materials and resources charges.

A federal Labor government will invest in a joint venture with the telecommunications industry to build a superfast broadband network. Labor will draw on the $757 million Broadband Connect program, as well as providing an equity injection from the $2 billion earmarked for the communications fund, to deliver the public funding on this in partnership with the private sector. This will deliver broadband that can instantly download documentaries, educational software and digital books and broadband that can host a digital classroom, where children can have videoconferences all around Australia. In addition, Labor will establish a clean feed system so parents can be assured that their kids on the internet are not being exposed to pornography and violence. This is the kind of investment for the future that shows Labor has a vision and the government has run out of ideas.

Labor will take the politics out of infrastructure spending, with an independent expert body called Infrastructure Australia. We will make it easier for super funds to invest in infrastructure. We will set up a building Australia fund to invest in productive infrastructure for the future. Making Australia competitive is about raising the standard of our performance, and that takes investment. This government believes the way to go is to lower standards, cut costs and ignore the need for investment.

This race to the bottom philosophy is nowhere clearer than in the so-called Work Choices legislation. This appalling attack on the hard-won rights of Australian workers completely destroys the idea of a fair go in the Australian workplace. Under Work Choices, Australians have no certainty in the workplace. They could be sacked for any reason or for no reason at all. Up to four million Australian employees, in businesses of up to 100 employees, now face the prospect of going to work each day not knowing if they will have a job at the end of that day. Employees working in nearly all private businesses across the country can now be sacked unfairly, with no right of redress or remedy for their sacking.

The recent example of the Cowra meatworks will be repeated. At Cowra we saw workers sacked for no reason, only to be offered their jobs back on severely reduced conditions. When challenged, the government made the unforgettable response that it did not know whether or not the action was legal under the new laws. It is now clear from a report issued by the Office of Workplace Services that the action proposed by Cowra is indeed legal. Although the government was able to momentarily undo the plans of Cowra at the time, it did so because of the embarrassment it caused, not because the action is not a logical flow-on from, or even the point of, this shocking legislation.

The Australian Industrial Relations Commission, the independent umpire, has had many of its roles removed. These roles include ensuring agreements meet a decent minimum standard and awarding increases in the minimum wage. Instead, the government’s so-called Fair Pay Commission will now be responsible for increasing the minimum wage. The Treasurer’s own department predicts that the pay of people who rely on the minimum wage will fall in real terms, as the Fair Pay Commission will award smaller increases. This will mean that Australia’s lowest paid and most vulnerable employees and their families will suffer a decline in their real take-home wages. This will have a flow-on effect for thousands of Australian employees.

The government has also abolished the safety net known as the no disadvantage test. This safety net provided a baseline against which all agreements were measured. Under the government’s changes, all agreements, whether individual or collective, will no longer have to meet an award standard of 20 conditions. Instead, agreements will only need to meet five new minimum conditions. They are: a minimum wage, which is currently $12.75 per hour; four weeks annual leave per year, of which two weeks may be cashed out; sick leave/carer’s leave of 10 days per year; a 38-hour ordinary working week; and unpaid parental leave of 52 weeks. That means that, at the stroke of a pen, entitlements important to working Australians, such as penalty rates, overtime, meal breaks, annual leave loading, shift loading, redundancy pay, allowances and certainty of hours and rostering, can be removed. We have seen that happen in just the last few weeks with the new Spotlight AWA, in which new employees have lost most entitlements and gained a pay rise of 2c per hour. How long will it take for those not on the new agreement to be sacked and replaced by workers prepared to sign it?

We have seen that the government not only does not understand the unfairness of those arrangements and the hardship they will cause but also says that it is a good idea and that more businesses should follow suit. Not only employees but also employers are going to be affected by the government’s workplace changes. Under the changes, many employers face the added complexity of navigating through the industrial relations minefield created by the government. The government has consistently failed to make the social and economic case for these extraordinary and unfair changes. Labor oppose these industrial relations changes. We will fight for the rights of ordinary working Australians and their families. We want working Australians and their families to have decent jobs with decent conditions and reasonable certainty. Labor will abolish AWAs.

In this year’s budget we once again see the government continue with its decade-long policy of underfunding the ABC, despite the modest increases. Any extra funding for the ABC is welcome. The extra money the government has handed out in the budget will allow the ABC to produce approximately 28 hours a year of new content, but it is too little, too late. According to media reports, in a report that Senator Coonan refuses to release KPMG have identified a need for $125 million above inflation for the next three years for the ABC to sustain its current services, but that is ignored by the government.

The government is determined to flex its muscle over the ABC by not only underfunding the broadcaster but also controlling the board membership. The ALP has always supported the establishment of an independent panel to consider candidates for the ABC board and for the minister to then make the final decision. We will continually look to making those processes more transparent and democratic. In March this year, Senator Coonan announced that the government intended to abolish the staff elected position on the ABC board; sadly, that legislation has now passed through the House. That position is a vitally important one for the board. The staff elected director is able to give the board an insight into the operations of the ABC and is, in some cases, the only person with the expertise to question advice that comes from the ABC’s executive. The staff elected position on the board is one position the government cannot control, and so it has moved to abolish it. It seems that the government will do whatever it takes to maintain its control over the broadcaster.

In conclusion, Australians know that Work Choices will hurt us. We know that we need investment for the future. We know that our lives are not defined by statistics. And we know that $10 in our pockets solves none of our everyday problems. Labor’s vision is based on connecting with everyday lives and understanding everyday pressures. In contrast, the government is miles away from understanding that. Senior government members seem completely detached from the realities of Australian life. The starting point of almost all policy development should be an understanding of the lives a policy will affect. After 10 years, it is difficult to see how any of the government’s policies reflect a sense of empathy with the Australian community. This budget, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, is very sad; indeed, it is a wanting and lost opportunity.

Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Presented as I am with the debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2006-2007 and cognate bills, I would like to take the opportunity to talk in particular about aspects of the veterans’ affairs portfolio—some of the issues that are currently at play in that area—and to go through some of the concerns that I have about where the government is up to with the veterans portfolio. I will start off with a few comments about mental health issues. Mental health issues are a central part of the health concerns facing many veterans and certainly a major and growing area for the department in terms of dealing with the needs of veterans. We are aware also of course that mental health has more generally in more recent times been an area that the government has rightly moved to take some notice of and put some funding into. It has been one of those areas of health policy in general terms that has been neglected for quite some time. We saw the government with respect to the broader community put forward a $1.9 billion package for mental health. It is clear that that is not enough to meet the actual need that is there but you have to welcome it; it is a significant amount of money.

But in the context of the veterans’ affairs portfolio only some $20 million was put forward in the budget in new expenditure for dealing with mental health issues. I welcome that $20 million but again I do not think that we can stand here today and say that it is enough to deal with the many issues facing the veterans community. You have already heard in earlier comments I made today about the children of Vietnam veterans health study and the range of other health studies that have occurred, some relating to issues of mental health, and these are starting to get to the detail of the sorts of problems that veterans are dealing with. I do not think that $20 million is going to go anywhere near far enough in dealing with the sorts of issues that are being brought to light.

The minister says that you have got to go beyond that to the fact that DVA spends approximately $130 million each year on mental health already, including funding for hospitals, counselling and mental health and drug related issues. Once again, when we look at the fact that there is obviously an outstanding need in the community in general, to have a situation where you have got a $1.9 billion package for the general community but only $20 million for the veterans community I think is just astounding. The minister also makes a point that of course veterans will be able to access aspects of the $1.9 billion package in the general community. That of course is true, but there is no doubt that there are outstanding needs there.

The other problem we have got with that $20 million is finding out exactly what it is proposed to be used for. The government has not been forthcoming as yet with much detail about where that money will be going. At estimates Ken Douglas, DVA General Manager of Service Delivery, stated:

There is quite a long list of largely small initiatives that go to a number of different categories.

Mr Douglas went on:

The first of them would be a series of communication type initiatives, basically working with bodies like the Divisions of General Practice to develop educative programs and self-help tools that would improve mental health literacy amongst general practitioners.

Other major initiatives were listed by Ken Douglas in estimates but they seem only to be top-up funds or they provide minor changes to already existing programs. He said they would be:

... developing self-help tools along the lines of The Right Mix website ... to extend some of the lifestyle management programs that have been made available to the Vietnam veterans cohort to the post Vietnam War cohort—the peacemaker, peacekeeper type cohort.

Again, when asked directly whether he could provide detailed information on what programs the $20 million would be spent on, Mr Douglas said:

I will take it on notice and see what we can give to you that is particularly helpful, without of course constraining us in terms of what negotiations we might need to have with providers ...

Frankly, I do not think that is good enough. We need to be in a situation where we have got a clearer picture of where that money is going. Only when we know what the government is going to do with these funds can we properly scrutinise how those funds are used and get a proper idea of the effectiveness or otherwise of that expenditure. It is okay for the minister to pop along to veterans groups and ex-service organisations and say, ‘Isn’t this great?’ but we need the detail and we need to have a clearer understanding in the community.

Another issue that I would like to touch on is the issue of Long Tan bursaries. The government made an announcement that they would spend some $4.5 million over four years to commemorate the contribution of Vietnam veterans and the 40^th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan. On from that there was the announcement that this includes an expansion of the Long Tan bursaries scheme by increasing the number of bursaries from 30 to 50 and increasing their value from $6,000 to $9,000.

We welcome these initiatives. They are a good, positive step forward. There is no doubt that Long Tan bursaries are very worth while, given the opportunity they provide to children of Vietnam veterans in getting support to ensure further study. However, it is a pale imitation of what Labor committed to in its 2004 election campaign. I will read from our policy at that time. It states:

1. Fund additional tertiary education bursaries

The fund will provide an additional 120 bursaries for the children of all veterans who meet selection criteria of need and merit.

These bursaries will add to the existing 30 Long Tan bursaries. They will be flexibly managed by the Australian Veterans’ Children Assistance Trust to fund average 3 year courses. This Trust will continue to manage existing private  bursaries.

Private benefactors and service clubs will be encouraged to contribute to this Trust. As part of the package, a Federal Labor Government will provide $1 million to the Trust to be invested for the provision of future bursaries.

Many veterans’ children since WWII have benefited from similar programs and Labor believes that tradition should be continued.

Again, Labor welcome this initiative by the government. We believe that it is overdue. It builds on an existing program which is very effective. However, it does not go far enough—more should be done. At the last election, we committed to provide more funding in that area. I urge the government in future to look at determining how far we go with this. The fact is that bursaries have been shown to work. That is one of the reasons why the government has extended the numbers—and, as I said, I welcome that. But, frankly, I do not think it takes into account the need that is there with respect to children of veterans in those sorts of circumstances, and it ought to be addressed by the government.

Another couple of issues that I would like to touch on tonight relate to Anzac Cove and the funding for the Le Hamel Memorial. Over the last 12 months, there has been a lot of debate about the state of the roadworks and the various other problems at Anzac Cove. It has been illuminating to watch the government duck for cover on this. At first they denied there was a problem and then they tried to play catch-up football to address the problem in the lead-up to Anzac Day.

I was in Turkey, at Gallipoli, for Anzac Day. I am on record and happy to say again that I thought it was a particularly well-run occasion; it was very professionally done. I think all those who were involved from the department and the government should be congratulated on the end result. I would also like to put on record my thanks to the Turkish authorities for the work they did to ensure that it was a success. Again, let us have no doubt about it: the road is still a mess. Temporary repairs were made but they were incredibly temporary. There is absolutely no doubt that more work needs to be done. The government recognises that, but we are still having great difficulty in establishing when that work will be done and how it will be done.

I appreciate that that requires negotiation with the Turkish government and that they have a central role in all of this. I understand that it is not always easy to work through those issues, but I am genuinely concerned about where they are up to and where we go in future in dealing with them. In estimates a number of comments were made about the road by the Secretary to the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Mark Sullivan, who said:

That involved some significant repairs to subsidence around culverts, to major potholes and to blisters in the road surface itself. It involved the monitoring of subterranean water drainage through some of the cuttings and the monitoring of some potential subsidence along Anzac Cove and Brighton Beach.

He continued:

It did suffer some distress as a result of Anzac Day. They were temporary repairs and the road has deteriorated since. I think it would be fair to say that the current state of the road is fair to poor.

We need to see more movement occurring with this matter. As has been made clear from earlier comments by the Prime Minister, there was no doubt that the expectation was that action would have been taken by now to deal with these issues and that we would have a final settlement that, in the long term, would ensure that things were taken care of. When questioned at estimates about where matters such as the archaeological and historical surveys were up to, the secretary to the department, Mark Sullivan, stated:

The Turkish government have not yet provided us further criteria or information as to how this review is going to be conducted.

Mr Sullivan also said:

We have notified them but, as I say, we have not yet seen a response from the Turkish authorities as to what they have determined to be the scope and nature of the study. That work has got to come from the Turkish authorities.

Senator Hurley then asked:

Is the corollary of that that we are not quite sure when the survey will begin?

Mr Sullivan—No. We cannot be certain of that ...

Frankly, I urge the department and the government do everything they can to try to get some movement on this issue and to try to get to a situation where we no longer have to deal with this issue at every estimates hearing or worry in the lead-up to Anzac Day that the matter will in fact be concluded successfully. As I said, this year’s Anzac Day I think was a great success and a credit to all of those involved, but there is absolutely no doubt that that road still needs to be repaired properly and for the long term to ensure that we do not have the sorts of issues coming up that have been dominating headlines about Gallipoli over the last 12 to 18 months.

I would like to go on to talk briefly about another decision out of the budget, which relates to the issue of funding for the Le Hamel memorial. This is a memorial that I guess many Australians have not been to, but I would certainly urge them to go and have a look if they could. I will read from an extract from a website with respect to it. It says:

This memorial site is of extreme significance as it was the final objective for the Australian attack on the 4th July, 1918. Each Australian division erected a memorial at sites all over France and Belgium which recognised their finest achievements. It was on the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Hamel that the French Government donated this particular piece of French soil as the construction of an Australian Corps Memorial Park. This memorial consists of a large sandblasted image on Australian granite of the Rising Sun badge, which was worn proudly by the Australian soldiers throughout the war.

The $1.3 million memorial at Le Hamel, dedicated on July 4, 1998 is formed by three curved walls.

The central one is 12 metres long and 5.2 metres high and carries the "rising sun" badge of the First AIF.

The one on the left bears the image of the infantry platoon and the one on the right, images of the other units taking part in the battle the tanks, the Air Flying Corps and the artillery.

The image of the platoon is a copy of a photograph taken on August 8, 1918 which shows B Company of the 29th Battalion a Victorian unit being addressed by their platoon commander.

It was taken as all five divisions of the Australian Corps lined up to take part in the major Allied attack on the German lines the first time the five Australian divisions had fought together as the Australian Corps. It was the largest and most important battle undertaken by the Corps. The starting line was at Hamel captured by the Australians on July 4.

The memorial is the first memorial on the Western Front dedicated to the Australian Corps. The park surrounding it includes a 500 metre walking trail with 18 information panels along its length on aspects of the battle.

The colour patches of every one of the 148 units of the Australian Corps are also incorporated in the memorial.

In the ground in front of the walls is a circle of black granite in which are carved the words of Australian war historian, Charles Bean “What these men did, nothing can alter now. It rises as it will always rise above the mist of ages, a monument to great-hearted men, and for their nation a possession for ever.”

All of that is very true, except that we have had a problem, which is that it was only some eight years ago—1998—that this memorial was actually constructed. The fact is that it is falling apart. The government has quite rightly provided some $7.9 million over three years for redesign, demolition and reconstruction of the memorial. But the fact of the matter still is that this memorial was constructed for $1.3 million some eight years ago and now, eight years later, it is costing $7.9 million to reconstruct. There is the issue of the cost, but more importantly in the circumstances—because I understand that costs have increased in respect of construction of a matter such as this—the issue is: why are we in a situation some eight years later of having to rebuild this memorial? At Senate estimates, Mark Sullivan said:

Tiles falling off were fundamental to the problem. It is a complex matter, which we are happy to go into. The current memorial has three major parts; the thing they have in common is that they are a mural based on individual tiles. The original plan for those tiles, which came from Australia, was that they would be individually drilled and pinned in place to the memorial. The tiles were delivered to France without the individual holes drilled in them to allow pinning and the advice received was that an alternative method of construction and placement of the tiles would work, that is, basically, the placement of the tiles on mortar. I believe there has been evidence for some time that that method of construction did not work.

The fact of the matter is that it did not work. It did not work at all. The circumstances are that we now have a significant expenditure of almost $8 million designed to try to remedy this. Really, who is to blame here? Again at estimates, Mark Sullivan said:

It does not appear to have been a decision taken by someone unilaterally and who then thought they would see how it happened; it seems to be a decision that was taken by consensus, but it failed. I think if we said that the purpose here is to find someone to litigate against, we might have trouble identifying who they were and we would be involved in a very lengthy process of litigation during which time, of course, the memorial would have to stand as is, as evidence.

I understand the position of the department and the secretary that in fact this is a difficult issue to pursue. But I have to ask the question: how did we get into this situation? Why was there not better scrutiny occurring to ensure that this did not take place?

There must be records on the question of who the consensus was with in respect of making the changes here. Frankly, there should have been more done by the government and by the department at the time to ensure that this decision was not taken. It has produced a major expenditure out of the budget of some nearly $8 million and it frankly is not something that we can do anything other than condemn the need for. Yes, it has to happen because of the state of the memorial, but the fact that it got to this stage is something that the government should be looking at very seriously. I note that we have been asked to keep our contributions to a minimum to try to facilitate the movement of this bill through the House. On that basis I commend the bill to the House.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Budgets should be about a long-term vision for the country’s future. They should be based, of course, on fiscal responsibility. They should also be based on how we most equitably and efficiently raise the public revenue—in the case of this budget, some $200 billion. They should also embrace a clear-cut vision of how we best invest in the country’s long-term economic capacity, in our people, in our infrastructure and in innovation. Budgets should also be about the social and economic foundations of our country and of our local communities, including the local community which I represent in this parliament, Brisbane’s southside.

Tax relief of course is welcome for all families. We make no bones about that. That is why we are not standing in the way of this budget. Families need all the assistance they can get, given the triple whammy that they now face: petrol prices, rising interest rates and uncertainty in the workplace through the introduction of the new workplace relations laws. Budgets also must be committed to effective service delivery, front and centre, for the nation as a whole but also in our local communities. And when we come to the question of how the funds allocated in this budget are spent, local people are asking themselves whether in fact the government is spending wisely and appropriately the financial resources government is currently deriving from the resources boom. Are those financial resources being best invested in the country’s long-term economic capacity? Are they being best invested in effective social service delivery as well?

Residents in my community on Brisbane’s southside want to know what government is doing about the lack of child care availability in our area. They want to know why bulk-billing rates are now down to 66 per cent, from 88 per cent in 1996. They also want to know why their basic rights at work are being stripped away by the government. In this debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2006-2007 and cognate bills I propose to outline some of the concerns raised with me by residents from my community about Medicare, about child care, about workplace relations and about the debt burden being inflicted on the hardworking families and residents of my community.

The provision of child care is a central responsibility of government—any government that is serious about raising productivity. It allows mums and dads to get back into work after the birth of a child, and that of course is a good for the economy because it increases the participation rate and makes it possible for people to work more productively in their workplaces. It also provides the flexibility which employers and employees need, given the demands of the modern economy. However, it is in this area that the current government has failed working families on Brisbane’s southside, with many families in my community finding it almost impossible to locate affordable, quality child care. Our local waiting lists for long day care and outside of school hours care are often unacceptably long and often involve parents being forced to give up paid work because they simply cannot secure effective child care.

In April 2005, there was a sleep-out overnight in the suburb of Balmoral in my electorate so that parents could put their children’s name down on a waiting list for child-care places in 2006. What this demonstrates is a fundamental failure to adequately provide for child care at the local community level. There is also a national shortage of child-care workers, and Brisbane’s Southside is one of the many local communities throughout the country which bear the brunt of this skills shortage across the industry. One practical example of the way that the child-care system is failing families on the south side is demonstrated in the case of Angela, a single mother from the suburb of Coorparoo who has two young children, aged four and nine. Angela works as a full-time paramedic while also studying to further her career. Angela enjoys her work as a paramedic in spite of the fact that there is a shortage of qualified professionals in her industry in Queensland, which means that the expectations of her in the workplace are large because there is also a skills shortage in her chosen profession.

Angela has told my office that she would like to continue working as it enables her to provide for her family and also because it provides her with an ability to contribute to her community. However, the burden and considerable expense of child care is beginning to have a significant impact on her health, with the stress of paying for child care now giving her migraines, cold sores and other sicknesses. Angela has her youngest child in preschool for most of the day. However, she enrols this child into long day care all day because preschool finishes at 3 pm and Angela works 12-hour shifts. This means that Angela has to pay for long day care every day of the work at a rate of $180 per week to effectively have only a few hours of care for her youngest child at the end of each day.

In addition to this, Angela needs to pay for the outside of school hours care for her eldest child, which means that after the significant weekly expense of child care Angela has little money left after paying for food and utility bills. Angela is not on a low wage, yet she is considering quitting her job because she cannot make ends meet due to the spiralling costs of child care in our community. Angela knows that there are other parents out there who are experiencing the same frustrating situation. They feel, as she does, that the system is now, for them, simply out of control. Angela knows the impact that the unavailability of child care has on women in circumstances similar to hers. Also, she is concerned that the expense associated with child care is preventing many women from re-entering the workforce altogether.

Angela is not alone in her struggle with finding child-care places. Mel from West End contacted my office because she found it difficult to secure child care for her two children, aged four and six. Her eldest daughter has been able to secure a place in the outside school hours care program at her local school, but her younger daughter has not been able to be accommodated because there are not enough preschool places offered at the same centre. This means that Mel has the frustrating task of calling the outside school hours care centre every morning to see if there is a vacancy in the program, because her younger child does not have a permanent place. There is of course the odd casual vacancy when another child who has a guaranteed place is unable to attend due to illness. That helps Mel get her child into care on those few occasions. But for the majority of the time the situation is simply impractical given her family circumstances.

The other option for Mel is for her to put her children in care in two different locations. Those working parents who have to drop their children off before work will know all too well what this means. The family needs to get up even earlier in order to get to child care and the workplace on time. This is the dreaded double drop-off, which the Leader of the Opposition has spoken of on many occasions in his recent responses to the federal government’s budget. If Mel cannot find formal care somewhere else, she needs to take time off work, which places a significant financial burden on her family.

The cases of Mel and Angela are by no means the only ones that we have encountered in our own community. They are symptomatic of the struggle which local families are experiencing in finding effective and affordable local child care. My office and I have been approached by hundreds of residents over the past few years because they simply have not been able to find enough local child care. When we turn to this budget, it is quite plain that the government could have been doing much more, on a national basis and in communities such as my own, to deal with this problem in real terms. Instead, we have programs advanced by the government which do not deliver additional affordable places for local families.

This reflects a deep deficiency when it comes to what this budget has delivered for families in my community. There is nothing more basic for young families with young children—for young mothers, in particular, with young children—than having ease of mind delivered by the availability of effective, affordable and high-quality child care. In this budget, we do not see an effective national strategy for doing that, for a whole range of reasons, not the least of which is the unavailability of a sufficient supply of skilled child-care workers not just in Brisbane but right across the country.

Medicare represents another area where, in terms of basic social service delivery, my community on Brisbane’s south side continues to experience difficulty. Once again, the government, through the budget, has not delivered an effective strategy for increasing bulk-billing rates. In fact, bulk-billing rates in my community continue to head in the wrong direction. This problem simply has not gone away. Four years ago, in August 2002, I stood in the parliament and spoke about the problems that many Southside residents were having with the declining rate of bulk-billing. At that time it had fallen from 88 per cent to 69 per cent over the previous two years—that is, going back to 2000. I said at the time:

Something has to be done about this, because it is a crisis affecting local families and local communities, for whom bulk-billing provided through our national Medicare system has been a mainstay in the provision of basic health services to families in need.

With much fanfare, the federal Minister for Health and Ageing has been running around Australia for the past couple of years proclaiming victory on bulk-billing, saying that he has raised the national level of bulk-billing services. When it comes to my community, on Brisbane’s Southside, this simply has not been the case. Since I first raised the matter in the parliament in 2002, our local bulk-billing rate has fallen further. In fact, it has got so bad that the health minister rarely releases the figures anymore. The last time he did, in December 2005, the figures demonstrated that the bulk-billing rate on Brisbane’s Southside had fallen from 88.3 per cent in 1996 to just 66 per cent in 2005. The continued assault that the government has waged on Medicare over that period of time has seen a massive 22.3 per cent reduction in the rate of bulk-billing in my community on Brisbane’s Southside.

Is it any wonder, therefore, that the health minister wishes to keep these figures secret? They are a damning indictment of the health minister’s inattention to this basic requirement of his portfolio. They are a damning indictment of the government’s treatment of Medicare and bulk-billing rates as a proper priority for spending out of this budget. Those who ultimately bear the burden are local families. If there is anything which demonstrates a government out of touch, it is when the basic services of child care and health care, as demonstrated through the declining bulk-billing rate, are not being effectively addressed. In my community it is becoming harder and harder to locate a bulk-billing doctor.

When it comes to workplace relations, we see members of my local community becoming concerned about the impact of government policy on their standard of living. The child-care shortage represents a further impost on the family budget. The declining level of bulk-billing also represents an expense which people have to cover when they cannot find a bulk-billing doctor. When it comes to workplace relations, the basic fear which communities like my own are experiencing is: ‘What will this mean in terms of my take-home pay? What will it mean in terms of the income I currently derive from penalty rates? What will it mean in terms of the time I have to share with my family?’

The system of workplace relations we have had in this country was one which evolved over the last century and one which, for a large part of that century, was based on a simple Australian concept of fairness—a fair day’s work, a fair day’s pay. This meant that if your employer wanted you to work at the weekend it was reasonable that you should be compensated for not being able to spend that time relaxing with your family and that you should, as a consequence, be rewarded for doing that, through things such as penalty rates. If you went to work on a public holiday, you would be appropriately remunerated and you would feel secure in your workplace because your employer needed a decent reason to sack you. These basic rights at work are now being stripped away as a consequence of what must be regarded as the most conservative, right-wing, ideologically driven changes to workplace laws that this country has seen in a century.

Under the federal government’s workplace relations changes, entitlements such as shift allowances, overtime rates and redundancy pay are now under threat, and it simply gets worse. One of the most serious changes under the Howard government’s new industrial relations laws is the removal of unfair dismissals for employees working in companies that have fewer than 100 staff. When it comes to the future of unfair dismissal laws, it is important that justice be returned to the system. These most recent changes in unfair dismissal have meant that four million Australian workers will lose legal protection from unfair dismissal and are vulnerable to the nightmarish situation of losing their job without notice or an opportunity to remedy the situation. The government’s extreme legislation has also taken away the Australian Industrial Relations Commission’s power to set minimum wages and award conditions. In a practical sense this has meant reducing the allowable matters considered from 20 to just four.

I have had in my electorate office a stream of concerned residents contacting me and my staff about what precisely will be the ramifications of these new laws on their working lives. They are deeply concerned. There is no question that there is a sense of anxiety across the working families in my community. For example, Andrew from Greenslopes contacted my office following the introduction of workplace relations changes in his workplace. He is one of many concerned residents within my electorate who have taken the time to come and talk to me about what these changes will mean in their place of work. Andrew explained to my office that he is—to use his own term—appalled that the rights of Australian workers have been stripped away by the government’s recent legislative changes and that the right of Australian workers to have a fair go in their place of employment has simply been ditched through the introduction of these radical, ideological changes. These changes have forsaken simple pleasures that we as Australians have held dear, such as being able to spend quality time with family on the weekends. There are many families in my community on Brisbane’s Southside who are currently working out how precisely their families, their living standards and their ability to have justice in the workplace will be affected by the introduction of these changes.

When it comes to the delivery of basic services in my community, the budget has many fundamental deficiencies. We see this when it comes to Medicare, we see this when it comes to child care and we also see it in the changes which have been brought through on workplace relations and the impact which that will have on the disposable income of families over time. If there is one common theme about the government that resonates through the many mobile offices I have conducted in my community—I think I have conducted 194 altogether—it is that people are becoming very tired of a government whose priorities lie increasingly with themselves and not with the kitchen table issues which local families have to deal with: how they balance their family budgets, how they deal with the practical problems presented by child care, how they find a local bulk-billing doctor, how they make ends meet when they have to deal with the extra costs of fuel and the rise in interest rates in bills from their banks over their home mortgages as well as having to deal with the uncertainty presented by the government’s new industrial relations package.

We will not oppose this budget, because it provides some tax relief, but the government should be under no illusion that, when it comes to communities such as mine on Brisbane’s Southside, the families that I represent in this parliament feel, legitimately, that they have been short-changed in the delivery of these services. This government could have done much better with this budget for the nation. It could have done much better with this budget in the interests of local communities right across this nation, including those in my own electorate.

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Normally I would speak first on the debate on the appropriations legislation, as the shadow minister for finance, but when the bills were introduced in the parliament I was on leave for a very pleasurable reason: the birth of my daughter Remy Justine, who arrived—I am sure the House will be interested in this—on 23 May at 5.20 am, weighing 7 pounds 9 ounces, or 3.4 kilograms.

I will now turn to the budget. I am pleased that the member for Casey did not pull me up on grounds of relevance or anything of that nature. The handing down of the federal budget a couple of weeks ago was something like Christmas Day or a family that has recently won the lottery. There were lots of new toys for backbenchers, who gave many squeals of delight as they unwrapped their shiny new grants and tax cuts, and a whole range of programs, which at first glance meant that an awful lot of people got what they wanted. Unfortunately, as feelings of excitement over budget night have subsided and we have exposed the budget to greater scrutiny regarding Australia’s economic strategy for the future, we see a very different story. We see a government that is focused on handing out taxpayers’ money as fast as it is rained on by the minerals boom. It is focused on doing this in order in order to win votes and to curry political favour but not to invest for Australia’s future, not to lay the foundations for our economic future and the future of our children and not to do the hard and challenging things when they are easiest to do. It is always easiest to undertake difficult reforms when a government is flush with funds, the economy is relatively strong and unemployment is low; that is when you have the scope to undertake hard reforms. This budget did virtually none of those things.

The minerals boom has literally rained money on the Howard government and it has spent the lot, some wisely and some not so wisely. There is a very interesting table on page 2.4, from memory, of Budget Paper No. 1, which outlines the sheer scale of the windfall that the government has received. The amount of additional revenue that the government is budgeting for the next three financial years, as estimated in May in the budget, is $41 billion more than was estimated six months ago. In other words, the estimate of revenue anticipated in December last year by the government to be reached for the forthcoming years—the 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09 financial years—was collectively around $41 billion less than it now is anticipating for those financial years.

Interestingly though, looking at that same table, you will see that the projected expenditure or calls on the budget, when you include tax cuts, over those forthcoming three years adds up to slightly more than $41 billion—in fact, about $42 billion. On the one hand, the minerals boom has handed the government a giant windfall of the magnitude of around $41 billion extra over those three years while, on the other hand, through decisions taken in the budget and since the handing down of the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, the government has committed to an additional $42 billion in either tax cuts or spending; in other words, it has spent the lot. As I said, some of that spending has been reasonable and wise but some of it has not.

There are plenty of dubious spending initiatives, such as $52 million being allocated to ‘increase consumer awareness of the incentives and benefits associated with private health insurance’. I am starting to wonder why we still call private health insurance ‘private’. We have a government that heavily subsidises the product, ranging from a minimum of 30 per cent to higher for older groups of citizens. It is a government that heavily regulates and microregulates the product. People on joint incomes of above $100,000 or those on single incomes of $50,000 are required to take out private health insurance or to pay an extra levy. This has not been indexed, so an ever-growing proportion of the community are being forced by the government to take out private health insurance. Now, rather than having the industry promote itself to the general community, the federal government will be picking up its advertising bill. Therefore, I wonder why it is that we still call private health insurance ‘private’.

There are many small grants in the budget. Although many of these are for ostensibly worthy causes, when looking at some of the other things that are not being funded adequately by the government, it is very easy to see some very questionable priorities. There is funding of $1 million for a trip to India by a pile of Donald Bradman memorabilia and another $1.5 million for the stockman’s hall of fame. I have written before about the proliferation of halls of fame around Australia—the mining hall of fame, the axemen’s hall of fame, the fishing hall of fame and the stockman’s hall of fame. I am waiting for the sleeper-cutters’ hall of fame in my old home area of East Gippsland. I think that would be highly appropriate and perhaps I should suggest to the member for Gippsland that he should get on the gravy train while it is going. There is $200,000 to finance the voyage of the Duyfken replica. There is $900,000 to encourage people of diverse ethnic backgrounds to get into surf lifesaving, which I suspect is the government’s solution to the Cronulla riots. If that is what it is, it is laughable, but that is the way the government tends to look at these things.

Of a slightly greater magnitude is the extraordinary sum of $15 million which has been handed over to the Melbourne Cricket Club to establish a national sports museum. I can understand why the Treasurer wants to improve his popularity with the ‘Hooray, Henry!’ crowd, but using $15 million of taxpayers’ money for that purpose is, I think, simply outrageous. It is symptomatic of a government that is awash with taxpayers’ money—that has so much money it does not know what to do with it. The government is simply trying to win political favour in every last corner of the land.

One of the interesting techniques the Howard government has developed and which has become an art form is the use of the small grant to be made ‘during the course of the current financial year’. The budget is handed down in early May, which means that you are almost at the end of the financial year. By that stage, you have a reasonably good idea of the relative scale of the surplus for that financial year. If it appears that the result is going to be substantially higher than was projected—as has been the case on numerous occasions in recent times—then what does the government do? It says: ‘Beauty! We have all this spare cash. Let’s give it all away. Let’s hand it out.’

In some cases, that has been done in reasonably substantial grants—for example, doubling the utilities allowance for pensioners or extra money for carers in a one-off payment. But there is also a lengthy list of small one-off grants. I describe this approach as the political equivalent of ‘cash back on your trade-in’. It is a neat little tweak designed to keep everybody happy and feeling comfortable, nice and warm in getting the extra little bit of loot from the government, apparently for nothing. Some examples of the worthy and, in some cases, not quite so worthy recipients of these giveaways are: the Duke of Edinburgh Awards, the Australian Wildlife Hospital, the Red Shield Appeal, the Belvoir St Theatre, Bond University, St John’s Cathedral in Brisbane, the National Institute of Circus Arts and the Musee du Quai Branly—I hope my pronunciation is appropriate—in Paris.

They are only examples; there are many other situations in which the government has handed out amounts—usually in the order of half a million dollars, $1 million or $1½ million—quite indiscriminately. It has been built into the Howard government’s DNA ever since the Centenary of Federation foundation, the Natural Heritage Trust and Networking the Nation. There has been an endless list of programs that are designed to enable the government to pay off political debts, to curry political favour and to pork-barrel in marginal seats. And I have not mentioned Regional Partnerships, which is one of the most notorious of them. That tradition has been continued in the budget.

The government pontificates about the threat to Australia’s fiscal wellbeing as a result of the ageing of the Australian population—correctly, in my view—but it acts in the opposite direction. Does anybody remember the last razor gang? What do we think of our famous Minister for Finance and Administration, the alleged hard man, Senator Nick Minchin? To me, he is the Father Christmas of finance ministers: he has never said no to anything, he has never stopped anything and he has never cut anything. He is just there simply writing cheques and saying: ‘Would you like some more money? What sort of grant do you have? What sort of community program do you have? You are a bunch of good chaps so have some more money.’ That is the effect of the recent budget.

Significantly, of the $41 billion windfall, only slightly more than one per cent of that additional money that the Howard government had at its disposal has been allocated to investing in the future skills of Australia. Education and skills is the most critical longer term economic issue for our nation, and only slightly more than one per cent of that $41 billion has been added to our investment in it. Indeed, the additional amount committed to education and training is only marginally higher than the additional amount committed to Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry as a portfolio, which illustrates quite a bit about the relative priorities of the Howard government.

Why does this matter? It matters because only about 60 per cent of Australians between the ages of 25 and 64 have year 12 equivalent qualifications, in contrast to other nations, such as Canada, the United States and many European countries, where the figure is 80 per cent or plus. It matters because we are now seeing a pattern where qualified, skilled young Australians are deliberately choosing to work overseas for a period of time after graduating in order to defer paying enormous HECS debts. It matters because of the fact that, for some time now, we are the only country in the developed world where public spending on higher education and training has been falling.

The budget does not contain a serious reform agenda. There have been some changes to the tax scales, which will have some positive effect with respect to effective marginal tax rates, but broadly that problem still persists, and the tax act remains over 9,000 pages long. Once again, virtually nothing is being done to reform sectors such as aviation, telecommunications, injury compensation, health, broadcasting—and so the list goes on.

Productivity has been mentioned in significant discussions in previous budget papers. Interestingly, when you look at the ‘Budget strategy and outlook 2006-07’ paper, in which there are extensive discussions on a range of fundamental economic issues, you find there is barely a mention of productivity this time. That is hardly surprising, because productivity in this country has been going backwards now for almost two years. Once it becomes a problem, do not mention it anymore. The current account deficit and our burgeoning foreign debt are effectively in the same boat.

Yet again the government is projecting exports to grow by around seven per cent. In spite of the fact that it has been doing that for the past five or six years, the projections have not been met. The government projects export growth of seven, eight and nine per cent, and the results keep coming in at one or two per cent, with particular problems in manufacturing and services. The budget has put upward pressure on interest rates. I think that is now widely acknowledged in the markets. It was acknowledged in the way that markets ultimately work—that is, forward rates and bank bills went up in the immediate wake of the budget, clearly indicating that the market was pricing in a higher risk of interest rates rising as a result of the budget.

Finally, there is one highly significant thing about this budget—that is, the ever-increasing dependence on company tax receipts. As recently as 1998-99, the proportion of total federal government revenue that came from company tax was barely over 14 per cent. It has now hit almost 25 per cent. That means that the government has effectively made an assumption that the largesse flowing from the minerals boom through companies and into very large increases in company tax receipts is virtually permanent. The government has virtually factored that in as an assumption in the longer term.

History suggests that company tax receipts tend to be volatile, for obvious reasons. Company profits are volatile and border trading and economic conditions will change. Therefore it is an extremely brave assumption to make that we will be able to continue indefinitely with our spending commitments, have our tax arrangements in other areas the same and continue to get 25 per cent of our revenue from company tax. So watch out for the pain when company tax receipts return to normal. It may not be for a couple of years or it may not be for five years—who knows?—but it will happen. At that point if the conservatives are still in government, guess what they will do? They will put up the GST. That is what will happen. They will put up the GST and take a slice of it for Commonwealth revenue because that will be all that is left.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the appropriations bills presently before the House. Around the time of the release of the budget last month there were eight separate expert opinions warning of the threat that debt poses to this country’s economy. The eight expert opinions are: Macquarie Research Economics, Economic Spotlight; Glenn Stevens, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia; Alistair Jeffery, Bluestone Mortgages; Paul Braddick and Ange Montalti, ANZ Bank; Reserve Bank of Australia statement on monetary policy; ANZ Bank, Economic Update; ABN AMRO, Australian Economics Weekly; and Access Economics, Business Outlook 2006.

Each of these experts has raised concerns about specific elements of Australia’s spiralling household debt or Australia’s half a trillion dollar foreign debt. The question might be asked: ‘Why is this important?’ It is important for simply one reason: a large debt that is out of control is bad whether it is a government debt, a business debt or a personal debt. It is bad because it is out of control and it does not leave Australia with a great many options into the future.

This of course makes a mockery of the Treasurer’s thoughtless proclamation just a few weeks ago of Australia as debt free. If the economy does turn south, this level of debt poses a serious threat to the Australian economy and to the way of life and living standards that we all enjoy. There are clear warning signals that should be recognised and acted on by the government. The perfect opportunity for the Treasurer to do something about it was in the budget, but he took the low road, the easy road, and opted for something quite different. Australia has over the last 15 years enjoyed great economic times, results that were built off the back of Labor’s economic reforms of the eighties and nineties—something widely acknowledged and widely accepted by all.

The commodity boom of recent times, though, has added a huge numbers of dollars to the budget bottom line—$40 billion alone just in recent times. Indeed, it is an even larger amount if you consider the time that this government has been in power. The world economy is undergoing massive change, and that is dominated by activities, as has been mentioned by many people, in China and India which have really driven or underpinned the Australian economy. This of course creates unprecedented opportunities but also unprecedented challenges. Therefore, the major criticisms of this budget are not so much what it relates to and what it did but what it did not do and the missed opportunities.

This budget did not deliver an ambitious, long-term economic strategy. What made it look appealing for a very small moment was the huge surge in tax revenue. In December, the budget envelope was $42 billion over four years. By the time the Treasurer sat down to write the budget it had cascaded to $93 billion over the same period—up $51 billion in just five months. That is a substantial growth in anyone’s language. In terms of tax cuts, Labor does support the decision of the Treasurer to return part of the surplus to taxpayers. The long-suffering taxpayer, who has been taxed to the eyeballs in the time that the Howard government has been in power, deserves this long-awaited tax cut. Tax relief in this budget is welcome but long overdue and goes nowhere near to the point of pain that most consumers are actually feeling.

Labor has won its fight for tax relief for Australian families and won the fight on some measures of tax reform in terms of bracket creep and tax brackets themselves. However, consumers will need every cent to pay for the triple whammy which the Howard government has inflicted on middle Australia—the triple whammy of rising interest rates, which have not stopped; of rising petrol prices, which continue to grow every day; and of wages that are being slashed through the extreme industrial relations regime, the evidence of which is just starting to flow in.

But the budget has done nothing to invest in the training and skilling of Australians, and the people of South-East Queensland have been overlooked, with no extra money allocated for the much needed full upgrade of the Ipswich Motorway—just one critical piece of infrastructure in this country that can make a huge economic impact on the lifestyles that we all enjoy and the economic development in the western corridor of Queensland. This is, in effect, a short-term budget, when Australia needed a greater investment to skill up people and to build long-term prosperity. Where were the investments in skills and infrastructure and the investment in the quality of life for the Australian workforce?

The OECD, the Reserve Bank of Australia, all the employer groups and almost all reputable economists agree that the problem is the absence of measures to lift the speed limit of the economy by easing key capacity constraints. In fact, the Prime Minister’s own report that he commissioned just last year raised the very same issues about our ports, capacity constraints and the lack of infrastructure that this country now experiences. These are putting upward pressure on inflation and are a significant handbrake on productivity and growth. You only need to look around the world right now and see what economic markets are doing to see the fear building in markets around the world because of inflationary pressure. You only need to look as far as the United States to understand the sort of pressure that is building there and then have a look at Australia and understand where we will be if we do not deal with this issue.

We also need to focus on the challenge of men and women of prime working age who are excluded from the labour market because they do not have the skills to participate in the modern economy. Forget just for a minute the low unemployment rate and look at the participation rate. Look at the jobs going begging for people with skills, where employers are now being forced to look overseas for migrant labour to fill those skills vacancies. Australia needs to train Australians first. We need to train Australians now. We need to start skilling up our own people so that we can fill those critical jobs.

Improving the skills of our workforce is also a catalyst for productivity growth, which has slowed dramatically since 2000. That is six years that the government has been on notice in terms of productivity growth and six years that it has not acted. It is scarcely believable, at a time when people are our biggest comparative advantage globally, that spending on skills and education has gone backwards in both absolute and comparative terms. Public investment in our universities and TAFEs has fallen to eight per cent since 1995. The next worst performing country actually increased its investment by six per cent, and the average increase for other countries was 38 per cent.

It is almost incomprehensible that the Treasurer’s budget speech did not once mention the word ‘education’. Everywhere in the world governments recognise that the skill of a nation’s workforce will determine who will capture high-value, high-growth markets, who will be out in front and those countries that will be left behind. The Howard government’s failure to invest in training in the 2006 budget is simply a disgrace. The Reserve Bank has identified the shortage of skilled workers as a major constraint in the Australian economy, which is putting pressure on inflation and interest rates. Despite these warnings, the government has failed to announce any new initiative to address the skills crisis—no new ideas, no leadership, no future guaranteed for young Australians. In fact, the Howard government actually reduced the percentage of the budget spent on skills and vocational educational training. If anybody can believe that, turn to the budget papers and see exactly what that means.

Australia’s skills crisis is the result of bad economic management by the Howard government. It is not something that has happened by accident. To ignore training and education is an extraordinary display of arrogance and incompetence. The 2006-07 budget is a massive lost opportunity, with the government continuing to import foreign workers at the expense of Australian skilled labour rather than training young Australians and improving the skills of our own people. That is why Labor says we should train Australians first and we should train them now. This is a long-term solution, something that will deliver way into the future for the Australian economy. Spending on training has declined as a percentage of government budget expenditure to 0.73 per cent in 2006-07 and will continue to fall in future budgets. The decline in investment in training will continue under the Howard government and will drop away to just 0.67 per cent in 2009-10.

Federal Labor has spent the past year putting forward concrete proposals to redress the skills crisis and to invest in the productivity capacity in the Australian economy. For example, Labor will introduce a $800 million skills account to get rid of the TAFE fees for traditional apprentices and a $2,000 trade completion bonus scheme as well. Labor’s priority is to train Australians and train them now. Along with skills and education, our future productivity demands a serious plan on infrastructure and innovation—something we have been promoting for years, even before it became a household buzzword. I have been saying that the last 20 years might have been about economic reform but the next 20 years are going to be about infrastructure reform.

This budget had no long-term plan to fix a crumbling infrastructure—our clogged roads, slow internet connections, near empty dams and overburdened ports. That is why a Beazley Labor government will establish Infrastructure Australia to drive infrastructure planning, development and investment. Its first task will be to conduct a national infrastructure audit to assess Australia’s infrastructure needs and analyse their adequacy, condition and capacity. It will also prioritise future needs based on population trends, settlement patterns, urban growth, migration, demographic change, industry structure and geographic distribution. Labor will also establish the Building Australia Fund and allow the fund to consider all investment opportunities suitable to its return and risk objectives. This could include commercially attractive infrastructure investments. While the government is playing at the edges of short-term budgets, the Australian Labor Party actually has a plan for the future—long-term solutions based on long-term economic prosperity and the social wellbeing of Australia, underpinned by adequate and efficient national infrastructure, particularly critical in sectors such as transport, communication and utilities.

But, just as importantly, education, skills and innovation are also critical in building Australia’s future prosperity. New ideas and fresh thinking can give us an edge in competitive global markets. In Australia the debate about innovation policy has gone nowhere in recent years. Over the coming months, Labor will be consulting widely on a plan to reverse Australia’s backwards slide in innovation. We are looking at the whole suite of innovation policy for the 21st century to answer the question: how does a small economy like Australia’s become innovative and competitive in a fast-changing global economy?

I will conclude on something that I spoke on earlier, but it is just as important in this budget—our dependence on foreign oil, which is growing markedly. Petroleum based fuels account for about 97 per cent of our transport needs but we are consuming them three times faster than we are finding them. Plugging that gap is being done with imports. The equation is simple: as our dependency grows so does that exposure to any volatility in supply and in prices. No-one needs to be an expert in this area to realise the pressure on fuel prices in this country. This budget was a lost opportunity, a massive one—an opportunity where the Treasurer decided to sprinkle some crumbs and give out some tax cuts but not look at the long-term plans and needs of this country, and for that the Treasurer should be condemned along with his budget.

Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The 2006 budget and the appropriation bills that accompany it represent a massive missed opportunity. Despite the rivers of gold flowing into the hands of John Howard and Peter Costello, the government has failed to lay down a coherent long-term strategy to lock in Australia’s economic future prosperity. This is reflected by Labor’s second reading amendment in the following terms:

(1)

despite record high commodity prices and rising levels of taxation the Government has failed to secure Australia’s long term economic fundamentals and that it should be condemned for its failure to:

(a)

stem the widening current account deficit and trade deficits;

(b)

reverse the reduction in public education and training investment;

(c)

provide national leadership in infrastructure including high speed broadband for the whole country;

(d)

further reduce effective marginal tax rates to meet the intergenerational challenge of greater workforce participation;

(e)

provide accessible and affordable long-day childcare for working families;

(f)

fundamentally reform our health system to equip it for a future focused on prevention, early intervention and an ageing population;

(g)

expand and encourage research and development to move Australian industry and exports up the value-chain;

(h)

provide for the economic, social and environmental sustainability for our region, and

(i)

address falling levels of workplace productivity; and that

(2)

the Government’s extreme industrial relations laws will lower wages and conditions for many workers and do nothing to enhance productivity, participation or economic growth; and that ...

Given the agreed constraints on time I will restrict my remarks to those matters within my capacity as shadow minister for industry. I was particularly interested in the comments by former Liberal Party leader John Hewson in an opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review of 26 May when he said of the Howard-Costello government:

If leadership is about action, and not just position, if its very essence is the capacity to formulate, articulate and market a vision, develop a strategy to achieve it, and to turn that into reality, we are being left high and dry ... government today is dominated by short-termism. It’s reactive ... and it’s blatantly political and opportunistic.

In failing to systematically address key issues that go to the very heart of the kind of society and economy Australia will be in the future, this budget is symbolic of the Howard-Costello government’s long-term, longstanding complacency and neglect: the massive widening in our current account and trade deficits; the half-trillion dollars of foreign debt; neglect and underresourcing of skills, education and training; the ad hoc pork-barrel approach to our nationally significant economic infrastructure; and the totally inadequate and misguided approach to the promotion of innovation in Australian industries.

It is these issues that are imperative to Australia being an open, competitive, dynamic trading economy confident of its ongoing place in the world. It is precisely these issues that have largely been ignored in this year’s budget. Our future prosperity as a nation will not be guaranteed simply by having more raw materials or trying to have lower labour costs by slashing wages and conditions through extreme industrial relations changes. Australia’s future prosperity will only be guaranteed by being internationally competitive. To do so it is essential that the Howard-Costello government commit to taking the Australian economy to a new level of productivity growth. Crucial to this is building world-class infrastructure and encouraging businesses and individuals to be innovative and competitive in their respective fields.

It is no secret that, as a nation, over the past 15 years we have enjoyed some of our best economic times. This strong performance, however, has not been experienced throughout all parts of the Australian economy. China is now the key to delivering Australia’s historically high commodity prices and historically favourable terms of trade. It has also been a key factor in our declining manufacturing performance over the past decade, hand in hand with the complacency and neglect of the Howard-Costello government in this area.

While commodities are booming, it has been easy for the Howard-Costello government to put the challenges of Australian industry to one side. However, neither history nor logic suggests current commodity prices and terms of trade will last indefinitely. When commodity prices do return to historic average levels, our economy will rebalance. Despite comments by Treasury secretary Ken Henry in recent weeks to the Australian Business Economists—he said, ‘Some of this loss of manufacturing jobs is, no doubt, precisely what theory predicts would be the consequence of an increase in the terms-of-trade’—it would be both prudent and sensible to make sure that as a nation we are prepared for the challenges of the future. This requires a retention of adequate diversity in our economy.

Over the past 30 years manufacturing has been slowly declining as a proportion of GDP, from 19 per cent in 1975 to less than 12 per cent today. In fact, according to the December quarter national accounts and the more recent March quarter national accounts, parts of Australian manufacturing were in fact technically in recession. This poor performance continues to hurt our economy and see job losses. Since the election of the Howard-Costello government in 1996, we have seen more than 145,000 Australian manufacturing jobs lost, of which approximately 60,000 have occurred since the government’s re-election in 2004—that is the equivalent of nearly six per cent of all jobs in Australian manufacturing industries. There is little doubt that Australian manufacturing is bleeding and bleeding badly. If these trends were to continue, Australia would cease to have a manufacturing industry by 2025. Given this urgency, the industry innovation initiatives announced in the budget are, at best, a belated modest step which come off the back of 10 long years of Howard government complacency and neglect.

The measures to establish an early stage venture capital limited partnership attempt to introduce some differential treatment for early stage venture capital but, in doing so, propose some bizarre restrictions around how large a fund may be—$100 millionand when a fund must divest its assets, $250,000. Despite commitments by the Prime Minister at the last election that Australia would have ‘a world’s best practice investment vehicle for venture capital’, Australian venture capital represents only 0.1 per cent of our GDP. This is a third of the OECD average and stifles innovation by leading to an overreliance on equity markets to fund new ventures. Under the Howard-Costello government Australia has developed little venture capital and most of what does exist avoids technologically innovative investments.

In addition, the funding for the early stage venture capital limited partnership initiative in the budget is exceptionally modest, with an anticipated cost to revenue of only $5 million over the next three years—hardly the kind of money that is likely to have a substantive impact on the Australian venture capital industry and, in turn, on Australian innovation. Measures to ease the restrictions on the existing venture capital limited partnerships and a further round of funding for the Innovation Investment Fund deliver only in part what industry has long advocated. The true test of these will be whether the venture capital industry under the current arrangements can deliver innovation outcomes without government support in the future. The venture capital measures announced in the budget exist in a strategic vacuum, with the government refusing to release the formal industry review concluded last year.

Despite the coalition’s 1996 election manufacturing policy to ‘improve Australia’s international ranking in terms of expenditure on business R&D as a share of GDP’, R&D initiatives in the budget are underwhelming, at best, with the government simply promising $28 million over four years merely to support ‘the administration of the R&D tax concession’. This occurs when Australia’s business R&D remains at only half the average of OECD nations. Today business R&D as a proportion of GDP is a meagre 0.89 per cent. The OECD average as a percentage of GDP is 1.5 per cent. At 0.89 per cent of GDP, Australia ranks 15th in the R&D effort in the OECD, recording half the effort achieved by the United States, a third of that of Sweden and substantially less than that of both Germany and Belgium. To put this into acute perspective, multinational capitals companies such as Merck, Intel and Microsoft separately spend as much on R&D as the sum of all Australian businesses.

Today expenditure on R&D is no better than it was nearly 10 years ago, when the Howard-Costello government came to office. It should be much higher, it could have been higher and it needs to be higher. At a time when, for example, companies in China have been boosting expenditure on R&D at a rate of 21 per cent per annum, the government’s inaction in this area effectively amounts to gross public policy negligence.

Finally, budget measures announced to boost Invest Australia to attract and facilitate foreign direct investment to Australia are welcome and well targeted to the rapidly-emerging economies of India and the United Arab Emirates. The obvious question, however, is why the government has taken so long to try to establish a presence in these rapidly-growing and important markets, particularly India. As far as Invest Australia is concerned, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, with success contingent on the attraction of truly productive foreign investment. Overall, the industry innovation measures contained in this budget reveal that the Howard-Costello government has no real strategy to deal with the key issues surrounding the international competitiveness of Australian industry.

Labor believes that it is in our national interest and our public interest to have a strong and vibrant industrial base, especially the parts that are of high value and high skills. The future of a viable and successful manufacturing industry providing jobs for Australians must be based on a foundation of skills, quality and innovation, not on an industrial relations approach aimed at reducing wages, conditions and entitlements, and removing job security. By adopting a national approach with an emphasis on innovation, on doing things better and on being smarter, and by relying on our superior technical and intellectual knowledge, Australian industry can build back its international competitiveness. Only in this way can we ensure a modern, dynamic and successful industrial future.

The period since 1996 represents a missed opportunity that has hurt Australia’s ability to remain internationally competitive. This budget repeats that missing of opportunity. In a modern, dynamic and outwardly-looking Australian economy, real productivity improvements can only come from a commitment to the adequacy of our infrastructure, a commitment to the education, skills and training of our workforce, and a commitment to our ability to support and foster innovation and the commercialisation of our ideas. Although the government makes noises about the need to improve productivity, it is trying to achieve this through an industrial relations approach that will reduce wages, particularly at the lower end of the scale. Australia needs a government that is committed to the national interest and long-term solutions, rather than political considerations, short-term fixes and the easy, lazy attempt of simply lowering wages. Australia needs a government that has a vision and is committed to building an economy geared towards long-term production, not just short-term consumption. Only a Labor government will effect the long-term planning that is required for these needs of our nation’s future.

Debate adjourned.