Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Finance, Competition Policy and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2008-2009 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009. I also speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2007-2008 and Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2007-2008. These important cognate bills will appropriate funds for approximately one-quarter of the Commonwealth government’s spending. The coalition supports the appropriation of moneys from consolidated revenues to Commonwealth government departments and agencies outlined in the details of these bills. However, these bills are also a key part of the ongoing political stunt by the Prime Minister, the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, and the Treasurer in particular to dupe Australians into a false sense of security that the country’s finances are being managed responsibly by this government.

In the lead-up to the budget I spoke on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2007-08 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2007-08. The government used those bills as an opportunity to include $643 million of so-called cuts. As I said then, the $643 million included underspends in some programs, the transferring of some of the spending across to other programs and also some cuts in programs which the coalition announced before the election or that we undertook to deliver to the Australian people prior to the campaign period but which were not implemented for administrative reasons. The government tried to sell these as legitimate cuts to fight inflation. Appropriation bills Nos 3 and 4 for 2007-08 set the precedent, and I note that the government has continued with this theme into the 2008-09 budget. The Australian people should quite rightly ask themselves, ‘Are we getting what we voted for?’ The modus operandi of this government is simple. It is weak on policy and strong on spin. They make promises that they cannot keep, such as lowering the price of groceries, and then they sit on their hands and watch what happens under FuelWatch—that is, fuel prices go up.

The budget, of which these bills before the House are a key component, shows us that the government is high taxing and high spending. The government has cut $15.2 billion in coalition programs but has added $30.1 billion in new Labor spending. In fact, spending will increase by $14.9 billion over the estimates, and it is that point which I would like to examine in some detail for a moment.

The Treasurer has made repeated claims that this budget is not political but that it is a nation-building budget for the future; it is a budget for the next decade. And we have heard this quoted ad nauseam. Mr Swan has said that he wants to remove politics from the job and that he wants to take the politics out of budgets. Can you believe this bloke? He wants to take the politics out of budgets by ‘framing economic policy with an eye to the next decade, not the next poll or the next election’. Keep that quote in mind when you consider this carefully. Remember that this is a budget for the next decade when you consider that expenditure from 2009-10 onwards over the forward estimates will rise—and rise significantly. It will take a significant jump from 2008-09 to 2009-10 in particular. According to the budget papers the real growth in budget spending from 2008-09 to 2009-10 will be 5.5 per cent. With the exception of the year the GST was introduced you have to go back to the former Labor government in 1991-92 to find a similarly sized increase.

But what does that mean? Perhaps I can allow the Assistant Treasurer to explain this for us. When he was asked, on Sky’s Agenda program, about the significant spending rises to occur in 2009-10 and later, he replied that the ‘forward estimates indicate forecasts and of course in next year’s budget we’ll reassess the situation and will make changes accordingly’.

So this is the government’s long-term, 10-year, non-political strategy. Think about this in the context of the ALP’s MO: talk up the problem, frighten people, make hollow promises and then stand around and watch, generally for some period to come, until governments of the future fix the problem. That is what happened with Labor in the past; it is what will happen with Labor into the future. Labor spend. They tax and spend, put us into debt and then wait for the return of a coalition government to shore the finances of the country back to a reasonable state. It is the case, at the moment, of history repeating itself, and people should take note of the first budget delivered by this Labor government.

The government have talked up inflation and talked up saving for the future. They have talked about the long-term commitment to nation building and, when it comes down to it, all that was delivered by the Treasurer on the evening of 13 May 2008 was a one-year budget. The government was quick to criticise the coalition for its spending habits when it was in opposition but the reality is that as a percentage of GDP the coalition was one of the lowest-spending governments of the last 30 years.

The appropriation bills we are debating today are full of spin. The government claims to have found $7 billion in savings in 2008-09. There are many examples in the budget papers of so-called savings that are simply a redirection of funding—in other words, the government has cut a coalition program and replaced it with their own Labor Party program. Yet they claim this as a saving under the auspices of their ‘responsible economic management’ measures. Take for example the measure with the title ‘Responsible Economic Management—Green Vouchers for Schools’, which is on page 350 of Budget Paper No. 2. It says:

The Government will redirect funding from the Green Vouchers for Schools program to the new National Solar Schools Plan. This measure will provide savings of $334.3 million over four years to partially offset the Government’s election commitment National Solar Schools Plan.

Here the government claims $334.3 million in savings—savings which simply do not exist, as money is being channelled directly into a Labor program. And the Labor economic genius, Lindsay Tanner, claims the money is not inflationary anymore! This economic theory seems to be based on a principle of money laundering. The money is dirty and inflationary in a coalition program, but when washed through the budget, resurfacing as a Labor program, it is no longer inflationary! In total there is almost $4 billion over the estimates for similar measures which simply redirect funding, with the claim that the associated measure is some form of saving. That is all spin, no substance.

The coalition has been accused of not planning for the future, of not saving the proceeds of the mining boom. But let us take a minute to look at the facts. The coalition inherited from the previous incompetent Labor government a $96 billion debt. Through the responsible and effective fiscal management by Australia’s most successful federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, that debt was paid off. Then the coalition developed a plan to use the budget surplus to prepare the next generation for the fiscal challenges that it will face. The coalition government’s Intergenerational report shows that over the next 40 years pressure on the budget will increase as a result of the ageing of the population—with the number of Australians aged over 65 expected to double. The coalition inherited a ballooning, unfunded superannuation liability, which we addressed by closing the PSS and creating the Future Fund.

To ensure Australia’s long-term financial security, and to remove a substantial financial burden from the next generation and improve their ability to cope with the effect of an ageing population, we created the Future Fund. In doing so we also passed the Future Fund Act 2006, which put in place the governance arrangements for the fund. That is a very important point to underscore as part of this debate. That fund was a concept quite foreign to the Labor Party. This is not a normal investment fund. Something that I think is sometimes lost is that this is not just like a term deposit down at the local bank or a managed share fund. Peter Costello’s legacy—the coalition legacy—in that budget was to provide that Future Fund. Surpluses have now become the norm, and governments have a variety of options to think about when considering what to do with the budget surplus, and whether that money should be spent or saved. Of course the coalition, as much as possible, returned the surpluses to the Australian people in the form of tax cuts, and created this futuristic fund which kept an eye on the future to try to offset some future liabilities that would otherwise have hung around the necks of many young Australians for generations to come.

The Future Fund is Australia’s nest egg. It will provide a significant contribution to Australia’s financial security onward into the future, thanks to the coalition. The next generation will not have to pay for the liabilities of this generation. The coalition left in place a distinct accountability regime for the Future Fund.  The Future Fund Act 2006 states that the mandate must have regard to maximising returns on the fund over the long term, consistent with international best practice for institutional investment and other matters considered relevant by ministers. The current mandate sets a target return of between 4.5 per cent and 5.5 per cent above the CPI measure of inflation over the long term. The board has interpreted this as an objective to provide a return of at least 5 per cent above CPI over rolling 10-year periods. It is recognised that as the fund transitions to a long-term strategic asset allocation, a return lower than this benchmark is expected.

The Board of Guardians is responsible for deciding how to invest assets. The board is governed by both Future Fund and Higher Education Endowment Fund legislation and the investment mandates are established by the responsible ministers: the Treasurer and the now Minister for Finance and Deregulation. The board, with the support of the Future Fund Management Agency, builds the investment strategy and is accountable for the performance of the fund.

Compare the responsibility, accountability and transparency of the arrangements of the Future Fund that I have just outlined to that of the proposed Building Australia Fund, the Education Investment Fund and the Health and Hospitals Fund, hereafter referred to as the Labor Party slush funds. Labor has announced that it will place $41 billion into these slush funds and then spend $41 billion of the slush funds, as well as the interest, on infrastructure projects. This was announced in the budget and there is precious little detail available on how these slush funds will be set up and how the slush will be administered. This of course causes us considerable concern because we are talking about a large amount of taxpayers’ money—$41 billion, plus interest—in the slush fund that will require significant management, accountability and transparency. This is Australia’s dividend from the mining boom and the Labor Party are already in discussions about how to divvy it up between the state governments.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have listened to the member for Dickson using the term ‘slush fund’. ‘Slush fund’ has a clear connotation of people using funds for their personal advantage. Clearly the funds proposed by the federal government are not that. I understand, under standing orders, that speakers in this place should not impugn the personal motivations of other members of parliament. So the point of order is—

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The term ‘slush fund’ has not been regarded as unparliamentary.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Finance, Competition Policy and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course, the Labor Party in New South Wales is certainly the king of these sorts of issues. It is interesting to see contributions from individuals about the operation of the New South Wales government and certain issues which have been aired there recently. We would not like to see a transfer of that sort of behaviour from the New South Wales Labor Party into the federal arena. I think it would be a very sad development indeed that a New South Wales Labor Party member would make that contribution, and such a weak point of order should be noted as part of this debate.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I know the member for Dickson is geographically challenged, but I am from Victoria.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The point has been made. There is no point of order.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Finance, Competition Policy and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Already Victoria has said—if we want to talk about Victoria—it expects about a quarter of the Building Australia Fund, and we know that Queensland thinks it is getting about $8 billion. Who knows what other grubby deals have already been done between New South Wales, Victoria, the Northern Territory, Queensland—wherever it might be. Labor Party grubby paws are all over this deal.

We are concerned we are left with a lot of unanswered questions about how the money will be spent: what rate of return will the government seek; will the government be seeking public-private partnerships; how will this be legislated; will the legislation, like the coalition’s legislation for the Future Fund, include a target rate of return for the investment? Not that that would be too important in the long term, of course, because Labor is intent on spending not just the return but also the capital—also the capital. Again, that is a point which distinguishes it from that which the coalition put forward in terms of the Future Fund, where we preserve the capital with some eye on the future. Labor has no credibility when you look at their track record at a state level in terms of infrastructure spending, and that is also a point that commentators need to take into consideration when Mr Rudd, in his proposals with this slush fund, will be paying for the work—in many cases the failed work—of state Labor governments.

The government has already shown that it is incapable of making the sound, sensible decisions that are required to successfully run this great country, so it is no surprise that it will seek help with these various infrastructure funds. They have held summits, they have held talk fests, they have set up endless reviews, they have sat around and watched petrol prices go up and up and up, so why should we expect the treatment of the $41 billion slush fund to be any different? In the spirit of its indecisiveness, this government will engage others to work out the projects on which all of this money, including the capital, will be spent. Presumably, the people who assess the projects will then put recommendations up for cabinet consideration, where it will then go behind closed doors for no-one to see. This is where the political interference certainly will come in. The veil of cabinet-in-confidence will come down over the projects and the Australian public will have no idea about the decision-making process and which projects get missed and why.

The government has been given the opportunity to assure Australians that the decision-making process will be open and transparent, but as yet there has been nothing. They have done nothing else while they have been in government, and this is no exception. Cabinet documents will not be released and the government cannot commit to not announcing projects during election campaigns. Thus I think we are seeing the birth of the biggest election war chest in Australian political history. Despite the Treasurer’s rhetoric about this budget not being political, despite the Treasurer’s rhetoric about it being for the future of Australia and despite the Treasurer telling us that the budget is a decade-long exercise in fiscal responsibility, the budget is political—it is about the next 12 months for Australia and the only thing in this equation is the future of the Labor Party over the next decade, at both a federal and a state level. The infrastructure funds are certainly nothing more than slush funds—slush funds for Labor and their mates. We cannot be sure and will never be sure that the infrastructure projects that Labor will undertake will not favour marginal seats, as the ultimate decision about these projects will be behind closed doors. Rex Connor would have loved this process.

Another area that first concerned me when I read about these infrastructure funds and the large amount of construction that the Prime Minister plans to undertake—probably personally, if he can find the time—is: how will Australia’s construction industry cope with the surge in investment? Where will Labor find the skills it needs to undertake this mammoth nation-building task? I was quickly reminded, however, that this budget will put 134,000 people out of work. One hundred and thirty-four thousand Australians will not be paying tax and will instead be on welfare. One hundred and thirty-four thousand Australians, through the deliberate policy measures of the Labor Party in this budget, will find it more difficult to cope with rising grocery prices, petrol prices and other cost of living pressures, including the higher interest rates that this inflationary budget will surely bring. After realising that 134,000 Australians will be looking for work, it became apparent where the manpower for the nation building will come from. No doubt soon we will see technical colleges springing up all over Australia to retrain those unfortunate 134,000 Australians. They are unfortunate because we have a Labor government who believes in higher unemployment, and they will be the first to suffer.

The budget for 2008-09 and these appropriation bills are not all that they seem. They are examples of Labor Party spin. It is trickery, and it is clever trickery. It is a typical Labor budget, high taxing and high spending. There is no doubt that Australians are feeling cheated by their government. They were promised cheaper petrol, but the government acknowledge that there is nothing more that they can do, in the Prime Minister’s own words. They were promised cheaper groceries, and again the government are doing nothing to help deliver cheaper groceries. The government promised an inflation-fighting budget, and again they have not delivered.

Consider the views of these experts. Goldman Sachs, in its budget review, said:

While the ALP has gone to great lengths to claim that this Budget will ease inflationary pressures, most of the supply enhancing initiatives involve large implementation lags. In reality, the ALP’s biggest contribution to inflation is that it is not making the inflation process worse.

This is from Chris Richardson, head of Access Economics’ macroeconomic group:

“The risk from this budget is that inflation could go up,” … “The risk is that the economy is travelling faster and that puts upwards pressure on wages, prices and interest rates. Chances are that interest rates this year are likely to go up rather than down.”

That is hardly a ringing endorsement of the inflation-fighting budget that we had to have.

In conclusion, it must be said that, while we are examining these bills and the expenditure measures that relate to them, we will be paying careful attention to the nature of the spending cuts and exactly whom they impact the most. The Minister for Finance and Deregulation can expect many questions in the coming months about why these cuts are appropriate and exactly how these cuts will put downward pressure on inflation. These bills provide a capacity to appropriate money from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the proper running of the government, and the detail is provided in the bills. The issue contained within this debate and within the budget will not disappear quickly. We will continue to ask questions about how the slush fund money will be spent, and I look forward to that debate. (Time expired)

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009 and related bills. This is a nation-building budget, a budget for which this country has waited 11 long years. It is a budget which heralds a new and much needed era of strategic investment by the Australian government to harness future opportunities and deal with future challenges. The Rudd government has its eyes firmly on the future, with a passion to give all Australians a fair go. It is the first instalment of a coherent agenda to deal with the realities of 21st century life. It puts the importance of education and a smarter society squarely at the forefront.

Australia is the lucky country, but luck does not come by chance. To maximise our opportunities, we have to skill our workforce and engage in the increasing global competition for resources of labour. We cannot compete solely on the price of labour; that is a race to the bottom we do not want to win. Education is the key to going up the value-added chain and, after the last 10 years of neglect, it is a vision to applaud.

This is a budget which starts to deal with the big, over-the-horizon issues. It certainly is not a budget that this nation has seen for many years. It is not a short-term, electoral cycle budget, the likes of which we became accustomed to under the former Prime Minister and the member for Higgins. It is not the budget of an alcopop-swilling, divided, narcissistically disloyal, self-blogging, luxury-car-tax-defending, chair-sniffing Liberal Party. It is a budget that in fact acknowledges the challenges ahead and lays down the foundation to meet them. (Quorum formed) In infrastructure, health, education, training and environment, this is a budget which builds greater capacity for economic growth well into the future.

The Rudd government knows there are significant tests and challenges ahead, but we are determined to meet them all head-on as responsible economic managers planning for and investing in our future and supporting those Australians who are doing it tough. In the words of our Treasurer, this budget is:

A coherent package of reforms based on four principles: honouring our commitments; delivering for working families; investing in the future; and beginning the new era of economic responsibility we need, to sustain growth in challenging times.

This budget makes the down payment for future prosperity by making investments today for the economy of tomorrow. This budget meets the government’s commitments and begins a new era of responsible long-term investment to strengthen our economy, fight inflation and meet the future from a position of strength.

This budget has been delivered in times far more testing than those faced by the previous government, not only because of the inflation legacy they left us but also because of the more uncertain international economic outlook as a consequence of the credit crunch and the impact on the outlook for economic growth, in the United States in particular. Of course, some of the decisions included in this year’s budget have been made even harder because of the negligence of the previous administration. That the decisions were hard, however, did not stop the Treasurer from making them, and that is the true mark of a responsible economic manager. This government has been single minded in laying the foundations for Australia’s future. In contrast to the previous government’s reckless pork barrelling and blatant vote grabbing, this government is investing in priority areas of education, health and environment to build prosperity in the future. We are implementing our election commitments in areas like health, child care and education to meet the needs of a modern Australia while delivering for families. The new spending in 2008-09 is offset by spending cuts—the tough decisions which were not the hallmark of the previous government.

We must never forget that workers and families are the backbone of our economy. Our $55 billion Working Families Support Package rewards families for their hard work and helps them cope with the rising costs of living. In a few short months, the Rudd Labor government has earned the respect of commentators and the electorate alike by tackling the hard issues. In this budget the government has dealt head-on with the acceleration of inflation and the tightening of domestic financial conditions. These conditions are in part, I believe, a direct consequence of the Howard government’s sustained underinvestment in physical and social infrastructure in preference for short-term spending, synchronised—like the Chinese synchronised swimming team—with the electoral cycle.

In 1907, Justice Higgins, in making his famous Harvester judgement in my electorate of Maribyrnong, heard from workers’ wives about the difficulty in meeting everyday costs of living, including food, shelter and clothing, and about their consequential loss of dignity. One hundred years later, these issues are still plaguing many Australians. In the tradition of Justice Higgins and the fair go of Australia, the reforms in this budget will help people make ends meet, through tax cuts, the Working Families Support Package and other messages. This government is fighting inflation because it hurts the economy and it hurts working families. That is why the government will deliver a strong surplus of 1.8 per cent of GDP, with every dollar of new spending in 2008 more than matched by spending cuts. Growth and real spending will be 1.1 per cent in 2008-09—the lowest rate for nine years. Over four years, this budget makes savings of $33.3 billion, including no less than $7.3 billion in 2008-09. We understand a strong surplus is required to bear down on inflationary pressures in the economy; to provide funds for long-term investment in the infrastructure, education, training, health and hospital needs of the nation; and to ensure a strong budget at a time of heightened uncertainty in the global economy. I understand Australia’s greatest resource is our people. Investing in people, in their health, their skills and their families, is the only path to a successful future and a more modern, productive economy. That is where the government has squarely aimed this budget—and not a minute too soon, as the Howard government, asleep at the wheel, failed to ensure that Australia trained enough new or existing workers to keep up with the skill demands that have been placed on the Australian economy and its workers.

There is unprecedented demand for Australia’s resources on the back of growing global prosperity. Our mineral and energy resources are enjoying record prices. Our iron, steel, alumina and aluminium exports are contributing to building and shaping the future global prosperity. Our economy, as a consequence, has been growing at a steady clip for the last 16 years. But the previous government failed to invest over this period, and it is not a mistake the Rudd government will make. Our government is focusing on improving productivity by investing in skills and infrastructure and encouraging participation. This budget deals with the three Ps which hold the key to Australia’s future prosperity: productivity, participation and population. Higher productivity leads to higher real GDP and higher real wages, while increased participation obviously means employment and real GDP growth. Productivity growth means we can produce more goods and services with the same resources and is the key to improving living standards.

The budget has a range of measures aimed at building economic capacity to maximise Australia’s fortunes and deal with both the current and future challenges. Productivity has averaged 1.4 per cent per annum over the past five years—lower than any other five-year period in the last decade and a half. This slowdown has increased price pressures, as firms seek to recover higher input costs. The budget starts to redress this underachievement. In fact, the number of new funds—from the building fund to the Health and Hospitals Fund, to the Education Investment Fund—shows at last a determination to save and invest in Australia’s future. Indeed, in 2008-09, Infrastructure Australia will clear the bottlenecks left by the previous government, complete a national infrastructure audit and develop an infrastructure priority list to guide public and private investment. And it will develop best practice guidelines for public-private partnerships.

Business needs flexibility in the workplace to boost productivity, and employees need job security, the protection of minimum conditions and time with family. The government’s workplace relations laws provide both fairness and flexibility, things the previous government’s Work Choices promised but, as thousands of Australians know to their cost, spectacularly failed to deliver.

We can export more than iron ore to China, because of Australia’s world-class funds management industry. A funds management industry built up by a strong superannuation industry, built as a result of the foresight of the Hawke and Keating Labor governments and with the contribution of Mr Bill Kelty, former Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. In what key business leaders have called a vote of confidence for the fund management industry, changes in the financial services industry will benefit all Australians by diversifying the economy and by providing opportunities in knowledge and financial innovation jobs, making Australia a financial services hub of the Asia-Pacific.

The government is also committed to improving skills through $1.9 billion to deliver up to 450,000 additional training places over the next number of years. The government is investing in the education and skills of all Australians in order to lift participation rates in the economy by establishing Skilling Australia for the Future, trade training centres in schools, increased skilled migration and Skills Australia.

As the budget is providing incentives for the population to improve the ability of people to contribute constructively in order to improve their overall living standards, we need to recognise that ageing is a particular longer term challenge facing the economy. As the population ages and the proportion of people in the workforce falls, the challenge will be to maintain economic growth while containing pressures on the budget. Whilst the ageing population may be a challenge, it is a challenge that we as a nation are lucky to have, as ageing certainly beats the alternative. This budget starts to put in place policies to address it, including the provision of incentives such as personal income tax cuts.

This government has reduced tax as a share of the GDP from the tax bandit years of the Howard government which saw revenue as 24.7 per cent of the national GDP in 2007-08 to 23.8 per cent in 2008-09. This meets the government’s medium-term objective of keeping taxation, as a share of GDP on average, below the high levels of the Howard government’s most recent years before it lost office at the last election. The government will fully implement its promise to reduce personal income tax by $47 billion over four years. This tax cut is directed at low- and middle-income families—the backbone of the economy, as I said earlier. They will allow low-income earners, including part-time workers, to keep more of their income, will ease the financial pressure on families and will provide further incentives to participate in the workforce. From 1 July 2008, a worker on $48,000—average weekly earnings—will receive a weekly tax cut of $20, and low-income workers receiving $14,000 or less will pay no tax at all. In addition to the announced cuts in tax rates, the Henry review of Australia’s tax system is a welcome and long overdue initiative focusing on root and branch tax reform.

The budget also helps parents with care for their children and investment in their education. Access to high-quality child care plays an important role in improving children’s education and development and helps parents to choose to return to work. Childcare and education costs are addressed by lifting the childcare tax rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent—which is valued at $1.6 billion—and introducing a new education tax refund valued at $4.4 billion. The government is also improving housing affordability with a $2.2 billion package through the First Home Saver Account, the National Rental Affordability Scheme and the Housing Affordability Fund.

This government understands that all Australians are a valued and valuable part of our community, and this budget has been framed to ensure policies that are socially inclusive. Carers and older Australians make significant contributions to our society, and this budget reflects that commitment. To assist seniors and carers to meet rising costs, the Rudd government will provide one-off lump sum payments of $500 to eligible senior Australians, $1,000 to carer payment recipients and $600 to carer allowance recipients by 30 June 2008, at a cost of $1.8 billion. The government has also, for the first time, extended the utilities allowance to carer payment and disability support pension recipients and increased the following yearly allowances: the seniors concession allowance from $218 to $500 and the utilities allowance from $107.20 to $500.

I am also delighted that the government is introducing fairer assessment of the child carer payment from 1 July 2009, which will cost another $274 million over five years. As a result, an additional 19,000 carers of children with a severe disability are expected to be able to access the carer payment in 2009-10. Importantly, a further $20 million has been allocated to help families adjust when a child has experienced a catastrophic event such as a severe illness, a major disability or an injury due to an accident. Importantly, $100 million of capital funding will be provided to the states to build new supported accommodation for people with disabilities.

Our DNA is hard-wired to make sure our children have the best opportunities in life, and the government understands this. We understand the fear and anxiety of elderly parents of children with disabilities—parents who worry about the care of their child when they are no longer able to care for them themselves. Up to 35 new facilities will benefit approximately 200-plus people who do not have access to appropriate accommodation at this stage. It is a small first step, but a vital one which helps our most vulnerable citizens. I do believe that this government is united by a common desire to see every individual enjoy the longest life full of quality and meaning. I am excited by the opportunity this budget offers my constituency in the disability community, as I indicated in my first speech, not so that people with disability receive special treatment but so they receive the same treatment as everybody else—the rights which are theirs with the dignity that they deserve. This budget also provides for the development of a national disability strategy. Consultations will commence, and this strategy is another demonstration of leadership from this government in this area.

In conclusion, this budget has all the hallmarks of a true progressive Labor document. Ralph Waldo Emerson described the difference between American progressives and conservatives. He said:

Mankind … is divided between the party of Conservatism and the party of Innovation, between the Past and the Future, between Memory and Hope.

If we adapt his analysis to Australia, it is clear that Labor is the party of innovation, of hope and of the future. Arthur Schlesinger, speaking of the politics of hope, argued that in politics ‘Innovation is the salient energy; Conservatism the pause on the last movement.’ The concept of pause fitted the previous Howard government all too well. In thwarting the move to a republic, neutralising the hope for reconciliation, downplaying global warming and the importance of climate control, failing to secure and protect Australia’s long-term water resources and not addressing the productivity slide and the skills crisis, the conservatives sat back or slid backwards. The most extreme step, well beyond a mere pause, was the Work Choices laws, which returned Australia to the 1890s temporarily.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Pyne interjecting

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yet John Howard was neither a Liberal federalist, in the member for Sturt’s mould, nor a leader in the Alfred Deakin liberal tradition. His industrial relations experiment relied upon a contemporary and questionable interpretation of the community’s mandate. Mr Howard was perhaps less the ideologue that he is portrayed as by some of his critics and more of the opportunist. Unquestionably, we saw the Howard decade end any remaining strand of liberalism in the Liberal Party—that is, what has not been ended by the right wing of the New South Wales Liberal Party. It is certainly far from clear what, if anything, the new leader—or new leaders—of the Liberals will add. The modern Labor Party is a party of hope and innovation, which has been proved by the federal budget introduced into this place by the Treasurer. To repeat the Treasurer’s words:

It is a Labor Budget for the nation. For Australia’s future. For all Australians.

I commend the bill to this House.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would recommend to the member for Maribyrnong that he read the articles from the former member for Werriwa in the Financial Review on Fridays because he will find them very illuminating about what the former member thinks of this Labor budget. I do not think he agrees with the member for Maribyrnong. I am not sure whether, when the former member for Werriwa was leader of the Labor Party and the member for Maribyrnong was leader of his union, they were close friends. The former member has some quite interesting things to say about the Labor Party’s budget. It would be good reading for the member for Maribyrnong and even for the member for Reid, who was very close to the former member for Werriwa for a very long time.

As well as being the member for Sturt, I am fortunate to be the shadow minister for justice and border protection and it is in that role that I intend to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009, the Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2008-2009, the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009, the Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2007-2008 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2007-2008 to elucidate to the House the failings of this government with respect to the Australian Federal Police and Customs in particular. I am also the assisting shadow minister for immigration so, if I have time in the appropriations debate, I intend to also speak about some of the failings of this government on immigration, particularly in relation to my great state of South Australia.

As a government, our record on border protection and national security is second to none. I think that most of the Australian public would agree, even if they did not agree with all of the aspects of the former government’s policies, that one thing that was overwhelmingly supported was our record on border protection and national security. Threats to our security are becoming increasingly complex and unpredictable. A government’s first responsibility must always be to protect the freedom and way of life that we treasure. In its 11 years the Howard government recognised the importance of border protection and national security. Between its election in March 1996 and its last budget in 2007, the coalition increased funding to all of our security agencies. Customs funding was increased from $357 million to $1,000 million, Australian Federal Police funding was increased from $205 million to $976 million, ASIO funding was increased from $52 million to $291 million, and AFP staff were increased from 2,722 as at June 1996 to an incredible 6,011 in June 2007. Over 11 years the previous government gave our border protection and national security agencies real teeth: it increased regional and global cooperation in law enforcement activities and legal assistance to boost the fight against terrorism and transnational crime; it delivered substantial enhancements of aviation and maritime security; it delivered a ‘tough on drugs’ approach that has increased seizures and reduced drug use; and it tackled illegal immigration both on our borders and at the source. By comparison, the new Labor government has shown itself to be weak and uninterested in border protection and national security.

I turn to some of the aspects of this budget that expose the Labor government for their weakness with border protection and national security. The first is their confidence trick in relation to the ‘more cops on the beat’ announcement in the budget and before the election. The delivery of more sworn Federal Police officers by this government has been revealed by the budget papers as a three-year trickle followed by a fourth-year tsunami that may never come. The 2008-09 budget reveals that the vast bulk of Labor’s 500 sworn Federal Police officers will not come to be employed until after the next federal election. The budget shows that only $36.7 million or 19 per cent of funding for this initiative will be spent before the next election, due in 2010. The government is clearly so embarrassed about this funding shortfall that they have refused to include any detail on how many extra sworn officers will be employed each year. Our calculations suggest that in the coming year there will be 31 new sworn officers, followed by 30 officers in 2009-10 and 39 officers in 2010-11. This means that, far from the 500 new officers trumpeted by Labor’s election promise, only 99 officers will be delivered before the next election, then in 2011-12 another 213 officers will become active, followed by the final 188 in 2012-13.

The stated intention of this ALP promise was to bolster the Australian Federal Police numbers on the streets. The budget has revealed that their promise was utterly hollow. We need a strong Federal Police force to protect Australia from transnational crime, overseas and onshore terrorist operations, people-smuggling and human slave-trading operations, child pornography rings and the scourge of ice, Afghan brown heroin and other drugs, and we need them for all of the other important work that they do. The public expected to see Labor’s AFP officers on the streets on 1 January 2008. Instead we will see most of them after 2011. Labor’s promise was all spin and no substance.

The budget also slashed border protection funding. The Australian Customs Service have suffered a substantial budget cut, exposing Labor’s old-fashioned weakness in the area of border protection and national security. Australian Customs have been slashed by $51.5 million in real terms, which amounts to a 3.4 per cent cut to the Customs budget. Australian Customs have more demands placed on them than ever before in protecting Australia’s borders from dangerous illicit drugs, disease and the terrorist threat, amongst other things. With reports indicating increases in illegal tobacco or chop-chop and Afghan brown heroin on the streets of Australian cities, this is not the time to be cutting the Customs budget. Cuts to Australian Customs, who are the front line in Australia’s border protection security, would have been unthinkable for any sensible government. The ALP has played to form and has started undoing the strong support that our national security agencies enjoyed under the coalition government. Underfunded agencies will be unable to deliver strong border protection which places Australia’s interests and Australian lives at risk.

Not content with cuts to Customs, the new Labor government has slugged working families with a travel tax grab. Australian working families looking to take a break or to have a holiday are going to be slugged as of 1 July 2008 with a new tax, courtesy of the Rudd government’s first budget. The 2008-09 budget has revealed an increase in the passenger movement charge from $38 to $47, a 24 per cent increase that will force up the price of airline tickets for Australian holiday-makers as well as overseas tourists. This is another inflationary tax hike to add to the growing pile, with taxes on premixed drinks and luxury cars announced prebudget.

The government have been especially tricky in relation to this measure. They claim in their promotional material that this tax, which will raise $459.3 million over the next four years, is necessary to offset the cost of a range of aviation security initiatives and the cost of processing international passengers at international airports. If this were true, we would see that money being put back into Customs. The fact is, as I have already said, that Customs has seen its budget slashed this year by $51.5 million in real terms. This is really a raw deal for Customs. Next year alone they will collect $106.3 million from this tax on the public, only to see it funnelled into Wayne Swan’s general revenue, as they continue having to protect Australia’s borders with reduced funds. This revenue will not be used to protect Australian travellers; this is just another ALP tax hike.

The Australian Federal Police task force charged with tracking and catching online child predators and paedophiles has been cut in Labor’s first budget. Labor has got this completely wrong. One of the greatest fears a parent has is that their child will be preyed upon in an internet chat room or harassed online. The Protecting Australian Families Online package gave parents some peace of mind, knowing that the Australian Federal Police were actively tracking child predators and paedophiles. Labor have replaced it with their cyber safety plan, which removes $37.2 million over five years from the overall package. Disturbingly, they have cut $2.8 million over four years from the AFP’s role. Under Labor’s plan, the AFP is left with fewer resources to tackle these insidious predators.

Critically, our capacity to work with international agencies through the online child-exploitation task force has been reduced. The internet operates globally, and effectively tackling child exploitation requires international coordination. The challenges increase exponentially each year. This area needs increased resources, not fewer. When there is a $21.7 billion budget surplus, it beggars belief that Labor feels the need to make cuts in this important area.

This bizarre move highlights the Rudd government’s overall shift away from the coalition’s record of strong support for our national security agencies to the old fashioned Labor weakness in this vital area. The Rudd government is obsessed with tokenism and spin in matters of national security. The 2008 budget shows that the activities of Australia’s national anticorruption watchdog, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, are being crippled by underfunding. ACLEI was established by the Howard government to root out corruption in federal agencies. Despite the Rudd government’s promise to increase the size of the AFP, the government has failed to adequately fund ACLEI proportionately to that increase. Media reports indicate that a former head of ACLEI, John McMillan, said that to be effective the body needed a tenfold increase in investigative staff and substantial extra funding. The same report suggests that ACLEI will be unable to perform duties such as wire-tapping and covert operations essential to rooting out corruption.

While the Rudd government trumpets increases in the size of the Australian Federal Police—which are illusory in themselves as they are back-ended to 2011-12—they are failing to resource agencies who watch the watchers. This lack of proper resourcing for oversight agencies has real consequences. In this case, those consequences pertain to the credibility of our national security agencies.

So, in the area of Customs and the AFP, the government has unfortunately shown itself to be returning to old Labor. Reduced funding for Customs; no real and substantial increase of any kind in the AFP—there is a strong argument to suggest that there has been a cut to the AFP’s funding in real terms—a confidence trick of 500 new federal police officers, of which 401 will not be delivered until after the next federal election; a cut of $51.5 million to Customs when they are already stretched. And yesterday we saw a breach of security at Sydney airport where a man travelled through Customs without being stopped and then left and was only picked up as he was leaving Customs—a visitor to the airport. So Customs is stretched and yet their funding is being reduced. The public is being slugged with an increased passenger movement charge, none of which is going to Customs. The battle against child predation has been weakened by cuts to the AFP’s role, and ACLEI, which watches the watchers, is being underfunded.

Turning to my role as assisting shadow minister for immigration and citizenship, I would like to comment on some immigration issues, particularly in relation to South Australia. On 1 September last year the former federal government made some changes to immigration matters, and the state government has also made some changes in South Australia, and I would like to comment on those. Increasing the age limit for migrants in the skilled migration program from 45 to 50 in regional and low-population-growth areas would assist to attract many additional skilled migrants to South Australia. There are many people who wish to migrate to Australia who would make a valuable contribution to our society. However, many of them are unable to do so due to their age. People between the ages of 45 and 50 can still make a very valuable and significant contribution to the economy and labour market as they tend to be highly skilled and are able to assist businesses, Australian citizens and permanent residents via transferable skills and knowledge.

Australia’s two biggest competitors in the skilled migration front are Canada and New Zealand, both of which have an age limit for skilled migrants that exceeds ours. So I am suggesting that raising the upper age limit of the skilled migration program from 45 to 50 would be a benefit to South Australia, particularly if that was in regional and low-population-growth areas.

I would also like to see a reinstatement of the value of international students studying in South Australia. Prior to the 1 September changes to the general skilled migration program, there was a significant benefit to international students in studying in South Australia. This helped South Australia attract a significant increase in the number of international students studying at Adelaide. This system awarded applicants with five points for studying in a regional area. While these points are still available under the revised program, they do not have the same impact and attractiveness that they did previously. Under the old system, a 25-year-old international student studying a Bachelor of IT in Adelaide would have obtained the following points: 60 for skills, 30 for age, 20 for English for obtaining a minimum of six in each of the four components of the IELTS test, five for Australian qualification and five for regional study—120 in total. By comparison, the student studying in Sydney would have obtained the following points: 60 for skills, 30 for age, 20 for English for obtaining the same mark and five for Australian qualification—115 in total. Under the previous system, this student would need to study in South Australia in order to be eligible for the five points for regional study so they could meet the 120 points requirement.

One of the biggest changes to the new GSM program introduced in September 2007 is to English. Previously, a score of six in each of the four components of the test resulted in 20 points. Now, six equals 15 points and seven equals 25 points. Using the same scenario as before but substituting the applicant’s score from six to seven in each of the four components of the IELTS test, the results would be as follows in South Australia: 60 for skills, 30 for age, 25 for English, five for Australian qualification and five for regional study—125 in total. Using the same scenario for Sydney, the Sydney based student would obtain the following: 60 for skills, 30 for age, 25 for English and five for Australian qualification—120 in total. As you can see, if an international student chooses to study for a 60-point occupation in Sydney, Melbourne or Perth and obtains seven in each component of the IELTS test, they can satisfy the points requirement to be eligible for their permanent residency. Under the old system, this was not possible.

This change is detrimental to South Australia and South Australian educational institutions and threatens the ongoing viability of the international education market in my great state. In fact, under this system, when looking at the student studying in South Australia, they can satisfy the minimum points requirement of 120 without relying on the five points for regional study. In effect, regional study becomes irrelevant or obsolete.

There was a change the state government made, too, which has affected international students studying in South Australia. Under the pre-September 2007 GSM program, the state government would sponsor international students to the skilled independent regional visa upon completion of their studies in South Australia. Under the new program, the state government will not sponsor an international student unless they can demonstrate that they have at least 12 months work experience post qualification. This is to the disadvantage of South Australia. In contrast to this arrangement, the Western Australian government are quite happy to offer state sponsorship to their and our recent graduates. Under the new GSM program, any student who completes 12 months work experience in Australia is eligible for 10 points.

Another scenario is where a student studies IT in Adelaide but only scores six in each of the four components of the IELTS test and obtains 15 points for English. They would obtain the following points: 60 for skills, 30 for age, 15 for English, five for Australian qualification and five for regional study—115 in total. That is not enough to obtain residency, so this student would apply for a temporary graduate visa that allows them the opportunity to obtain 12 months work experience in order to be eligible for an additional 10 points. There is no requirement that a student must remain in South Australia to obtain these points. As a result of this, the IT graduate could then move interstate in order to find employment and be eligible for residency. The unfortunate reality is that it is extremely difficult for most international graduates to find work in South Australia. As such, we will lose a significant number of graduates.

Both of these scenarios open the doors for our recent graduates to depart South Australia. You can see that there are some changes that the new federal government could make, such as in the area of the age limit for skilled migrants. They could reinstate the value of international students studying in regional areas. The state government in South Australia could help by reinstating their previous attitude towards work experience.

I am pleased to see that the member for Maribyrnong has come back into the House to hear my speech. No doubt, when he went back to his office, his staff told him that he was missing an excellent speech and that he could learn something from it. I reiterate the call that I made to him when he was in the House at the beginning at my speech to go back and read his old friend Mark Latham’s columns in the Financial Review. He writes every Friday and is writing some excellent stuff about the failures of the current Labor government and particularly of the Prime Minister, some of which have been very memorable. (Time expired)

Damian Hale (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to make my contribution to this debate in support of the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009. Let me also put on record my support for and recognition of all stolen generation people around Australia today on this special and significant day for them. On the night of the budget speech, the Treasurer outlined clearly to the people of Australia that this budget was designed to meet the somewhat big challenges of the future. He went on to say:

It is a Budget that strengthens Australia’s economic foundations, and delivers for working families under pressure.

It was paramount that this budget was the responsible budget that our nation needs at a time of international turbulence and inflationary pressures at home. It is a budget carefully designed to fight inflation and to ensure we meet the uncertainties of the future from a position of strength.

This is a budget with a $55 billion Working Families Support Package at its very core. In my electorate of Solomon, it is the working families that are suffering. Today, I will outline for the House the commitment that has been made and that will be delivered to the people of Solomon in the budget for 2008-09. This budget provides a strong emphasis on Northern Australia and ends the blame shifting and lost opportunities—unlike the previous government’s focus. Once again, those opposite have rolled out the same tired lines today in question time, blaming the states. All regions of the Northern Territory have suffered due to the blame game continually being played and what this has caused is confusion, resentment and a lack of progress on many key issues that are affecting the lives of the good people of the Top End. I will say this of the people in the Top End: we are a happy bunch, and we go about our business well without fuss and generally look after our patch. However, over the past 11 years, the people in Northern Australia have been let down and it is high time we ended the blame game and moved forward for the good of the people of the Top End.

It is with a great deal of pride and enthusiasm that I support this bill because it delivers many vital pieces of infrastructure in the electorate that I was elected to represent. An election promise was made by the now Prime Minister and I back in July 2007 and, with the full support of my colleagues, I am proud to stand today in this House and, on behalf of the Rudd Labor government, deliver on that promise. I speak of the GP superclinic in Palmerston. In this budget, $10 million is allocated to deliver this vital service as soon as possible. This service is not only absolutely necessary and desperately needed for the Palmerston residents, but it will also aid our neighbours in the rural areas as well as take pressure off the often stretched Royal Darwin Hospital. I have been speaking to people in Palmerston and, as I have said before, they are sick and tired of the blame game. It does not matter who ‘technically’ is responsible for providing health care. All they want, just like all of us, is to know that when their loved ones are sick they can see a doctor anytime of the day or night without having to travel ridiculous distances, which often causes more stress in an already stressful situation. The good people of Solomon need it, they want it, they deserve it, and only a Rudd Labor government is going to deliver it. That is because that is what we do: we deliver for working families.

While I am talking about delivering on election promises, I will mention another significant and vital piece of infrastructure for the people of Darwin and Palmerston—the Tiger Brennan Drive extension. Our government has committed $11.2 million in this budget for the upgrading of Tiger Brennan Drive, and it is extremely pleasing to see that stage 1 of this project has already started. When completed, this upgrading will have seen some $74 million of federal funding committed to it. Our government is committed to completing this important link between the growing rural region and the expanding Darwin and Palmerston areas. This major investment will improve the safety and the travel time for people commuting between Palmerston, Darwin, the northern suburbs and the rural areas. Completing this extension is an issue that is close to my heart, as I and thousands of other Palmerston and rural residents sit in gridlock every morning and afternoon getting to and from work. This project is also part of a national projects initiative that is designed to deliver major benefits to the business community by allowing easier access for industry to the East Arm port and the trade development zone. When it is completed, this major infrastructure spend will have significantly improved efficiency and safety.

Our government is realising the potential of the north through a range of budget initiatives for infrastructure and regional development. These investments will promote economic growth, and benefit not only the Territory but the nation as a whole. There is $78 million allocated to the Territory in this budget for nation-building road projects. These initiatives are vital for the community and businesses that utilise the community, beef and mining roads. This commitment includes almost $9 million to start projects that were not scheduled to start until 2009-10. For many Territory communities and businesses, due to the vast expanse of the Territory, the roads and rail are the lifeblood of the NT. We need to have seamless access from Adelaide to the East Arm port facility. These initiatives are great examples of the federal and Territory governments working together to deliver vital pieces of infrastructure for the people of Solomon and the Territory.

While I am talking about new initiatives from our government and examples of governments working together to deliver for the people of Solomon, it is fantastic to see that $8 million over four years has been allocated in the budget to establish the Office of Northern Australia. This office will provide high-level advice to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government and the Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia. Both men are extremely knowledgeable and passionate, just as I am, about realising the potential of the north. The Office of Northern Australia will provide a source of environmental, economic and social policy expertise in relation to Northern Australian issues to ensure we achieve sustainable development outcomes. I commend our government for implementing this great initiative.

During the 2007 election campaign, my opposition focused much of their re-election credentials on law and order issues. Instances of lawless behaviour in this country are on the increase and, unfortunately, in Solomon we are not immune from this. The government in this budget will provide funding to the tune of $15 million over three years to fund grants under the safer suburbs program. The program aims to reduce crime, antisocial behaviour and gang activity through a range of measures, including the installation of closed circuit television cameras and improved street lighting. The Northern Territory will receive $2.5 million to be used in Darwin, Palmerston and Alice Springs. This is only one part of combating the rising crime rate. However, this level of commitment from the government has been well received by the community.

Sport is a vital ingredient of our lifestyle in Solomon. That is why I am excited about the budget commitments our government has provided. The government will provide $2.5 million over five years to help an NT AFL team and netball team participate in an interstate competition. This commitment provides an opportunity for people who choose to live, work and play in the Northern Territory not to be disadvantaged by their location. This initiative will enable young athletes to remain in the Northern Territory with the support of family as they strive for AFL or Australian selection in Australian Rules football or netball respectively. Further to this, it is also about developing administrators, strength and conditioning staff, coaches and managers, so that they can continue to educate future generations involved in sport. Both the member for Lingiari and I are very excited about this commitment. This government is serious about increasing participation in sport through developing community facilities. In fact, almost $21 million will go to more than 90 community sports and recreation facilities around Australia. It is great news for the people of Solomon that $3 million has been allocated in this year’s budget to fund the much needed upgrades to the Hidden Valley drag strip. These upgrades will give a much needed injection for the hardworking committee up there and will ensure that the people of Solomon get to enjoy top-class meets.

The government has made sure every single cent of new spending for the coming year has been more than met by savings elsewhere in the budget. Our commitments have been honoured by redirecting spending. Difficult spending cuts have helped fund our Working Families Support Package and our new priorities for the nation.

We are budgeting for a surplus of $21.7 billion in 2008-09; 1.8 per cent of GDP, the largest budget surplus as a share of GDP in nearly a decade. This honours and exceeds the 1.5 per cent target we set in January, without relying on revenue windfalls. It is a surplus built on substantial savings of $33 billion over four years, including $7 billion in 2008-09 alone. And it is a surplus built on disciplined spending, with the lowest real increase in government spending in nearly a decade; spending growth which is one-quarter of the average of the previous four years.

We need a strong surplus to anchor a strong economy, to do our bit to ease inflationary pressures in the economy, and to build a buffer against international turbulence. To fund ongoing long-term investment in ports, roads, railways, hospitals, universities and vocational education we need to deliver growth with low inflation into the future. That is why it is great news that our government is providing an additional $3 million to Charles Darwin University. As a former student of CDU, I know only too well the fallout of the previous government’s lack of investment in our higher education system. This is an investment in IT, communications, research and teaching, laboratories, libraries, places to study, teaching spaces and critical student amenities at Charles Darwin University. This spending on critical infrastructure is part of our national $11 billion budget investment through the Education Investment Fund which will pay for ongoing improvements in our TAFEs and universities.

This budget helps parents care for their children and invest in their education. In Solomon we have one of the highest population growth rates in the country. Each week I sign letters of congratulations to the new mums and dads in Solomon. That is why I am delighted to support the new childcare initiatives our government is introducing through this budget.

Access to affordable high quality child care is critical in improving kids’ education and development; it also helps the mums or dads who choose to return to work after having a baby. The reality is that most families usually have both mum and dad out working, and often most of the second income actually goes out in paying childcare fees. That is why our childcare tax rebate is so critical for our nation’s working families. This budget commits $1.6 billion over four years to enable the rebate to increase from 30 per cent to 50 per cent. That means half of the out-of-pocket childcare costs will be paid for. Not only that, we will be making these payments every three months instead of the once-a-year payment that existed previously. What that means for the mums and dads of Solomon and Australia is that the money will be available at a time when the bills come in.

This budget is also about delivering for small business. Our government is committed to small business; that is why we are delivering our election promise to establish more than 30 business advisory centres around Australia—$41 million has been provided in the budget to fund one-stop small business advisory centres across Australia. I am excited that one of the 30 new offices will be located in Darwin. In fact, $300,000 is allocated in our government’s first budget to establish the Darwin business enterprise centre. This valuable centre will provide much needed advice for those wanting to establish or improve a business and is part of our government’s overall small business strategy that will cut red tape in areas of business regulation. That is something that small businesses are crying out for. These centres will improve the lives of so many hardworking small business owners in Solomon.

The government recognises the financial pressures that seniors face. Our government is committed to helping seniors make ends meet amidst the growing cost of living. In this budget we are committing $5.2 billion in additional funding for seniors. The implementation of Labor’s election commitments in this budget will provide an average additional annual benefit of $400 for age pensioners and seniors. The government has also introduced into parliament a bill to pay age pensioners and seniors a $500 bonus—2.7 million seniors will benefit from this measure. This bonus will be paid before the end of this financial year. These bonuses come on top of significant increases in the utilities allowance, an extension to the telephone allowance, new dental funding for concession card holders and petrol vouchers for volunteers who use their own transport. We recognise that this is only a start but I know that for senior Territorians it is a much needed and a much warranted start.

This budget has delivered for the people of Solomon. This budget will be good for families and it will be good for families with children in child care. It is fantastic for the people of Palmerston and the rural areas who for so long have missed out on vital health services and infrastructure upgrades.

I join the members for Wills, Port Adelaide and Maribyrnong in congratulating the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the executive in putting together this budget. It was the first Labor budget in 13 years and the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have certainly delivered for the people of Solomon. All of them have mentioned one common theme throughout their speeches: the lack of investment from the previous government in infrastructure and planning. Nowhere was this so evident as in the seat of Solomon. The people of Solomon were let down by the previous government. I commend this bill to the House.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In rising to address Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009 I want to set out a simple proposition in relation to my portfolio area of climate change, the environment and urban water. That proposition is this: when it comes to actions in this budget to protect the environment, what we have seen is the impression of activity as part of a broader culture of deceit. I want to deal with this impression of activity across four fronts: firstly, in relation to the catastrophic damage—and I underline the words catastrophic damage—which is underway at present in the solar panel sector; secondly, to deal with some of the fraud in relation to the failure to act on climate change; thirdly, the damage they have done to urban and community water programs; and, fourthly, the total failure to take meaningful steps in relation to whaling and the case against whaling internationally—in particular the failure to include a single dollar in the forward estimates for observation of Japanese whaling activity or to protest against Japan’s actions through the International Court of Justice.

Let me turn first to the solar panel sector and let me start by going back to 28 March 2007. On 28 March 2007 the Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, and the current Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts stood on the steps of Solartec. Solartec is a home-based small business in Canberra which assists with solar panel installation. This is what Mr Rudd said:

Well it’s good to be here in Chapman today with Phil and with Soph and baby Abi and their home based business Solartech and with Peter Garrett, the Shadow Minister for Climate Change and the Environment. We’re here today to talk about climate change and we’re here today to talk about the role of renewable energy. We’re pleased today to be able to announce Labor’s new Solar Home Plan.

He went on to say:

We need to boost renewable energies in general. Solar is the most greenhouse-friendly energy available on the planet and, therefore, we just need to take some practical steps to make it possible for as many families as possible to invest in this.

And this is what Phil May, the co-director of Solartec Renewables, based in Canberra, said just after the budget. On 15 May Phil May said simply:

They have totally destroyed (the solar industry), absolutely and totally ruined it.

I defy one member of the government to stand in this chamber to defend what has been done to the solar sector, to defend what has been done to Phil May and his wife Soph and their young child, all of whom had been the beneficiaries of hard work done over many years to create a small business. But this small business is just one of many.

What I want to set out today is a very clear case that what we had was a duty on behalf of the government to not do damage and to follow through with its clear election promise. We had on election night a breach which was fundamental. It was a breach of their election promise not to means test the solar rebate. It was a breach of their duty to any small business operators in Australia not to destroy their business overnight. It was a breach in particular of the expectations they set with the Australian public that they would take action to promote, and not to destroy, the solar panel sector. This is a dark and dirty secret which everyone in the government is aware of. They know that it was a catastrophic failure of policy and that, if you took any small business sector in Australia and within three days took away 60, 70 or in some cases 80 per cent of their forward orders, that would be culpable mismanagement. But to do it in one of the very sectors which the government used as a way of campaigning for itself is just sheer negligence and is part of a broader culture of deceit. What I want to show is that in addition to a duty and a breach we have clear and quantifiable damage to specific industries and specific firms around Australia and that real people—apprentices and others—have already begun to lose their jobs. I want to show that there is a way forward through rectification, that this measure can easily be undone.

Let me turn first to the question of duty in relation to the solar panel sector. What we saw on 28 March 2007 in the suburb of Chapman in Canberra on the steps of Solartec was Mr Rudd committing to taking a series of steps. What he also said that day—and I want to quote it because it is so clear and unequivocal—was:

I think the thing also is that if you encourage solar by way of this sort of national subsidy, or rebate scheme, what happens is that you encourage the industry more broadly. And if you do that, ultimately our objective would be to see manufacturing costs come down. If that’s the case then of course it becomes more and more accessible over time to families to purchase.

Nobody could have put it more clearly, and that is why the coalition government had a solar panel rebate in place. That is why, when you look at a system which costs between $15,000 and $20,000 to place solar panels on the roof of an average house, we believed it was necessary to put in place an $8,000 rebate. We did it not as a welfare measure but as an environmental measure. The net effect of that was to see a dramatic increase in the uptake of solar panels following the implementation of this measure after the last budget. We saw the growth of the solar panel sector around Australia.

We know that this was a good thing. We know that the then opposition, the now government, trumpeted that not only would they match this but they would exceed it and they would help grow the solar panel sector because they thought it would help with peak energy demand. They thought it would help with growing the sector and they thought it would help with climate change. This was one of their fundamental election promises and one of the key messages they took to the Australian people. And yet we see that there is a breach. And it was a fundamental breach because on budget night what was announced was that, as of midnight, the solar panel rebate would no longer be available to households with an income of more than $100,000. That means that, if a mum and dad are on $51,000 each, then between the two of them—whether they are a teacher and a nurse or a policeman and a kindergarten teacher—they do not qualify. And yet we know that many of the cases—60, 70, 80 per cent of families—who sought to put solar panels on their roofs were in that category which has now been excluded.

On 16 May, Hamish Wall, the general manager of business development with Nicholls Solar, a company that installs solar panels said on The World Today:

... we had one household which consisted of a nurse and a teacher and obviously under the Federal Government’s policy they’re rich and therefore they are no longer eligible for the rebate.

The result has been very simple: this change, made by executive order and not reviewable by the parliament, has wreaked havoc through the industry. And let me look at the breach in the way in which it was carried out. The executive order which came into effect was immediate. There was no consultation with the industry and there was no prospect for review whatsoever. This is an executive order which does not require legislation, cannot be disallowed before the parliament and is therefore utterly and completely beyond the reach of this chamber and the Parliament of Australia to review a decision which overnight can take away 60 to 70 to 80 per cent of the business of any small business. It defies imagination that any business sector, let alone the very sector which they held up as the future of Australian energy generation, can be treated that way. And do we see any sympathy on this front from the government members? In fact, what we see is an errant arrogance. We have seen from the finance minister and the Treasurer a dismissal of the claims of small business operators. The finance minister said:

Well, we’ll see whether these claims from these companies turn out to be true or not.

This is from the Leon Byner program on 5AA of 21 May 2008:

No company that is running a business on the basis of a government subsidy has a right to assume that the taxpayer is going to tip money into their business indefinitely.

Except they do have a right to presume that when a government makes a solemn promise in the lead-up to an election, and that it is a fundamental part of the way they present themselves to the Australian people, that promise will not be broken at the very first budget. This is what we see from the Treasurer, Mr Swan:

I am happy to have a look at any evidence that people have got in the case of means testing.

He also says:

I do not necessarily think some of the dire consequences that are being predicted by some people in the industry will come true.

These are not predictions, and this is what I want to put to the government: these are simple, clear absolute facts that are occurring within the industry today. That brings me to the question of damage. The discussions I have had with the solar panel sector have been numerous. There have been emails, faxes, telephone conversations, meetings—all manner of communication. What they have said time and time again is that within three days, in many cases, they had lost 50, 60, 70 and even 80 per cent of their business. That is a tale of palpable mismanagement and arrogant disregard. Let me continue with Phil May, who said:

In the three days immediately following the budget we lost $360,000 in cancelled orders.

This is the businessperson Mr Rudd used as a prop to parade his solar energy credentials around the country. What does Mr May’s wife say?

I am absolutely heartbroken that they could bite the hand that helped them promote their policies.

That is Sophia, co-director of Solartec Renewables. What about Conergy, another company? They said:

Following the government’s solar means test announcement Australian families have now cancelled 80 per cent of their solar system orders due to their cost being prohibitive, meaning less solar panels on roofs.

These are the words of the small business sector itself. These are not words that we have created. Rodger Meads of Conergy  said:

This has translated to immediate job losses across the industry at a time when we believed it had a bright future. It will send the solar power industry back to the early nineties.

This is an extract of an email that was copied to me but was addressed to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts from Travis Hargreaves of Chidlow in Western Australia:

By 9.30 a.m. on the day after the budget the six site visits were all cancelled due to the customers being ineligible. I then contacted 45 other customers who I had booked site visits with. Only two out of the 45 are still booked for a site visit. I am now out of a job and my ability to continue my night-time studies has been put into jeopardy.

This is what the communications director of the Clean Energy Council said in the Sydney Morning Herald business section on 19 May 2008:

People are absolutely frantic. We have endless calls and emails in the last 72 hours and all our phones are running hot. Customers are pulling out in droves.

She also said:

The government has killed the industry stone cold dead.

Erik Zimmerman, the chief executive of Rezeko, also known as Beyond Building, has said that he has lost $1.8 million for a medium-sized business operator in forward contracts.

These are not hypothetical. The message to the Treasurer and the finance minister is: get in touch with the real Australia, because these are small business people who have worked and sweated and put their life’s work on the line and you have destroyed it overnight. It takes a rare genius of almost Whitlamesque capacity to create so much destruction in such a short time. This is a real sector whose jobs are gone, whose promoters are fearful for their own future. It is affecting our environment and it breaks absolutely with the commitment made by the government. I could go on. Adrian Ferraretto, a solar operator from the Solar Shop Australia, said that 60 per cent of his business, costing about $2 million a month, and up to 50 jobs—half of his workforce—would be lost. I just want to say that again: up to $2 million a month and 50 jobs. This is real and it is happening and if the finance minister and the Treasurer of Australia want the evidence, that is the evidence. I have behind me a folder filled with emails and testimonials, from small business operators and from mums and dads who had wished to purchase solar panels, to indicate that the sector is in disarray.

This brings me to the last point I wish to make, that there is need for rectification. The rectification is simple—fulfil your election promise. Fulfil the commitment you made to Phil and Sophia when you stood on the steps of Solartec over a year ago and pledged that you would promote and not destroy the solar industry. I cannot believe that the government actually intended to destroy the solar sector, but I do believe that they are blind to the consequences of their action and, most frighteningly, utterly arrogant as to the implications for jobs and for those small business operators. The message is very simple: reverse this measure. We cannot have an impact in this parliament for a very simple reason: it is a non-reviewable decision. It is a decision taken by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts with a stroke of the pen which has wiped out jobs and which is threatening to wipe out family businesses.

As I said, all of this fits into a broader pattern of the impression of activity and a culture of deceit. Moving beyond solar, very simply what we see in relation to climate change is that funding over 2007-08 and over 2008-09 has been cut by a total of $42 million—$21 million domestically and $21 million internationally. We see that the much-lauded Renewable Energy Fund has been put back and will not commence yet. The clean energy target has been ruled out. And I read the news today that the former head of the New South Wales cabinet office has declared that a clean energy target which would provide incentives for clean coal and clean gas, in addition to renewable energy, would be a far less distortional way to go than a renewables only approach which puts back indefinitely the cleaning up of 92 per cent of Australia’s energy sources.

We see again there is no recognition of the many billions of dollars that will be reaped from revenue under the emissions trading scheme in this year’s budget—no estimation whatsoever. We see in terms of climate that the Asia-Pacific partnership has lost $50 million and has effectively been gutted as our principal means of engaging with India and China, the biggest sources of growing emissions in the world. When you have to deal with a global problem, you have to deal with the source of that global problem. The avenue which was established and which was given bipartisan support under the previous government has effectively been destroyed. We see as well that the Green Car Innovation Fund is not going to happen in the coming year, not in the second year and not in the third year. In the fourth year we might get something. So, ultimately, we have seen the impression of activity.

I now turn to the question of water. Every member who was in this chamber during the last term of government was engaged with wonderful community water grants programs all around Australia—with the Dromana Bowls Club and with so many different community groups. This program has simply been abolished. Tens of millions of litres of water were saved and thousands of people around Australia were educated in terms of the benefits of saving water. It was a great program. Its destruction is to be mourned. What we see now is that no sporting group around Australia—football, netball, cricket, bowls or any other group—will have access to funds to recycle water, to capture water, other than for $10,000, down from $50,000, for surf lifesaving clubs. That one group has some access.

This brings me to my very last point—and I think it is an iconic point—and that is: there is no funding in the budget, not a dollar in 2008-09 or in 2009-10 or in any other year, for monitoring or continuing the activity in relation to the Japanese whale hunt or to fulfil the election promise of a case before the International Court of Justice. What we have seen ultimately in this budget in relation to the environment is the continuation of some of the Howard government programs but, above all else, the destruction of the solar panel sector, something which is not hypothetical and which should be condemned and for which the government should apologise and reverse their failures.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to speak to the first Labor budget delivered in this House in 13 years. It is very much a Labor budget—a budget that supports working families, a budget that recognises the essential role that government plays in building for the future, a budget that does not shy away from difficult issues of climate change, a budget that tackles the relationships between state and federal layers of government and a budget that puts in place the building blocks for our future prosperity. And we do need to build. We needed to build several years ago, but there can be no doubt that it is now an urgent matter.

It is ironic that after 17 years of unprecedented boom time we have to begin a building phase; after 17 years of boom we face an extraordinary backlog in skills, in schools, in hospitals, in community facilities, in child care, in roads, in public transport, in water and in the environment, both urban and rural. In fact wherever I look in my electorate I find a backlog of work. In the majority of cases we have seen state-federal relations used as an excuse for a lack of action.

When it comes to working families, who have no doubt been doing it tough for several years, we have not even seen excuses from the previous government; instead, we have seen denial—denial that there was a crisis in housing affordability, denial that interest rates were causing a problem, denial that there was anything that could be done at all on petrol or grocery prices—

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are kidding!

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I am not actually. There was a lot of denial and a complete lack of action on any of it. There was denial that affordable, accessible child care was an increasing problem for many. We heard, of course, that working families had never been better off and that inflation was exactly where the government of the day wanted it. We saw denial on major capacity constraints such as infrastructure and skill shortages. At last that time is over. The days of denial, the days of inaction and the blame game are in the past.

It is not possible to compensate for 11 years of neglect, but this budget begins the work. It is a nation-building budget. It is my hope also that it is a budget that begins to rebuild the people’s trust in this House. As unheard of as it has been over the last decade, this budget actually delivers on all of our election promises. I have had quite a time in my electorate, both before and since the budget, convincing people that we really would deliver on all of our election promises, and I think even now that we have done it there are many that are still looking for the gaps because it is such a rare thing, unfortunately, in Australian politics.

So we find ourselves coming out of an era where government denied so much and did so little, where expectations were so low, to a new era of nation building where we see our strengths, acknowledge weaknesses and work to address them. Suddenly we are now having a debate. We are recognising underlying issues that need addressing if we are to secure our future. We are acknowledging them as a community and debating possible paths forward. There are new debates on housing affordability, interest rates, inflation, skill shortages, infrastructure, climate change, homelessness, carers, people with disabilities and education. It is a particularly interesting time to be in the electorate.

Just wonder for a moment where the debate would be if we had not changed government. Would we even be talking about interest rates or would we still be denying the issue? Would we still be denying there is a skills problem or an infrastructure crisis with productivity slipping below par compared to other OECD countries? Would we be saying that there was no problem and that mortgage and rental stress were not real, even though interest rates caused repossessions to double in the six months leading up to the election in the suburbs of Northmead and Blacktown in my electorate, if we still had a government saying that there was no problem? Even now, the opposition claims that we on this side of the House are making much of it up and that things are really just fine.

Fortunately the people of Australia do know better and recognise not only the need for urgent action in so many areas but also the need for strong fiscal management. The Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009 delivers on both. We will be providing a strong surplus of 1.8 per cent of GDP and every dollar of new spending in 2008-09 is more than matched by spending cuts. The growth in real spending will be 1.1 per cent in 2008-09, the lowest rate in nine years. Over the next four years we will make savings of $33.3 billion. We have reduced the tax share of GDP from 24.7 per cent in 2007-08 to 23.8 per cent in 2008-09.

All of these are measures designed to keep downward pressure on inflation. But it is equally important that we recognise that working families have been under increasing pressure for several years. While the previous government was liberal with tax cuts for the better paid in the community, there was little relief for those on more modest incomes. We have delivered with a $55 billion Working Families Support Package that delivers for families, recognising and rewarding their efforts and providing essential relief from cost pressures. At the heart of the package is $46.7 billion worth of tax relief, over the next four years, directed at low- and middle-income earners. From the first round of tax cuts on 1 July 2008, a family on a single income of $40,000 will be $20.19 better off, increasing to $34.62 by 1 July 2010. Perhaps even more significantly for many people in my electorate, the government’s tax cuts will allow Australians to earn up to $14,900 in 2008-09 without incurring a net tax liability, up from $11,000 this financial year. By 2010-11, a typical second income earner will be able to work 14 hours per week before paying any tax. This is an important measure for families seeking to improve their circumstances, and for us all as it will encourage greater workforce participation.

We are also providing real support for families using child care. This is really needed. There are some areas in my electorate, including Westmead and Girraween, where we could build three or four new childcare centres, each with a hundred places, and still not meet the unmet demand—that is, the demand we know of. We have also committed to building 260 new childcare centres in priority areas and introducing a new quality control rating system that will provide parents with the information they need to choose the right centre for them. We are also lifting the rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent and increasing the cap from $4,354 to $7,500 per child. Again, this is a measure that assists families with their daily costs. Rather than paying that rebate annually, we will be paying it quarterly, closer to when families need it.

Nationally, we are investing in an education revolution that will improve the quality of and access to education. But to further assist families directly, we are introducing a 50 per cent education tax refund for help with educational expenses, providing up to $375 a year for each child in primary school and $750 for each child at high school. Recognising the rising costs of housing, we are also introducing the first home saver accounts to help families save for their first home. For low-income earners, we will be delivering 50,000 new rental properties by 2011-12 at rents at least 20 per cent below market rates.

The government is also committing $3.2 billion for health and hospital reform, including $600 million to slash elective surgery waiting lists and $1 billion to relieve the pressure on public hospitals. We have allocated $491 million for the new Teen Dental Plan. That will allow parents to claim up to $150 per year for a preventative dental check for each of their teenage children. We have also made the Medicare levy fairer by raising the threshold below which people will not have to pay the surcharge if they do not take out private health insurance to $100,000 for singles and $150,000 for couples. Through this measure, families can save up to $1,500 per year, or more if they have more than one child. It is a good, strong package for working families; it is one that I am proud of and one that I know will assist the families in my community.

I also know that my community is pleased with the creation of three new funds to invest in nation building. The i-word, as I call it—infrastructure—is one that I have heard frequently, particularly as it relates to the development of our cities and their public transport, water, hospitals, educational institutions and recreational facilities and spaces. The community expects governments to take responsibility in these areas and provide them with the services that they need.

I think most people in this House know that I doorknock regularly. I have doorknocked over 45,000 houses since I first ran for parliament four years ago. Last month I knocked on the doors of 800 houses and held nine mobile offices in local shopping centres, as I do every month up until December. That was the week before the budget. I am looking forward to doing it in the first week of the next break after the budget. Overwhelmingly, infrastructure was the key issue that was raised. Nobody out there cares anymore whether it is a state or a federal issue, they just want it fixed. If the state-federal relationship is problematic then they want that fixed too. They look to us to do it because they cannot. Only we can do that. The 150-odd people in this place and the few hundred around the states are the only people in the country who can actually achieve this. I am also proud to be part of a government that takes this responsibility so seriously and that puts the challenge of infrastructure and state-federal relations at the heart of government. It is a challenge, particularly with such a backlog to tackle at both state and federal levels.

The budget establishes three national building funds that will put us in a stronger position to tackle future challenges: a Building Australia Fund for infrastructure, an Education Investment Fund for education and a Health and Hospitals Fund. Between the three, the budget provides in the order of $40 billion for capital investment in infrastructure, higher and vocational education and health to modernise and reinvigorate the economy. The impact on future generations of Australians that these funds will provide cannot be underestimated. If we are to move forward as a nation and face the challenges that await us head-on then we need to modernise, rejuvenate, re-think and build for the century. These funds are the beginning and we will build on them in future budgets.

Labor is the party of building. All the great infrastructure projects throughout our federation’s history have come from a time when Labor was in government. The Building Australia Fund will provide $20 billion toward infrastructure projects—rail, roads, ports and, just as important in this new digital age, broadband that will enable all Australians access to the latest technology and information systems available. Infrastructure underpins efficiency and it not only allows an economy to operate effectively but it also allows communities to function. I am continually shocked when people call me or when I am doorknocking and I find houses, even in Parramatta—the geographic centre of Sydney—that are in black spots. This is a major issue for our future, and one that this government is more than willing to tackle.

In Parramatta, the government is providing funds for a study into a metro rail project from Parramatta to the city that will create more options for commuters—an extremely important project given that the rail lines from Parramatta to the city are now running at close to capacity. Kevin Rudd has promised an education revolution and this budget delivers the first down payment. During the election campaign the then opposition leader, now Prime Minister, visited a local school in Parramatta, Arthur Phillip High School, that runs an innovative program that ensures every student in the senior years has access to a computer. It has been an incredibly successful project, and when you go to that school you can see the engagement of the young men and women with their laptops, even in their lunch hour. This budget delivers $1.2 billion over five years to deliver computers and communications technologies to all students from years 9 through to 12. Again, this is an overdue investment in infrastructure if we are to see our education system well set up for the next decades.

There is $2.5 billion over 10 years to put a trades training centre in every single high school in the country, helping to address the chronic skills shortages we are facing at this time and that we will continue to face in future years if we do not act now. There is an additional $1.9 billion to deliver up to 630,000 new training places as well, with many of those training places already delivered. If you are young and new to the workforce, there will be training available. If you are mid-career and need to sharpen your skills, there will be training available. And if you are changing your career and moving into new fields there will be training available. It is very much an education revolution.

The ability to adapt and the capacity to learn is how we build a stronger society, and education is the key. And education begins with early childhood learning. This budget delivers another election promise with $533.5 million to provide universal access to a preschool year—15 hours a week for 40 weeks—for all four-year-olds by 2013. That access to preschool education was also an issue that was raised quite strongly during my doorknocking in the week before the budget. I had to write quite a few letters to people once it was announced, confirming that we were honouring that election commitment that meant so much to them. There are measures for early childhood learning, an education tax refund, trades centres and computers in schools, more places for vocational education and training and, as well as that, $500 million of extra funding to be delivered before 30 June this year to help universities upgrade and maintain teaching and research facilities. That $500 million includes $15.9 million for the University of Western Sydney, which is only a small redress for their treatment at the hands of the previous government. In fact, I went to the launch of the new building about 18 months ago on the Parramatta campus to find that it was the only new building that had been funded in the previous nine years. The University of Western Sydney has a long way to go to recover from 10 years of neglect, as do many universities around the country. This, again, is only a first step, a down payment for the future. But in Western Sydney, it is an extremely important one. Our enrolment rates at university are just over half the Sydney-wide average—something we are well aware of and something that we know must be turned around.

In addition there is the Education Investment Fund, which is the second nation-building fund in the budget, providing $11 billion, the capital and earnings of which will be drawn down over time to invest in higher education and vocational education and training facilities—again, an extremely important development for Western Sydney. If we are to maintain world-class universities we must invest in them and allow them to grow and innovate. The previous government was the only one in the developed world to disinvest in universities over the past decade. It is a short-sightedness which is difficult to comprehend. The stark reality is that we need to be putting resources into universities and TAFEs, where the workers of today and tomorrow learn their craft. If we are to make a better tomorrow, we need to invest in education, and this budget does just that.

There are a number of Parramatta-specific projects in the budget. There is a tourism project that provides $500,000 for the development of Parramatta Stories. Parramatta has arguably the best heritage assets in the country. We have more heritage buildings in Parramatta than there are in The Rocks, yet we earn less than one per cent of our GDP from tourism compared to about five per cent Sydney wide. Most of those heritage assets are within walking distance from the river and we are well overdue to develop that tourism potential. At the moment, if you arrive in Parramatta, it is very difficult to know where to go. There are very few packaged tourism products. This $500,000 allows Parramatta council to begin the development of those first stories that guide people through the extraordinary heritage assets in the region. This project is extremely important to the local economy and one that should provide considerable return in the mid to long term.

We have also been given $1.5 million for a bike path between Parramatta and Blacktown. The Parramatta electorate sits almost entirely within the Upper Parramatta River Catchment Trust. There are more than 30 creeks in Parramatta that stretch through the electorate, from north to south and east to west. At the moment, if you had a machete, you could walk from Parramatta to Blacktown along Toongabbie Creek and then Blacktown Creek. I am not really suggesting that anybody get a machete. Along much of those creeks there are bike paths but there are significant gaps between the two. This $1.2 million will allow two local councils to bridge some of those gaps and create a very important piece of infrastructure that will link the two major CBDs in the area to the suburban areas between.

I also report back to the House the positive response that we have had to the homelessness strategy. Parramatta has the largest population of people sleeping rough outside the Sydney CBD in Australia, with over 500 every night sleeping rough. We are a CBD, so we do attract people into the area as well as creating quite a few of our own due to the rising housing prices that come with booms in major CBDs. So it is a very major issue in the area and there are some extraordinary organisations, including Street Level Community Centre and Parramatta Mission, doing some remarkable work with the homeless. The feedback that I get is not just about the budget allocation and how important that is to the work that they do but about the fact that it is now on the agenda and being debated at the forefront of government policy. People have worked largely under the radar and struggled for so long and given so much of their time, and we in this House should all acknowledge that we do not actually fund the work that is done for the homeless; it is done very much by people underpaid and overworked and by volunteers who contribute in that area. How appreciative they are of the support that they are being given should be matched by how appreciative we are in this House of the support they give.

It is a good strong budget that delivers for working families. It is a nation-building project that considers needs for the future and puts in place the structures and funds to tackle our long-term needs. It does not do everything; there is much more to be done. People expect so much more of a Labor government than they do of a conservative one. But we have delivered a responsible, caring budget that puts us in good stead to build the prosperity of this country. (Time expired)

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On listening to the member for Parramatta run through her list of election promises fulfilled for the electorate of Parramatta, I only wish and dream that perhaps I would be standing here today announcing that we would be doing something about the Sandy Point Community Centre, which was an election promise we could not fulfil because we did not win the election. We would be announcing some funds for the Sustainability Centre at Koonwarra. We would also be announcing other funds in our Regional Partnerships program which would have been terribly important to the electorate.

The role of a member of parliament does not change greatly going from government to opposition. In that process we are still representatives of our electorates and we are still a bridge from the people to the executive. That is why I said to the parliamentary secretary at the table that I will be attending his autism breakfast tomorrow morning along with many others. You would be surprised who attends that sort of function, because there is such a concern. The job of a local member continues on, addressing the issues, such as the miseries of autism and allied conditions that affect the community.

I will start with a positive: this government has allocated $190 million to begin to address this issue and I am supportive of the government of the day that has heard the concerns of many across the community on both sides of the House and is prepared to give charge to the parliamentary secretary to tackle that problem on behalf of families. But I will call the member for Parramatta to account, along with the rest of the government, in regard to inflation, interest rates and unemployment figures. I will defend the economic credentials of the Howard government over nearly 12 years of good governance in this country, good economic management on behalf of the community that enabled us then to deliver the benefits that are being spent now by this government. In fact, generally over the whole of this budget what we are seeing is very much of the Howard government’s abilities in economic management for this government to be able to deliver, even though slightly changed. There has not been great change in this budget. There have been some different allocations but not great change.

What I register in the community is a broad disappointment. You talk about working families, but let us talk about living pensioners. People are concerned about petrol prices or grocery prices and the rhetoric of the Rudd group before the election campaign. What we have to do as a community and as a nation is call governments that come into power like this to account for the rhetoric that they had before the election. They led the nation to believe that they could do something about petrol prices. They were going to do something different for pensioners. They were going to do something different on the environment. They were going to do something different in education. They were going to do better than the government of the day was doing.

But what has actually happened in regard to petrol and pensioners? We have a situation now where the Rudd government is right up that well-known creek rowing that very well known barbed wire canoe. This week the Prime Minister said: ‘I can’t do anything about this issue on petrol. I can’t do anything about it and I have given up.’ That is a terrible admission. I would have thought he would have said, ‘The rise in petrol prices is a tragedy and it is difficult for the nation to deal with, but we will spend every day with every minister putting every bit of energy they can possibly put into keeping those things at the lowest price we can.’ I do not think they have done that. They have really just given up on that issue straightaway. They are not prepared to continue to work to find a way. There are things like what the Howard government did on petrol prices. If the Howard government had not acted on fuel excise, fuel would have been 17c dearer today, if not more. The Howard government was shown to be flexible. I will continue to defend the Howard government’s record. It should not be diminished, particularly in the area of community support.

That brings me to Regional Partnerships, which has been sold by the new government as a previous rort—going back five years ago, looking at a report. Therefore, for purely base, political reasons, they axed the whole project. What my community is telling me is that these were very good projects. Let me talk about the Warragul RSL project, which should have been signed off on last July. This issue did not need me to go to our government and talk about it because the issue was done and dusted—signed, finished and over. There were other requests that we had in on Regional Partnerships that we were working on to get funded. I will admit that, after raising an issue about a federal Labor government promise on ABC radio the other day, all of a sudden a phone call came through that the minister was coming down to give them $190,000. I will be writing to the Prime Minister to say—as I had written to Mr Howard in the past and received support—that there are some issues in some programs that actually need to be addressed.

The commitment by the Howard government last July to fund the Warragul RSL through Regional Partnerships was because of its community base and what it does within the Warragul community. These diggers have been sadly and unfortunately let down, only because there was an act of political bastardry in regard to these Regional Partnerships programs. The government had not thought it through. They wanted to make a statement—an attack on the coalition, an attack on the National Party, an attack on what they saw as a rorting program—but in truth, they should have looked at it closely and looked at how many of their own members had received so many Regional Partnerships grants. They were not even in the regions, but they had access to these funds.

What did they tell me? They said, ‘Write a letter to your Premier and see if they will top up the funds.’ It is a struggle for us to get any money out of our state governments, because they keep putting it on the federal government to pay so much. There has been so much cost-shifting going on. Now there will be cost-shifting wars between state Labor governments and a federal Labor government. We have to consider the genuine people of the Warragul RSL—and I am talking about a whole lot of programs across Australia. I am talking about the recreation centre at Druin. I am talking about the recreation program in place at Traralgon. I am talking about the $2 million promised by Simon Crean when he was down with the Moe people. The Latrobe council now have a letter to say they are not going to get it, but I dare say that, after I have said this tonight, that will be fulfilled as well. I made the commitment that I would come to this House and I would call on the government to fulfil its election promises, as outlined by the member for Parramatta and as has been outlined by the member for Bass. That was more like a Christmas benefit, the member for Bass listing her election promises and what will be fulfilled over there. It was unbelievable. I have never experienced such largesse by a government in the whole of my life. That was amazing.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Hall interjecting

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I am talking about the member for Bass, not Parramatta. Parramatta got plenty of dough, too, but nothing like Bass. The amount of money was just incredible. The Labor Party virtually purchased the seat with its promises.

The disappointment that rages across the whole of this budget also comes from the environment. Look at what they are doing to Landcare. Look at what they are doing to the whole program. They have made some changes in the environment area that actually reduce the amount of money. Who would have thought a Labor government would have come into power and reduced the money allocated for the benefit of the Australian community, the future and the environment? Who would have thought that a Labor government would make cuts in those areas that are most important not only to the environment as a whole and what we are leaving to our future generations but also to funds expended mostly in the regions. Why? They do not believe they have a political future in the regions of Australia and they are pulling funds out of there. They are base political reasons once again.

There is great disappointment across the community on what they expected of this government and what they have received. What you saw at the election was, yes, the end of the Howard era and the beginning of a new government. But this budget is actually the first time that the community could make any assessment whatsoever of what the government is doing. I have actually been positive. I have said to the Koonwarra Sustainable Communities Centre, ‘I think that this government will have a program that you can apply for.’ They would like to have a place where they can have demonstration projects in the environment, particularly in regard to wastewater, and where people can come and see how they might invest in those things for their own purposes around their home, their farm, their business or whatever. There is great disappointment in this budget. It is disappointment that is being felt right across the community at a time when the government has a lot of money that it is able to spend.

I wish to address today the issue of aged care and the ageing population. In its outcomes summary the government declares that its priority in this budget is to improve equitable access to community and residential aged care and to strengthen existing access arrangements. But the actual commitments in the budget fall well short of the industry’s hopes and expectations. There was relief that a feared cut in the coalition’s adjustment payment did not materialise, but the announcement of interest-free loans did little to eliminate concerns over how the industry is going to fund future expansion.

For the first time in Australian history there are more people over the age of 40 than below the age of 40. We have recognised for some years that we have to do more to provide for our own futures, rather than leave future generations the legacy of a crippling financial burden. Australians in recent years have been urged and encouraged to provide for their own retirement through superannuation and investment, rather than relying totally on social welfare in their retirement years. As people live longer they have also been urged to work beyond what has long been considered the retirement age, and the Howard government did provide incentives for them to do exactly that.

These measures and messages have been largely understood and accepted by the Australian population. Australians are making a major contribution to planning their own futures and they are working longer. But we still seem to be unable or unwilling to come to grips with one of the major problems of an ageing population, that of care of the frail aged. It is an emotional issue because it affects every family at some stage. Too often decisions about aged care seem to be put off until they can no longer be avoided. This is true at the personal level, at the community level and at a national level. Quite often we do not make a decision on care for an aged family member until faced with the inevitable.

It seems the same thing applies at a community and national level when it comes to planning and providing accommodation and care for the aged. The most contentious issue facing the aged-care industry at the moment is raising capital for new high-care places. As the population ages and the demand for high-care places continues to grow, this problem will snowball. We have the inequitable situation at the moment where entrants into residential low-care accommodation are required to pay an accommodation bond. However those entering high-care facilities do not.

This situation is reflected in the lopsided capital income of the two classes of accommodation which cater for approximately equal numbers of residents. Figures prepared by the Aged Care Association of Australia show the high-care sector earned a total of $123 million dollars in the 2003-04 financial year from capped accommodation charges. For the same period, the low-care sector earned an estimated $288 million dollars from the interest on accommodation bonds and retained fees. Without significant cross-subsidisation from the low-care sector it is highly unlikely that any new high-care beds would have been built.

In his review of the aged-care sector in 2004, Professor Warren Hogan made 19 wide-ranging recommendations aimed at improving equity and access, improving efficiency and quality of care, and achieving sustainability in the aged-care sector. The Howard government legislated to give effect to one of Professor Hogan’s recommendations for improving sustainability. It provided residents and their families with greater security and peace of mind with regard to accommodation bonds. The legislation established new prudential arrangements applying to providers to ensure their ability to refund the bonds. It also provided residents and their families with more information about the financial standing of a provider. Other key recommendations aimed at achieving sustainability relating to the simplification of residents’ fees and a more consistent requirement for accommodation bonds have also gone into effect.

But the critical area of accommodation bonds for entrants into high-care accommodation has still to be addressed. Professor Hogan argues that the options for making capital contributions should be consistent between high-care and low-care facilities. He called for an end to the present accommodation bond system with retention payments. New entrants to both high- and low-care places, he says, should have the option of paying either a refundable deposit or a daily rental charge for the duration of a resident’s stay.

There is no doubt we will have to act sooner rather than later if we are to meet the challenge that will be posed by the growing demand for aged-care places in the decades ahead. In the next 10 years alone it has been estimated that the capital requirement will be more than $9 billion. The difficulty is going to be to strike a balance between the demands on governments to provide increasing amounts of taxpayers’ money and the responsibility of residents to contribute to the cost of their own care. Earlier attempts to introduce accommodation bonds for high-care residents proved too difficult. I know—I was there. There was concerted opposition to any notion that a resident would have to sell the family home to get into a nursing home.

We are now at the point where we have to revisit the issue of refundable deposits if we are going to meet the challenges ahead. That challenge is magnified for the smaller, community based facilities such as I have in my electorate of McMillan. They are already struggling to find the capital they need to provide the places for aged members of their local communities who want to spend their declining years in familiar surroundings and with easy access for family and friends. Surely we can no longer sanction a system that discriminates against one sector of the aged community.

As I said before, it is an emotional issue and one that will surely spark a lively debate. But, if we are to continue to provide the standard of accommodation and care we expect for our aged population, it is a debate we have to have. My hope is that this time it will be conducted in a reasoned and calm atmosphere with the objective of reaching a fair outcome for all concerned. Last time this issue was used it was in the heat of an election campaign and it was used to discredit the federal Liberal coalition government at the time it was just trying to do the right thing in aged care.

I put the challenge out now to the new Labor government to address this issue of bonds and allocations in nursing homes across Australia so that into the future we can have a nursing home system, an aged-care system, that addresses our needs and, as our numbers increase, as the pressure increases, we will meet the challenge. We have a little respite at the moment because the Howard government went from putting $2 billion into aged care when they were elected to $6 billion when they finally left office. They poured billions of dollars into aged care to make the difference that we have made. But even that will catch up with us in the future if we do not act now to make sure that those that are providing care, especially those community based people particularly in electorates such as mine—and I am sure yours, Mr Deputy Speaker—have the means to do so. We need to support those people so that aged-care residents can have a facility close to home, nearby, and one that provides the very high quality of service that we would expect for our aged community.

Kerry Rea (Bonner, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009 and the cognate bills before the House this evening, the passing of which will see the delivery of the first budget by the Rudd Labor government from Treasurer Wayne Swan. In doing so, I congratulate the Treasurer, the Prime Minister and indeed the entire Labor cabinet for delivering a very balanced and sensible budget that lays a solid foundation for the necessary investment in skills and infrastructure whilst maintaining downward pressure on interest rates and inflation. It is a budget that delivers these outcomes while ensuring that those most disadvantaged in our community are not left behind. I am proud to support a Labor budget that recognises the need to invest in an education system that will grow our economy by giving every member of this and future generations the chance to achieve and contribute to our society and participate in the workforce in a meaningful way.

This budget is not just for the current constituents of Bonner—and indeed the country—but for future constituents as well. First and foremost it is a budget that has kept faith with the Australian people. Every single election commitment, no matter how big or small, has been honoured, including a massive $46.7 billion in tax cuts over the next four years. The opposition tends to deride the government’s talk of a very clear focus on working families. Well, I can assure the opposition that in my electorate of Bonner there are many working families and they are doing it tough. The cost of living has risen dramatically of recent times and I do not need to detail the impact that petrol prices and rising interest rates have had on those families trying to cover basic household costs and provide an education for their children.

The cost of housing alone has risen dramatically and is now an unacceptably high percentage of many household budgets. In the electorate of Bonner, at roughly 27.2 per cent of addresses people are renting while 36.8 per cent are homes that are currently being purchased. That is why I am very pleased that the government has announced the Housing Affordability Fund. It is a fund that will see the government invest $500 million to lower the cost of building new homes, by working with all levels of government, particularly local government, to reform infrastructure and planning requirements. As a former Brisbane city councillor, I think it is wonderful to hear of a federal government that is actually prepared to support local government in delivering this very important infrastructure in an affordable way to local residents. The Housing Affordability Fund will be available to local government, potentially in partnership with developers, or even to state and territory governments, for projects that will make a real difference to the cost of new homes.

Increasingly, though, it is first home buyers who are being shut out of the housing market. First home buyers now account for 18 per cent—or barely one in six—of all home purchasers, compared to 22 per cent in June of 1996. The first home mortgage has more than doubled in 10 years, from $104,000 in December 1997 to $231,000 in December 2007. The proportion of 18- to 34-year-olds buying their first home fell from 48 per cent to 44 per cent between 1994 and 2004. This is a real issue for many people, not just in my electorate but across the country.

To try to reverse these trends the government has committed $850 million to establish first home saver accounts. These new accounts will be up and running in the second half of this year. The accounts are the first of their kind in Australia—the biggest revolution in our savings culture since a Labor government introduced compulsory superannuation. The accounts will provide a simple, tax-effective way for Australians to save a meaningful deposit for the purchase of their first home.

Since the announcement of these new accounts the government has increased the benefits to low-income earners. The scheme has been extended to provide assistance to low-income earners through the provision of a minimum 15 per cent government contribution on after-tax contributions of up to $5,000 each year. A couple earning average incomes and putting aside 10 per cent of their incomes for their home could be able to save a deposit of $80,000, depending on returns. The accounts are also an important element of the government’s efforts to increase national savings—in fact, the estimate is that they will contribute around $4 billion to national savings within four years.

The National Rental Affordability Scheme is also very important to residents in my electorate. It is perhaps the most ambitious of the government’s new housing policy commitments. The scheme will provide an annual incentive to institutional investors to build new homes and rent them to low- and moderate-income earners at 20 per cent below market rates. The Australian government will provide institutional investors with an annual $6,000 refundable tax credit for new buildings. There will also be the capacity to provide this credit as a grant to non-taxable entities, so many operators in the community housing sector will also be able to deliver affordable rental housing to people in the communities that they serve. In fact, in the first five years the government aims to bring 50,000 properties on board and, if it is successful, will expand the scheme to 100,000 properties over the following five years—a major new investment in Australia’s affordable housing stock. The scheme will not just be another form of welfare housing. Rather, it will provide affordable accommodation for lower income singles and families in the workforce. Many of those people employed in service industries who simply cannot find affordable rents in the town or the city that they are living in will now be able to do so.

But, of course, we cannot talk about housing affordability without looking at those most vulnerable—those who are currently homeless and living rough. The government has developed the A Place to Call Home strategy, which will see $150 million funded in this budget to build 600 new homes for the homeless across the nation over the next five years. The A Place to Call Home strategy will see homeless families and individuals moved directly into these homes instead of going into refuges. They will also receive tenancy and other support for the first 12 months. Those placed in the new housing will not have to leave at the end of the support period. The homes will be transferred to the general public housing pool and their tenancy extended in accordance with normal arrangements for public housing. A Place to Call Home is an immediate response to tackle homelessness and successfully reintegrate people into the broader community, and it will stop them from cycling in and out of homelessness services—a feature that is very common for those sleeping rough today.

Today’s capital funding will help to ensure that homeless individuals and families get the support they need to permanently break the cycle of homelessness and allow them an opportunity to establish a place they call home. I particularly support the initiative where people—families in particular—will be able to move straight into a house rather than going through the often disruptive and very stressful period of being in a refuge, particularly for women with small children. It is pleasing to see that Queensland will actually receive 35.7 per cent of this funding. Indeed, that will see 143 new homes.

It is also a reality out there that there are many families where both parents work because they have to or because they choose to. The right for women to pursue a career and participate in the workforce has been hard fought over many years. The opportunity for many women to work and raise a family is recognised as a basic right in our modern society. The only impediment is the need for parents to have access to good quality and affordable child care. That is why I am very pleased to support the government’s initiative in this budget to increase the childcare rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent for all working families. No parent can confidently participate in the workforce if they are worried or uneasy about the care their children are receiving, and as a mother of three I know that feeling only too well.

I am also well aware of many women in the electorate of Bonner who face a very real dilemma regarding their financial future. Due to rising interest rates, they are faced with higher mortgage payments, necessitating a second income in the household, but for many the cost of child care is a prohibitive factor in them returning to work. Increasing the childcare tax rebate to 50 per cent and increasing the maximum amount of rebate to $7,500 will be the difference between many families living below or above the poverty line. It enables many women to return to the workforce, which of course will mean not only more financial security for them and their families but also a significant benefit to the current skills crisis. Families win, children win, women win and the economy wins. This rebate, in conjunction with the expansion of the civil penalties scheme to ensure greater compliance, will mean that child care is becoming more affordable and of better quality than at any time in the last 12 years.

While this budget brings much needed relief to many current households, it does not do so at the expense of future investment for the children of those working families that we are trying to assist. Funds are provided to ensure the implementation of the government’s education revolution. I have been visiting my local schools regularly since the election and I am overwhelmed by the enthusiasm that abounds for the computers in schools program and the rollout of trade training centres. There is a genuine and general willingness by each school community to work in partnership with the government to deliver these vital new initiatives in a way that will be most beneficial to each of their students.

Of course, education infrastructure does not stop here. I am particularly pleased that the $500,000 promised to help build the Gumdale State School hall has been delivered in this budget. This facility will not only provide much needed equipment and services for one of the fastest growing primary schools—not just in the electorate of Bonner but in fact in the city of Brisbane—but also provide very important community facilities, equipment and much needed space, enabling local community organisations to also deliver services in this local area. Given that it services the suburb of Wakerley—and we have seen nearly 4,000 new residents move into this suburb alone in the last four years—this multipurpose hall will be a really great boost to this very close-knit and growing community.

As we also know, education does not stop when the bell rings at three o’clock, and that is why I am very pleased that the government has honoured its commitment to introduce an education tax refund to assist families in providing the necessary technology at home that many students require to achieve. The government will introduce a new 50 per cent education tax refund from 1 July 2008 at a cost of around $4.4 billion over the next four years. So those parents who are entitled to family tax benefit part A or whose schoolchildren receive youth allowance or a similar payment will be able to claim a 50 per cent tax refund of up to $750 for each child undertaking primary school studies and a 50 per cent tax refund of up to $1,500 in education expenses for each student undertaking secondary school studies. Parents can simply claim the refund against eligible expenses incurred from 1 July 2008 when they complete their 2008-09 income tax return.

The government will also roll out universal access to early learning for all four-year-olds by 2013. The government will fund 15 hours per week for 40 weeks per year of play based learning and development programs. We all know how important it is to instil a love of learning and build an appreciation for education at that very young age if we want our children to succeed through primary school, secondary school and, indeed, tertiary education. That is why I am sure that the 11,377 primary students and 7,698 secondary students in Bonner will be very pleased to benefit from this refund.

While this budget has delivered on these important initiatives, I am also pleased that we finally have a federal government that is also prepared to invest, in Brisbane in particular, in the hard infrastructure necessary to ease traffic congestion and provide support to industry. The construction of the Gateway Motorway missing links will mean that Queensland motorists will have a first-class arterial road linking the Pacific Motorway to the Bruce Highway. The $10 million investment, to be matched by $10 million from the Bligh government, will allow planning work to start on the 12½-kilometre section from Nudgee Road to the Bruce Highway and the 4½-kilometre section from Mount Gravatt-Capalaba Road to the Pacific Motorway, a significant stretch of road in the electorate of Bonner. From 2009-10, an additional $195 million will be invested in preconstruction funding for these links under the AusLink 2 investment program.

The Queensland government is currently investing $1.9 billion to upgrade the Gateway Motorway to six and eight lanes. Anyone who at any time of day has sat in the traffic snarls on the Gateway Motorway knows just how important this duplication is. There are already up to 70,000 motorists using these sections of road every day and, if we do nothing, by 2012 over 94,000 commuters will be sitting in daily traffic jams. That means that urban congestion, if we do nothing, will cost families and businesses in Brisbane $3 billion a year by 2020, simply because many working parents are spending more time in their cars—which of course means that they have less time at home with their kids. The completion of the Gateway duplication will make a real difference, particularly to quality of life for all Bonner residents. It is the key missing link which, when built, will enable future investment in easing congestion on the road network that depends on the smooth running of this motorway.

I am proud to support these appropriation bills that will deliver a budget that brings economic and social benefits to all Australians. It is just the beginning and we know that there is more to be done, but it is a solid beginning and it lays the foundation for the Rudd Labor government to continue to create a fairer, more inclusive and more productive Australia.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just before the member for Bonner departs the House, I must  say I was interested in some of her remarks. She can be congratulated for her enthusiasm, but a bit of practical knowledge might have helped somewhat. She talked about first home saver accounts, but that amount of money is not going to do much if you have got to pay $300,000 to $400,000 for a block of land. And why are blocks of land so expensive in Australia? You would think we had run out of territory. We have got the territory, but we have ridiculous impositions of state government and local government charges and delays. The fact is that, unless governments address the fundamental issues—for instance, the gross escalation of land prices relevant to house prices—then it does not matter if you give people a few thousand dollars to add to their savings account and some tax deductibility.

Nobody wants to talk about the process of leasing land for a weekly or monthly charge over 90 years to homeowners, which would then halve the borrowings they might need to obtain a house. Nobody has looked at the opportunity of allowing the rural sector to lease land on their properties for rural homes that could be built thereafter for less than $50,000. We have laws in Australia that prevent people allocating rural land for release to people wishing to live there—and, of course, if the residents’ debts were minimal then they could work comfortably at wages relative to the rural sector’s capacity to pay.

I could go on; I just note those particular things. I note that the rights of women were mentioned—but not if you are working fly-in, fly-out and have a gross family income of over $150,000 and you are trying to buy a house in Sydney or Melbourne, or Brisbane for that matter. If you do not have $150,000 you cannot afford a house. Are those people rich? Are they to be denied the bit of assistance that the baby bonus provides? I have a daughter who has just had to buy a second child car seat because she now has another baby, and what are they—500 bucks each? It is big money, and a lot of young people do not have it.

This is how silly it is, because I did the figures. You could have two neighbours living in Sydney in a median house price area. The first purchased their house in 2001 and the other, in 2003. By an accident of history, they have a differential in interest charges—nothing to do with interest rates, just the interest on the additional median cost of that house—of $18,000. If the first buyer is on an income of $149,000, they are entitled to the baby bonus, but, if the other people are on $151,000, they are not, yet the latter are by comparison about $16,000 a year worse off than their neighbours who bought two years earlier. Is that a help? Is that helping working families? Not by my measure. It is a case of people needing to learn what ‘rich’ means in this day and age. If you wish to house your family as your parents housed you, $150,000 is a ridiculous amount to consider evidence of wealth.

After the budget was announced, I walked up to a doorstop interview the next morning and made a fundamental comment: ‘The budget delivered Peter Costello’s tax cuts and Wayne Swan’s tax increases.’ And to what do the government’s tax increases apply? Consumption. Now, you can argue that that is a good idea if you want to stop people buying and put people out of work in retail and car sales and all those sorts of things—if you think that is the way to manage the economy.

I want to put an alternative view in this debate. The reality is, of course, that it is inflationary by any measure. Our leader came forward and said, ‘We’ll take 5c off petrol tax.’ That is a reduction in prices. It is clearly measurable. Don’t ever tell me you need to mess up the GST system any more. When Paul Keating was confronted with the GST, at least he had the honesty to tell the Australian people, ‘Vote Liberal and you’ll get the GST, because I won’t oppose it.’ Please remember, he tried to bring one in in earlier years and it was knocked on the head by the trade union movement with a sleazy meeting in a motel room here in Canberra.

Government Members:

Government members—Come on!

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

—That is a matter of recorded history, but don’t worry about it. The reality was that he had the honesty to do so and the outcome would have been one in which there was no petrol tax—

Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Twenty per cent.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was not 20 per cent either. I think it was 15 per cent. It would have been a clean change and Labor thought there were votes in doing it the other way around. But we do not notice any suggestion today that they would roll it back. So what are we looking at? We are looking at some pretty interesting situations. As someone who has been here a lot longer than anybody else sitting in this chamber at the moment—and some are so new the drips are still coming off their ears—I remember standing in this place, on this side of the House, pleading with the government of the day to save the private hospital and private health insurance industry. I served a term as shadow minister for health and I could see what was happening, and it was happening deliberately. The Constitution forbids an Australian parliament commercially conscripting doctors, dentists or others in those professions. Of course, therefore, you cannot have the British National Health Service by government determination, but you can sure get it by default. If there had been another three years of the Keating government, there would be no private health industry today. People were deserting in droves. All the good risks—insurance is about matching good risks with bad risks—were giving up, and that escalated the premiums. Then another group would give up. It was beyond the resources of most elderly people who needed access to the private system to get their elective surgery.

You can talk about throwing money at state governments until you are blue in the face, but let me tell you: any hospital that runs on a budget treats patients as a liability—‘you can’t have too many of them, because you haven’t got enough money’. The private health system is the only backstop for people. Again, to create an opportunity for all the good risks to desert guarantees, above all else, that thousands of other people in need will not be able to afford private health insurance. You did not tell anybody at the election that you were going to pull this trick and we know why: because you would not have been able to be elected on this issue. People know that the only way to keep private health insurance and private hospitals viable is to have a system that people can afford. If they cannot afford it, they have no choice. You will never be able to fund a public hospital system to the extent that meets the private needs of people. As I say, I have been to the conferences and I have heard honest health administrators say that waiting lists are part of the management processes of public hospitals. That is a conspiracy. It is not generous and it is bad policy.

Let us talk about fighting inflation. There are two opportunities to fight inflation. The one chosen by this government is the blunt instrument: you raise taxes, you accumulate the money and you take it out of circulation. You start to starve the economy into submission. Looking over your shoulder is the Reserve Bank, independent admittedly, with another blunt instrument: forcing up interest rates to achieve the same reduction. You do not try to grow your economy on firm foundations; you turn around and starve it into submission. Anybody that consults the history of this place will see that every time government tries that intervention, unfortunately, it ends in a recession—the last one famously called ‘the recession we had to have’. You cannot use those instruments successfully.

So what are the alternatives? The alternative is to keep nominal wages low but buying power high—the evidence of the Howard government was an increase of close to 20 per cent in real wages with not very significant increases. Why is that? Because there is no such thing as a free lunch. You can increase workers’ wages. My father earned £6 a week. He raised four children, bought a house and never had his wife in paid employment. Today his wages would be $1,500 a week as a motor mechanic and if his wife were not working he could not afford a house. And we call that progress. The reality is that the first part of addressing inflation is to keep wages properly linked to productivity and to let the market prevail. I nearly laughed when I heard a very prominent labour leader, a union leader, saying that people coming out on section 457 visas should get market wages. They have convinced the Labor government to review 4,000 wage awards—for ‘market wages’ read ‘AWAs’. That is what they are. When it suits their rhetoric they think it is a good idea. What do you want? Do you want to regulate the labour market, with all the constraints that places on growth, and then try to kill growth off with interest rates and taxes, putting money into funds where it cannot be spent when it is needed? If you have not addressed the shortfall in the supply of labour, then you have got a problem.

We had 457s, and when it became an opportunity to win an election they were criticised as stealing Aussie jobs. What Aussie jobs? We have four per cent unemployment—which, when I was studying economics, was considered full employment. We have high participation rates. You are going to build all these schools, but I do not know where the kids are coming from to fill them. You cannot materialise people. The Deputy Prime Minister stands up here day after day, waving her hands around and telling us, ‘I’ve got the answer; we’re going to increase skill training.’ That is a good idea, as long as you have someone to teach.

What is the history of Australia? Where have most of the voters come from for the Labor Party? They have come from immigrants—the 10-pound Poms and all the other people who came out here, the Vietnamese and others who filled the jobs that were available and all trained their kids in skills. Yet we have the trade union movement out there fighting bitterly against bringing people in on 457 temporary visas now, and I laugh about it.

In my electorate the other day, a $40 million piece of premanufactured equipment—a ship-loader for iron ore—turned up on a heavy-lift vessel. The vessel picked it up and dropped it on the wharf, and the only work available to Australians out of that $40 million was to connect up the electricity and the conveyor belt. How many union members did you sign up where that thing was built? How much tax, payroll tax and expenditure in small business did we get from that? Why was it built somewhere else? Because there are not enough people here to build it.

The greenies complain about exporting live animals. The major reason is that we have not got the human capacity in my electorate, at the established meatworks, to slaughter those animals. And we say they have to be skilled! Have you guys ever looked at a meat chain, where one bloke stands there with a knife and cuts and the next animal comes along and he cuts? There are people in the boning room and that sort of thing who need some skills, and they should be upgraded. But why don’t you let them in? They might even join the union. They just might. But you do not get them over there in the Middle East or wherever the animals go. I just cannot understand your reasoning. When they got a few people into the meatworks in my electorate, the local sports store sold out of pushbikes the next day. They all bought one to ride to work. They do not do that in the Middle East. They do not do that in other places. Yet there is this stupid belief that, if you can tighten up the wages movement and the supply, you will get all these wage increases and that they are going to deliver a benefit. They do not. When you double the wages of some kid at McDonald’s, what happens to the price of the burger? Do you think McDonald’s say, ‘Tough luck for us’? No, they put the price up. That is inflation.

Then there are all the infrastructure issues. Your government has decided to sideline all this money. Now, we sidelined money to pay the unfunded superannuation of public servants. That is a legitimate reason for a Future Fund. But your reason is that, if you spend the money, there is nobody to do the work because you have a culture of stopping people coming here to work—unskilled as well as skilled, and at ridiculous wages. Then you say, ‘Don’t pay them the award,’ which we believe in. You think we have not got a problem. But what is the window of opportunity? It is great to see a new mine open in my electorate just last week—a huge one for nickel—and to hear Don Argus, the chairman of BHP Billiton, say that they anticipate that the current boom is lengthy. I hope he is right. But, with the way you as a government are planning to upstage the infrastructure, it could be over by the time the benefits are achieved.

Let me give an example: your determination to get AWAs out of the road. AWAs were first invented in Western Australia by the Court Liberal government. They revolutionised the iron ore industry. The big companies invested in their infrastructure; they did not ask the taxpayer to do it. And what was the outcome of that? The outcome was that you do not see capesize vessels queued up off Port Hedland for any period of time. They are in and out, they are loaded and no longer do the people who buy the iron ore have to wait six weeks, as I remember, while they had a strike over the colour of the tablecloths in the mess hall. When AWAs came in, that industry became viable. But what happened here on the east coast? You are stuck with awards; you are stuck with government provided infrastructure or the lack of it. And what an embarrassment you have got! When Queensland—the previous speaker comes from there—decided to privatise the Dalrymple Bay coal loader, they would not respond properly to their request for an increase in rates necessary to fund expansion, so it did not happen. There are more ships parked off there. Billions of dollars of revenue, available now, is not coming to Australia. There are no extra taxes—nothing.

This budget chose the wrong option. It chose to try and strangle the economy instead of addressing the fundamentals. I know you are going to bring some more immigrants in, but we should have had a massive increase in labour being imported. I like the temporary component because I think that means that you have options, if things slow down in later years, as far as retaining jobs for living Australians goes. But you killed it. You frightened the hell out of our side at that time, which I think was also a shame, and I do not think we gain any credit from doing it. But fancy going out and saying, ‘You’re stealing Aussie jobs,’ when everyone is looking around for an Aussie. You cannot get them. Of course, unskilled people should be brought in, as they have been historically, and historically they educated their kids to be doctors, lawyers, skilled IT people et cetera. It is a bad budget because it has gone the wrong way about fighting inflation.

Julia Irwin (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I say to the member for O’Connor: doesn’t he realise that it was the Howard government that was forcing working families into private health?

For the first time in my career in this parliament I am pleased to speak to a budget presented by a Labor government. I have witnessed nine budgets delivered by the coalition since I was elected in 1998, and I can say that for the first time in 12 years we have a budget that begins to address many of the economic and social issues that for too long have been ignored in this country. There are many measures in this budget that address issues that I and other Labor members have fought for over the past decade. Much of the program that Labor took to the people at the election last November will see initial funding in this budget. It is very much a Labor budget which gives priority to programs and funding which directly improves the lives of ordinary Australians.

But, before I go into the detail of those measures, I would like to comment on a few more general aspects of the economy that Labor inherited from the previous government and some of the challenges that lie ahead for the government. We are told that we live in prosperous but challenging times. Australia’s terms of trade have seldom been better. The world is beating a path to our door to buy our minerals, our iron ore, our coal and other products of the mining sector. At the same time we are spending more than we are earning. Throughout this bounty of exports our trade balance has been in the red for more than five years without a break. We live in an uncertain world where oil, food and other commodities prices have experienced their highest growth in decades, and we have yet to see the final wash-up from the subprime lending crisis.

For many members on the government side and, for that matter, many members opposite, as well as the general public, there is a degree of confidence in the government, the Treasury and the Reserve Bank to guide us safely through the present problems. As the Treasurer describes it in his budget speech:

It is the responsible Budget our nation needs at this time of international turbulence, and high inflation at home.

It is a bit like hearing the captain on a jumbo jet asking passengers to fasten their seatbelts because there is some turbulence ahead. We all hope that everything is okay and that they know what they are doing up in the cockpit. But managing a national economy is not the same as flying a jumbo jet. There is no autopilot and control is not as easy as pushing a few buttons. And while most of us would just as soon give advice to a jet pilot as we would to economic managers, that should not prevent us from expressing concerns when we see them. Pilot error has, after all, been the cause of more than a few plane crashes. But, just to reassure members, it appears that the Treasurer and his advisers, the Treasury boffins and the gnomes of the Reserve Bank, are all singing from the same anti-inflationary song sheet—and they cannot all be wrong, can they? That is the question. The Treasurer continued in his budget speech that this is ‘a budget carefully designed to fight inflation and ensure we meet the uncertainties of the future from a position of strength’. It certainly sounds like the Treasurer has taken advice and turned on the trouser-belt-tightening sign. But when it comes to economic advice we should mourn the passing of a once thriving species, the two-handed economist. They are sadly missed. Just when you thought that you could see what they were getting at they would make the remark that gave them their name: ‘On the other hand.’ That is not a phrase that we hear often these days, but perhaps we should seek out the alternative view.

The recent passing of the former senator and industry minister, the late John Button, reminded me of his sceptical approach to economic advice. In his book As it Happened John Button gives us one of the clearest insights into the decision-making processes in the Hawke and Keating governments and the role of economic advisers. The story is one that should be on the mousepads of all those influencing government policy today—as Button tells it. He said:

In 1988, as the economy was booming along, the high priests decided that interest rates should be increased to slow it down. No alternative policies were considered by cabinet. Increasing taxes, a remedy adopted at times of previous economic blow-outs was not considered possible. The government had locked itself into a pattern of promising to lower taxes at each election. Tax cuts had become a trade off for wage restraint and an incentive for higher income earners.

That quote has a familiar ring to it, but I will continue:

Nobody seemed to have much idea how quickly interest rate increases would work to slow the economy or what the extent of the increases should be. They crept up seemingly with little effect on the boom. Cabinet had no say in interest rate changes. It was an art form administered by experts. We could merely draw attention to the effects of the changes on business and employment. Further increases took place between 1989 and 1990. By that year businesses, many of them overcommitted with debt following a lending spree by financial institutions, began to complain. As industry minister closest to business in the government, I received most of the complaints. On occasions I passed them on to Bob Hawke. I think he thought I was exaggerating. Sometimes he said things like I’ve checked with Peter (meaning Sir Peter Abeles) and he thinks things are not too bad. This seemed for the time to be the end of the matter.

Button continues to detail the events that led to his sad conclusion. He continues:

On 27 November 1989 I went to the opening of a Zionist Federation headquarters in Canberra. There were a number of prominent businessmen at the function. I talked to some of them briefly but at length with Richard Pratt of Visiboard, who said, ‘I can’t see anybody here who will vote Labor at the next election’. He gave his disarming grin. Jean and I might, of course, but I can’t think of anyone else. He pointed out various businessmen around the room, saying things like, ‘He’s in trouble, that one over there will be broke by Christmas, that one is talking about selling his house.’

He went on to say:

I returned to Parliament House with some misgivings, and decided to go and talk to the Treasurer. He was not in his office. I told my staff member Bill Nagle, an economist with a lot of commonsense, about Pratt’s comments. He said he’d go round and see Don Russell, Keating’s principal adviser. Russell listened carefully. ‘Why,’ he asked petulantly, ‘doesn’t someone tell us these things?’

As John Button tells it, Russell later referred to his meeting with Button the following day as a time, in his words, when he heard the economy snap.

While that story clearly illustrates how policy making in the ivory tower of Canberra can be so far away from the real world, his comments on Treasury advice are gems, and I am proud to quote those in this House tonight. He said:

I was briefed by Treasury officials just prior to the 1990 budget. They came in pairs like the nuns of my childhood memory, supporting each other, watchful custodians of the official line. I listened impatiently. As they were leaving one said, ‘You’ll be pleased to hear, Minister, that we’ve commissioned a study of the effects of high interest rates on investment.’

‘You mean,’ I asked, ‘that you’ve been advising us all along that high interest rates are necessary without understanding their effect on investment?’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’ve commissioned a study which could be important.’

After they’d gone I talked to some of my staff. ‘We have,’ I said, ‘fallen among f wits.’

When the history of this government is written I can only hope that it is with the clarity and honesty shown by the late John Button. But, more importantly, I hope that we do not have to wait for the economy to snap before we realise that alternative economic policies are necessary to preserve the wellbeing of Australian society.

Last week the news broke of the collapse of Beechwood Homes, based in Liverpool, an area I represented until the last election. In March this year I spoke in the House about mortgage stress, lower house prices and falling levels of activity in the home building industry in south-western Sydney. The Beechwood collapse was not the first dead canary in the coalmine, but from the ivory towers of Canberra Liverpool is a world away. The Treasury experts did not hear a snap, just the sound of a one-handed economist clapping.

Last week I visited Umina, in the electorate of Robertson, on the New South Wales Central Coast, and a place that I know is familiar to the Assistant Treasurer. As I walked along the main street, a sign that I have not seen for a long, long time caught my eye. I had to take closer look. The sign was printed on new cardboard, not the old and yellowed type I might have expected. It was in the front window of a pizza restaurant and declared ‘Recession buster specials’, followed by a list of cut-price pizzas. That sign might not be the kind of snap that could be heard in Canberra, but it certainly looked to me like another dead canary. The Treasury experts may not know it, but the pizza makers of Umina know we are in a recession. Blessed are those pizza makers.

I do not know quite what makes Treasury experts hear a snap, but the other day I certainly did. I took a look at the fine print on the back of my National Australia Bank Visa card statement. I paused to think what interest rate I might have to pay if I did not pay the full amount outstanding. The interest rate quoted was 20.47 per cent. That must be getting very close to loan shark rates. I have to say I wonder about the very many families in the Fowler electorate unable to pay off their monthly balance and forced to pay such high rates of interest. They are definitely the cannon fodder in our fight against inflation. It is no wonder they are attracted to the ‘no interest, no repayments for 12 months’ deals advertised by major retailers, but you can bet the lenders will still get their pound of flesh and some day soon those debt canaries will definitely come home to roost.

You can be sure that when Treasury experts warn us that we have to put downward pressure on inflation what they really mean is that we have to put downward pressure on wages. We saw those inflationary pressures build last year and we should note that wages and salaries increased by only 0.9 per cent in the December quarter, the smallest increase in three years. At the same time, company profits increased by 3.9 per cent. Higher immigration and the workplace relations laws of the previous government have kept a lid on wages while company profits have soared. But it is the households of Australia that are bearing the brunt of interest rate rises and, unlike other bouts of inflation, working families can expect little relief in the form of a wages catch-up. Faced with the chorus of economists singing anti-inflation harmonies, we can only hope that they have risen above the assessment that John Button made of those framing economic policy during the previous Labor government.

As I promised earlier, I also want to address some of the measures contained in this budget that have long been on the agenda for me and other Labor members. The first of these are the range of measures dealing with assistance to families with children. As deputy chair of the Standing Committee on Family and Human Services in the previous two parliaments, I have taken part in inquiries dealing with the burden of childcare payments on families. I was therefore very pleased to see the government honour its election promise by increasing the childcare rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent and paying the rebate quarterly. In the committee’s report Balancing work and family, childcare rebates were seen as the fairest way of assisting working parents with the high cost of child care. Unlike the previous coalition government, which breached its promise before the 2004 election to provide the rebate and stalled its introduction for more than a year, this government has made good on its commitment in its very first budget.

Under the previous arrangement, families had to wait until the end of the tax year to get the rebate. That meant a very large out-of-pocket expenditure before families saw the benefit from the scheme, and with rising childcare fees the 30 per cent rebate did not go far enough to provide the level of assistance needed to encourage working mothers to re-enter the workforce or to work increased hours. During the committee’s inquiry the case was put for allowing tax deductibility for childcare expenses. This was rejected for the reason that it would give a higher benefit for parents on higher incomes, while the childcare rebate provides the same benefit for all income levels. I should add that the childcare rebate is not means tested and should be seen as assistance provided to all parents needing childcare provision to participate in the workforce.

The same cannot be said for the introduction of means test caps for maternity allowance and family tax benefit part B. In the case of maternity allowance, the means test will affect only the top three per cent of family incomes and effectively even higher incomes where the mother is a high-income earner. This is not cutting back on middle-class welfare; it is putting a cap on welfare for the wealthy. In previous budget speeches I have expressed my concern that wealthy, stay-at-home mums could receive family tax benefit part B. Paying for tennis club fees and gym membership for stay-at-home parents whose youngest child was as old as 17 never did make sense. Now the top 15 per cent of households, those with incomes over $150,000 per year, will not have access to the family tax benefit part B welfare payment. I also applaud the government for increasing the Medicare surcharge threshold to a more realistic figure of $100,000 for singles and $150,000 for couples. For a government that talked often about choice, the coalition did everything it could to make private health insurance compulsory.

This budget shows us a government that has rolled up its sleeves and is tackling its ambitious agenda. It is good to see that its highest priorities are the issues affecting families across Australia. Pensioners have not been ignored, but it is interesting to note that some pensioners see reason to protest now that we have a Labor government—something they never, ever did while John Howard was Prime Minister. While the previous government was very generous to self-funded retirees, pensioners got very little. It is strange that only now that we have a Labor government have they found their voice. Perhaps that is because they know that only a Labor government will listen to them. I look forward to this government’s future budgets and the fulfilment of Labor’s agenda for a fairer Australia.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009 and related bills for the 2008-09 budget. Sadly, the good people of my electorate of Paterson are to suffer under the ruthless Rudd Labor government’s first budget. The 2008 budget has seen some of the most valuable funding and support programs for regional and rural communities axed by this metro-centric government. This program was designed to assist community groups with large projects outside their budget constraints to bring regional communities together to work as one. The Regional Partnerships program had delivered for the community at Paterson—for example helping the coastal patrol at Forster-Tuncurry to purchase a rescue vessel suitable for shallow waters. Some $22,550 in matching funding was provided for these heroes who put their lives on the line for others. Port Stephens Community Arts Centre was helped to extend its premises to include woodworking facilities with a $65,866 grant—again, bringing the community together by providing an outlet for ambition. Gresford Showground Reserve was helped to increase capacity of the arena and improve customer and tourist resources with a grant of $27,500. Expansion of the Karuah Community Hub was made possible with a $264,000 grant. That has helped this community left empty by a Pacific Highway bypass. Gloucester Community Workshop Facility was assisted with the costs of construction and the fit-out of the facility with a $103,764 grant. This group helps make the homes for the disabled usable—hardly a pork-barrelling measure, unless the Rudd government thinks that disabled people are not worth funding or fighting for.

Communities were left waiting for answers on Regional Partnership grants prior to this budget, which would have been an enormously valuable exercise for seniors, families, the disabled and low-income earners with their respective parts of the electorate. They have now missed out on the funding because of a ruthless Rudd Labor government budget. Projects such as the building of extensions to the rear of the existing Uniting Church in Karuah to create the Karuah Community Caring and Youth Centre, which would have provided a safe place to be and opportunities for young people to interact with their community, only sought just over $147,000 out of a $310 million program.

The Local Government Training Institute is managed by the 12 member councils in the Hunter region that actively seek opportunities for cooperation and resource sharing. The core business of the unit is to research, develop and coordinate training for council employees which is cost-effective and accessible locally to all concerned. The project cost was $1.836 million and the funding sought was only $700,000. Other projects that were under development by the Hunter Area Consultative Committee that will never see the light of day include the Dungog multipurpose centre that the Dungog Agricultural and Horticultural Society and the Dungog Shire Council have been working together to develop. This project had already secured state government funding to the tune of $65,000. The additional funding from the Regional Partnerships program would have allowed for a larger centre to cater for indoor sports.

Clarence Town Senior Citizens Centre wanted to expand its existing facility to double the size of the centre, upgrade the kitchen facilities and provide disabled access to facilitate expansion in the group’s activities. Clarence Town, although a growing community, has restricted public transport facilities and a lack of modern community facilities. This, combined with an ageing population, makes plans to improve the building to create better community facilities commendable.

The Fighter World relocation funding of $528,000 was approved by the coalition, but not contracted. This grant would have assisted in relocating the only themed specific aviation museum in Australia to a more suitable site at RAAF Williamtown, enabling Fighter World to increase its exposure to potential visitors and, among other things, display exhibits such as the Sabre, Machi, Mirage, F111 and FA18 aircraft. Simply put, the scrapping of Regional Partnerships programs means less money for regional Australia. The Minister for Finance and Deregulation has gutted Regional Partnerships by announcing the program will be cutting the coalition’s Growing Regions program by $145 million. Many promises were made in the lead-up to the 2007 federal election—erratic, vote-grabbing promises made by the Rudd Labor Party, with little or no foresight or substance to ensure their ultimate completion.

Health care is an issue of great importance to the Paterson electorate. With one of the highest aged constituencies in Australia, we rely on our health facilities and workforce as much as any other region in the country. Health services in the Paterson electorate are under pressure. Overworked and under-resourced centres such as the Tomaree Community Hospital in Port Stephens are struggling to maintain their level of medical care on a budget stretched almost to breaking point. Our public health system suffers from a shortage of doctors, leading to excessive working hours and strain. One doctor was recently quoted as saying that he was very much looking forward to working only a 12-hour shift.

The situation has become so dire at the Tomaree Community Hospital that we have recently had five out of 10 doctors at the facility threatening to withdraw their services due to excessive working hours. We cannot blame these tireless health professionals from being forced to take such extreme measures, for it is on their shoulders that the burden of health care in Australia rests. All this while we have the Cape Hawke community hospital, a private hospital at Forster in the Great Lakes region, with a floor of empty beds and a New South Wales Labor government dragging its feet in signing a much awaited agreement to allow public patients into this hospital. When will common sense overcome political ideology and reluctance to help the community?

During the election campaign Labor promised the people of Paterson millions of dollars to establish GP superclinics in the Paterson electorate. In joint Labor Party media statements dated 12 and 22 November 2007 from the then shadow minister for health and ageing, the Hon. Nicola Roxon, all of the local ALP members and the ALP candidate for Paterson, it was confirmed:

Labor will invest $5 million to establish two GP Super Clinics in the Charlton electorate and Port Stephens.

After the recent budget, we now find that funding for the Port Stephens GP superclinic in the electorate of Paterson is apparently not so readily available and it could take up to five years before anything substantial is done to help the health service providers and constituents of the Paterson electorate. The Rudd Labor government continued advocating the supposed benefits that the GP superclinic would have. These benefits appear to have been ignored as we see another delayed promise, unfulfilled within the term of the current government.

It comes as no surprise then to see that the Rudd Labor government has also reneged on a core promise to the serving men and women of RAAF Base Williamtown, when in the budget there was no announcement of the promised defence family health centre for Williamtown. In a joint media release dated 22 November 2007, the now Minister for Defence stated:

Labor’s package of investment in the Hunter includes two Defence Family Health Clinics to service the Singleton and Williamtown bases.

The Rudd Labor government claim to have put defence families front and centre this year but have failed to actually deliver. This was a key promise on health services for the defence families of those who serve our nation. I ask: where is the member for Newcastle on this issue, as RAAF Base Williamtown is now in her electorate? She is silent and missing in action. The personnel of RAAF Base Williamtown were promised by Labor before the election that they would have one of the 12 defence family healthcare clinics to provide free dental and health care for ADF dependent spouses and children. In fact, the $33.1 million promise was slashed to $12.2 million and then spread over four years, only five clinics have sought to be built instead of 12 and limits to the dental service are capped at $300. You are all right if you are in the Army at Singleton Army Base, which just happens to be in the Minister for Defence’s electorate of Hunter. It will receive one of the trial systems with no dedicated clinic, just a rebate system of sorts. Again, Labor has delivered nothing for Williamtown personnel and their families.

There are many issues in and around the Paterson electorate that have a direct impact on the health and wellbeing of my constituents and the people of the region. An unequivocal promise was made in a media statement dated 12 November 2007 from the member for Hunter, Joel Fitzgibbon, and other Labor candidates. It stated:

Federal Labor supports the provision of Medicare funding for an MRI machine in Maitland.

We now again see another Labor backflip, with the first warning signs for this promise being broken when the Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, in February recalled the existing tender for ‘an MRI service covering Newcastle and the Hunter’, which was announced on 26 September 2007, and simply added in the word ‘Maitland’. Anyone who knows the area would already consider Maitland a part of the Hunter because it is where the valley actually starts. Too bad for the people of Maitland that Joel Fitzgibbon, member for Hunter, was reported in the Maitland Mercury recently to have ‘not been briefed’ on the issue and could not go into bat to get the funding from his federal Labor colleagues for his own pre-election promise—a promise for a separate MRI licence for Maitland. If the blame game is to stop between state and federal governments, a great start would be for the government’s own ministers to stop the blame game on each other.

Labor promised secure, long-term funding for the GP Access After Hours clinics at Toronto Polyclinic, Newcastle Community Health Centre and Maitland, Belmont and John Hunter hospitals. Instead we see a Labor ‘streamlining’ of funding for after-hours medical services, a reduction of $26 million over five years. If only Arn Sprogis were still the CEO of the Hunter Division of GPs, he would be going off his brain at this reduction in funding. He fought very hard for the funding we currently have and it appears all to have been in vain. As the Paterson electorate covers almost 10,000 square kilometres, this decision to hinder the provision of vital after-hours medical services hurts the constituents of the Paterson electorate deeply.

The recent Rudd Labor government decision to increase the income threshold for those required to pay the additional Medicare levy will directly hurt those who choose to continue membership with private health insurers. By increasing this threshold, Mr Rudd and Mr Swan are inducing a mass exodus from private health insurance. An industry report has predicted almost one million members will abandon their fund and many funds have already publicly discussed dramatic premium increases as a direct result of this decision. These premium increases tempt even more to leave the health funds, placing an even greater pressure on our already suffering public health system. Even Mark Fitzgibbon, managing director of NIB Health and brother of the member for Hunter, has confirmed that the recent changes would adversely affect sales and lapse rates in the industry. Perhaps the member for Hunter should have sought the advice of his family before supporting policies that will no doubt hurt the people of the Hunter region.

When it comes to walking the walk on the environment, Labor has failed. It was the coalition that introduced the solar panel rebate and it is simply wrong to scrap the $8,000 rebate for households earning a combined income of over $100,000. These households are not ‘rich’ as Mr Rudd has indicated; they are honest Australians who were trying to help the environment. The Rudd government’s decision to go backwards environmentally means that mums and dads on $51,000 each will now have to pay the full cost of installing solar panels, which typically ranges from $12,000 to $20,000. This is a big cost burden for families as they struggle with higher petrol and grocery prices. They will be denied the opportunity to help in their part to reduce greenhouse gases.

This action by the Rudd government is as bad for small businesses as it is for the environment. Already solar companies are laying off staff as home owners rush to cancel their plans to install solar panels. Businesses are reporting that three-quarters of all contracts have been cancelled since the budget was brought down and there is little or no sign of new ones being signed. John Head of Tanilba Bay installed photovoltaic cells on his roof last year. In a letter of appreciation written to me he said:

I wish to thank you and your government for coming up with such a wonderful scheme, no doubt this will help with the concerns about global warming. I wish others would take advantage of the scheme.

But many will be denied the opportunity because of the cost. Furthermore, in the recent budget, the Rudd government set a target of 134,000 jobs to be lost over the coming year. Unfortunately it is jobs from the solar industry that are the first to go. The environment is the big loser from the Labor government’s misguided decision. People are now being actively discouraged from reducing emissions. Given all the cancellations of solar panel installations, tonnes more CO2 than necessary will be pumped into the atmosphere. The federal opposition and the solar energy industry have both been strongly critical of the plan, which will limit the $8,000 rebate to homeowners earning less than $100,000.

Labor’s grab for tax is nowhere more evident than in the alcopop tax. I applaud the coalition stand to reject the alcopop tax and support the opposition leader’s position that this is a tax binge falsely presented to Australians as a health measure. As a father of three teenage children, I am very concerned about the level of alcohol and drug abuse across Australian communities. But this problem is not just confined to some young people; it is also a cultural and social problem for our nation. Labor said the alcopop tax would reduce binge drinking. In fact, the budget papers forecast alcopop consumption to rise by up to 9.3 per cent a year. As the shadow Treasurer, Malcolm Turnbull, stated on 15 May 2008, the revenue from the alcopops tax is going to increase rapidly from $628 million next year to $880 million three years later. These estimates assume more people are going to be drinking these drinks and it looks like Wayne Swan’s revenue forecasts are actually based on the assumption that binge drinking is going to become greater.

In research I have found that the average cost of two four-packs of Vodka Cruisers is $27, which equates to nine standard drinks. Mishka Vodka is available for the same price, $27, and is the equivalent of 21 standard drinks. This is why this tax makes no sense. Which one are young people going to choose? Or will this drive teens to other forms of alcohol or, worse still, drug use? I would point out that the drug speed is available for $20 per point, that enough cannabis is available for $10 to make 15 cones, and an ecstasy tablet costs $25, which can be shared between a number of people. It is all about the cost. My local bottlo tells me that the sales of ready-to-drinks have slightly decreased but there has been a sharp increase in the sale of 750-millilitre bottles of straight spirits. This tax has been scorned by my constituents both young and old who drink RTDs and who are adamant this measure will have absolutely no effect on the amount of alcohol that they, their families and their friends will consume. Simply put, the Rudd Labor government have got it wrong. They do not understand the issue and, moreover, they do not know what they are doing.

Those that binge-drink usually make a decision to get smashed before they go out. They usually start off at home with spirits like vodka or bourbon. Then, when they arrive at the venue, they will buy an RTD to be fashionable. Next, because of cost, they may have some dope, an eccy tab or, worse still, some ice, which fries the brain and creates the violent episodes we see reported in the media. This tax will do nothing to address the problem of binge drinking and will probably do more to increase the sale of illicit drugs. The National Drug Strategy Household Survey confirms binge drinking by young women since 2001 has actually declined and alcohol abstinence in this group has increased.

In March of this year the Rudd Labor government asked the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy to make a report to COAG in December 2008 on options to reduce binge drinking. By introducing this knee-jerk, revenue-raising policy the Labor government has openly stepped outside its own policy-making processes and made a mockery of all its new advisory groups. When the Rudd Labor government realises that it has got it so wrong, will it then put a 70 per cent increase in excise on straight spirits, cask wine or beer?

President of the Newcastle and Hunter Hotels Association, Bruce Woods, says that this tax will not address the issue of binge drinking. Bruce Woods and his industry colleagues are concerned with high-volume RTDs such as Smirnoff vodka drinks, with an alcohol content of nine per cent, as opposed to five per cent in a Bacardi Breezer. One of the answers—so simple—is to decrease the alcohol content of RTDs. Bruce Woods says that industry groups support that move as a way of addressing binge drinking and the increases in domestic violence that come from it. The answer is not just charging more for RTDs.

Members opposite quote drink spiking and rape of young girls as a reason to increase the tax on RTDs. Well, I put the question: is it better to have a known content of alcohol in a pre-mixed drink in a bottle rather than a drink that can have an enormous of amount of alcohol—from the increase in 750-millilitre bottle sales of Bundy, bourbon and vodka to name a few possibilities? Education on the perils of irresponsible alcohol consumption and drug abuse is the answer, not taxation—particularly taxation that is going into consolidated revenue, not tied to fixing the problem. I support the coalition’s establishment of a national forum of alcohol specialists, educators, police, parents and people with expertise in this and related fields to develop a truly integrated approach to what is truly a national and cultural problem. There are many more issues about the shortcomings of this budget that I would like to address, but time restrictions prevent me at this stage from saying more. (Time expired)

Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to congratulate the Treasurer and the Prime Minister on a tremendous budget—an outstanding budget indeed. The 2008-09 budget did three fundamental things: it delivered comprehensively on our election commitments; it struck the right balance, addressing the complexities of the medium-term economic outlook and its challenges; and, most importantly, this budget looked into the future, putting in place the building blocks to secure this nation’s wellbeing for future generations.

I want to talk about how we have delivered on our election commitments and to look specifically at what this means for my own electorate. But first of all I would like to say something about the spirit of the 2008-09 budget. The 2008-09 budget restored the faith of many Australians in politics and government. We went to the Australian people with a series of promises and commitments and in our first budget we have delivered on them all. That has not happened in a long time in Australian politics. A blanket of cynicism, born after a decade of coalition budget cons, has been lifted.

In Labor’s first budget there were no ifs and no buts; we simply delivered the funds we promised. We delivered the money we said we would and we did it in the very first year. After 11 years of squandered Costello budgets, phoney black holes, excuses and slip-sliding by the former government, Labor has restored the people’s faith. I have received tremendous feedback in my electorate on this budget. People in my electorate of Corangamite were heartened to see a government that did what it said it would. I congratulate the Treasurer and the Prime Minister again on a great job.

I would like to talk a about the impact of the budget in my own electorate. As most members know, Corangamite has been a safe Liberal seat for over 70 years. It has been shockingly neglected. Such was the arrogance of the previous government that they did not promise one single major project in Corangamite at the last election. This was par for the course. Corangamite never got anything at budget time under the previous Liberal government. But this time, under a Labor government, Corangamite’s boat came in. Funding has been delivered for a whole range of projects—infrastructure that will have a lasting impact on our local community. This budget begins a Corangamite transformation. Corangamite is about to become one of Australia’s most exciting regions through these Labor initiatives.

Let me go through what has been provided in this budget for our region. First of all, business in our region did very well. The 2008-09 budget has put $20 million into an Innovative Regions Centre in our region aimed directly at offering support to small- and medium-sized businesses. The Innovative Regions Centre puts our region at the forefront of business innovation in Australia. The Innovative Regions Centre provides assistance in business strategies and operations; benchmarking of business and manufacturing processes against best practice; helping in finding the latest research, technology and organisational knowledge to improve products and efficiency; prototyping and testing facilities to turn good ideas into products; and helping to cut through red tape and get the best access to government programs. It is a great commitment, which we have funded upfront in our very first budget.

In addition to this we have made major commitments which will transform our road transport system in the region. There is $30 million for the next stages of the crucial Geelong ring road, and money to ensure the Princes Highway duplication and Lavers Hill road upgrade can now both go full steam ahead. The electorate, and particularly the Colac end of my electorate, are absolutely ecstatic about that.

Another $10 million has been put on the table in this budget for the Blackrock water recycling plan. This project is critical for sporting fields, parks and industry in the Surf Coast Shire and, importantly, for the Armstrong Creek development, Victoria’s largest housing development and Australia’s second largest. This money for the Blackrock water recycling plan means that there are no excuses why we cannot get on with this project. The spotlight is squarely on the water authority to get cracking.

Another real beneficiary of the budget was Deakin University, which received an additional allocation of $30.8 million. What a great kick-along for our education system in my electorate. We also funded a $7 million GP superclinic, which will also double as a GP training facility. The GP superclinic will be fantastic for our region, adding to our service capacity across a whole range of important health services.

In our local area we also delivered on funding for some other projects of which I am very proud. We have delivered on funding for a range of important sports and recreation projects that will mean we have a fitter and healthier community. There is $4 million for the Torquay Sports Precinct. This money will enable the Surf Coast Shire to bring forward this much-needed project. These funds will be spent on building two more football ovals, three more soccer pitches, half a dozen new netball courts, and a shared pavilion. It is a great project and great for the health of our community.

On top of this we also provided in this budget money for the Quay Reserve sports lighting project, sports lighting for the South Barwon Football and Netball Club, and $3 million for the important Leisurelink replacement facility in Geelong. Thousands of local residents will benefit from these projects. Then there is the money for other community projects in the budget—money for Bannockburn Community Hub, money for the Colac Beechy Centre and money for another great project, the Colac Botanic Gardens.

But that is not all; there is more. We have also provided funding for an upgrade to the Torquay Senior Citizens Centre and to the Torquay Community House—all projects again delivered in our very first budget. The Great Ocean Road has been allocated $1 million in the 2008-09 budget to attack weed threats, undertake a climate change risk assessment, build cultural interpretation signage and upgrade the Torquay Surf Life Saving Club. This is a sensational budget for our region. This is the biggest injection of community infrastructure in our region ever. Yes, without a shadow of a doubt, this is the biggest injection of community infrastructure ever in the Corangamite region. And it has all been delivered in year 1 of the Rudd Labor government. I am very, very proud of that.

But these are not the only things this budget delivered for our region. As important as this community and business infrastructure is, there are even more important opportunities for our region in this budget. And this is about the long-term vision of this budget. The great thing about this budget is that it is not offering that tired, old, short-sighted fistful of dollars that was the hallmark of coalition budgets. It is about community building and long-term infrastructure provision. It is about both doing things today and providing vision for the future. This budget in that respect is tailor-made for Corangamite. It is tailor-made to address the fundamental long-term challenges faced by our region.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to draw for you a vision. I want to draw for you a future vision for our region. It is a vision that has emerged with this federal budget. It is a vision that combines all the abovementioned community infrastructure commitments with the other broader major infrastructure fund opportunities this budget also contains. This budget has put a vision within our community’s reach. Think about this: just a few years down the track most of the abovementioned community infrastructure projects will have been completed. We will have a range of new community infrastructure promoting a healthy lifestyle and a stronger community. We will have an efficient road transport system putting a big area of our region within an hour’s drive of Melbourne, and an even broader area within an hour and a half. Within a similar period of time—just a few years ahead—thousands of new housing blocks will be available through Armstrong Creek, in the Golden Plains, Surf Coast and Colac shires with a significant supply-side effect across a range of real estate market niches. A very significant supply-side effect will counter the upward real estate spiral we have witnessed now over a prolonged period. If we put land availability together with existing commitments to community infrastructure, then add to this access to the major infrastructure funds, there is a unique opportunity.

Within a few years I am confident the new $20 billion Building Australia Fund will be working to further improve our road and public transport systems, addressing the bottlenecks. I am hopeful we will be successful in winning a slice of the $254 million National Water Security Plan for Cities and Towns fund. Let us say we win some access to the $500 Housing Affordability Fund, $359 million of which will be available in the 2008-09 budget. The Housing Affordability Fund is aimed specifically at providing further money for possible water, sewerage, transport or other projects to help councils and developers provide more affordable housing in new developments. Let us imagine many of our residents taking advantage of the $1 billion in funds for making homes energy and water efficient. What do we have? We have a vision of quality housing that a range of people can afford. We have communities where people have amenities, services and facilities, community building facilities, modern environmentally sound suburbs and houses where people are healthy, engaged and active. So we are moving towards that vision in this budget. The 2008-09 budget offers the people of Corangamite a great opportunity to tackle one of the great challenges of our generation—the issue of affordable housing. I cannot underline the opportunity enough. Through this budget, if we play our cards right, Corangamite can become the envy of the rest of Australia.

We can offer a wonderful lifestyle, a good standard of living and a strong regional community, and become one of Australia’s more affordable places to live, whilst still being within striking distance of a major capital city. With all levels of government helping to provide community infrastructure, services and land availability, we will have developer competition and few excuses for high land prices. We can become the affordable housing capital of Australia whilst we build a stronger, healthier community.

Corangamite and the greater Geelong region are uniquely placed to take advantage of this budget. We are uniquely placed. The federal government has put its money on the table. We are funding crucial roads projects, innovative community water projects and other community infrastructure. And there are further opportunities presenting through the Infrastructure Australia review and the other major infrastructure funds.

This region must position itself to take advantage of this terrific budget. Our local councils, and the City of Greater Geelong in particular, need to do the planning and forge the alliances with the other public authorities and the private sector to position themselves first in the queue for the opportunities being made available by the federal government through this far sighted budget. I am talking to all councils, the G21 and the state government about a coordinated effort to take advantage of this budget.

The key challenge now for us is to get all levels of government working towards fully capitalising on the opportunities this budget has presented for our region. This budget provides very significant funding to overcome the massive skills shortages that are one of the principal legacies of the previous coalition government. Skill shortages in the building trades are also very important factors in pushing house prices up, so I am working with local schools to take advantage of the $2.5 billion fund to provide improved school trade facilities in all high schools.

That is my vision. That is my vision for the working families in my region—more affordable housing by all levels of government contributing to building community infrastructure, utilities and services, good land supply and developer competition; healthier, engaged communities, thinking about the challenges of tomorrow; opportunities for working families within our local region; and more local jobs. That is what this budget puts within our grasp. I do not underestimate the complexities and difficulties of the issue of affordable housing but I do say this: this budget gives us some real opportunities if we have a go. And I want our region to take our best shot at it.

I would just like to finish by pointing to the importance of responsible economic management. This is a responsible budget that delivers for working families and invests in Australia’s future. This budget has a clear eye on the long term. But there is also a clear focus on the immediate concerns of today, particularly the fight against inflation and the need to do the things that will keep downward pressure on interest rates. The Rudd Labor government and the Swan budget have a strong surplus of 1.8 per cent of GDP. This surplus will enable us to continue to invest in long-term improvements in our hospitals, roads, universities and TAFEs.

The government has found savings to offset any new spending. We have identified savings of $33.3 billion over four years, including $7.3 billion in the 2008-09 budget. Every dollar of new spending in 2008-09 is more than matched by spending cuts. We have found savings, primarily by getting rid of inefficient and wasteful programs, and better targeting benefits to those who need them most. The 2007-08 and 2008-09 surpluses will be used to invest $40 billion in three nation-building funds: a Building Australia fund, an Education Investment Fund and a Health and Hospitals Fund. Labor governments are consistent. We are the nation builders. Labor are, and have always been, our nation’s builder. This is a budget of heart, intelligence and vision. Australia and my region of Corangamite can build a better future with this budget as its foundation.

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After hearing the last member speak, I think it is pretty clear that the only thing that was not funded in Corangamite was probably a set of steak knives for every elector!

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

Next year!

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s right; next year! It would appear that there is a fairly clear difference between those electorates that the government won and those that it did not. I will get to that later. Economics is at the core of every government’s ability to govern. If you get the economics right you can pay for the programs, such as climate change, education, health and welfare support, just to name a few. If you get the economy right people can have a job. They can pay for food on the table, they can afford clothing and they can use money on transport to get to where they need to be. Those are the outcomes when you get the economics right for the people of Australia.

Now, in the lead-up to the election last year there were some clear expectations put out by the then opposition. Those expectations were that petrol would be reduced in price, that groceries would be cheaper and that housing would be easier to afford. The then opposition railed against the government in all these regards. A simple argument was put out there. What part it played in Labor’s election victory will always be debatable yet there were clear expectations, and they were raised for political gain. No doubt it was done very well. Words were carefully chosen. The impression that was left on Australians was that a Rudd Labor government would be a panacea but it did not take long before the election campaign gloss began to wear off.

The Westpac Melbourne Institute consumer sentiment index fell by 8.3 per cent in January and 5.5 per cent in February this year, leaving the index 12.6 per cent lower than in February 2007. In February Westpac’s chief economist, Bill Evans, said that what the index means when it is under 100 points is that ‘pessimists now outnumber optimists’. In March it fell another 9.1 per cent to 88.6 per cent. But it is important that we keep this matter in balance lest I be accused of being selective with the figures. Let us look now at the good news. The Westpac Melbourne Institute index rose in May by 2.7 per cent to 89.8 points. Some may think that is impressive, but compare that to May 2007, when the index was at 123.9 points.

Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 8.30 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 34. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.