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

When the House adjourned debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008 I was dealing with some of the issues that relate to various family groups. The first group I was dealing with was families—in particular, families with children. The current budget proposes that the childcare rebate—which has been brought forward, and the current year’s payment will be made at the same time—will mean a reimbursement to families of $4,200 per child for each year the child uses child care. It is possible for families with two children under the age of five to be reimbursed up to $16,000 for childcare costs over two years. In addition, the childcare benefit for low-income families with one child will increase by 10 per cent, which is about $20.50 per week.

In addition, I draw the attention of the House to the general tax cuts that apply in 2007-08. Taxpayers with an income of $30,000 will receive a tax cut of $21.15 per week. It will stay at that level in 2008-09. This year, taxpayers with an income of $80,000 a year will receive a tax cut of $14.42 per week, but next year they will receive a tax cut of $24 per week. In addition, there will be a low-income tax offset of $7,500 per year for families with an income of only $30,000. That is a return to families on lower, modest incomes in support of their families.

In addition to support for families, there will be a boost in educational skills and standards, with an extra $843 million over four years. This will go to standards of education for our children. There is also funding to develop core standards in English, maths, science and Australian history. That is another family measure in this budget. As I remarked when speaking previously on this measure, there are so many matters relating to families and other sections of the community, and the only way to look at them is to look at people groups and see how each group is affected. There is an extra $549 million over four years to help address skills shortages by boosting Australian apprenticeships. On top of that, there is $1,000, tax free, for each apprentice under the age of 30, to assist them and support them in training in an apprenticeship.

There is a training voucher of $500 per annum for first- and second-year apprentices. And for mature apprentices—those over the age of 30—there is a subsidy of up to $13,000 a year to help them into the apprenticeship. They are mostly mature age apprentices. They are men or women who have probably taken up another career but have realised there are benefits in trades and, late in their career, have taken on an apprenticeship. I know a number of people who have taken up this option. However, they often have children. They are committed, with families and mortgages. Sometimes, it is really hard for them to meet the cost of attending TAFE on a regular basis at the same time as working for a boss as an apprentice on only a modest wage. This is a subsidy to assist those mature age students over the age of 30 to gain their apprenticeship skills and to go on to be much valued trades men and women.

I must mention health in regard to families, because most mothers and fathers worry about health programs and the security of them for their children. The government is providing, more as a preventive measure, $124 million for an after-school community program. This is the Active After-school Communities Program, and it is an excellent program. I have a number of them operating in my electorate. It is a delight to see children involved in active sports and also to watch them try new sports and different activities. This will help keep children healthy, and maintaining their involvement in such activities will be conducive to their continuing health.

There is $32 million over four years for Medicare rebates for extended out-of-surgery hours for GP care. It is a sensible thing to support doctors to visit households to provide after-hours care. It is something that we have lacked in our community, and this budget delivers it.

Another group that we need to look at as part of the budget is small business. The small business community will receive tax cuts worth about $540 million over four years. We will be cutting down compliance costs, because if anything makes small business really annoyed it is trying to handle the paperwork. As I have said on a number of occasions, an Australian business which is spending more time on paperwork than its competitors do in Japan, the United States or any else is disadvantaged. The role of government—in my view it is above all others—in regard to small business is to reduce the amount of paperwork for tax and other compliance measures so as to allow people to spend more time on the job, doing what they are best at: running a business, and supporting their families and their employees. From 1 July 2007, businesses with a turnover below $75,000 a year will not need to register for the GST. Of course, they can register and, if they do, they can pay their GST annually. They can make their pay-as-you-go instalments annually. That is a change from $50,000 to $75,000 for small businesses reporting for the GST.

The new Commercial Ready program is fascinating. It is an excellent program which encourages innovation. It takes an innovation from the point where the prototype is finished and carries it into commercial production. The new Commercial Ready Plus program will provide $90 million in small grants to small businesses. Small businesses are usually the innovative ones but often they are not structured to carry their innovation to the next stage. The $90.3 million in the program will greatly assist small business in that process.

This year there will be three new Australian technical colleges, adding to the 25 we have already established. These colleges are brilliant; they are absolutely terrific. They are run by a committee, which is headed by an industry representative. Their programs are practical and are related to industry, TAFE and other continuing education institutions. So, at the end of two years at senior high school, when students graduate at the end of year 12 with their HSC, their first year’s apprenticeship will be fully completed. They will be ready for work, with an understanding of the workplace, and have their qualifications. Employers and students whom I have spoken to think this is a great program because it is so practical and so relevant to the workplace. For some time we have had the successful Tools for Your Trade program. This provides $800 towards tool kits for first year apprentices in areas of skill shortages, and that will continue.

All of these policies are built on reforms that have already been introduced and have produced increased productivity. Despite what the Australian Labor Party and the union movement say, Work Choices is for business. I have seen both employers and employees committed to this program. We could not have gained all of those extra workers if the program was a failure.

Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You’re using the wrong word.

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

You are being absolutely ridiculous carrying on about this. There are many more people in work. They value their jobs, they are being honoured for once and they think that it is great.

I need to deal with older Australians. A $500 dollar bonus will be provided to individuals receiving the utilities allowance or the seniors concession card. Both members of an eligible couple will receive the $500 bonus, and that will be paid by 30 June, at the end of this financial year. Recipients of the carer payment will receive a $1,000 bonus. I heard members of the Labor Party say in the adjournment speech last night—I think it was the member for Prospect or the member for Fowler—that there was no support for carers. How absolutely wrong they are. In the budget, recipients of the carer payment will receive a $1,000 bonus payment, while those who receive a carers allowance will be given a $600 bonus payment, and they will be paid by 30 June. That is recognition of the invaluable work of older Australians.

The tax offset is another measure for pensioners and senior Australians. Singles on an annual income of up to $25,867 and couples on an annual income of up to $43,360 will not be taxed. This is an excellent program for older Australians. They will be able to take advantage of the senior Australian tax offset. I commend this budget as one of the best Australia has seen.

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

Before the debate on this bill is resumed, I remind the House that it has been agreed that a general debate be allowed covering this bill and orders of the day Nos 2 to 5.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008. This budget bill is full of the clever politics we have come to expect from a very clever politician in the form of our current Prime Minister. Finally there is something for our universities. Finally there are tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners. But there are some things which were left wanting in this budget. There was complete neglect on climate change. There was nothing to genuinely address the problems of hundreds of thousands of Australians who go without dental care.

There is another thing that is missing in this budget bill: it did not contain the term ‘Work Choices’. Of course, when the budget was presented we did not publicly know at the time that the Howard government, poll driven as ever, had finally worked out that the terminology ‘Work Choices’ was poison in the Australian electorate. It was before they apparently issued a directive to people who serve on a telephone advice line, answering queries about workplace matters, to look at a sign on a wall which says: ‘We have changed our name to Workplace Infoline; all references to Work Choices should now be changed to workplace relations.’ It was before the Prime Minister had commenced to give long answers in this parliament, studiously avoiding the terminology ‘Work Choices’, and it was before the Prime Minister came into this parliament and tried—unbelievably—to deny that the government’s industrial relations legislation was called Work Choices. But perhaps the Treasurer was the first one to obey the new edict, ‘Don’t mention Work Choices,’ by not mentioning it in his budget speech.

We have known for a long period of time that Work Choices as a term, as a concept, as a package of laws was on the nose. We know, of course, that the government have acknowledged that Work Choices was ripping people off—ripping away their pay rates, penalty rates and overtime rates. It is not the ripping off that the government object to—because they stood idly by, month after month in this parliament, not just neglecting to do anything about this ripping off but delighting in it, coming to the dispatch box and defending it—they are opposed to people thinking they are being ripped off when we are in the shadow of an election campaign. Consequently the government have taken the decision to cleanse the term ‘Work Choices’ because their pollsters have told them to, but they have not cleansed the concept of Work Choices and they are more than happy for the rip-off to continue; they are more than happy for hardworking Australian families to still be ripped off by these laws.

The Work Choices policy started unravelling in the days just before the budget. On the Friday before the budget, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Joe Hockey—who now has been relegated in effect to the minister assisting the Prime Minister on workplace relations—was told to be at a press conference to hear for the first time that the Prime Minister was going to change the workplace relations laws or at least pretend to change them in part. I challenged the minister, when he gave an address on the matter of public importance debate earlier today, to deny the now publicly circulating claim that the first time he heard about the changes to industrial relations laws was while he stood beside the Prime Minister at that press conference. He clearly did not choose to distance himself from that claim so, given he had a full opportunity to do that—15 minutes in the parliament—and did not do so, we are entitled to assume that the minister knew nothing about these changes; he was just told to stand silently at a press conference.

We know that, for the minister for workplace relations, this comes as yet another point in a career that has had spectacular half pikes, double twists and double turns; however, I am sure that on this occasion he would have taken full marks from the judges. On twisting and turning: in the minister’s matter of public importance contribution today, he made some assertions about the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook. Within it, there are expenditure matters that I cannot leave unchallenged because, unless they are challenged on the public record, they could mislead Australians. I would assume that the minister knew when he was making these statements in the parliament that the record is different from how he construed it.

It is true to say that MYEFO recorded, across the forward estimates, what was referred to as the item ‘Workplace relations reform: raising awareness of the Office of Workplace Services and the Office of the Employment Advocate’. That allocation included $7.3 million for the 2006-07 year, $7.2 million for the year after and then $3 million each for the last two out years. This allocation of $7.3 million for the 2006-07 financial year was described as being ‘part of raising public awareness of the services provided by the Office of Workplace Services and the Office of the Employment Advocate’. It specifically said the education and awareness campaign included newspaper and radio advertising.

There are some important matters here. Firstly, this is an allocation to two services that the government has now renamed. Secondly, it is an allocation confined on its face to newspaper and radio advertising. Thirdly, when we asked the government about this in the Senate estimates round following MYEFO in November 2006, the government, as is its wont in Senate estimates and particularly the wont of the minister for workplace relations, refused to provide appropriate details. The government described the allocation as being ‘for targeted educational activities’. When pressed, the government said it was for things like the website, pamphlets and so forth. When asked to provide a breakdown, it was taken on notice and not provided. When asked whether this expenditure would extend to meeting the costs of research activities, polling and market research and the like, the government specifically denied that. Then, of course, the Senate estimates committee got on to the question of how much propaganda was already lying around for the government’s so-called Work Choices laws. The committee was advised by Mr Pratt, from the department, in respect of the number of booklets that they had on hand on 2 November 2006:

At present we have around four million remaining. However, I am advised that over the course of the next couple of weeks, when a back order is processed, we will be down to 3.347 million.

Having opened up this matter, the minister might now come into the parliament and tell us how many of those booklets are going to be pulped because they say ‘Work Choices’ and the government no longer wants to say ‘Work Choices’ and what the waste will be of Australian taxpayer money.

There were major reasons why the opposition did not assume that the new expenditure campaign by the government on industrial relations came from that allocation. The reasons are very simple: the government has clearly polled, and it was denied in Senate estimates that that line item would finance polling. Either the government instructed departmental bureaucrats to not tell the truth then, or it is inconceivable that the minister’s statement in the House today that this is the line item that this campaign is being financed from is correct. Second, the allocation, as I have indicated, is for $7.3 million. We know that just one week’s cost of this campaign in terms of the booked advertisements is more than $4 million. That is before you add in any production costs. So, if you were not going to exceed this line item, it would be impossible to finance a full second week of the campaign. If it costs you $4.1 million for a week of the campaign, maybe you could finance another day or two, depending on what the production costs had been, but you certainly could not even finance a whole second week because that would take you up to $8.2 million plus production costs—in excess of this budget. So if this budget line item was going to support this expenditure then the government ought to have been able to say, when asked at various points: ‘This is the budget line item that supports the expenditure. We will not exceed it. That means that the campaign cannot run as long as two weeks.’ It would have been a very simple answer, but it is a simple answer that has never been given by the government.

Indeed, we had the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations on the John Laws program on 21 May, yesterday, saying, ‘Well, John’—talking to John Laws—‘our advertising booking is less than $5 million.’ John Laws says, ‘A week?’ and the minister says, ‘No, for this first tranche.’ How can there be a second tranche of any substantial nature if all they are spending is $7.3 million and they have spent $4.1 million in a week, plus production costs? So clearly, when the minister was on radio yesterday, he was not saying that the government’s expenditure would be confined to this $7.3 million.

Because we are used to the minister making errors in every interview he does, no-one would think that an error by the minister was anything unusual. But the twisting and turning of the Prime Minister on ABC Radio yesterday is truly extraordinary if the minister has claimed that the only expenditure that is going to be engaged in is the $7.3 million in MYEFO. When he was asked on AM about ‘how much the advertising campaign that you are now putting forward on the fairness test will cost’—that was the question—the Prime Minister said this:

Well, we will make that known. We’ve never said we won’t make it known, but at this stage, while the details of that campaign are being fully settled, it’s not possible to put a precise figure on it.

Can I say this about that advertising campaign? You may have seen it last night.

The Prime Minister then goes on to give descriptions as to what he thinks is the nature of it. Then he is asked:

Well, will you run focus groups after these ads to see if they have worked? And will those results be fed into the Coalition campaign?

The Prime Minister says:

… not going to talk about focus groups. I mean let’s not play that silly game.

He is asked again by the interviewer, Chris Uhlmann:

Well, don’t you sometimes run focus groups after advertising campaigns?

To which the Prime Minister says:

I don’t talk about ways in which the Government tries to interpret what the electorate is feeling. I spend a great deal of time travelling around this country, and a great deal of time listening to people.

He is then pressed again on the question of focus groups, and he says:

I don’t think it is reasonable of me to start going into the details of the myriad ways in which we try and assess public opinion.

So the Prime Minister clearly did not want to give a total quantum for this campaign. If it were being financed by this MYEFO expenditure, he would have said, ‘Yes, there’s a budgeted figure; it’s 7.3 and we won’t spend a dollar more.’ He did not say that. He has left the door well and truly open to spend tens of millions of dollars more than that MYEFO allocation. And the Prime Minister has left the door well and truly open to spending no doubt millions of taxpayers’ dollars on research. He could not have done that out of this allocation, when departmental bureaucrats specifically denied that it would be used for such research purposes.

It is crystal clear that the claim that was made by the minister, during the matter of public importance debate, about the MYEFO allocation cannot be sustained when you hold it up to the light of day. The minister might want to come back into the parliament and clarify the matter. Whilst he is doing that, he might choose to clarify how much polling the government have done on Work Choices—he might even just clarify how much they have done this financial year—what it cost and how much in total in advertising they will spend. If it is $4.1 million a week, will it go for two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, 10 weeks, 15 weeks or every week between now and the election campaign? How much will be spent? Will they engage in taxpayer funded polling to assess whether the advertisements are fixing their political problem? He could come into the parliament and clarify each of those.

We know from what the minister has said that we will not see before this parliament the details of the thing that this advertising is supposedly going to until we are in this House on Monday. I state again my strong belief that, on the basis of these facts, all you can conclude is that the government got polling, it designed an advertising campaign and it is now desperately retrofitting a policy to that advertising campaign. That is why the advertising has gone out first and we will see the bill second.

The people squeezed in the middle of that clever, cunning, manipulative politics are honest Australian employers and hardworking Australian employees, who are entitled to clarity in their workplaces about what the law is today. If you were an honest employer today—and this country has millions of them—it would be impossible for you to truly know how to make a legal Australian workplace agreement with someone who earns less than $75,000 a year. If you made an error, you would be liable for back pay later, and that back pay might become payable at the worst of possible times for your business, causing severe cash flow problems and severe problems for the sustainability of the business. The contempt with which this government has treated honest Australian employers and honest Australian employees with this manoeuvre is breathtaking in its sheer arrogance. Honest employers around the country should be ringing up Liberal members of parliament, whether it be their local member or their senator, and saying that they do not want to be treated with this style of contempt by the Howard government.

Of course, when we go to the rest of the federal budget there is more that reveals how ridiculously fake the Howard government’s manoeuvrings are. Overall, the budget reveals that the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations will receive an additional 15 staff. However, the area of the department under which the Office of the Employment Advocate operates—that is under outcome 2 in the budget papers—will actually be cut by 57 staff. The budget also reveals that the Office of the Employment Advocate is being allocated an additional $2.6 million, which is just a seven per cent increase in funding from the previous year. In the year prior to this, funding for the Office of the Employment Advocate increased by 17 per cent. Let us put aside the name change; they are the budget allocations for the new agency that is supposed to administer this so-called fairness test.

The Howard government wants us to believe that, in the year that the agency must implement a new resource intensive process to assess each and every Australian workplace agreement—and the Howard government, of course, tells us that 1,000 new Australia workplace agreements are being signed every day—this will be done in circumstances where the agency will have fewer staff members and will have a smaller increase in their funding than in previous years. We have been told how time and resource intensive this process will be by both the Prime Minister and the Office of the Employment Advocate itself. According to the Howard government, each and every Australian workplace agreement lodged will be assessed against its new test. For the test to work in any way at all, each and every Australian workplace agreement would need to be checked in detail and, specifically, a check will need to be made that proper compensation is received for each protected condition that is stripped away. Of course, ‘protected condition’ is in inverted commas because they are so routinely stripped away that they are not protected at all.

We need to understand the level of detail and scrutiny each and every AWA will require. Pay will need to be checked to see if the so-called fairness test applies, then each and every so-called protected condition will need to be checked to see whether it exists in the agreement or whether it has been stripped away. Then, for each and every condition that has been stripped, a calculation will need to be made of the monetary impact of this condition being stripped away. Then there will need to be a comparison to the total pay in the agreement. But, if the worker has some other form of monetary or non-monetary compensation—say, extra leave or a car parking space or access to training—the impact of these will need to be estimated and this will need to be taken into account when certifying whether the agreement passes the fake fairness test.

The difficulty in such a task has been summed up by Peter McIlwain, who heads the Office of the Employment Advocate, in the following way. He said:

We have considered conducting such analysis. We have looked long and hard at the challenges that that sort of statistical analysis would pose for an agency of the OEA’s size, and I have determined that we will not conduct that analysis ...

He denies, effectively, that it can be done with the kind of resource levels they have.

The Howard government got its advertising campaign, it does not have its law and, even if it had its law, it does not have the inspectors to make sure that its law is anything more than hollow words on a piece of paper. That is clearly what the budget papers provide. It is an undeniable reality and what flows from that is that this is all about clever politics. It is all about fooling the electorate. It is all about cunning politics from this government. (Time expired)

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

It gives me great pleasure to contribute to this debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008 and related bills. Let me say to the member for Lalor that this side of the parliament has broad representation from the community, not the narrow base from the unions that we see over there. This particular member was a unionist, and I can assure you that I do know what goes on in unions. I recall when I started work as a canecutter I had to have a ticket before I could sign on. I was not allowed to start work until I had a union ticket. Of course, the union was very tricky in those days too, because they came around in November for another ticket, so they got two tickets out of the employees in the one year. I have to say we never got a vote to have a say in what the union bosses were deciding on our behalf; they made all the decisions. I can see Australia going back to compulsory unionism, with union fees of up to $500 and workers being forced to contribute to the Labor Party’s union mates who supply the funds that run the dishonest campaigns on work practices that we have just heard the member for Lalor talking about.

I want to congratulate the Treasurer. I think when all the political dust has settled Peter Costello will go down in history as one of the best treasurers this country has ever seen—and I do not say that lightly. I came into this House in 1996, when the Howard government won office. I certainly recall the debate that took place about economic management at that time. I can recall very clearly the member for Brand during the election campaign saying, ‘We are in surplus.’ But, of course, when the Howard government came to power we found out very quickly that in fact the deficit for that year was $10.6 billion. So I have no doubt in my mind that, if the Australian people wrongly put their trust in the Labor Party, we would see that profligate spending yet again. Nothing has changed over there. A few faces have changed, but the ideology has not changed. If you look behind some of the statements that are made by individuals, you will see what their agenda really is even though we have a facade out there at present with them trying to say, ‘We are fiscal conservatives.’

I watched the opposition very closely when the Treasurer was delivering the budget, and I have to say it was a fairly glum frontbench. At the press conference later the member for Lilley could really only say, ‘Me too. We would do exactly the same.’ That spelt out the fact that the Treasurer had brought down a very good budget. As I walk around my electorate of Page on the North Coast of New South Wales, that is the response I am getting from people in the street—they think this was a very responsible and good budget.

Let us look at some of the areas that the budget covered. We all know that basic health, particularly the hospital situation, is covered by the states in Australia. There is often confusion in the community about this and I think it is encouraged by the opposition who try to somehow confuse the people about Federation and just exactly what the states are responsible for and what the federal government is responsible for. It is fairly clear that the federal government is responsible for Medicare and the PBS, it is responsible for handing the GST to the states and it also has an agreement with the states on health care which funds about 50 per cent of the public hospital system.

In my state of New South Wales, if you look very closely at the contribution of the state government, you will see that it is appalling and abysmal. If you really want to see how the Labor Party acts in government then you should have a close look at New South Wales. The income for New South Wales in just over 10 years has gone from $25 billion to $40 billion, yet we have a government that cannot provide basic health services, has starved the public school system and cannot contribute to the road system. In fact, if we have a close look—and I will come to the Pacific Highway in a minute—we will see that they are not contributing to that particular sector at all. You have to ask the question: where is the money going? In 10 years, where has all of that money—which is something like $15 billion or $16 billion—gone in the state budget? I think that is a question that needs to be asked over and over again because this government can record surpluses with good management but the states cannot even come close to it. In fact, New South Wales is going back into deficit.

We have provided in this budget some support to the dental area. Let me remind the parliament again from my experience in the New South Wales government that public dental care in hospitals is in the state health budget. It is not a federal responsibility. But, because the states have neglected this particular area, the budget provides $2,125 where a patient is referred by a doctor because their teeth are causing them a serious health problem.

We are also addressing a situation that I think has become very apparent—there is a shortage of dentists, particularly in the country areas of Australia. We are providing $65 million over four years for a regional dental school. We are also trying to encourage students from the city to enrol in the dental school—I think the funding is going through Charles Sturt University—so that we can get more dentists in rural areas.

Research is always a very important area. We have some of the best research scientists in the world. Because we have the fiscal responsibility to provide a surplus and are able to fund some of these things, the budget is providing $486 million for a world-class health and medical facility. Obviously that is going to provide benefits into the future, particularly for the research needs of the community.

There are a lot of retirees in my area, between pensioners and superannuants, and the budget has taken into consideration the contribution those people have made to Australia. If Australia is in a period of wealth—and I think that there is no doubt that it is—then they should benefit as well as all other Australians. The government has been able to provide $500 for aged Australians, which they should receive by the end of June, a $1,000 carer payment and a $600 carer allowance for every eligible person in care. If you look at superannuants, you will see that we have increased the levels whereby people do not pay tax. For a couple it is now over $50,000. For a single it is up to $25,000. Superannuants can earn income up to that level before they start to pay tax. That is undoubtedly a very big benefit to many people in my electorate who have retired on superannuation.

There are some areas that we really need to look at closely, particularly having heard the Leader of the Opposition in his reply to the budget talking about where Labor would find some savings in the budget. Coming from rural Australia, I am well aware of where the Labor Party usually find savings. It is usually from programs for regional Australia. We have already heard the Labor Party say on several occasions where they believe they could make some of these cuts. I think that the rural people of Australia need to understand that programs like Roads to Recovery, which is very well received across Australia and is allowing councils to operate local rural roads, is one of the first areas the Labor Party is going to cut.

We also have to remember Regional Partnerships, which the member for Melbourne and the member for Wills have attacked on many occasions in this particular parliament. Let us not forget how these programs originated. They originated because rural Australia was finding it very difficult. Many of the institutions in small towns in rural Australia were closing down. Rural Australia was not benefiting like the rest of Australia, and it still is not. We have a situation in Australia where the major cities are doing well and the economy is doing well but we have areas in rural Australia that are not doing so well. These programs were to help some of our fellow Australians. Regional Partnerships is one of those programs whereby, if a local community identify what they think will improve their outcomes in the future and are prepared to put in money, the government will support them to ensure long-term employment in some of those regional areas. That is another program that the Labor Party is going to cut.

The black spot program, which was reinstituted by this government—and I am sure some of the members of the Labor Party opposite have benefited from it as well—identifies areas, or potential areas, of serious road accidents, and it helps the states in overcoming those problems by providing finance. That is another area that the Labor Party is going to cut.

We also need to remember that, with the worst drought in 100 years, this government has been very generous. There have been substantial payments and there have been substantial changes in the way that those payments have been made. Having been a minister for agriculture in New South Wales I look at the budget that the New South Wales government is providing for drought and I am appalled at the way that they have cut the funding to drought support. If it were not for the federal government providing for drought relief many of these areas would be in desperate trouble.

Much has been said in this parliament by the member for Grayndler and the member for Kingsford Smith about climate change. They ignore the fact, of course, that this government has been putting forward practical responses over many years—$2 billion in fact has been already spent, including $500 million on low-emissions technology, which, if we are going to do anything about emissions, obviously is a very important area of research to try to overcome some of the greenhouse gases that are being emitted.

We need to look at this very closely. The member for Grayndler comes in here with a clever throwaway line and says, ‘Just sign Kyoto. Just sign it—simple as that.’ Everything will disappear; climate change will be over—just sign Kyoto! In fact, if you have a close look at it, all you will do will be to export jobs, because the restrictions are not on undeveloped countries. I chaired a committee—the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage—in this parliament which made recommendations in this area some years ago. That bipartisan committee said very clearly that they did not believe that anything would change until the developed countries of this world were given credits for putting world’s best technology in developed countries. What that means is that they could reduce their emissions slowly as they brought the undeveloped countries up to better emissions control and gradually closed the gap. I can guarantee you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that that is the only way you are going to get a result, because you are not going to get the developed countries to do that unless you give them some incentive to do it. Let us forget about the Europeans, because they think they have a trade advantage in this. They are playing some games on this particular issue.

If we look at the facts, we also have to inform the public about what this is going to cost—and it is going to cost; there is no doubt about that. The Prime Minister has made it very clear in several statements that this country has to look very closely at modern technology in nuclear generation. Let me give you some facts, Mr Deputy Speaker. You can find a graph in the Switkowski report I think which will back up some of this. If we assume the average household has a $300 power bill, if we go to clean coal technology, which in fact pumps the gases back into the ground, that is double the cost of the present generation. So the family bill would go from $300 a quarter to $600 a quarter. If you had a look at wind, you would find that the family bill would go from $300 a quarter to around $1,000 a quarter. If you had a look at solar, you would find that the family bill would go from $300 a quarter to around $1,500 a quarter. If you looked then at nuclear, gas and thermal in some instances, the family bill would go from $300 to $450. They are rough figures, but they give some indication that nuclear has to be considered in this country. Yet we have the troglodytes opposite who do not want to accept that it has a place in power generation. We know that if we are going to have baseload then the only areas from which we are going to get that baseload is with nuclear, gas, thermal or clean coal. The people have to be told. Do not go out there with some fancy story and say, ‘It is simple. Just sign Kyoto.’ Tell them what it will cost, because, unfortunately, they are going to find out. Some people prefer to put in solar panels. As I said, it is an expensive way to generate electricity and it is intermittent. Nevertheless, the government has supplied $8,000 for solar panels. So if people want to go ahead and save some emissions in that way, that is certainly an option for them.

But you have to do something about the emissions of the big emitters. The United States is obviously the world’s biggest emitter. But have a close look at China and India, because they are rapidly becoming the world’s biggest emitters. If somehow or other we cannot help them to overcome their emissions, we are going to do nothing about the emissions that are going to be going into the atmosphere. Australia contributes something like 1.6 per cent of global greenhouse emissions. Let me quickly add that counted in that is the 20 million cattle we have and an estimate of the amount of methane they emit each day. If you take it as correct that we have 1.6 per cent, the way the Chinese economy is growing it would take six months for them to increase their volume of emissions of greenhouse gases to the level that Australia emits in a year—that is, the increase in the Chinese economy in six months will generate the emissions that we have in Australia in a year. Those are the areas we have to tackle.

I think the minister for the environment has got it right when he says that we have to deal with countries that are clear-felling their forests—Indonesia is obviously one that is close to our doorstep—but you will not stop them until you give them some economic incentive. You have to give those economic incentives if you are going to get some result, because most of these people are worried about the next meal—they are not worried about emissions into the atmosphere; they are worried about the next meal. Obviously that is something that we have to address to see how we can help to stop the waste of forests that are being cleared unnecessarily.

In the short time I have left, I want to make it clear that this government has always been strong on defence. Even when we had to cut some of the budgets to pay off the Labor debt that we inherited of some $96 billion, we did not cut defence. Since then we have increased the spending on defence and the Australian people can feel safe that this government will certainly protect them from terrorism, will certainly protect this country from any threat from outside. We will work closely with our neighbours to ensure that we have good relations with them, which will help in the long run to ensure the safety of this country.

The $10 billion water plan is a very big step in the right direction. I could speak for 20 minutes on this because I was the longest serving minister for water resources in New South Wales. I had no doubt as a minister in New South Wales that we had some problems, especially in the delivery of water. Most of these channels were dug by horse and scoop—a huge undertaking in those days with fairly primitive equipment. But many of them are just passing over sand, and gravel in some instances, and there is a leakage of water that takes place. Water is undoubtedly a very, very scarce resource in this country. So we have to address some of these issues.

The drought at the present time is one of those things endemic to Australia—drought is the norm in Australia. We are experiencing a very bad drought, but we still need to be a lot smarter in the way that we deliver water. During my time we put in drip irrigation, we put in microjet irrigation, we laser levelled areas for rice and bred smaller varieties so that we used less water—all of those things need to be done. I can assure you it is very difficult to get states to agree on anything. And it was very difficult to get states to agree on water policy. The only way is to have an overriding body, such as the federal government—with the cooperation of the states, because they do have the expertise—so we can tackle some of these problems, particularly for irrigation but also for water for towns along the way as well. I commend the budget to the House. I think it is a very responsible budget.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008 and associated appropriation bills are this parliament’s opportunity to approve or disapprove of many of the measures in the budget—many of the measures, but not all. Each year the government makes a series of announcements on budget night, welcomed with various degrees of warmth or disdain depending on the announcement, which are announced with various degrees of hoopla and ceremony. But the enactment of those changes does not happen immediately on budget night. Let us have a look at some of the changes that were announced, not in this budget but in the last budget, the 2006-07 budget. Eight measures announced in the 2006-07 budget last May—that is, 12 months ago—have still not been implemented. Four of the eight are currently in the House, in various bills which will be debated tomorrow and the day after, but that legislation was only introduced after this year’s budget was brought in. So measures are announced in one year’s budget but not introduced into the House until after the next year’s budget.

This underlines a problem I have spoken about in the House previously and which is a major focus of my time. In fact, there are two related problems: the length of time it takes this government to implement tax changes announced in budgets and at other times, and the poor consultation process that this government embarks upon when implementing those changes, which leads to further delays and to bad law. This is a problem for several reasons: it leads to uncertainty in industry and it leads to a disincentive for investment. It creates confusion for businesses, particularly small businesses, which do not necessarily have the resources to have highly paid tax advice on how to navigate through these announced changes. This government has taken legislation by press release to new levels, and fixing this problem will be one of my top priorities should the Labor Party win office later this year and I become Assistant Treasurer.

There are other examples of why I am talking about this tonight, apart from the measures that were announced in last year’s budget. Let us have a look at some of the other measures that have been announced by this government but not yet implemented—press releases issued, credit claimed, but no action. Aspects of the simplified imputation system, including the 45-day rule; aspects of tax consolidation, changes announced but not yet implemented; financial assets and liabilities, including the introduction of a regime of taxation for commodity hedges; tax timing rules, disposal rules and synthetic arrangements in relation to financial arrangements; trust loss rules; amendment to the foreign currency provisions announced by the Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer in his press release on 5 August 2004—that is, not the current Assistant Treasurer, but the previous one—and harmonisation of anti-avoidance tests within the income tax legislation. That is a list prepared not by me but by the Institute of Chartered Accountants, which I fully endorse.

And then there are the famous reforms to section 51AD and division 16D of the tax act. If I had a dollar for every time I have spoken about this in the House, I would be a very rich man indeed because this government has been completely negligent when it comes to these reforms. I note that the Financial Review ran a story this week with a hint from the government that they were about to reform section 51AD of the tax act. ‘Soon,’ they said. In an election year—five minutes to midnight—they are going to reform section 51AD ‘soon’.

Forgive me for not getting too excited, because we have heard it all before. Let us have a look at the history of this particular section of the tax act. The government has admitted that section 51AD impedes investment in infrastructure. They have admitted that—they agree with that, they agree that it is a problem. The then Assistant Treasurer—not this one, not the one before, but the one before that—Senator Coonan issued a press release on 26 June 2003 which said:

… the Government is committed to reforming the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 provisions (Section 51AD and the associated Division 16D), which have particular relevance to financing arrangements in the infrastructure industry …

These provisions are in urgent need of reform.

Not my words, the government’s words: ‘These provisions are in urgent need of reform.’ The date of that statement was 26 June 2003; the legislation is still not in the House four years later. The Assistant Treasurer of the day issues a press release saying the section is in urgent need of reform and four years later we have seen no action by this government. Here we are with infrastructure bottlenecks around the country. The government will say that they have been consulting, but there is absolutely no excuse for a delay of this kind.

Another example of very poor consultation is the proposed changes to the withholding tax treatment of debentures and syndicated loans, which will be before the House tomorrow. At my insistence, this bill was referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Economics to examine the interest withholding exemption. I expressed concerns that the bill created uncertainty and practical problems that could inhibit raising debt finance. The Assistant Treasurer initially stated that the Labor Party did not know what it was talking about—there was absolutely no problem and there had been more than adequate consultation. The Assistant Treasurer then backflipped and agreed to refer the matter to the Senate Economics Committee. Submissions to the committee demonstrated the appalling lack of consultation undertaken by the government on this measure in Tax Laws Amendment (2006 Measures No. 7) Bill, which directly contradicts the Assistant Treasurer’s constant assertions that the government did consult. The Australian Bankers Association noted in its submission:

… a breakdown occurred in the consultation process in relation to the … IWT amendments.

If only the government had done its job in the first place and consulted properly we would not have had substandard legislation and the delay in implementing it would not have occurred. This example underlines my point that poor consultation leads to delays. The relevant legislation would already have been in place if proper consultation had occurred in the first place.

The Assistant Treasurer says: ‘You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say we should be doing more consultation and we should be doing things quicker.’ That just underlines the fact that he does not understand the problem. I am not the only person who thinks that the lack of consultation and time delays are related. The other day I was flicking through the budget submission of the Business Coalition for Tax Reform, which is a well-considered document. Their very first recommendation deals with this point. They make the case very well and I will read into Hansard part of their submission:

The BCTR believes that new taxation policy could often benefit from earlier consultation at the level of detailed policy formulation, before the laws progress to drafting stage. This would enable a more careful consideration of the practical implications of tax policy proposals, and could result in simpler and more effectively targeted measures. In several recent cases, such as the loss usage rules for companies and the promoter penalty regime, policy settings that were inadequately fleshed out before the drafting stage resulted in laws that were too far-reaching and gave poor effect to the stated policy intent.

It is a lengthy quote but a very good one. It goes on:

Improving the consultation at the detailed policy formulation level would, in the BCTR’s view, greatly reduce the subsequent consultation times on the draft legislation, once it is completed. It would also contribute to developing legislation that is simple, clear, more certain and easier to comply with. As is currently the case, consultation on detailed policy development may need to take place on a confidential basis with appropriate external stakeholders, relevant to the measures under consideration.

So I am not the only one who says that if you consult better earlier you can do things quicker. I agree with the Business Coalition for Tax Reform that earlier consultation on tax changes is vital to getting better and quicker tax law. When it comes to the question of how to do that, I am attracted to the New Zealand model of consultation. Under this model, a discussion paper is issued addressing the mischief that the government is trying to address. That discussion paper deals with the various legislative options open for addressing the mischief. Parties are entitled and encouraged to lodge submissions on what would be the best legislative framework for dealing with that mischief. The legislation is then drafted, taking into account those submissions. As I said, I am very attracted to that model. I think the government, having been in office for so long and having its blinkers on, is refusing to look at fresh ways of approaching this matter. But the Labor Party is more than happy to embrace fresh thinking to get tax changes implemented more quickly and to get the quality of law improved so that we will not see the constant stream of errors that we see under this government.

There is no one-size-fits-all model. There will be times when this option is not possible, but it should be used more often. I flag that if we are successful in the election later in the year and form government then we would be looking very closely at going down a road similar to the New Zealand model of consultation on tax changes. I would be looking to engage a small number of experts—two or three—and practitioners in this field to give me advice on how the consultation process could be improved and on how we could move most effectively towards this model or a model similar to it. I would be asking that small group to give me some advice within a couple of months of taking office.

Earlier consultation can lead to better law and quicker changes. It is simply not good enough for this government to sit on reforms for months and years and then put them out for very brief consultation to relevant groups. As I go around the country consulting with groups interested in tax reform—whether they be lobby groups for certain segments of business, whether they be accounting organisations or whether they be legal organisations—I hear time and again, ‘Yes, there is consultation but we get given the tax changes and we have to respond within 24 hours or a couple of days.’ It is pro forma consultation. It is simply not good enough and it will not be good enough under a Labor government.

While talking about reforms taking too long, I noted in the Financial Review today that the Treasurer has flagged changes to section 46 of the Trade Practices Act to protect competition and to protect small business from predatory behaviour. I say of this: it may be too little—we will wait to see the detail—but it is definitely too late. This has been a problem since the Boral case in 2003. Since then, section 46 of the Trade Practices Act has effectively been dead. Since the High Court made that decision, not one action to protect small business has been taken by the ACCC under section 46 of the Trade Practices Act. Why? Not because they have not had concerns about anticompetitive behaviour and not because they have not thought that there have been small businesses adversely affected by the predatory behaviour of people with market power, but because they know that an action under section 46 has zero chance of success. Why would they launch an action? It would be a misuse of taxpayers’ money if they did try to launch an action when they knew it would have zero chance of success. Since 2003, what have we had from the government? Silence. The Labor Party has constantly called for more protection for small business under the Trade Practices Act. The Labor Party—including my predecessor the member for Hunter, the shadow minister for small business, and me—has constantly called for action to be taken, yet the government has been silent. Now, less than six months from an election, the government finally finds it within its wit to act. At least, there are reports that the government is going to act; we are yet to see the legislation. There are hints in the financial papers that the government will be acting.

Section 46 was strengthened in 1986, under a Labor government, by reforms of the then Attorney-General, Lionel Bowen, and it worked well until 2003. It was the Labor Party that put in those extra protections for small business and for competition. Yet in 2003 we saw a High Court decision effectively emasculate those Lionel Bowen reforms and we have seen the government refusing to act for the last four years. Now, at five minutes to midnight, we see a hint from the Treasurer on the front page of the Financial Review that small business will be protected. I think small business is entitled to be cynical about this cunning move just before an election to introduce changes.

We will look at the detail of these proposed changes to see whether they are genuine reforms—to see whether they genuinely will help competition and help to protect small business from predatory behaviour. The Trade Practices Act should be about supporting competition. It is not about supporting one business against another. It is not about supporting one segment of society against another. It is about promoting competition and competitive behaviour and stopping anti-competitive behaviour. We will be looking at the proposed reforms to section 46 in that light and we will be supporting changes, if we are satisfied that they are in the best interests of small business and the economy more generally.

That gives me the opportunity to talk about some other small business matters. It gives me the opportunity to talk about Labor’s response to this budget and the Leader of the Opposition’s announcement of financial services reform. The government talks a lot about changes to disclosure regimes. From the parliamentary secretary to the Treasurer, we have seen lots of discussion papers and the odd self-congratulatory press release but very little change. Labor has announced that it will take an axe to the overprescription of documents. Labor’s standard disclosure form will be no more than three or four pages and it will reflect different products and providers. It will be simpler and easier for both consumers and financial services providers.

We will introduce a superannuation clearing house, not just for small business but for all businesses that seek to use it. I note that my honourable friend the Assistant Treasurer issued a press release—I think on the night of the Leader of the Opposition’s response, or it may have been the next morning—condemning this policy and saying that Labor would direct businesses to put their superannuation into this clearing house. The Assistant Treasurer got it wrong. It was very clear in both the Leader of the Opposition’s speech and the policy document that Labor would not be directing anybody to do anything in relation to superannuation. It would be a voluntary system. It would provide business with an option. I suggest that the Assistant Treasurer really needs to be more careful about the facts and allegations he makes in his press releases about Labor Party policy. He somehow managed, as he normally does, to make some link to the unions and say that this was a union inspired policy. That was the most bizarre part of the press release, but it is what we have come to expect from the Assistant Treasurer.

Labor has also announced other reforms. I believe that one of the most significant is the announcement by the Leader of the Opposition that Labor will provide, based on the national competition model, incentive payments to the state and territory governments to implement regulatory harmonisation and reform. We all know the benefits that national competition policy has had for the Australian economy and that model is a very useful one. Overregulation and lack of harmonisation in regulation is one of the biggest issues not just for small business but for all businesses that operate across state and territory borders. We need to have a cooperative arrangement with state and territory governments to ensure that there is regulatory reform and harmonisation of regulations, where appropriate. Why should the first-aid kit requirements be different in Queensland from those in South Australia and be different again from those in New South Wales? Why should there be other differences? Why should there be differences in the payroll tax bases across the country? These are the sorts of things that Labor will tackle in government, which the government, after 11 years in office, has simply run out of puff to tackle.

Labor has welcomed the government’s acceptance of our BAS Easy proposal, lifting the threshold for compulsory GST registration from $50,000 to $75,000 and cutting the time spent by small business doing GST paperwork. I suspect strongly that that announcement would not have been in the budget unless Labor had announced, a fortnight or so before the budget, that this was our policy. I suspect that, just as has been their policy since the GST was introduced— that the threshold be $50,000—it would have continued on and they would have ignored the recommendation of the Banks report. But, of course, Labor announced that change and then miraculously the government matched that announcement in it budget. The budget announced that the simplified accounting method would be extended to any business that had a mix of GST and non-GST sales purchases. A small business could apply at the tax office to obtain its own specific ratio to be used for future GST calculations. That is very similar to Labor’s Bass Easy proposal.

This is a budget which is more about the election than about the future, but there are elements with which we find ourselves in agreement, of course, because they match Labor policy that was announced in the lead-up to the budget. However, I emphasise that the government needs to do much better. When it comes to implementing its announced changes, much better consultation and more timely implementation are needed to provide business with the certainty that it needs in order to invest and to improve the infrastructure and productivity situation facing this nation.

Kerry Bartlett (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I must admit to being rather bemused to hear the member for Prospect supposedly advocating tax reform and trying to criticise the government for the length of time taken to implement our tax policy. This opposition wants to go to the election without a tax policy, yet it has the hide to criticise us for somehow delaying tax reform. The Labor Party opposition has opposed this government’s tax reform and our substantial tax cuts in the past, has procrastinated on supporting other tax cuts and has begrudgingly and reluctantly taken eight months to support the massive cuts to taxation on superannuation, which, I must say, should sound alarm bells. Those opposite very reluctantly supported the removal of taxation and the substantial cuts to taxation on superannuation. Alarm bells ought to be ringing on what Labor would do to taxation on superannuation were it to be elected. Talk about hypocritical nonsense! The Labor Party wants to go to the election without a tax policy. It has opposed this government’s tax reforms and tax cuts, yet it wants to come in and lecture us about delays in implementing tax policy.

Last year when I spoke on the appropriation bill I suggested that there are four key criteria on which we ought to evaluate a budget. I want to return to that because I think those four criteria still apply. A good budget is one that meets all four criteria: firstly, it is fiscally sound and responsible; secondly, it targets priority areas of expenditure; thirdly, its taxation and redistributive policies equitably allow all members of our community to share in the nation’s prosperity; and, fourthly, it invests for the country’s future. Last year’s budget clearly, emphatically and strongly passed on each of these criteria. I would unequivocally say that this year’s budget does so even more definitely. On all four of those criteria, this year’s budget clearly passes with flying colours.

Let me return to each of these criteria in a bit more detail. The first question is: is this budget fiscally sound? Does its macro-economic impact create the right balance between generating and stimulating growth in the economy, but doing it in a way that does not cause the economy to overheat or add to inflationary pressures? The answer is clearly yes. The projections in the budget are for an estimated growth over the next year of 3.75 per cent in GDP—strong growth but not growth that is too strong. The estimated inflation figures are 2½ per cent, which is right smack in the middle of the Reserve Bank’s target range for inflation. In terms of macroeconomic settings, this budget is about right. It will generate strong growth but not inflationary growth and, therefore, not growth that will put upward pressure on interest rates. In this context, it clearly continues the government’s sound economic record in this regard, a record that has delivered us 4.4 per cent unemployment—the lowest level of unemployment in 35 years. Let us compare where we are now with where we were 13 years ago. There was 4.4 per cent unemployment compared with the average of 8½  per cent throughout Labor’s 13 years, inflation of 2½ per cent compared with the average of over five per cent throughout Labor’s 13 years and interest rates currently at eight per cent compared with the 12.75 per cent averaged throughout Labor’s 13 years. The contrast between sound economic management and the dismal record of the government that preceded us could not be clearer.

In this context I think it is worth addressing three myths that members of the Labor Party are trying to propagate about economic management. The first myth is that somehow the economy manages itself, that the prosperity that we are experiencing in Australia at the moment is the norm and that it happens automatically regardless of what government is in office and regardless of what a government does. Nothing could be further from the truth. Again, compare where we are now with where we were 13 years ago. What we have now is the result of a myriad of responsible, genuine and well targeted decisions, starting back in 1996, and some very difficult decisions to get the budget back in balance, to remove the $10½ billion deficit that Labor had in their last year and to repay the $96 billion debt that Labor left. That was the result of disciplined, tough economic management, not just in tough times but also in times of surplus and prosperity. It would be very easy to be out there throwing money around and spending like drunken sailors as those on the other side used to do, but the discipline needs to continue even in times of prosperity and surplus.

The second myth that the Labor Party would have us believe is that our prosperity is the result of the mining boom. We keep hearing this nonsense from the other side—‘The budget is balanced, tax revenues are high and the country is doing well only because of the mining boom.’ Nonsense! We started getting the budget back in order in 1996, and we persevered with that. We did that in spite of the Asian financial crisis and meltdown in 1997, which would have dragged us under had we not already started to correct the mess that Labor left us. We did it in spite of the recession being experienced by many of our major trading partners. We did it in spite of the disruptions caused to the world economy by September 11 and by SARS. We have done it in tough times as well as in good times. It is nonsense that we are hearing from the other side that it is all the result of the mining industry, which only generates 5.6 per cent of our GDP and which only employs 1.3 per cent of the country’s workers. So let us have none of this nonsense from the other side.

The third myth that I would like to address is the story we are hearing from those on the other side that somehow they have managed the books and that the Leader of the Opposition has undergone a conversion experience and is now an economic conservative. This is in spite of their record, in spite of what they left behind 13 years ago and in spite of 13 years of opposing this government’s attempts at reform. Let us look at Labor in opposition. They have opposed all significant reforms that we have put up in this place that are part of responsible economic management. They opposed measures all along the way that we introduced to try and get the budget back into the black, into balance and into surplus. They opposed the reforms to the waterfront which have done so much to lift crane rates, improve productivity and help our exporters. They opposed taxation reform and the cuts to income tax that came with the introduction of the GST. They opposed the industrial relations reforms which are generating jobs throughout this country at an almost unprecedented rate and are generating increased wages.

So not only can we look at Labor’s record when they were in office—a record that, by the way, for their last five years produced deficits averaging $13.6 billion a year. Imagine if we had a deficit now of $13.6 billion. Imagine the outcry there would be! But Labor in government, for their last five years in a row, notched up $68 billion worth of deficits that we had to repay. So do not only look at their record then; look at their record over the last 13 years in opposition. Or if that is not enough, let us look at the example of a Labor government closest to home. Look at the New South Wales Labor government, the absolute shambles—the utter incompetence—of Labor in government in New South Wales. It compels me to ask the question: do we want that level of incompetence transferred to Canberra? Do we want the Australian economy mismanaged as badly as the New South Wales economy is? Do we want that level of incompetence repeated at a national level? There is a massive risk that that could happen if Labor gets its way.

The first criterion then is: is the budget fiscally sound? Absolutely, emphatically, yes. It continues our strong record. The second criterion is that a good budget needs to target essential areas of expenditure. I could talk all night about some of those initiatives in the budget, but let me just quickly summarise what I see as those essential areas of expenditure, the priorities very appropriately targeted with increased funding in this budget.

Firstly, there is education. There is an extra $1.7 billion over the next four years for higher education, on top of what is already being spent. On top of that—in addition to that—there is the great new initiative of the Higher Education Endowment Fund, $5 billion, which will be added to with subsequent budget surpluses, providing the coalition is still in government, and will be added to by private sector investment, which will build an endowment fund to set up our higher education for quality research, quality capital and quality teaching in the future. In that, can I proudly say there is an allocation of $65 million for the dental school for Charles Sturt University, something which I have been pushing, working with Charles Sturt University for the last six months. I was delighted to see that $65 million allocated to Charles Sturt University, which will add to the supply of dentists in New South Wales and, critically, in the area of acute shortage in regional and rural New South Wales. So there is substantially increased funding for higher education.

There is increased funding for vocational education and training as well: an extra $549 million over the next four years addressing skills shortages and continuing this government’s strong commitment to vocational education and training. We had the opposition in the reply to the budget the week before last trying to present the view that they were the first people to discover vocational education and training. This government has been focused on vocational training for years, addressing the skills shortage. Already 25 Australian technical colleges have been established and in this budget another three are announced, including one that will service my part of Western Sydney—an Australian technical college to be established at Penrith.

It is worth pointing out that because of this government’s focus on skills training and trades, because of the strong economy and because of the strong growth and growth in jobs, the number of apprenticeships in this country is now 2½ times what it was under Labor. Labor had let apprenticeships run down to a 30-year low.

Thirdly, in the education budget schools have an extra $834 million over the next four years, bringing the total for the next four years to $33 billion spending on schools. That is an increase of 160 per cent in spending on schools under the coalition government. There are a number of initiatives there to improve the quality of teaching, professional development and national consistency across the country.

I could talk about health. In this budget there is $51.8 billion added to health, compared to $20 billion in 1996. It is a massive increase of 150 per cent in expenditure on health, including $486 million over the next year for medical research. There is $2 billion in extra support for child care. It is worth pointing out that childcare places have almost doubled since we were elected in 1996. On spending for Indigenous Australians there is a record $3.5 billion over the next year to address education, housing, employment and health. There is massive extra spending on defence to continue this government’s proud record and commitment to securing Australia, including extra money for recruitment, for procurement, for defence equipment and for our antiterrorism capabilities, correcting, as we have been continuing to do, a very serious neglect that had occurred under Labor and would occur under Labor were they to be re-elected. There is $10 billion for water to safeguard our water resources and a range of other environment programs and measures such as drought assistance measures and other measures to support farmers.

All of these measures have one thing in common, and that is that they are only affordable because the government has its finances in order. We are no longer wasting $8½ billion a year of taxpayers’ money, as we were in 1995—the last year of Labor—just to service government debt. Because that debt has been removed, that servicing cost is no longer there, so the money can actually be spent on things that matter. It can be spent on increased education, it can be spent on increased health, it can be spent on more child care, it can be spent on stronger defence and security and it can be spent on environment programs. These things are only possible because we have been able to manage the economy well and to manage our finances well. And all is at risk under a return to Labor.

The third key criterion is tax cuts, where they can be afforded. For the fifth year in a row we are able in this budget to deliver tax cuts. What a contrast, when under Labor at a federal level and in New South Wales we have had year after year of increasing taxes. Each year Labor presented its budget, we would have people lined up, fearful of which taxes would be raised next. Under this government we have had five years in a row of very substantial cuts in income tax.

This year a tax cut was announced of $31.5 billion over the next four years. Last year it was $36.7 billion over four years. Those numbers might not mean a lot in a macro sense but they do when boiled down to specific people. For instance, a taxpayer earning $35,000 a year is now paying half the tax they were just three years ago, as is a taxpayer on average weekly earnings, a bit over $50,000 a year. When Labor was in office, a taxpayer earning $50,000 a year was paying 47 per cent marginal tax rate. Instead, they now pay only a 30 per cent marginal rate. In fact, we have reached the point now where 80 per cent of taxpayers face a marginal tax rate of 30 per cent or less. Add to that the massive reforms to superannuation announced in last year’s budget, which will take effect from July this year—changes very reluctantly and begrudgingly supported by Labor which will be at risk if Labor were elected.

Contrast the tax cuts we have had for five years in a row under this government with the tax rises we frequently had under Labor and the tax rises we have year after year under the appalling New South Wales Labor government. Compare that with the policy that the member for Lilley, the shadow Treasurer, is telling us Labor will go to the election with—that is, no tax policy, which, in other words, is a hidden policy to raise taxes. It is astonishing that for half of the budget, the revenue side, they could say, ‘We’ve got no policy for that side of the budget’—little wonder when in times past we have had members of the opposition frontbench advocating marginal tax rates as high as 60 per cent.

The fourth criterion of a good budget is that it needs to invest for the future, and this budget does that. It further contributes substantially to the Future Fund in a way we have never seen before, a Future Fund which, by the end of next year, will have $52 billion allocated—committed, invested—to securing the future of our ageing population. What a contrast. This government is building investments for the future; the last Labor government was building debt for future generations. The contrast could not be clearer. In terms of investing for the future, there is $22.3 billion to build long-term road and rail infrastructure, $5 billion for the Higher Education Endowment Fund and $10 billion to secure our water future. Also, there are numerous incentives to encourage people to be committed to saving for their own retirement and superannuation.

This budget clearly delivers on all four criteria and is fiscally responsible. It addresses key priorities for expenditure, delivers substantial tax cuts and invests for the future. The contrast could not be clearer—with Labor’s record when they were last in government, with their record in opposition and with their track record in New South Wales. The message clearly is: do not listen to what Labor say; look at what they do. Look at what they did when they were in government. After raising taxes and selling off a great mass of assets, they left us with a massive debt of $96 billion. Look at what Labor did in opposition and look at what Labor are doing in New South Wales. The last thing we need in this country is for Australia to be mismanaged in the way Labor are mismanaging New South Wales. This budget passes a test on all of those four criteria. Pity help us if the other side get their hands on the budget.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to commend opposition members for their speeches in the House and I commend the opposition leader for his budget in reply speech. I want to say very clearly that this 2007 budget was an opportunity for the government to show that it understands the world it operates within and Australians make their way in, that it recognises there are national risks and opportunities and that it is willing to put measures and policies in place to address and manage those risks, to create pathways to harness and harvest those opportunities.

As well as committing the government spending for the next year it is also an opportunity for the government to show that it has a grasp of what the future brings—what the future holds for us—and what it might mean to us. The budget should be fiscally responsible and future accessible. It should demonstrate a real understanding of the evolving world we are in and a real understanding of the patterns, the challenges, the obstacles and the possibilities that lie ahead. Regrettably, on these counts, the 2007 budget missed the mark. As a political document it was given a pass by the commentators. As a document of vision preparing us for the future, which ironically is a topic the Treasurer has claimed to have some purchase on, it contains staggering deficiencies. History, unlike the headline writers, one suspects, will judge this budget more harshly.

Five days before the Treasurer brought down the 2007 federal budget, the World Bank’s State and trends of the carbon market 2007 report found that carbon markets traded $30 billion worth of greenhouse gas emission reductions around the world in 2006, an almost threefold increase on the previous year’s $11 billion. But from reading this year’s budget papers and examining the announcements made by the Treasurer you would never know it. This is the economics of the future that the government just does not get. This is the emerging reality of industries moving to a business model which seriously addresses climate change and harnesses the economy to do the job, a task that the Howard government is simply incapable of engaging with due to its persistent denial and downplaying of the seriousness of the risks of climate change. It is a fact that the Treasurer’s previous budgets have studiously avoided mentioning the words ‘climate change’ at all, just as the government chose to ignore the warnings of reports and studies it has previously been privy to on this matter, including its own Climate change risk and vulnerability report of 2005. All showed the likely impacts of climate change on our economy and our environment.

There was pre-budget spin this year that the 2007 budget would be an environment budget. That environment budget failed to materialise. Despite the advance promises only a smattering of initiatives were announced, the most significant a very modest $30 million per year for the solar panel rebates program. It is a policy that Labor welcomes. In fact we have previously advocated it in the face of coalition indifference. But it is not a new policy, nor is it of sufficient scale or impact to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The calculation is that after five years the reduction in emissions from this program would amount to only 0.01 per cent. That is not to gainsay the usefulness of a program of this kind, nor in any way to say that people should not take it up and make the most of it; it is merely to point out that its overall real impact in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, our most urgent national task, is quite small. It was on the promise of this initiative before the budget was delivered that the government claimed it would deliver a budget for the environment, and it was found to be a hollow claim.

The primary task we now have and the issue that should have been addressed in the budget and was not is: what measures will we bring to bear to rein in our rocketing greenhouse pollution? What framework will be provided to business and the community to engage in this task? What support will the government provide to enable a significant and substantial effort in reducing greenhouse gas emissions to be made into the future? The budget contains no initiatives that suggest that there is a glimmer of understanding that Australia’s future prosperity is linked directly to our willingness to engage with the climate change challenge and to provide business with a framework to do what it wants to do, which is to begin to reduce emissions now. We need policies that encourage people to reduce emissions and to significantly take up the greenhouse challenge. None of that was addressed by the Treasurer. We were left with the non climate change budget.

The World Bank’s global carbon market report goes on to show that there were $24 billion worth of transactions completed in the European market and another $5 billion traded in carbon offset credits under the Kyoto protocol schemes. This is an indication, I think, of the extraordinary growth of this market and the tremendous opportunities that exist for countries that are part of Kyoto, which regrettably Australia is not, and willing to invest in and develop those industries which can export clean and renewable skills and technologies and expertise. As Warren Evans, the World Bank’s environment director, said:

The carbon market has become a valuable catalyst for leveraging substantial financial flows for clean energy in developing countries.

Yvo de Boer, the head of the UN climate change convention, stated it very clearly:

If rich countries commit to reduce emissions by 60% by 2050 compared to 1990 levels, and if they buy half of the reductions in developing countries that would generate a $100 billion in financial flows for clean development options.

This is the 21st century economy that the Howard government is leaving Australia out of, the economy that Australian firms like Global Renewables have had to locate offshore to access, the economy that Australian businesses are denied full participation in. As there is no prospect of Australia ratifying Kyoto unless there is a change of government, Australian businesses remain constrained by the ideological fetters that the government has placed them in. Businesses head offshore or deal with the frustrations here of aiming to build successful green industries and businesses. Without the policies or the framework to begin the most economically urgent task we have—namely, to reduce our greenhouse pollution—we are not only denying ourselves business opportunities but also increasing the risks to the economy and the environment that climate change brings.

It needs to be said loudly and clearly that Australia’s future productivity success will be increasingly linked to our capacity to produce goods and services which are carbon light, to develop techniques and technologies that use energy more efficiently and effectively, and all of that within the context of fronting up to addressing climate change. There is no indication from this government—nor was there in the Treasurer’s budget—that it comprehends the enormity of this task. The Prime Minister says that setting a target as proposed by Labor will result in disastrous consequences for the economy. Yet last week’s report on the impacts of climate change on the Victorian infrastructure showed very clearly the significant economic loss that is possible both now and in the future. Today we had the most recent report from CSIRO scientists released to the National Academy of Sciences containing even more disturbing confirmation of the scale of the climate change challenge and the exceedingly poor performance of Australia under 11 years of conservative rule. Australia is the second highest per capita greenhouse emitter. Our emissions are growing at nearly twice the world average and the jump in emissions since 2000 has been dramatic.

This report should have provided everybody with the opportunity to stop and reflect on what this country will have to deal with in the future. But there was an absence of a systemic approach to climate change, and any thorough reflection of its impact on the economy was not evident in the budget of 2007. Even the Institute of Actuaries of Australia picked up on this point. They are hardly a cabal of hardline environmentalists or green activists. They did welcome the Intergenerational report of the Treasurer but noted:

Given the possibility of irreversible intergenerational effects it is disappointing that the report does not consider environmental intergenerational equity in more detail.

In fact it goes on to note that the brief mention of the need for early action on climate change in the first report was welcome but since then there had been nothing—and why the silence? Why has there been a complete absence of addressing this most important global issue in a year when the challenges are great?

The reason for that is that the government has completely stalled. It has erected a series of ideological and rhetorical barriers against addressing climate change so we do not have any serious modelling or analysis of the economic impacts of climate change. In fact, it is only because Kevin Rudd, with the states, has invited Professor Garnaut to do some significant modelling of that kind that we will actually be in a position to understand both the costs and the benefits to the economy and the environment over time of climate change.

One looks in vain for any understanding in this budget of the scale of risk that the Australian community faces. One obvious example is the eastern coastal zone, which experts have identified as having the greatest level of uncertainty in economic terms for Australia from dangerous climate change because that is where Australians are living. The increased risk to life and property in coastal cities through major storm events of greater frequency and intensity could have and will have significant economic consequences. There are many things for Australians who live on the eastern seaboard particularly, but also in Tasmania, to consider in relation to the risks to coastal communities of climate change—insurance issues, preventative engineering measures to deal with residential dwellings and public infrastructure and funding for emergency services. The list goes on and on. But where is there any indication in the budget that the government has considered this and any other number of critical issues relating to climate change? Why after 11 years are we still waiting?

That is the big picture analysis of the budget, but what about the details? Regrettably, other than the solar rebate extension the budget was notable in that it all but ignored clean energy. It did show, and Senate estimates have confirmed, that the government has underspent some $89 million in this area. But particularly we note that the figure devoted to climate change spending was low—some $148 million. The political point has been well made: comparing this to the amounts that the government is spending on government propaganda reveals it is literally a disgrace.

We do welcome, though, the extension of the Natural Heritage Trust. The government has spent a good deal of money on natural resource management. Regrettably, on nearly all of Australia’s measures of environmental health we still go backwards. Labor believes that we need to see some accountability built into these programs.

There is $50 million over four years for the Environmental Stewardship Program. In principle, it is a good initiative. It certainly did not go far enough and is short of the expectations of groups like the NFF, but it is a good initiative and we certainly support it in principle. But we do note that it does not become available until 2009. The test for these sorts of programs is whether they make any material difference on the ground. We will be watching this very closely.

The announcement of an Australian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation: we welcomed this program when it was first announced at COAG. We desperately need investment in climate change adaptation. We should not have had to wait until an election was looming, but it is certainly a good initiative.

There is $200 million over five years for the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate. Whilst I have made comments in the past about this initiative, we will look closely to see how it works itself out. The government missed the opportunity to ratify Kyoto and this initiative should not be seen as a substitute for Kyoto. It is not a substitute for action in Australia, as the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources likes to say. Nevertheless, it can and I hope it will make a contribution to a reduction in emissions.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act—enhanced administration: Labor welcomes this funding. For too long there has been a lack of funding for compliance under the EPBC Act. The act is getting more and more complex; it sits at some 932 pages. The government rammed some 400 pages of amendments through parliament at the end of last year and is now looking at even more amendments to repeal the ban on nuclear power—amendments we will oppose. It clearly needs additional funding in order to enhance its administration, and we pity the officials who have to work with this unwieldy beast.

I particularly welcome A Better Future for Indigenous Australians. It is critical for Indigenous people, particularly in the north of Australia, to have the opportunity to work in areas of conservation and land management. I do acknowledge that there were some significant spending measures in the budget more generally on Indigenous health. Labor very much welcomes these measures. Clearly, there is still a huge gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The Australian Medical Association’s figure of some $400 million that is necessary to assist in making up that shortfall has not yet been met. Notwithstanding that, it is a welcome initiative.

I take some time to reflect on the provisions for the arts in the budget. The government’s long overdue response to the significant challenges facing Australia’s film industry is welcome. I note it has been well received by the industry, with some concerns about the timing of the phase-out of the original 10BA provisions. Certainly, Labor has from the very beginning argued very strongly for reform of the film industry and particularly for the merger between the FFC and the AFC and also the need for taxation reform and additional support. We are pleased to see that those calls have been heeded, and we certainly hope that we can now better utilise the talents of our skilled actors, technicians and crew as a consequence of this.

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

Mr Billson interjecting

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also note that the action came after a long period of decline in the film industry—I refer to the comments that are being made across the dispatch box—a decline which actually had been a feature of the Howard government’s past 10 years in office where we saw a fall in the total value of production activity by some one-third and a fall in expenditure on foreign films shot in Australia to the lowest level in AFC recorded history. Additionally, private investment contributed only seven per cent to the Australian coproduction slate, again below the five-year average. Regrettably, despite additional funding for the major performing arts companies and the small- to medium-size sectors, which we welcome, this was very much a case, as it was in the last budget, of the government playing catch-up. We still do not have a sustainable funding model for the arts and that is a matter that the current minister ought to address as a matter of urgency. We were disappointed as well that there was nothing for creative industries policy; a digital content industry action agenda has not been acted on; and the absence of any significant reform of tax and welfare systems for artists still needs to be addressed.

Labor have outlined the principles we believe are significant and important to have in place to demonstrate fiscal responsibility. We recognise the need to maintain a budget surplus on average over the economic cycle; we do not intend to spend more than we earn. And Labor, as a principle, will not increase taxation as a proportion of GDP. In building long-term prosperity, the greatest challenge that this country faces is coming to terms with the risks and taking advantage of the opportunities of dangerous climate change. Yes, there are a range of other risks and issues for this country to consider, and they are many and long. But all of them are dwarfed by the momentousness of what we are now doing to the world’s climate system. And so long as the Howard government refuses to take the necessary action that Australia needs to ensure that it can respond to the challenge of climate change, then the budgets that are brought down in this House, the speeches that are made at this dispatch box and the policies that are put up at this election will count for nought. This is the single most important moral, political, economic and environmental issue that we face. It deserved the necessary attention both in detailed policy and in funding from this 2007 budget—and it did not get it. That is the Treasurer’s great failure, that he saw the budget as a political document but did not see it as a future inheritance document. And unless we start having budgets in this House which address issues like climate change— (Time expired)

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

It is with great pleasure that I speak on the appropriation bills tonight. This 2007 budget is the result of hard work—hard work by the government and, more importantly, hard work by the people of Australia. It has come about because of many reforms that we have put in place: tax reform, which was opposed by those who sit opposite; waterfront reform, which was opposed by those who sit opposite; industrial relations reform, which was opposed as well by the Labor opposition. Every measure that we have put in place to ensure that the economy is strong and to pay off the Labor Party debt of some $96 billion has been opposed by the Labor Party opposition. But now because we have paid off that debt, saving some $8 billion a year in interest payments, we can invest in the future. Since 1996, due to the hard work of all Australians, there are two million more people in work, we have unemployment at a 32-year low, real wages are up by some 23 per cent and we have low inflation and low interest rates.

This budget will see tax cuts of some $31.5 billion over the next four years—again, rewarding Australians for their hard work. There will be $5 billion in the Higher Education Endowment Fund. To improve childcare assistance, the childcare benefit will increase by 10 per cent over indexation and the childcare tax rebate will be available as a direct payment. This is an important initiative for the people in my electorate of Robertson, where many people are commuters and there are many families where both parents work. We certainly need the increase in the childcare benefit, and making the childcare tax rebate available as a direct payment will be of great benefit to many of the families in Robertson.

Another great initiative in the budget is rewarding older Australians and carers with the $500 one-off bonus for pensioners and $1,000 to recipients of the carer payment. These are benefits that older Australians deserve because they are the people who have worked all their lives to ensure the financial prosperity that we enjoy today. It would be unfair for us as a government not to allow them to share in this prosperity. In my electorate of Robertson we have many people who have chosen the Central Coast as their retirement area, so I am very pleased with this initiative.

In my portfolio of Roads there is the AusLink funding. The Australian government will invest a massive $22.3 billion in Australia’s land transport system from 2009-10 to 2013-14 under AusLink mark 2. This is the biggest investment in land transport infrastructure that has ever been made by an Australian government. It is a massive 41 per cent larger than the current AusLink program. The government is investing some $15.8 billion under the current program, from 2004 to 2009, including $250 million in extra funding that the government will spend on AusLink strategic regional projects in 2006-07. The government is also investing an extra $300 million in the AusLink Strategic Regional Program under AusLink 2 which will enable councils to submit new applications for funding. Of course, we have the continuation of the AusLink Roads to Recovery program, one of the most successful programs the government has introduced in recent years. That program will continue until June 2014 and we will increase its funding by some 14 per cent from June 2009. Roads to Recovery funding will increase from $307.5 million per year at present to $350 million per year from 2009-10. That means that every single council in Australia will share in this additional funding that can be spent on their local roads.

Under the AusLink program I am pleased that there is additional funding for the further planning of the important F3 to M2 link, which is to the south of my electorate. It is critical not only for commuters in my electorate of Robertson but for all transport heading north out of Sydney along the Pacific Highway or the New England Highway. I am also pleased that there is funding in the budget to allow the continuation of the F3 widening program, which is currently under construction between Cowan and Wahroonga. This will see a great improvement in the current delays that are experienced not only by commuters but also by the freight transport industry as they try to get in and out of Sydney. I am very pleased that those particular measures are of great benefit not only to my constituents but to the constituents of Dobell and the electorates further north up the New South Wales coast. The AusLink black spot program will continue until June 2014, with a 33 per cent increase in funding to $60 million a year from 2009-10. The extension of this program will fix around 2,300 dangerous locations on Australia’s roads.

In 2007-08 the government will spend some $72.4 million on the Regional Partnerships Program. It is a program that I know those sitting opposite do not like but it is critical and very important to communities all around Australia. It has made a magnificent contribution to the infrastructure of many communities around Australia. That program is key in helping regional communities, particularly with their economic development programs.

One program which did not get a lot of publicity in the budget, but which is going to make a significant difference to the Australian community, is the bushfire program. The government will provide some $41.2 million over the next four years to help the states and territories lease aerial firefighting equipment similar to the famous Elvis sky crane that we see every year doing a wonderful job saving homes, lives and properties all around Australia. On a yearly basis our spending on aerial firefighting will increase by 25 per cent from its current level of $8 million in 2006-07. And $20 million will be spent over the next four years to extend the Bushfire Mitigation Program, which helps fund fire trails and other measures to make it quicker and easier for firefighters to get bushfires under control. This program was originally due to end in 2006-07 and will now continue until June 2011.

With my electorate of Robertson being well and truly surrounded by national parks, bushfires are a constant risk to my constituents. I know that they have benefited greatly from this Bushfire Mitigation Program. In some of the bad years we have certainly seen the aerial firefighting services save many homes and much property in and around the electorate of Robertson. So I am very pleased that we have been able to extend this particular program.

Local councils will receive some $1,749.4 million in financial assistance grants in 2007-08. The government’s grant funding is $65.2 million, or 3.9 per cent higher than it was in 2006-07. I know that the road funding and the local government funding was certainly welcomed by the Australian Local Government Association. The media release that they put out immediately after the budget says it all under the heading of ‘Budget bonanza for local roads’. The President of the Australian Local Government Association, Paul Bell said:

I am pleased that the Federal Government has recognized the transport expectations of local communities that are beyond the financial capacity of local councils.

I especially welcome the $250 million for the AusLink Strategic Regional Program made available immediately. The initial program was over-subscribed by more than a billion dollars and this additional funding goes some way to meeting this enormous unmet demand for economic infrastructure in regional areas.

The press release went on:

Cr Bell also welcomed the longer term commitments from the Federal Government to community transport infrastructure through the $1750 million for the Roads to Recovery Program over the 5 year period of AusLink 2 and the $300 million for the Strategic Regional Program over the same period.

Whilst ALGA has welcomed the budget I would like to make a couple of comments on the local government reforms that are currently being rammed through by the Queensland Labor government. I attended a rally in Barcaldine with Bruce Scott recently. The anger and concern there was quite extraordinary. I know that there have been many rallies throughout regional Queensland in the last few days. I appeal to the Queensland government to listen to the communities and to delay these reforms.

There was a process of reform under way—the SSS process; the Size, Shape and Sustainability program—which was being worked through with ALGA and the local councils. It certainly would have gone back to the communities in the form of referendums for those councils that chose to voluntarily amalgamate. But this heavy-handed approach by the Beattie government is without precedent. The communities are not going to have a say on this. I believe the boundaries are going to be decided by a committee of seven people without the communities having input into it. It is something that I certainly do not support, and I know the Australian government does not support forced amalgamations.

It is interesting that the Leader of the Opposition went up to Queensland. We have seen claims being made that, should we have an Australian Labor government after the next election, they will be able to work hand in glove with all the states and territories because they are all of the same political persuasion. The first real test of that was when Kevin Rudd went up to Queensland and spoke to the Premier, Mr Beattie, and told him that he did not support what he was doing. Mr Beattie, I think, basically said: ‘Thanks, but no thanks. I’m going to get on with what I’m doing without listening to the people of Queensland.’ So I certainly think that the Leader of the Opposition has failed in the first step of showing whether he can work with the state governments.

I was also concerned about the fact that people take the budget good news for granted these days. I was reflecting on the fact that basically since 1996 people who are 30 or younger really have not known a Labor government. They have not known Labor budgets. I thought that I might do a little bit of research, because the expectation was that people looked forward to our budgets. They have gotten used to the rewards—the returns for hard work, effort and reform—and the expectation on budget night is that people will think, ‘What’s in it for us and how much is the government going to give us back in tax cuts, increased road funding and increased funding for education?’ There was never any concern about the negatives.

So I asked the Parliamentary Library to do a little bit of research on the front pages of the Daily Telegraph after each of the budgets in the last decade under Labor. What I found was very interesting. When we go back as far as 20 August 1986 we see the headline, ‘Budget axe on welfare, jobs and wages’. It said:

This is how the budget brought down by Treasurer Paul Keating last night will affect you.

It went on to say that for wages there would be a two per cent discount in the January national wage increase and a threat of further discounts—lower wages. Welfare was slashed by $500 million and health was slashed by $300 million. Petrol and diesel were up 3c a litre from midnight. In relation to tax cuts, the first stage was delayed and the second stage might get introduced.

Then we had new taxes on luxury cars, wine, some non-alcoholic beverages, flavoured milk, swimming pools, kitchen sinks, toilets, bathroom fittings and a sales tax crackdown on computer software. Bank accounts debit tax went up. That was in 1986. I will move to 1990. I wish those people listening to this broadcast could see the front page of the Daily Telegraph. There is a caricature and a huge headline ‘Slugger Keating. Old, sick and jobless hit’. The article stated:

Treasurer Paul Keating delivered a penny-pinching Budget which left pensioners and families feeling punch-drunk last night.

Mr Keating said sacrifices were needed to lift Australia off the canvas to win the battle against inflation and foreign debt.

That is very interesting. In August 1992 in another article it stated:

Consumers will be hit with tax increases on everything from cigarettes, Medicare, swimming pools and bank interest to pay for new jobs outlined in the Budget.

New business taxes will also be considered next year ...

On 18 August 1993 I have highlighted a photograph of a family with two kids on the front page of the Telegraph Mirror. Underneath it says: ‘They have gone back on so many of their promises so far it’s just not funny.’ It says what the Treasurer gave and what the Treasurer took.

After Labor delivered its last budget, the front pages were very interesting. Some people might say, ‘You have gone back a long way into history.’ I have not gone back that far. I have the front page of the Telegraph Mirror on 10 May 1995 and I also have the front page of this year’s budget special. Both articles are by chief political reporter Malcolm Farr. Malcolm has been around for some time: the same reporter—different stories. The headline on 10 May 1995 is ‘ Pay to save’. Under the heading ‘What you gain and lose’ it states:

Taxes—

we all know about the l-a-w tax cuts—

Promised second round of tax cuts for middle income earners dropped.

This is followed by:

The tax rises were announced last night as the Government pledged to match dollar-for-dollar superannuation contributions on a sliding scale.

Then there is:

... a Budget brought to a surprise, although token, surplus of $718 million.

We now know that that was a lie. When we came into government, there was a $10 billion deficit and a total deficit of $96 billion. It is only through the Charter of Budget Honesty that we have been able to get the exact figures. The article continued that this so-called surplus ‘is achieved through a $700 million trimming of spending and $2.3 billion in tax rises’. The article said:

The tax rises include a 10 per cent excise increase on cigarettes, a 5 per cent jump in sales tax on new cars, and a new 12 per cent sales tax on hardware and materials used to complete home construction.

If my memory serves me right, there was such an outcry that it had to renege on that increase. Company taxes were hit with a rise in tax from 33 per cent to 36 per cent, and the Medicare levy was also increased. Writing about this year’s budget in the Daily Telegraph the same chief political reporter, Malcolm Farr, says:

Tax cuts for all and billions for education—

with a caricature of Peter Costello—

Who’s a clever boy then.

Peter Costello last night created a $5 billion university endowment fund in a Budget.

It goes on to say:

The tax cut is worth $14.42 a week for an average family earning $55,000 to $60,000 a year—carefully shaped to avoid pressure on inflation and interest rates.

The Budget attracted widespread acclaim  from business, family and environmental groups.

…         …         …

The Treasurer used his Budget speech to detail and praise the Government’s economic record over 11 years - and to urge voters to let it continue that management task.

“Back in 1996 the Budget was in deficit. We were living beyond our means,” he said. Today we are living within our means.

As far as I am concerned, the warning for young Australians is very clear. The economy does not run itself. The position we are in now has not happened by accident. If we were to see wall-to-wall, union controlled Labor governments in every state and territory—and in the federal government—it would be a very sad day for those young people who are trying to pay off their mortgages, raise a family, start a business and get on with life. Instead of looking forward to surplus budgets where the effort from the government and the hard-working taxpayers of Australia is returned to them in increased infrastructure funding, increased education funding and increased tax cuts—and believe me, nothing has changed with the Labor Party: they might like to say that they have changed, but, believe me, they have not—look at Labor’s record, not at what they say. Look at what they do and look at the control behind them. You could be looking at budgets where people are losing not gaining.

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

What is happening in the states? Are they running up debt?

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

My colleague at the table asks, ‘What about the states?’ You only have to look at the track record of the Labor governments in each state and territory. Overall and together they are running deficit budgets, despite the fact they get every cent from the GST and that they have increasing revenues as part of the tax reform process which was opposed by federal Labor. The message is very clear.

Finally, in my own electorate of Robertson at the moment—we are in a sound financial position—we have been able to fund a pipeline from the Hunter Water Corporation, which has certainly secured our short-term situation on the Central Coast where water is the primary issue of concern. We have put some $6½ million into that pipeline. I am seeking assistance from the state government and the Australian government to look at funding another pipeline from Mardi Dam along with my colleague the member for Dobell so that we can pump water from Mardi Dam into Mangrove Creek Dam. We have to get the state government to come on board to assist us as they have the primary responsibility for water infrastructure on the Central Coast. (Time expired)

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Community Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As with much of what this government does, this budget is full of clever politics, with pre-election one-off initiatives that unfortunately do not provide the fresh, long-term thinking that Australia really needs. It is a clever election year budget but a budget that fails the future test, especially in the area of early childhood education and development.

I turn first to the changes to the childcare benefit. There is a one-off 10 per cent increase in childcare benefit, in addition to the regular three per cent increase, which will of course be welcome news for parents who have faced annual increases in childcare costs of more than 12 per cent over the last four years. Childcare costs are rising five times faster than the average cost of all other goods and services. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, out-of-pocket childcare costs for families in the last four years have increased by 12.7 per cent, 12 per cent, 12 per cent and almost 13 per cent last year. This year, just before an election, the government decides to give families a one-off bonus increase, but of course families have carried very heavy costs for the last four years. Labor welcomes the increase as a belated recognition of the challenges that families face but continues to be concerned that the government has failed to provide the ongoing relief that families really need. We are very concerned that what will happen is what happened four years ago: the bonus will quickly be overtaken by increased costs.

The budget also brought forward the childcare tax rebate, but it simply delivers on the Treasurer’s original promise which he made back in 2004. Before the last election, he said that he would pay the childcare tax rebate immediately after the financial year when childcare expenses are incurred. Before the 2004 election he promised that families would receive payment of the 30 per cent childcare rebate from 1 July 2005 but, after the election, the promise was broken. Families had to wait until 1 July 2006 to receive their rebate on childcare costs that were incurred in 2004. All we see in this budget measure is the government finally delivering on a commitment that they made before the 2004 election. So they certainly should not get any credit—and I am sure families will not give them any—for making them wait three years for this rebate.

The Treasurer also needs to be more honest with families receiving the rebate about the number of parents who are likely to receive a payment of $8,000. I am sure people will remember that banner headline just before the budget. Given that the average rebate, according to the government’s own figures, is only $813—not $8,000—very few families are likely to receive payments of the order that the government has gone on about. Labor supports the decision to pay the childcare tax rebate through Centrelink to ensure low-income families accessing childcare benefit actually get assistance through this rebate. It is still the case that families will have to wait until the end of the financial year to get this childcare rebate.

We know that, since the budget, the minister responsible has said that he hopes that by 2009—quite a few years away—the new childcare rebate will be paid fortnightly. Of course, what Labor wants to know is whether the childcare management system that is being put in place will in fact enable this to occur. Given the government’s history of the childcare tax rebate, parents are understandably pretty sceptical of any promises that the government makes in this area.

What is clear, though, from these two measures in the budget is that the government only ever seems to get interested in an election year in addressing the significant levels of childcare costs that parents carry. Unfortunately, the government has done nothing to address concerns about the availability or quality of child care. Perhaps this is because the government remains adamant that there is no problem with the availability of quality child care in Australia. Parents just do not believe what continue to be further denials of reality by the minister and are particularly outraged by the attitudes of the federal Treasury. Earlier this year, the Treasury’s Economic Roundup stated:

… contrary to popular perceptions, there is not an emerging crisis in the sector; supply is generally keeping pace with demand and child care has remained affordable.

The paper went on to say:

… unmet consumer preferences represent more of a problem for parents than access itself.

In other words, the government believe that parents are just being too choosy. This is yet another example of just how arrogant, how out of touch the government have become after 11 long years. It seems that all the government can now do before the election is offer cunning, targeted, pre-election sweeteners and hope the public will not notice just how arrogant they are. It seems that the public are on to them. They seem to recognise that the government are out of fresh ideas and also understand that Labor are putting forward real policies that have a plan not just for the next election but in fact for the next decade to navigate us through the challenges.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hunt interjecting

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Community Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member at the table is asking what sort of plans Labor have.

Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! If the minister wishes to remain at the table, he will cease interjecting.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Community Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is he a minister?

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

I have upgraded him, but he is behaving in a manner inappropriate to a minister.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Community Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is getting above his station, Mr Deputy Speaker. I just want to step ahead to the area for which I am responsible. It is an indication that the member opposite is being a smart politician, but he does not actually care about putting forward policies for the future, particularly for our young children. In one of the policies that Labor have put forward, we have made a commitment that every single four-year-old child in Australia will have the right to 15 hours of early childhood education a week, for up to 40 weeks a year, delivered by a qualified teacher. We have made a commitment of $450 million a year to cover this investment. Do you think there is anything in the budget that reflects that sort of investment in the future—a future that will only come about by us investing in our little children? We see no measure coming from this government that would cover all of Australia’s four-year-old children. Once this parliamentary secretary thinks about the future, and particularly about a future that requires an investment in our small children, he might have another think before he makes the sort of smart interjection that he did.

A critical reason for improving the availability, affordability and quality of child care is to help lift our workforce participation, especially amongst women. We all know on this side of the parliament that meeting the participation challenge will be a key ingredient in maintaining our economic prosperity. We do not have anything like the participation rates for women that many of our competitor countries do. In Australia, of those mothers who are part of a couple, about 55 per cent have returned to work by the time their youngest child is three, and 65 per cent by the time their youngest child is five. Of course, to do that they need and want high-quality, accessible and affordable child care. The Productivity Commission recently reported that the cost and quality of child care were barriers to workforce participation for about 30 per cent of women aged 25 to 44, while a further 10 per cent could not access child care at all. The Bureau of Statistics said that 100,000 women are not in the workforce because child care is too expensive, not available or of low quality. Research estimates that, if Australia’s expenditure on child care were increased up to the OECD average, the participation rate of women aged 25 to 54 would increase by three percentage points. At a time when we need to lift our productivity and our participation rate, a key theme of Labor’s for sustaining our economic prosperity is to recognise the need for affordable, high-quality and available child care.

As I said before, one of the great concerns about this budget is that it did not have a plan for the future, and that was particularly evident in its inability to invest broadly in early development and learning for our children. We certainly welcome the money that is being provided to child care and early childhood services for Indigenous children, but the only other budget measure on early childhood education was to establish a $1.4 million committee to look at an intergovernmental agreement on quality assurance and regulation. Those sorts of measures are important, but they do not measure up to investing in our children’s future. As I indicated, Labor have put forward a very comprehensive and significant commitment, especially to our four-year-olds. We do that not because we are in the lead-up to an election but because we have demonstrated year in, year out our ongoing and deep commitment to the value of education. Labor understand, as parents understand, and as all the experts from the World Bank, the United Nations and many others understand, that investment is of the greatest value when it is done in the early years of a child’s life. So, as far as I am concerned, the debate is over. Unfortunately, it seems that the government is not even engaged in the debate, let alone able to recognise the enormous benefits that come from investing in early childhood education.

Labor have also recognised that we will not be able to deliver this increased commitment to our children unless we do more for the childcare and preschool workforce. Once again, this is another area on which the government were completely silent in the budget. There was no extra money for training childcare workers or early childhood teachers. By contrast, Labor have committed to fully funding 1,500 new university places in early childhood education and to paying half the HECS of up to 10,000 early childhood graduates who agree to work in areas of need. We have also said that we will pay the TAFE fees for childcare trainees to make sure that we encourage them into this very important area. Labor, unlike the government, recognise that some parents also have considerable problems accessing child care. Unlike the government, we do not deny that there is an accessibility problem, and that is why we have committed to investing up to $200 million to build 260 childcare centres on primary school sites and other community land. This is another commitment that the government have failed to match.

One good community initiative that Labor have agreed to support in our New Directions for Australian Children policy paper, which was released by the Leader of the Opposition in April, is a national roll-out of the Australian Early Development Index. This index is a measure of children’s development. It provides data for teachers, schools and communities to identify the support that children will require if they are to succeed at school. Given the enormous benefits that flow from the information provided by the results of the AEDI on a community level as well as in helping individual teachers understand the development of their pupils, we want to make sure that every single Australian child who is starting primary school is able to access this measure. The government recognises that there are benefits with this index. Unfortunately, it does not seem to think that it should be available across the board. So what the budget does is extend the index to 14 communities on top of the 61 that have used it since 2004. As far as it goes, that is a good thing; but, unfortunately, I think it would have been better if the government had followed Labor’s lead and ensured that all Australian children would benefit from this assessment so that their teachers could put in place the programs at school that the children need.

During the last sitting week I spoke in the chamber about the special bonus payments that will be provided to seniors, carers and veterans. Labor welcomes these bonus payments because it recognises the ongoing financial difficulties faced by pensioners and carers, especially in meeting their cost-of-living expenses. We know that a lot of pressure is being put on their budgets. These people—our pensioners and the people who are doing the very tough job of caring for their family members—certainly do deserve these bonus payments and Labor welcomes this initiative.

The budget also contained a number of positive initiatives in the Indigenous affairs portfolio. The opposition is pleased to see funding for Indigenous housing, childcare services, early childhood programs, home visits for children, scholarships for students, youth leadership programs and the conversion of Community Development and Employment Project positions into real jobs. We recognise that all of those things are improvements. Labor also supports the additional money for Indigenous health initiatives, although it certainly will not be up to the level that will be required to meet the 17-year life expectancy gap that exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. I want to emphasise here tonight that Labor thinks the priority has to be in the creation of more jobs and economic development opportunities for Indigenous Australians. Indigenous people cannot lift their standard of living without jobs.

Even in these good economic times, Indigenous unemployment levels are still shocking. In the Elizabeth area of north Adelaide, Indigenous unemployment is as high as 34 per cent. In Macquarie Fields, in Sydney, it is 30 per cent. In Brisbane, Inala recorded an Indigenous unemployment rate of 35 per cent. In some remote parts of Australia the level of unemployment remains high, even in those Indigenous communities that neighbour major resource developments. We all need to work very hard together to train more Indigenous people—to get them work-ready and to make sure that they are able to take the jobs that the economy is providing. We need to work with business to make sure that we address these shocking levels of unemployment.

I noticed in the government’s suite of budget measures that, even though individually some of them are good, there is an absence of a consistent theme. There is no coherent agenda that ties together the government’s work on Indigenous affairs. Although there is a wide range of initiatives, no sense of direction is being articulated by the government. Labor’s agenda in Indigenous affairs begins with an understanding of the extreme disadvantage faced by Indigenous Australians, and that is starkly illustrated by the life expectancy gap. Across the political spectrum, it is our role to focus on redressing this disadvantage. However, we will not address it without Indigenous people themselves being self-reliant. I do think that reconciliation and mutual respect require self-respect and, from Labor’s point of view, that does not come without self-reliance.

Our Labor values have been formed by more than a century of struggle for the betterment of working Australians so, for us, self-reliance and self-respect grow from employment and economic opportunity—from taking pride in the value of work and in working for the future of our children. These are core Labor values. Having work, receiving a fair day’s pay and the ability to get a job are, for us, fundamental. We know that you need a good education to get a decent job, and you need to be healthy and safe. If you cannot get that job, it is hard to get ahead in life and even harder to give your children the best start in their lives. And so it goes.

We think it is time to take a new approach: to work with Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders to help them take control of their lives and to combine that with finding purpose through work. I think that leadership also means acknowledging past injustices and finding future solutions. I do see that leadership being taken today by many in both the Indigenous and business communities. Companies such as Argyle Diamonds and the ANZ Bank have worked so well to set goals and employment targets, and they are meeting those targets. Labor wants to join with those private sector leaders in setting real targets, making sure they are met and then being held accountable. I want to finish by saying that all of this will only work if it is done in partnership with Aboriginal people. Our policies have to promote self-reliance and independence and support the right of Indigenous people to take responsibility for themselves. (Time expired)

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Minister for Vocational and Further Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008 and other budget related bills. A successful company does two things: it pays a healthy dividend to the shareholders, and it takes from the profits and invests into the future. An unsuccessful business pays little or no dividends because they do not have the profits to distribute and they tend to borrow to keep the company afloat. In 1996, we took over an unsuccessful business, with little or no dividends having been paid and a $96 billion debt.

You might recall that, under Labor, many of the budget nights were all about beer and cigarettes—the tax increases we would see on beer and cigarettes. It was all about where taxes might be increased to pay for some crumbs from the government’s table. Well, after a decade of uninterrupted economic growth, the budget of last week was a far cry from those of the 1980s and 1990s. Many big reforms were undertaken in this budget—for example, the $5 billion Higher Education Endowment Fund, further tax cuts, funding of Defence, roads and other infrastructure and the many personal programs for individual Australians. These healthy dividends from the profits were only possible because of the strong economic management of the coalition government over the past 11 years and the fact that the government has paid off $96 billion of debt that was accrued by our predecessors.

The important factor to remember is that all of the key measures that have enabled the economy to be in such strong shape—the measures to pay off that $96 billion in debt, the budget reforms, the waterfront reforms, the tax reform, the workplace relations reforms, the superannuation reforms, the Future Fund, independent contractor legislation, the temporary skilled migrant program, the sale of Telstra, Welfare to Work programs—all of this legislation, all of these reforms over the last 11 years, have been vigorously opposed by those opposite. And all of those reforms are the reason we can stand here tonight as a government and announce and introduce to the parliament an appropriation bill which seeks to fund very significant investment in the future of our country and very significant personal dividends for individual Australians. All of those measures have delivered extraordinary resilience, economic strength and prosperity over a long period of time, in the face of many shocks to our economy over those 11 years. Now we see those opposite, the Labor Party, pretending that we are as one on economic matters. It is a joke. In this election year, it is a factor that must be top of mind for every Australian when they go to the polls: to remember the way in which those measures which have delivered the prosperity that we are enjoying now as a country and our ability to invest in the future were opposed by those opposite, root and branch, over the last 11 years.

The 11 years of economic reform and strength have enabled, amongst many other things, an investment this year and for future years of $3 billion in vocational and technical training. Some of this investment in the budget came in my area of vocational education and further education, where the government made commitments of $668 million for the next four years. This commitment is on top of $837 million committed just last October and November—a total of $1.5 billion in the last six months, dedicated to trying to enhance the skill situation within our economy and overcome labour shortages and skills shortages which exist.

Five particular measures were introduced in the budget. They included an apprenticeship wage top-up, a tax-free payment of $1,000 per year for first- and second-year apprentices under 30 in trades facing skills shortages. They will be paid every six months, and that will seek to encourage young people to enter the trades and to stay in the trades, to stay with their training. In addition to that, each apprentice in their first and second year in those areas facing skills shortages will receive an apprenticeship training voucher of up to $500 per year, again to assist them to stay the course. We have announced three new Australian technical colleges to add to the 25 other colleges that are in the pipeline, 20 of which are open and working so successfully around the country. We announced support for fast-track apprenticeships, a significant initiative to encourage employers to get with training operators, training organisations, and develop programs to shorten apprenticeships, again to encourage young people and others to take up apprenticeship training. We also included FEE-HELP for diploma and advanced diploma courses to encourage those with trade qualifications to further build on their skills and knowledge. We need in this age a very highly skilled and very sophisticated level of training within the technical and vocational areas. These five new measures will attract new apprentices with higher wages and shorter apprenticeships. They will increase the status and availability of quality technical training in years 11 and 12, and they will assist the top tradespeople to undertake higher level technical studies.

The government’s package to address skills and shortages is detailed. It is well thought out. When you put it together with the other $837 million and the other $2 billion worth of commitments, we have a plan to respond to this important issue. Of course, it is by no means restricted to my portfolio, and I will cover that in a second. By contrast, the Labor approach is one-dimensional. It is simplistic. In some ways, it is bumper sticker politics. I will come back to that in due course.

In responding to the challenges that we have with a very seriously ageing population and the challenges for skills that are presented by an economy which has seen uninterrupted economic growth for well over a decade, there are four areas which need major attention and which the government has been working on now for many years in order to deal with these challenges. The areas are as follows. Firstly, we must get all people who can work into work or to stay in work. Secondly, we need to reopen old-style, dedicated technical schools to provide a sense of pride, an incentive and a motivation for those young people who are born with strong technical, vocational and creative skills, to have those skills properly introduced and developed at school age and beyond. The third area we need to focus on is to ensure that those who start an apprenticeship stay the distance and do not drop out—that we can help them, encourage them, to make the most of those skills that they have been born with, to ensure that they make the most of their lives and that they make the best contribution they can to the community. Fourthly, and importantly, we need to be introducing and encouraging programs to train and retrain existing members of the workforce, mature age members, especially the 3.4 million of our 10-million-strong workforce who have training levels of less than year 12 or the equivalent in technical or vocational training.

These are the four areas that the government has focused its attention on. The first—getting all people who can work into work or to stay in work—is a really important part of our program. Australia has three million people aged between 55 and 70. They have a big part to play in overcoming the labour shortages that our economy confronts. We have 700,000 people with disabilities, many of whom want to work, could work, should work and are available. With the proper training and with flexibility in the workforce—and, in many cases, with a change of perception amongst employers—they could contribute in many areas. We have 750,000 people on parenting payments, many of whom want to work, could work, should work and need to maintain their skills. Often they can only work part time. Again, these people are a very important component in dealing with the labour shortages we confront. And we still have 495,000 unemployed people—another extremely important resource that we must tap into if we are to deal with the challenges.

The government has already undertaken a number of steps over the last few years to assist people in these categories. In this budget in particular, very significant tax changes were made which are of broad benefit to the community but also will have the important impact, as the Secretary of the Treasury, Ken Henry, said last week, of leading to an extra 90,000 people entering the workforce—a very important part of our program to deal with labour and skills shortages. Further steps include the Welfare to Work program, which the Labor Party voted against; the biggest superannuation changes ever; 130,000 work skills vouchers introduced last November as part of our training program for mature age people in the workforce; independent contractor legislation; and workplace relations legislation—all of these broad programs in many different portfolios are an essential part of our community dealing with the issue of getting people who can work into work and keeping people in work who should and could be working. In this way we can help deal with the skills shortages that confront our country.

The second major area that the government is developing is the reopening of the old-style dedicated technical schools. As a country, one of the biggest mistakes we made in education in the last 20 to 30 years was the closing of technical high schools. We need to see literally hundreds of thousands of young people take the decision to enter all sorts of trades and vocational training. It must be nurtured and it must start at an early age.

The fact is that, to deal with our modern economy and the challenges we face, we need 20 per cent of the workforce to have higher education and university qualifications. Currently, that is approximately the figure—that is pretty much in balance. But to meet our current challenges and opportunities as a country we need 60 per cent of the working population with strong technical or vocational training. Currently it is 30 per cent. That is where the big gap exists. Part of dealing with that gap is to get young people to follow the talents that they are born with. The investment by the Howard government in 28 technical colleges is an emphatic statement that the days when a trade or vocational qualification was deemed second-class are over. We must stop talking down the trades as we have as a community for 20 or 30 years. And we must get back to a situation as a nation where a high-quality technical education is as prized as a university education.

In the budget the government committed to three new technical colleges—old-style dedicated technical schools—on top of the other 25 that we have already committed to, 20 of which are open. These schools have many benefits for students. They provide students with a year 12 certificate. They are for years 11 and 12, but students end up with a year 12 certificate. And at that stage they are one-third of the way through a school based apprenticeship, they have had two years of strong industry experience in their apprenticeship and they have earned while they have learned. But they have been in an atmosphere which is dedicated to giving full expression to those technical and vocational talents that they have been born with.

Most of us are born with technical and creative talents, not academic talents. Yet the whole emphasis for 20 or 30 years has been on encouraging young people to go to university. Parents now feel they are a failure if their children have not gone to university, notwithstanding the abilities and talents that their children are born with. It is a great shame that this has occurred. Those opposite have done a great deal to perpetuate and propagate this unfortunate culture that has developed within our community. It must be turned around—and much of turning it around involves a return to specialist dedicated technical schools at the year 11 and 12 level.

As at the end of March there were already 1,800 students enrolled in Australian technical colleges, with more students to come this year with the opening of the Pilbara technical college in July and enrolments taking place in the 20 colleges that are currently open. On top of these enrolments, since 2004 several state governments have followed suit and have announced another 25 technical colleges. We now have a commitment to over 50 technical schools to be introduced around the country. Following the lead of the Howard government, we now have some 50-plus technical schools, state and federal, in the pipeline. That will mean that, by 2009, somewhere between 16,000 and 20,000 young Australians will be back in old-style technical schools, giving expression to the talents and abilities that they have been born with and ensuring that academic schools and technical schools are on a par in Australia.

If the money that the opposition was talking about giving in small doses to several thousand secondary schools were devoted to old-style technical schools, we could have seen a proposal where some 60,000 to 100,000 students could be in dedicated old-style technical schools and a return to some balance in our education system.

Unfortunately, the activities and pressure of the Australian Education Union, its ideological and pathological objection to anything to do with specialist training, and the one-size-fits-all approach that it has promoted for so long and which has in many cases led to the closure of technical schools and other specialist schools in our community, has driven the Labor Party’s response to the budget and their initiatives. It is a shame. You cannot criticise their spending of money on technical training, but the direction of that spending is unfortunate and I suggest that they rethink the opportunity that now exists. The model has been proven. State Labor governments are following suit. We are starting to see a critical mass of Australian old-style technical schools being built around the country. These schools are working their socks off. The connection with industry and the pride of the students, and the parents and grandparents of students, is to be seen to be believed. People now feel that there is great value in giving expression to the talents that they have been born with.

We are also looking to ensure that apprentices stay the distance and do not drop out. We now have 404,000 apprentices in training versus the 154,000 there were when we took office. But, on average, 42 per cent of those who start apprenticeships drop out, and 38 per cent of those drop out in the first two years. That is why we have undertaken to provide apprentices with a $1,000 untaxed wage top-up in their first two years, with a $500 fee voucher each year. That is a total of $3,000 to help many of these young apprentices stay the distance and fulfil their talents to their full expression. On top of that we have provided a $4,000 employer incentive, a $13,000 wage subsidy for mature age apprentices and a $1,000 regional allowance. There is a very significant program.

Finally, we as a government have undertaken and introduced a range of important initiatives to deal with those existing in the workforce who have not had any training of up to a year 12 level or any significant technical training. That is a very important component of dealing with the labour and skills shortage and there is a raft of important and expansive measures that we must undertake to ensure that those people are properly trained and feel that they can be trained or retrained, and to build a culture right across every age group where both employers and employees feel and know the importance of training and retraining and staying ahead of— (Time expired)

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport, Roads and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity this evening to address the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008 and related appropriation bills. In doing so I also express my support for the second reading amendment standing in the name of the member for Melbourne, Mr Tanner. Australia is very fortunate to be riding the wave of an extraordinary period of global growth. That growth is being driven by developing countries, such as China and India, which have contributed more than 60 per cent of global growth over the last five years and which now account for half of global GDP. As I have said both in this House and publicly before, Australia’s own growth remains relatively modest—below three per cent. I consider that that growth has been constrained because of the failure of the Howard government to recognise that the Australian economy has hit the wall when it comes to labour market infrastructure capacity.

On the issue of labour market considerations and the shortage of skills, the opposition also supports every endeavour by government at a state and federal level, in association with the private sector, to increase apprenticeship training in Australia. I am very fortunate in my electorate to have the old Northland high school, which has turned into a cluster operation with respect to TAFE training in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. In welcoming the announcements by the Leader of the Opposition in his budget response, I hope that, whilst that money is available for apprenticeship training across individual high schools, the schools in my electorate again pool their resources to continue the growth and expansion of the Northland apprenticeship training system, which is a model that every region of Australia should think about. It is a group of high schools working collectively to create a system by which our young people go to a central apprenticeship training centre each week. They are taken out of the school environment to work in a semi-work environment to gain apprenticeship skills and to start their road to work. I really promote and support the Northland training and education centre in my electorate and congratulate the high schools which have been part of that development with money that has been previously granted by ANTA—the Australian National Training Authority—and also by the state government, with huge support from local employers across a range of industries. It is an example of what we should be doing collectively: putting aside politics and working with the private sector and state governments towards increasing apprenticeship training in Australia.

Having said that, the issue of—

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hunt interjecting

Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The parliamentary secretary at the table has been warned. I do not wish to exercise any authority—and, as he is probably leaving, I will not need to.

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport, Roads and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish him well on his way. On the issue of productivity growth, I also note that, after 11 years, the Howard government has finally taken a few small steps along an appropriate path in schooling, vocational education and higher education that perhaps go some way towards addressing productivity outcomes in the long term. The opposition welcomes them but they are too late. We cannot turn out tradespeople and university graduates overnight. Investment in education today will take a generation to materialise. There is much that can deliver productivity gains more quickly. That includes our requirement to invest in infrastructure, which has been another major failing of the Howard government.

I do not know how many times during the term of this parliament that the issue has been raised, yet we still have coal ships queueing off Newcastle waiting to be loaded and coal mining jobs being lost in the Hunter Valley at a time when global demand for Australia’s coal has never been greater. The export bottlenecks at Australian ports are a national disgrace. They reflect a tired government bereft of the national leadership required to bring all the stakeholders in government and the private sector to the table to work through our export supply chain issues and come up with solutions.

As I have warned consistently in this parliament, if Australia cannot keep up with the investment required to support the expansion of our export industries, investors will go elsewhere in the world to meet demand and Australia will be left behind. The effect of those lost opportunities will last a very long time. New mines in South Africa or South America could push back the need for new resources to be brought online in Australia for decades, particularly if the boom falters.

It is not only investment in export supply chains, rail and ports that threaten the national economy but also investments in roads, freight hubs, electricity, water and telecommunications. If we as a nation cannot get critical infrastructure right, we will in doing so be putting Australian jobs and valuable export dollars at risk. I have a broadband problem in my own electorate of Batman, a northern suburbs seat in Melbourne not far from La Trobe University, a major centre of national training. Who would have thought that broadband would have been a problem in one of Australia’s major cities near a major university about 20 kilometres from the Melbourne CBD? I do not consider it should be a problem. The Howard government just cannot sit down with industry, the competition regulator and the users to cut a deal, so the Labor Party will pursue making broadband a major issue at the next election.

It is not only about the education and healthcare systems in Australia; it is also about how we do business both domestically and internationally. This government is completely bereft of leadership and Australian productivity growth is falling behind our peers as a result. It is now 1.5 per cent compared with 2.5 per cent in the United States. The facts speak for themselves.

There are many initiatives that are welcome in the budget but that are also long overdue. The Treasurer has finally adopted the opposition’s policy to provide tax cuts and offsets where they are most needed—for lower and middle income earners. I welcome the lifting of the 30 per cent and 40 per cent tax thresholds and the higher low-income tax offset. They are clearly good initiatives, but lower and middle income earners have waited a long time for them. They are long overdue.

As shadow minister for transport and roads I support the $22.3 billion funding for AusLink 2 and as shadow minister for tourism I support the ongoing commitment of funding for Tourism Australia under the white paper processes. I have always supported AusLink. In fact, it was the opposition in the lead-up to the 2001 election that campaigned in support of a national land transport plan for Australia. It was opposed in the election debate by the then minister for transport, John Anderson, the member for Gwydir. It was only after the 2001 election that the department, to its credit, actually convinced the minister that the opposition’s proposal for a national land transport plan, which eventually became AusLink, was the appropriate way forward.

Having said that, I think it is more important than ever that we have a national land transport plan. Such a plan is about assisting the Australian economy and working with the private sector to do the right thing with respect to infrastructure development and also, for example, in terms of our roads, working to reduce death and serious injury, which are exceptionally important not only to individuals and families but also to the overall cost of health care in Australia. If we get some of our roads right we can reduce expenditure on health care because we are reducing serious accidents and injuries. It is a good investment in our overall budget process to do some of this infrastructure.

The opposition will, therefore, continue to support a national AusLink plan based on transparency, appropriate corridor strategies being developed in consultation with states and territories and agreed shared funding arrangements. I also appreciate that we are under huge pressures at the moment because of huge increases in costs in Australia partly related to the resources boom—questions of shortages of skills and the added cost, for example, of steel, concrete and asphalt. For example, given the issue of asphalt, just think of the impact the price of oil has had on road construction in Australia over the last couple of years. There are huge additional pressures that we have to confront as a nation in catching up on the infrastructure backlog that confronts Australia at a state, territory and federal level.

The opposition, as I said prior to the budget, also supports the ongoing black spots program and welcomes the commitment of funding. This is a program achieving real results in saving lives on Australian roads. I consider it historically to be above politics. The program is transparent because of local, state and federal government involvement in the selection of black spots.

The opposition will also continue to support the Roads to Recovery program, but local councils must also front up to their responsibilities for local roads and use this program for the purpose it was intended—to top up, not replace, local government road funding. I remind some councils of the Audit Office report which basically said that the majority of councils are doing the right thing by the original intent of the Roads to Recovery agreement, which was supported by the government and the opposition—that is, that they were expected to maintain their normal, additional funding for roads and where possible to improve that funding, but that a Roads to Recovery grant from the Australian government was not to replace that funding. You still have to pull your own weight locally in terms of fronting up to your own rate base and maintaining an appropriate level of road funding. That was a condition that was up-front at the outset of the debate about the Roads to Recovery program and was supported by both sides of the parliament

That, unfortunately, takes me to what I regard as a misuse of funds in the current budget. I refer specifically to the Strategic Regional Program, which I actually support. We very much argued for this type of approach to encourage states and local councils to think regionally in association with the private sector by putting on the table programs which could then attract additional funding. I refer this evening to the shameful way Ministers Vaile and Lloyd have used the $250 million additional money under the Strategic Regional Program over the last week to hand out largesse in safe and marginal coalition seats over this period of four to six weeks. $250 million to spend over a six-week period is not an inconsiderable amount of money—it is twice the amount that was available in the last contestable round in 2006. Minister Vaile has handed it out over the last two weeks sitting in front of an electoral map in his office.

It is now clear from the estimates proceedings in the Senate yesterday that the projects were largely selected in the minister’s office and local councils and state governments were then told, ‘We’re doing this, where’s your money?’ It was not locally driven, as required under the Auslink Strategic Regional Program funding guidelines and as was expected by local councils. In fact, there are clear examples that some councils had other strategic projects of far more importance—often based on a proper assessment of road safety issues and the issue of serious injuries and deaths. So it is about time we restored the integrity of this program. I think that is very important, because these projects should be above politics and they should guarantee that taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars are not used for largesse to shore up the coalition’s chances of electoral success. I find that very few people in the Australian community disagree with that approach. As a community, we need to fund our strategic regional roads, but it cannot be a ham-fisted electoral rort, as is currently occurring with the expenditure of this $250 million. I remind the House that this is no different to the last election campaign, a six-week period in 2004, when the National Party minister on behalf of the coalition government doled out $125 million of $150 million under the strategic roads program in six weeks of the campaign, leaving just $27 million for contestable projects after the election.

I argue to the House this evening that Minister Vaile has completely ignored the priorities of local councils and communities, and made a mockery of the hard work of local councils in submitting detailed applications based on costed and justified project proposals. The facts show that 22 Liberal government electorates have received 44 projects amounting to $119.92 million; six Nationals electorates have received 22 projects out of this $250 million program, amounting to $56.27 million; and one new electorate, the electorate of Flynn—regarded as a marginal seat in Queensland—has received six projects amounting to $27.97 million. I think it is fair to say that the National Party regards itself as the senior coalition partner seeking to win that seat. Coalition electorates therefore received 72 projects amounting to $204.16 million. There were seven Labor electorates selected, which received 11 projects amounting to $28.03 million and three electorates held by Independents which have received funding for five projects amounting to $16.62 million. The facts speak for themselves. We need a forward looking infrastructure program that is about integrity and doing the right thing by the Australian community. What is occurring at the moment leaves a hell of a lot to be desired in what the Australian community expects.

I also want to deal with the other part of my responsibility as a shadow minister—that is, the tourism portfolio. I welcome the government’s continuation of funding for the industry. This bill importantly follows federal Labor’s calls for a continuation of this funding. As the shadow minister, I consider this funding is critical for the 10-year white paper plan, which has the support of both sides of parliament. As we all appreciate, the tourism white paper provided a 10-year plan for the Australian industry. It is an $81 billion industry and yet, unfortunately, the Howard government initially only provided a guarantee of four years of funding without any firm commitment. The announcement to continue the funding is a simple, common-sense move. It creates certainty and security in the industry for the purposes of further development. It will provide operators with greater certainty as they compete in an increasingly competitive global market.

We appreciate the dynamics of the global market are changing rapidly. Travel restrictions in once tightly-controlled countries are being lifted, the middle class is rapidly emerging in new markets and that is effectively fuelling the world’s seemingly insatiable appetite for travel. Every year more and more destination choices are presented to the global traveller as countries recognise the huge economic and social benefit of a robust tourism sector. Just think about it for Australia. It represents half a million jobs. The tourism sector is a key sector of the Australian economy and we have to be on red alert to maintain and increase our share of the international market because it is becoming an extremely popular global activity, with estimates pegging the number of tourism travellers as high as 803 million people a year. Moreover, by 2020 the number of people travelling each year as tourists will reach an expected 1.6 billion people.

It is in the face of this immense global competition that Australia’s tourism industry must compete. And thanks mainly to the many so-called medium-sized businesses that essentially make up the industry, it is an industry that weathers these challenges well and contributes enormously to the Australian economy. Last year, tourism exports broke the $20 billion mark for the first time and reached $20.5 billion in 2005-06. I commend the industry for all its hard work. However, while the challenges to the industry are great, we must not forget about the need to spend taxpayers’ dollars wisely. I have also raised this tonight with respect to the Strategic Regional Program and road funding currently being misused by the Howard government.

Tourism Australia receives almost its entire budget from taxpayers’ dollars, with the exception of a paltry amount recovered through corporate partnerships and trade sales. In supporting the appropriation of new funds to Tourism Australia, I urge the government to ensure that it is used to meet the key objectives of the white paper as a matter of priority. While yield has been increasing somewhat over the past year, the ABS figures clearly show only nominal increases in the number of arrivals to Australia. It is imperative that as its foremost priority, the tourism industry has to try to attract more high-yield tourists to Australia while also securing more numbers on the ground. This means the growth potential of the emerging lucrative markets of India, China and the Middle East has to be secured. It also means the traditional markets of the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Japan cannot slip through our fingers.

If I were allocated more time this evening I would address a more comprehensive analysis of the problems in the tourism industry. I will digress for a minute to focus on the farcical approach that the minister for tourism, Fran Bailey, adopts when dealing with this priority—a soap opera being suggested as the latest stunt to satisfy her media needs with respect to overcoming problems with the Japanese tourism market at the moment. I think her actions with respect to this condemn her as inadequate for the challenges that confront Australia on the international tourism front. I also support the ongoing commitment of funds to the tourism development program but say to the minister: do not try and rort this as you have in the past and as is currently occurring with respect to the AusLink strategic funding.

We in the Labor Party are about reform. We have an agenda which is about taking Australia forward rather than looking back as the Howard government agenda does. Whilst we support some of the initiatives in this budget, there are lost opportunities and potential for the misuse of funding allocated in the budget for short-term political purposes. I commend to the House the second reading amendment standing in the name of the member for Melbourne and thank him for raising these issues on behalf of the opposition. (Time expired)

Alex Somlyay (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I call the honourable member for Fisher, I remind the member for Batman that he is required to refer to members by their appropriate titles.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not unexpectedly, I would like to congratulate the Treasurer, and the government more generally, on an excellent budget for 2007-08. Mr Deputy Speaker, this is a sound and financially responsible budget which will benefit substantially residents of the Sunshine Coast, the area that you and I are privileged to represent in this place. It has been interesting, somewhat amusing and somewhat saddening to hear members of the opposition describe this budget as an election budget. It ought to be recognised that often a budget just before an election is referred to as an election budget even though we have an election every three years and a government which is bringing in responsible policies would be expected year by year to bring in a budget. It is wrong to suggest that, because the cycle of the budget is not too far short of an election, the government has thrown financial responsibility out the window and is bringing in a budget purely to help itself fall over the line on election day.

One of the things this government has done since 1996 is to bring about new levels of accountability in the area of financial management. I think most people would recognise, regardless of their political colour, that this government has been responsible for sound economic management. We have repaid Labor’s debt and we make sure that we have a budget which is in surplus. The federal government now has no debt at all. When we were elected, the ALP in government was actually paying more interest than it was spending on things like roads, hospitals, schools and other productive outcomes.

Mr Deputy Speaker Somlyay, I am sure that in your private capacity as a member you would agree with me—although as Deputy Speaker you of course have to be neutral—that this nation has been blessed with significant gains during the more than 10 years that this government has been in office. We have the lowest unemployment level in some 30 years, low inflation and a low mortgage interest rate. Honourable members would be aware that the government has achieved a strong and stable economy and a relatively high standard of living for Australians. Frankly, it would be highly irresponsible of this government to consider throwing away all of those achievements for the sake of one election, and this government is certainly not prepared to do that. The government is working and will continue to work for the good of all Australia and we really want to build on our achievements of the last 10 years. We simply are not prepared to throw everything out of the window with an irresponsible budget which some people might deem to be an election budget. There is more at stake here than an election. There is ongoing prosperity and ongoing economic stability. This budget, complete with its substantial surplus, is also a product of the fact that over the last 10 years we have run this country very responsibly. It is a budget for all Australians and for the future.

I am particularly proud to be a member supporting the government and I fear the outcome should Labor take government. My office recently received a phone call from a constituent who drew to our attention the recession we had to have—an expression made by former Prime Minister Keating. She and her husband were trying to bring up three young children and pay off a mortgage. The recession we had to have cost her and her husband their house. Her husband lost his job. He then got sick with asbestosis. They were soon without a home and were renting. She still lives in government housing, a constant reminder of the recession we had to have. In her phone call to my office she described her experiences under the Labor Party as horrific. What struck my staff member the most was her simple summary that during that time under Labor life was tough. She added that, if Labor were voted in, ‘there’s going to be a backflip’ in the fortunes of Australia. Particularly, she says, she worries ‘for the young people buying a house and that they are not going to be able to survive the interest rates’. With that in mind, I again congratulate the Treasurer on delivering another sensible budget, a responsible spending blueprint that will guide Australia further along our sound economic road and help prevent any return to those unacceptable days of the recession we had to have.

Being the budget debate, one is able to talk about a range of issues, both local and relating to the budget. It is one of those few opportunities when as members of parliament we can really talk about anything; we can talk about the colour of the sky if we wish. I want to focus on particular elements of the budget that are of benefit to the Sunshine Coast. I congratulate the Minister for Education, Science and Training on significant funding announcements in recent times, particularly relating to the University of the Sunshine Coast.

Mr Deputy Speaker Somlyay, I am sure that you would be happy to agree with me that the University of the Sunshine Coast remains the most successful Queensland university in terms of proportional growth. One of the reasons that this university—which you and I have fostered, Mr Deputy Speaker, since its very first days—has been so successful is that we have had successive Liberal Party education ministers federally. We have had Dr Kemp, who allowed the university to become independent many years before the Queensland government planned for that to happen, Dr Nelson, the now defence minister, and the current minister, all of whom have helped to ensure that the University of the Sunshine Coast achieved a significant number of new places for students so that not only was the university able to grow its student population but it was also able to offer a range of other disciplines. Many more people, both from the Sunshine Coast and more widely, are prepared to attend the University of the Sunshine Coast now that it offers more courses, which of course are of more interest to more students.

Over the last little while, we have had the pleasure of announcing a number of funding initiatives for the University of the Sunshine Coast. Only last week I was able to pass on the news to the vice-chancellor, Professor Paul Thomas, that $3.5 million from the government’s higher education Capital Development Pool Program would be given to the university to assist with facilities in the health area, with $1.3 million to be delivered in 2008 and $2.2 million in 2009. This project, while significant in itself, is particularly noteworthy because the University of the Sunshine Coast was able to achieve funding of $3½ million out of about $80 million nationally. So a very high proportion of a not large national pool was achieved by the local University of the Sunshine Coast, which is going from strength to strength. This project will provide specialist teaching laboratories and facilities, which will assist with additional places for health and teaching courses, including the introduction of new courses in physiotherapy and paramedical sciences.

This funding demonstrates the commitment of the Australian coalition government to the university in the expansion of its health facilities. It also highlights recognition by the government of the educational needs of the growing Sunshine Coast community. The Sunshine Coast community is one of the fastest growing areas in Australia and it really is important that we continue to attract the infrastructure to meet the needs of our growing population. If anyone asks me what is the prime challenge confronting the Sunshine Coast, I say that it is to make sure that our infrastructure meets the needs of our rapidly growing population.

The University of the Sunshine Coast is an important facility, which is growing quickly in response to the educational needs not only of this region but of the whole south-east corner of Queensland. The University of the Sunshine Coast in the past has been in your electorate, Mr Deputy Speaker Somlyay. It then came to my electorate and, regrettably, with the redistribution recently announced, it is returning to your electorate. However, having said that, whether it is in your seat or mine, the important thing to recognise is that the University of the Sunshine Coast looks after the educational needs of tertiary students in our entire area. So it really does not matter where it is located; the important thing is that it continue to get the government support it so richly deserves and—I might place on record yet again—the government support that this Liberal government has made sure it has achieved ever since the university first came into existence.

Most people appreciate that each week some 1,500 new residents come to Queensland from the southern states, and that growth rate presents obvious challenges and opportunities. The higher education Capital Development Pool Program of the government aims to assist new campus developments in suburban growth areas and regional centres. The funding follows the allocation in January last year of some $2 million for the science faculty. In July last year some 235 extra student places were announced at USC to come on line this year, increasing to 643 new places by 2010. The combined new places are valued at $6.7 million annually.

The University of the Sunshine Coast is a fine university. It is a new university, admittedly, but it is one that has achieved a lot in its 10 years of existence. It has experienced ongoing infrastructure expansion, a significant growth in student numbers and high satisfaction rates on the part of graduating students. I was also able to announce significant funds from the voluntary student unionism transition program, and $5 million to support the construction of a multipurpose indoor stadium at the Sippy Downs campus was made available by this government. Again, this was an enormous proportion of the $58 million nationwide which was made available by the government. So $5 million out of $58 million for Australia’s smallest university is a very important and significant achievement.

Only last Friday I attended the largest graduation ceremony ever held at the university. It was held in the university’s innovation centre and was the last graduation ceremony to be held there, as work nears completion on the sports stadium for the university, which I mentioned earlier, which will have the capacity to seat some 3,000 people. The graduation ceremony—I mention as an aside—also saw an honorary senior fellowship bestowed on Terri Irwin, Steve Irwin’s widow, for her wonderful contribution to the Sunshine Coast region and also to wildlife conservation.

The good work of the University of the Sunshine Coast and other universities around Australia will continue even more strongly as a result of the educational initiatives outlined in the budget. I have spoken to quite a few people involved in the higher education sector and they are as encouraged and as excited as I am by the announcement that some $5 billion is being allocated to a higher education endowment fund which will grow over coming years and provide funding to the expansion of facilities in our many tertiary campuses around Australia. Like other honourable members, I have been concerned that, when you look at the top 100 universities in the world, very few Australian universities, if any, appear. If we are going to be the educational marketplace for South-East Asia, I believe that we must make sure that our universities are up there—and this is the first government that has been prepared to make the necessary financial investment to guarantee that our universities are able to take their place as world-class institutions. The Treasurer on budget night stated that the coalition is committed to making further investments to this fund in future years.

These announcements for the tertiary sector follow on from the significant support given to primary and secondary schools in Fisher in recent years. Recently I was able to announce $9.5 million for the Meridan state school, which is an important school in one of the fastest growing suburbs of the Sunshine Coast. The new construction works will ensure that the facility continues to grow and improve to give the students the best possible environment in which to learn. This $9.5 million will go towards the construction of year 8 facilities, which include a client and student services centre and canteen; a middle school staff centre; a middle school covered area and student amenities; a middle/senior school sports oval; vehicular set-down and car parking areas; middle school learning facilities, including a years 7 to 9 learning block; junior and middle school performing arts, drama and dance facilities; a music and dance drama auditorium; and a productivity and creative technology centre.

This is an incredibly large amount of money provided by the coalition government towards a very important school in a rapidly growing area. Also, Chancellor State College in 2003 received approximately $7 million for construction of its middle school. In the middle of last year, 2006, the college received a further $5 million from the capital grants program: $4.779 million towards stage 3C of the performing arts complex plus $240,000 towards the stage 3A fit-out of the manual arts block.

I have to say that this is an amazing funding achievement for schools in the central Sunshine Coast area. The Chancellor State College is a wonderful facility in one of our newer growth areas and the school is making a significant contribution to the region. One of the problems that the school has is that so many people want to attend it. The school is going to face an ongoing challenge because it has limited facilities and needs to make sure that as many people from the area as possible are able to attend.

Late last year, close to $4 million was allocated to another new college, Unity College at Caloundra, under the capital grants program for schools. This project totals $6½ million. The state government will contribute something and the school will contribute something, but the $4 million from the Australian government was much needed and much appreciated.

It is absolutely vital, as we approach the election later this year, to stress to the Australian people the dangers of electing a Labor government. Although the Labor Party are clearly quite desperate to attain office and as a result are prepared to do anything and say anything to gain the treasury bench, one ought to recognise that while this government have been sound economic managers we have also achieved many other positive benefits for the Australian community. Through our sound economic management we have been able to achieve a situation where Australia’s young people will have a future. The government have paid their way. We have not mortgaged tomorrow to pay for today’s apparent prosperity, and we appreciate that you have to run a country in the same way as you would run your household budget.

The government have brought in a whole series of benefits in the budget which will, in effect, be a dividend from sound economic management. If we had had the policy approach of past Labor governments, there is no way that we could have brought in a budget which had a surplus and which also delivered a responsible social dividend as a result of the policies that this government have brought in. We gave personal income tax relief, and I have received very positive feedback from people in my electorate who are pleased that they will have more money in their pockets and in their pay packets. It means that they, and not the government, will determine how they are able to spend the proceeds of their hard work.

The government have also supported retirement savings through benefits to retirees. I have mentioned before our educational initiatives. We have improved childcare assistance. We have also made investments in transport and water infrastructure. We have sought to build on what we have achieved in the years since 1996, when we were entrusted with the keys to office.

A Labor government is a Labor government is a Labor government. No matter how you dress it up, no matter how credible the Leader of the Opposition is and no matter how rational some of the statements made by key Labor figures appear to be, one ought to appreciate that a Labor government is a Labor government. When you look at what this government have achieved you should realise that what we have achieved in the area of the economy would be undermined by the election of a Labor government later this year. It is important to recognise that we have a declining birth rate and an ageing population. This government have put in place measures which will make sure that in the future the nation will be able to meet our obligations towards retirees. We have been able to make provision for the future superannuation needs of those people who are employed in Commonwealth government service.

I am not suggesting that the government have always done the right thing. I am not suggesting that the government could not improve what we do. I am not suggesting for a moment that we have all the answers. However, I think it is important to recognise that as a government we have achieved a lot since 1996. I believe that the government is worthy of being returned at the polls later this year. We have to continue—and we are—to listen to the Australian people. We have to continue to deliver substantial outcomes.

It is also important to point out the damage that the election of a Labor government later this year would do to the future of our children and grandchildren. I would like to support the budget. I congratulate the Treasurer and the Prime Minister on a responsible economic document, which is a further blueprint for the positive future of our nation.

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

It is easy for opposition parties to oppose everything that a government might propose, simply because they are not the government of the day. Opposing initiatives without a reason and criticising without suggesting solutions is certainly a simplistic approach, but let me assure you that is not the approach of the Labor Party. It is certainly not the approach that it takes when dealing with its response to this budget. As the member for Lilley said last week when he addressed the National Press Club:

After all, imitation is the best form of flattery—even a pale imitation like the Budget.

Members opposite have taken the relatively easy path so far, at least from what I have heard, in heaping unquestioning praise on every aspect of the budget’s initiatives. That is easy stuff and does not take much effort. What takes a lot more effort is to sit down and critically examine the budget papers with a view to developing policy that seeks to correct its shortcomings. Although government members might not believe it, this budget has serious shortcomings that will not be paid for tomorrow or the next day or next year. These shortcomings will have impacts on the decade to come—much like the price that is now being paid by people in suburban areas like mine in the south-west of Sydney where this government made decisions in its first budget that have had the effect of reducing access to GPs and affordable dental care and produced what can only be described as our worst skills shortage.

I mentioned earlier that Labor is supporting a number of the measures contained in this budget, in particular the tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners, the one-off payment for pensioners and veterans, increased childcare benefits and the government’s quite frankly half-hearted attempts to address climate change. We are supporting measures in the budget that are regarded as being positive. However, despite the government’s best efforts to spend, this budget will be remembered more for what it did not contain than for what it did. This budget has serious shortcomings where Australia’s future is concerned.

Members opposite—Mr Deputy Speaker Somlyay, you will no doubt appreciate this—often use the term ‘infrastructure’ as a euphemism for pork-barrelling. The big-spending AusLink 2 program was a cornerstone of this budget. I am sure that the vast majority of Australians would be shocked to discover that the budget papers do not contain the detailed projects that make up this $16.8 billion land transport expenditure program. On budget night, the Treasurer announced that over a five-year period, commencing from 2009, $16.8 billion is to be spent on land transport infrastructure, but the only project listed—in fact, it was reannounced—was the Ipswich Motorway Goodna Bypass. As I understand it, this is a road that not even the local community wants. I can only presume that the rest will be made up of a mountain of media releases that will occur sometime in the lead-up to the next election.

Infrastructure in our major cities and in our suburbs—like mine in the south-west of Sydney—is critical not only for quality of life but also for Australia’s productivity. Inefficiencies in transport infrastructure artificially increase the cost of doing business. Congested roads lead to delays. It is far too simplistic but it is nevertheless a reality that bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers and electricians are not doing a lot of work when they are stuck in their utes trying to get from one site to another. Every major city in our country faces difficulty in dealing with transport infrastructure, whether it be in improving travel times, increasing public transport patronage or enhancing safety.

The south-west of Sydney is no exception. I am committed to widening the F5 Freeway between Brooks Road, Ingleburn and Campbelltown to improve productivity and reduce the cost of transport. I acknowledge that, when people discuss the need for investing in infrastructure projects, the widening of the F5 Freeway might not immediately spring to mind—but it is just as important as national rail links or improved port facilities. Each day the Hume Highway on the outskirts of Sydney has about 80,000 vehicle movements, including 6,000 heavy truck movements. At the moment, the stretch of highway between Ingleburn and Campbelltown consists of two lanes. Work is now under way to the north of Brooks Road at Ingleburn to widen the road from two to four lanes—and I acknowledge that the federal government contributed $24 million to this construction. This will improve the connections to the M7 and the efficiency of that section of road and will match the width of the southbound side.

The section of the Hume south of Campbelltown has two free-flowing lanes each side. Despite the increase in Sydney traffic from the Southern Highlands, this road continues to work quite efficiently. This leaves a section of two-lane traffic between Brooks Road, Ingleburn and Campbelltown. This is an absurd situation, which is exacerbated when you consider the land use on either side of the Hume Highway. In addition to a significant residential population that houses many of our tradespeople and home based businesses, there are two significant and growing industrial estates at Ingleburn and Minto and a regional commercial centre in Campbelltown. The result is that these residents—self-employed tradespeople, home based and small businesses—and large organisations based in the industrial estates that I have just mentioned are competing for space on the two lanes of the section of road between Campbelltown and Ingleburn. This is referred to as the ‘Brooks Road bottleneck’. It seems ludicrous—but it is true—that this situation is one that thousands of truck drivers and frustrated motorists have to deal with daily. I do not think members opposite will have a full appreciation of what it means until they understand that some of the businesses are using the roads in and about Campbelltown in, broadly speaking, the Macarthur region.

The industrial estates of Minto and Ingleburn are home to a couple of large intermodal terminals. Currently, those intermodals are pretty busy and they are set to get busier, particularly as they are fast becoming the hub of an inland port. Over the next few years, with the expansion of Port Kembla in the Illawarra, it is estimated that 50 per cent of the 250,000 vehicles imported into this country arrive at that port annually and will end up at either Minto or Ingleburn for predelivery inspection and then further distribution to retailers throughout New South Wales. Other industrial estates, quite frankly, are also getting busier. Recently, Campbelltown City Council approved a number of developments in the Minto industrial estates, which are expected to create more than 300 local jobs. That is a good thing. But one of those developments is the construction of a national distribution centre for Barbeques Galore. By the time the 2007 election comes around, the Brooks Road bottleneck really will be a barbecue stopper!

It is clear that action is needed, despite the strength of the reasons. I know that my concern is not matched by all members of this House. In the face of a widespread public campaign in the south-west of Sydney, particularly in the Macarthur region, seeking the widening of that road, the member for Macarthur has taken up a leading role in the blame game, trying to dismiss the problems of the F5 as an issue for the state government. As the member for Macarthur soon found out, local residents and business operators will not be fooled by feeble attempts at blame shifting, because they know that the Hume Highway, the F5, is a national highway, they know that the Hume Highway is part of the biggest land transport route in this country—the Sydney to Melbourne corridor—and they know that national leadership is needed to address its shortcomings. The member for Macarthur attempted to backtrack on his initial comments with a largely incomprehensible set of excuses but, sadly for him, that has also failed. I am sure that many people, come election time, will remember the member for Macarthur’s complete lack of interest in their concerns about the F5 and will vote accordingly.

Following the announcement of $16.8 billion in land transport infrastructure expenditure in the budget, with no details, I took it upon myself to write directly to the Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads seeking advice as to whether the Howard government had included the widening of the F5 in its AusLink 2 plans or whether the south-west of Sydney—the Macarthur region—was, once again, to be ignored. I look forward to a positive response from the minister, given that three draft corridor strategies have already been published, which all indicate priority should be given to the widening of the F5 between Ingleburn and Campbelltown.

The largest employing industry in the south-west of Sydney is manufacturing. Contrary to popular belief, manufacturing has actually been a standout performer in Australia’s export efforts over the past two decades. In 1980, manufacturing comprised a total of eight per cent of all exports. Two decades later, it was just short of 20 per cent. In 1981, exports were less than one-tenth of manufactured sales but, according to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, the export share of sales has now doubled.

I am proud to say that many successful exporting manufacturers are operating in Ingleburn and Minto, two areas of significance within my electorate. Those manufacturers, and ones to come, are manufacturers who will benefit from sound, sensible approaches to infrastructure investment which is dedicated to improving productivity. It is not just me calling for a coordinated approach to infrastructure provision. A report released yesterday by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia noted:

For Australian commodities, supply constraints rather than falling demand explain most of the weaknesses since the turn of the decade.

CEDA went on to note:

But the lesson of the new decade is that failures of supply can be as damaging as failures of demand. Accordingly, restoring Australia’s export success and, in doing so, stabilising the rate of growth of foreign liabilities compared to GDP requires policies that influence supply. These include the removal of infrastructure bottlenecks, the provision of additional infrastructure to meet expected demand, programs in education, training and retraining that increase the supply of skilled workers, and programs that support the basic science, engineering and research and development that no single business can make commercially viable.

Labor has already announced its plans when it comes to the provision of vital infrastructure. Unlike the government, it will not be guided by polling and attempts at pork-barrelling, which I fear, quite frankly, will be the guiding hand for investment under the AusLink 2 program. But a Rudd Labor government would establish a national infrastructure coordinating body, Infrastructure Australia, which would be tasked with the identification and the prioritisation of infrastructure projects. Labor knows how important it is to build the platform of business growth and future prosperity.

Education from an early age, through continuing education and training right up to the time an individual reaches the workforce, is also critical to not only maintaining but improving our prosperity into the future. In the report that I referred to earlier, CEDA noted that the need for education programs forms part of the response to the supply side failures that are damaging the Australian economy. Sadly, this is not a new problem. In December 2005, the Australian Chief Executive magazine noted that the Australian innovation expert Jonathan West argued that the key to China’s growth was not cheap unskilled labour—a commonly-held view—but cheap skilled labour. As the Leader of the Opposition noted in his address-in-reply to the budget, China churned out about half a million scientists and engineers in 2004. They are using education to build their workforce for the future. The Howard government have only recently become converts to investment in education. They have put in place their universities endowment, which will assist in making up for the massive shortfall in university funding that has occurred under the Prime Minister’s watch, but it will still leave us behind as a nation; it will not fix the issue.

The budget papers note that only three more Australian technical colleges will be opened. I was interested to see that one will be located in Sydney. I am sure, as many on this side of the House are, that the college in Sydney will be located in the electorate of Lindsay. This is an attempt to convince voters in that seat that they are not being ignored by the Prime Minister, while he busily sets about putting the finishing touches on his plans to build the much hated Badgerys Creek airport. He refuses to give up this airport site. He refuses to relax the planning restrictions around it. He refuses the view of the Labor Party that an airport at Badgerys Creek will not be built. I, like the rest of the community in the south-west of Sydney, see through his plan. We know what the Prime Minister has in mind for Badgerys Creek.

I hope for the sake of everyone who wants to undertake trades training at one of the new Australian technical colleges—wherever they may be—that they are more successful than those who sought a placement at the government’s first attempt at establishing a college in Western Sydney. The government located a college at Rouse Hill, which is about 60 kilometres from Campbelltown. It might as well have been on the moon for all the value it provided to local residents in the south-west of Sydney. Further, the college took only 25 students. This was a half-hearted attempt by the government to duplicate the TAFE system. The sole ambition of the Howard government with its Australian technical colleges is to pursue its industrial relations agenda.

Labor is committed to boosting maths and science education, investing in early school education, investing in a national broadband network and addressing the skills shortage and the supply-side failures that the government has not addressed in over a decade in office. This a tired budget from a tired government. It lacks direction, it lacks enthusiasm and it lacks commitment to Australia’s future. This is a budget by a government that is on cruise control and that is investing in its political future rather than in the national interest.

Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak to the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008 and cognate bills. Following the delivery of the 2006-07 budget, the Premier of my state came out and, predictably, roundly criticised the quality of the budget in relation to Western Australia. I remind the House that state governments are responsible for funding many of the areas of which this state Premier has been critical. State governments are responsible for funding health, education, housing, infrastructure and local councils. The list of the failings of the Western Australian state government when it comes to funding these very important areas is long indeed.

My electorate comprises 91 per cent of Western Australia. It is incredibly remote and it takes in a large number of regional areas. Unfortunately, however, it is also a long way from the city of Perth, which appears to be the only focus of the current Labor government in Western Australia. In fact, it is an extremely Perth-city-centric government. It does not listen to the people—certainly not those living in the Kalgoorlie electorate. It simply places funding in what it thinks are its priorities. In the last few years, the state government has been absolutely fascinated with the creation of a rail system to bring the south-west population into Perth.

A most recent demonstration of the typical lack of funding provided by the state government was the introduction of daylight saving. It was an arbitrary process that gave no consideration to any of the views of the population, except those located in Perth city. But I hear from my city based colleagues that daylight saving is not even popular there. Mrs Audiene McCrae, a constituent in my electorate who lives in the Merredin area, was one of three women who, together, collected more than 45,000 signatures against daylight saving. The rejection of daylight saving by the Merredin area was typical of the population across my electorate. People in my electorate in the main work 12-hour shifts. They start at 6 am and finish at 6 pm. The last thing they want, especially in the hotter areas of the Pilbara, the Gascoyne and the Kimberley, is another hour of extremely high-temperature daylight. They are looking for sundown and an evening where they might relax and enjoy some outdoor time. The daylight saving bill was passed by the state government and, at the insistence of Premier Carpenter, along party lines.

The state funding for education was a miserly $177 million, for which the state government copped a great deal of criticism—and rightly so—from teachers right across the state. In contrast, in this budget the federal government has made a $9 billion investment in education. That investment will make a great deal of difference right across this nation. Our endeavour is to improve teacher quality and to improve access to education.

One of the outstanding features of this budget is that funds will be provided—specifically through a $700 voucher per family—to help children who cannot meet the minimum reading standard for year 3 students. This voucher will be available to parents to spend on tuition to bring their children up to a better standard of reading and comprehension in order to improve their opportunities to access an education that will create a better outcome.

One of the well publicised examples of the state’s neglect of education in my electorate is the school in Wiluna. The school was in the headlines last year because of a horrendous situation whereby raw sewage was flowing through the school grounds, the presence of asbestos had not been addressed and the school was located opposite the very noisy and very active local hotel. It was only when the Governor-General visited the Wiluna school that the state Labor government was shamed into taking some action and making some funds available to relocate the school and to create a better education facility for the children of Wiluna.

Last year also saw a process from the state education department—approved, of course, by state cabinet—that prevented attempts by the federal government to encourage the attendance of children at school. Specifically, the federal government and the local principal cooperated to encourage better attendance by schoolchildren at Halls Creek school. The process was applauded locally—in fact, right across the Kimberley. However, it did not suit the state Labor government, which went to extremes to prevent its state education system teachers from cooperating with the federal authorities, to the point of denying access to attendance records. It was a disgusting move by the state government, especially when attendance at the Halls Creek school was as low as 58 per cent. When the federal initiative to improve attendance was introduced, attendance rose to as high as 85 per cent, yet that was of no interest to the Western Australian state education minister. She put every hurdle in the way of the success of that program.

The government has created a highly successful and very desirable program called Investing in Our Schools—in fact, this latest budget has provided an additional $2 billion for that program. The program was designed to provide desperately needed funds directly to schools to provide basic necessities—to improve the infrastructure and the learning environment—for students in so many state schools across my electorate. The sad thing was that the state education system chose to remove up to 18 per cent of the total funds, which had been provided directly by federal government, for what they called ‘administration’. Many of the schools that I have visited and have had the pleasure of seeing these improvements in have told me that they see it as an unreasonable imposition by the state education department because, in many cases, no services had been provided by the state education department whatsoever.

Typical of those schools that have been provided with very necessary improvements and programs through the Investing in Our Schools program is the South Merredin Primary School, in my electorate. It received nearly $139,000 for improved play areas. This included returfing the oval, which was in a horrendous condition. It was virtually a gravel pit that was causing daily injuries to schoolchildren. The Carnarvon Primary School received $84,165 for flooring, school ground improvements and classroom furniture. One would think that those responsibilities belonged to the state education system but, unfortunately, that is not the case in Western Australia. This is an issue that is very easily overlooked, because the schools of which I speak are removed from the metropolitan area.

The Derby District High School received $138,783 for school grounds improvements, shade structures—very necessary in the Kimberley sun—classroom furniture, interactive whiteboards and computer equipment. The Exmouth District High School received $36,495 for library resources. Once again, that is a resource that one would quite reasonably believe should be provided by the state system. The Kalbarri District High School received $121,786 for school grounds improvement and a motor vehicle. The Kununurra District High School received $94,506 for play equipment and for drama and performing arts equipment. The list goes on and on. I am pleased to say that on a very frequent basis I have the pleasure of acknowledging those improvements to schools within the state school system that, reasonably, ought to be addressed by the state education department.

In the area of health, the state once again underfunded from their budget for 2007. They provided a measly $4 billion for the state health system and, justifiably, copped a great deal of criticism from doctors in Western Australia. It is rather fortunate that across the Kalgoorlie electorate I have a rather healthy bunch of constituents, because God knows that there are very, very few GPs located at state government hospitals to provide a medical service. Only today I heard from the shire president in Leonora, who is complaining vehemently about the lack of a doctor provided by the state medical service at the local Leonora Hospital. In fact, the Shire of Leonora is having to obtain a doctor from another agency and is having to pay and guarantee $10,000 a week to make sure that there is a GP available to local residents.

If it were not for the funding provided by the federal government, access to GPs across the Kalgoorlie electorate would be virtually nonexistent. The federal budget is providing $9.6 million for the Rural Retention Program for GPs and $156.6 million, the largest budget allocation ever from the federal government, for the very necessary and relied on Royal Flying Doctor Service. I do not believe I have to underline the importance of the RFDS across the Kalgoorlie electorate. I have bases in Meekatharra, Kalgoorlie, Port Hedland and of course Derby, all in my electorate. The services provided out of those bases, those headquarters, are vital so that people are able to reside across the Kalgoorlie electorate, because otherwise, if they were relying on the state medical system and the provision of GPs, they would be without GPs.

In this latest budget there is $377.6 million for dental services for people with chronic and complex orthodontic conditions. This is greatly appreciated, because it simply requires now that, if your GP determines that your health is at risk because of your dental problems, you can access—for the first time—that funding.

In addition, there is $51.7 million to improve access to mental health services in rural and remote areas. Anyone living anywhere in the Kalgoorlie electorate will know full well that mental health is an area that has been repeatedly neglected by the state Labor government. People suffering from mental health problems suffer on an ongoing basis because of the attitude of the state government and the way it is treating the whole area of mental health. Those people suffer unnecessarily. The state needs to place assistance for those people throughout the regions, because many of the problems suffered by individuals can be easily overcome with some appropriate funding from the state for health. Unfortunately, that does not happen. As a result, we see that the federal government is having to provide $51.7 million to improve the mental health of the population of Australia.

In relation to health, one of the great beneficial programs that operates across my electorate is of course the PATS, the Patient Assisted Travel Scheme. Fortunately, our Senate is currently carrying out an inquiry into the operation of the PATS system, and I have called on my constituents to contact me with their criticism or their compliments in relation to the PATS. I am sorry to say that the contact that has been made from across the electorate is nearly all in the negative. As a result, I am presently compiling a submission to that Senate inquiry, to hopefully have a far better outcome so that patients in future can rely on their GP to determine whether they should access the Patient Assisted Travel Scheme and what mode of transport they might enjoy. I have received ample evidence of that state administered system dictating that a patient will travel to a Perth specialist by road or by public bus transport when in fact they desperately need to travel quickly by air. If the Senate inquiry can address that issue alone, it will have gone a long way to making life much better for my constituents across the Kalgoorlie electorate. The PATS of course was designed to help country people travel to their nearest specialist, and all of those specialists are in Perth. The compensation they are receiving presently is pitiful. It does not do the job, and there needs to be a great deal of improvement.

The state government of course, over the last two budgets, have promised funds to upgrade the Kalgoorlie Hospital and the Esperance Hospital. However, after their having made those promises in the past, we find that there is no allocation in the 2006-07 state budget to carry out those works. Why? They say they can blame it on the resources boom in Western Australia. I ask you, Mr Deputy Speaker! One would have thought that the resources boom in Western Australia and all of the increased dollars they are receiving from royalties as a result of the improvement of the resources industry would have meant that it was easier to afford that funding for hospitals that are much needed and upgrades that are urgently required. But, no, the state government say that the resources boom has resulted in a shortage of contractors. I hasten to add that at this stage the state government have not even issued tenders to test the market, so how they can say there is a shortage of contractors I do not know.

Fortunately for Western Australia and for the people of the Kalgoorlie electorate, the latest federal budget has contributed $3 million to the Kalgoorlie area to act as seed funding for an intermodal hub, something that has been urgently required in the Kalgoorlie-Boulder area to facilitate both east-west and north-south transportation of goods in a more efficient manner. However, that once again calls on a contribution from the state government to see the completion of the project. I am not going to hold my breath, but I do remain hopeful that they will come to the party. This latest budget has seen a contribution for the Gibb River Road of $3.25 million. Once again, it relies on a contribution from state government.

The point I make is that, in almost every department and in almost every important area of service and infrastructure, the state government is failing the people of regional Western Australia. It has been going on for the duration of this Labor government in the state. I have no reason to suspect it will not continue, and I condemn it. If it were not for the enormous contribution by the federal government in its budget, the people of the Kalgoorlie electorate would be in dire straits indeed.

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in this debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008 and associated appropriation bills to use it as an opportunity to talk about David Hicks and others and what should be the conduct of the Attorney-General, the first law officer of the Crown. An appropriation has been made to the Attorney-General’s Department in this budget, and I think that allows me to speak broadly in relation to these matters.

I think history will not look kindly upon this government or, indeed, the Attorney-General, as far as David Hicks is concerned. We have seen a very dangerous precedent where there was evidence before the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee regarding Mr Hicks and Mr Habib that basically said that, on the evidence that was available in relation to both gentlemen, they certainly could not be convicted of an offence in Australia.

Mr Habib was subsequently released from Guantanamo Bay without charge. It is my view that that would not have been done lightly by the authorities but would have come as a result of a review of all the circumstances. I asked a particular question of the Minister for Foreign Affairs on 19 August 2002, to which he replied in part on 2 December 2002:

The government is aware that Mr Habib has received medical treatment for a pre-existing condition while in US detention. Detainees at Guantanamo Bay have access to medical examinations and treatment, and Australian officials have requested that camp authorities continue to monitor Mr Habib’s health closely.

If Mr Habib had committed an offence, it would have seen him further detained by the authorities. The fact that he was released is an indication, I think, that Mr Habib was not guilty of any offence or that there was insufficient evidence in relation to him and that the medical treatment for a pre-existing condition might have had something to do with his conduct and behaviour. We will never know fully because we do not expect the authorities to be very cooperative in that regard.

In relation to Mr Hicks, he has recently been returned to Australia after a guilty plea at his March military commission trial to a charge of providing material support for terrorism, which resulted in a seven-year jail sentence with all but nine months suspended. One needs to remember that Mr Hicks was first taken into custody on or about 9 December 2001 and shortly after was transferred into American custody and then to Guantanamo Bay, where he was left by this government to rot in a cell all that time.

The nature and conduct of the military commission are not something that I support, because I believe the commission falls far short of what we should require for Australian citizens, and I will elaborate more on that later. But it seems to me that even the way the guilty plea was finally negotiated exposed the dodginess of that particular tribunal. Mr Hicks’s legal representatives, in particular Major Mori, negotiated the plea not with the prosecution or the tribunal but with another person, I think from the Department of Defense.

I have no criticism of Major Mori, because I think the way he conducted the case on behalf of Mr Hicks was impeccable. No lawyer worth their salt would have done anything other than negotiate a plea with the resultant sentence on the terms in which it was delivered. You only had to listen to the comments of the prosecutors, who were obviously spitting chips afterwards because they felt a heavier sentence was required. But the whole tribunal was shown to be a farce even at the very end. It was a political show trial that this government only got interested in at the end because politics was intervening and they were doing pretty badly in the broader community.

Why were they doing badly in the broader community? I am not here to argue the guilt or innocence of Mr Hicks; I have never been about that. I argued this case from the very beginning when I was shadow minister for justice on the basis that Australians abroad should not be subject to second-class justice, that we should require a higher standard for our citizens abroad in relation to their incarceration and the adjudication of their guilt or innocence. That is what the American constitution requires for American citizens. Amendment V says that they must be dealt with under the due process of law. Amendment VI says that they have the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury. So the Guantanamo Bay option is for non-Americans. Our government sat idly by and allowed one of our citizens to be dealt with in a dodgy process. It was dodgy, despite the final plea. Mr Hicks was entitled to be dealt with, in my opinion, under processes that conformed to the proper international standards. The Attorney-General deserves to be condemned for his abandonment of an Australian citizen to that process. The Australian public started to revolt in the end because they thought it was a bit rich for Mr Hicks to have been in custody more than five years and not dealt with in a proper court of law.

The member for Wills asked a question in writing of the Minister for Foreign Affairs on Australians in jail abroad which was replied to recently. I am going by an AAP citation which says:

Because the list of Australians in trouble overseas changes regularly, Mr Downer provided a snapshot covering a 24-hour period from January 31 to February 1. That shows 176 Australians had been convicted and were serving jail sentences ... Another 267 were facing charges, of whom 118 were being held in custody.

That is a lot of people.

I also want to commend Mr Hicks’s father because I think he conducted himself in a way that was exemplary and assisted in his son finally being returned to Australia. I am not soft on terrorism, but I said on Lateline on 8 February 2002:

The war against terrorism is a war against evil.

But it’s a fight for our value systems and our value systems require the rule of law, respect for our institutions, that’s what we’re fighting for.

That’s why in these instances we can hold that up as a role model for the rest of the world and that’s why we need to stick to these principles.

That’s why there should be the rule of law applying here, international norms should apply.

I went on to say:

He should have rights, he should have rights as an Australian citizen and it’s interesting that the American citizen who’s been detained has certain rights, he’s entitled to due process and access to a lawyer under the American constitution.

What we should have here is the same standards of justice for Mr Hicks as is for the American citizen as for all the other people who have been captured.

I think those principles are what define us and they’re the values that we’re fighting for.

I repeat:

If we are to defeat terrorism, we must uphold the human rights principles our societies hold dear. These include the basic rights of persons held in custody: the right to humane treatment; the right to be informed of the reasons for detention and to be able to challenge the lawfulness of detention; the presumption of innocence; prompt access to and assistance of a lawyer; prompt access to medical assistance; and the ability to communicate with family members.

That was a quote from an article I wrote for the Australian on 15 January, 2003.

Now that Mr Hicks has been returned to Australia, those are the principles we should look to. This is not something that Labor should be advocating alone; this is something that the government of Australia should be advocating on behalf of its citizens because we have had a second-rate system of justice. We insist that drug couriers and others who are involved in legal matters throughout the world are properly dealt with by those tribunals and that we do not lower the standards of justice under which they are dealt with. The problem, unfortunately, in a modern world society with terrorism at the fore, is that we are moving to a new McCarthyism where anyone who is charged with a terrorist offence is basically presumed to be guilty at first instance, is treated as a leper or as someone who is entitled to a lesser form of justice. That endangers all of us. That will expose us as hypocrites if we allow that to continue to happen.

The truth is that, in all probability, if Mr Hicks had been dealt with in a proper court of law he would not have been convicted. That is why we had a military commission. That is why he was not brought home, because he certainly could not have been convicted in Australia. Indeed, he was charged retrospectively. I note that a number of journalists say that Mr Hicks admitted that particular form of conduct in letters to his family. That may well be true. Many people make admissions to their families through telephone intercepts or whatever, but you deal with them in an appropriate tribunal, not in a tribunal that has been cobbled together to ensure a conviction. That is why I think Major Mori conducted the case in a splendid fashion on behalf of his client. Mr Hicks’s father, as I understand it, at no stage claimed that his son was a saint or was necessarily innocent, but he wanted him dealt with in an appropriate tribunal. I am basically saying to this parliament today that the Attorney-General has dishonoured his office—the first law office of the Crown. He should not be just another politician looking at the politics of a situation; his role as Attorney-General is a time-honoured role as the first law officer of the Crown and he failed in that regard.

Debate interrupted.