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

I am pleased to speak in the parliament today about the budget that the Treasurer delivered yesterday. As the representative of the people of Ryan, I want to put on record my great disappointment. Today, many constituents have contacted me to express their great concern as well as their great disappointment about a range of the measures that were mentioned in the budget last night. In particular, I want to draw the House’s attention to a very important aspect of the Howard government’s policies that has now been completely cancelled and which will be of deep disappointment to the parents of children living in the Ryan electorate. At the outset, let me say that the budget delivered by the Rudd Labor government really does let down the people of Ryan. It is very much a Labor budget of the old-fashioned style—of increased taxes and of massively increased spending. It really also goes to the politics of envy, which I know that the people of Ryan want to have no part of. This budget will do nothing to meet Labor’s very strong promises to keep down grocery prices, to keep down petrol prices and to tackle interest rates. Of course, we know that at the last election the Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, gave a very strong inference, if not a commitment, that he would be the best placed person to make an impact on grocery prices, on petrol prices and on interest rates. Today, in May 2008, many months after the election, the opposite is happening—prices for petrol and groceries are certainly not going down; if anything, they are going up. Australians will take no comfort whatsoever from the decision by this very novel government and this very novel Treasurer to raise taxes on cars, alcohol, energy, computer software, fringe benefits, passenger movements, passports and visa applications and to increase the cost of private health insurance.

As I said at the outset, it is the parents, the mums and dads of Ryan, that I have great concern for in the context of the quality of the education their children will receive, particularly at the schools in my electorate, which will no longer have access to the wonderful initiative of the Howard government, the Investing in Our Schools Program. That was something that really earned the admiration and support of school principals, parents and students. Schools right across the country benefited from that billion-dollar investment by the previous government.

What has driven me to raise this in parliament tonight is a letter addressed to parents which came across my desk from Payne Road State School, a local school in the Ryan electorate. Vicki Richards, the acting principal, writes to parents imploring them to make a contribution of $50 additionally per child to ICT because the school does not have funds. In a letter of 3 April she says that, whilst parents will be receiving a voluntary technology contribution letter and indeed invoice for $50, it is of course not mandatory. She, as the acting principal, implores parents to contribute because the school needs to raise some $7,000 for computer related programs and projects.

Schools across Australia benefited enormously from the $1.2 billion Investing in Our Schools Program of the Howard government. In my electorate, Kenmore State School received $57,000 for new play equipment, Middle Park State School received $149,000 for the upgrade of an assembly area and Indooroopilly State High School received $128,000 for a library extension. The Investing in Our Schools Program was delivered very effectively but, most regrettably, the new government has decided that those kinds of funding projects will no longer be delivered to schools around the country. (Time expired)