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

Before debate is resumed on this bill, I remind the committee that it has been agreed that a general debate be allowed covering this bill and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2008-2009. I call the honourable member for Lyons.

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

A number of issues are contained in Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2008-2009. The bill looks at various changes in funding for a range of programs that require changes since they were first announced, including amendments to names and amounts allocated. My interest is with the superclinics in the health sector, which may be the key to commencing the changes needed in health delivery in Australia. Additional funding is being allocated amounting to $33 million to provide up front capital grants and recurrent funding for the establishment of 31 GP superclinics around Australia and to provide incentive payments to GPs and allied health providers to relocate to those clinics. So far, one of those has been allocated in the seat of Lyons in my electorate in the growing town of Sorell in south-east Tasmania.

We all know that there is a shortage of doctors in Australia. We also all know that doctors prefer to be based in the cities rather than in regional areas and that ways to attract them out of the cities usually only work for a limited time. So we have to resort to recruiting from overseas. According to one of the doctors in Lyons, Oatlands GP Dr Robert Simpson, there is a shortage of 1,500 doctors and 5,400 nurses in regional and rural Australia. Why is this so? Well, according to a well put together article in the Tasmanian Examiner, isolation, financial incentives and family issues are just some of the factors that make medical jobs in rural areas hard to swallow. Danielle Blewett has been putting in time searching out health statistics, as she knows that Tasmanians are not getting the best out of their health system. According to Danielle, in rural Tasmania there are 180 general practitioners, of which 35 per cent are overseas trained. They come mainly from Nigeria, India and Sri Lanka. Let me say, they are most welcome. They stay for a minimum of two years. In the past we have had overseas trained doctors mainly from the UK and South Africa, and they have often migrated rather than just come for a few years. There were 26,212 GPs and other medical practitioners billing Medicare in Australia in 2007-08. There were 18,613 GPs and others working full time in Australia.

Compared with their metropolitan counterparts, GPs in rural and remote areas spend more of their time working in local hospitals, for which they are not paid through Medicare. These are real barriers to the recruitment of Australian doctors to work in rural areas. The most likely person to consider rural placement is someone near retirement who wants to work part time, an overseas doctor, or locums who want to work for no more than a few months as a relief to keep their hand in or get close to the beach.

The shortages are causing huge problems. These doctors, who are still in rural areas and have been for many years, are concerned about succession planning. Janelle quoted the case of the doctor in Tasmania—in Lilydale, which is just north of Launceston—who has been in her practice for 25 years. She is concerned that, once she retires, her town would no longer have a full-time GP and, even if they moved closer to Launceston, they would not be able to get into a doctor as most have closed their books to new patients—a very common theme in Tasmania. We can only try and fill vacancies through overseas doctors, many of whom do not have complete grasp of the English language and are not used for the sorts of cases presented. Another local doctor who has been there for some time is also concerned that rural doctors are still operating their practices in an old-fashioned way, where they are responsible for all the paperwork required for the practice as well as employment and other ordinary day-to-day office procedures—record-keeping and running the business. Today’s doctors seem to want to walk into a job and just deal with patients, deal with the health issues and not have to keep the records and be on call 24/7. He is not assisting recruiting in country areas—the old-fashioned doctors approach.

One of my old doctors, a city doctor in Hobart, complained that he could not get a partner because they did not want to do the paperwork that he did. They just wanted to do the medical work, but nothing in the way of pen pushing. So, the problem is that the delivery of health services is changing, but somehow the funding models, Medicare and doctors’ training is not. In two of my small towns a succession plan is being developed to ensure that the area has doctors in the future as there are doctors on the verge of retirement. Suggestions are being made now as to how to deal with this dilemma, which is a quite sensible approach that is not being done in many areas that I can see. Dr Simpson from Oatlands asks why we cannot see a move from the urban based practices to form alliances with rural practices to broaden the depth of experience of their staff. It seems a very good idea, so we are starting to broaden out the opportunities for doctors to work in those rural and regional areas.

Difficulties face country towns where private practices are operating public hospitals. It is noted that not many doctors, town or country, want to set up in private practice these days as it reduces their options to move further down the track. The Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association has also pointed out that the crisis of finding doctors is further exaggerated by changes to the rules applying to overseas doctors wanting to work in Australia. They must now pass the Australian Medical Council’s examination before they arrive here, whereas in the past they had been able to sit the exam while working here. I have had my differences with the Australian Medical Council on that issue. I understand that this might be a response to some of the difficulties caused by the entrance of some doctors of dubious training, but it does not help to put more barriers in the way. It has considerably slowed down the number of overseas applications.

The development of centres that put together a number of health professionals—doctors, nurse practitioners and practising nurses along with other services—all organised by a single office makes a lot of sense. All the paperwork and all the business can be done in one corporate centre. That is behind the idea of the superclinics, which are being developed around Australia at the moment. Getting all these services together and modernising their work environments has got to be an attractive prospect for prospective doctors looking for work sites. There needs to be backup, proper rosters, simple hospital referrals, community transport to get patients to hospital quickly when needed and access to referrals to specialists et cetera. Community transport is vital in this area, especially for the aged. This means getting services together—something that has been resisted for some time. It really needs doctors working together to achieve a common goal. Working in teams in a community similar to the way hospitals are set up seems to be a logical approach for the future, but so far it has been unachievable.

I am very keen to see our superclinic up and running at Sorell. I want to see how the model works and I want to encourage others to apply for similar types of developments. I have had some other developments in my electorate of Lyons. I know the member for Hume, who is sitting opposite, would have experienced similar difficulties with doctors in his electorate, a rural electorate in New South Wales. In the St Helens area, the GP and allied health workers have come together. They are situated in a new building. I think it cost about $1.2 million—about $400,000 of federal money and the rest from loan funds. GP North, the local division of GPs, backed that, and now we have an extremely good centre where health professionals are very happy to work and practise medicine. They also have a very good home situation for training doctors who have access to the internet and modern communications. That is certainly the way forward.

It was in the old days that a suburban house that would have accommodated a family was converted into doctors’ rooms. I have several of these old places in my area that are falling to pieces and are unpainted. They are a very unpleasant workplace for anybody. If you ask a young doctor or an overseas trained doctor to go to that sort of site to practise medicine and look after the health needs of the community, I can understand why they say they are not interested in doing that. We need to make sure we are modernising health services. The new model of service delivery for rural and regional Australia has to be provided in a bigger centre where all the health professionals are together and can share their experiences, and where they have a decent workplace in which to deliver primary health services.

In the New Norfolk area, Commonwealth money will help renew and expand the GP centre, which will hopefully work along the same lines as the one at St Helens. The people of the Derwent Valley deserve no less and also of course all those who live in areas off that valley. The Derwent Valley is the big catchment area for the Derwent River, which of course opens out into Storm Bay at Hobart.

This is the way forward. The present government is endeavouring to go down that track. It is putting money into superclinics, which are certainly going to be the way forward. I do not see why we cannot renew health delivery for primary health care in a positive way through these sorts of centres. I can see that it will be much easier to deliver preventive health and preventive health programs in rural and regional areas with these sorts of centres, where we have access to health professionals working together where they can discuss and work out programs, and which the federal government will most probably be funding into the future.

I am very pleased to be able to speak on this appropriation legislation and I commend the legislation to the House.

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

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2008-2009 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2008-2009. I would like to start by stating the obvious, that Australia, as we all know, is not immune to the global financial crisis and neither are the people living in my electorate. Over the course of the last few months, like all of us, I have been asked questions about the global financial crisis—questions about its cause, questions about its duration and, above all, questions about its effects. Although discussions about answers to these questions will continue, what is critical and pertinent is how we as the government respond. This government has responded very swiftly and decisively to the impact of the global financial crisis, aiming at every point to protect the Australian economy and the Australian community.

Our first response was, of course, through the first stimulus package, the Economic Security Strategy, which came into effect on 8 December 2008. This was a package that saw $4.9 billion go towards assisting pensioners. There is no-one in this House that would not be fully aware of the hardship that our pensioner community has sustained, and none more so than my pensioners in my electorate. I can tell the House that my pensioner groups were very clear about their struggle to make ends meet. I therefore challenge anyone to suggest that this $4.9 billion package, which involves giving single pensioners a lump sum of $1,400 and coupled pensioners a lump sum of $2,100, was a waste of taxpayers’ money. The extension of the First Home Owner Grant scheme to help those wanting to purchase their first home has been enthusiastically welcomed by many in my electorate who otherwise would have remained unable to enter the housing market. As the Minister for Housing said in question time yesterday, this initiative has already yielded encouraging results with nearly 30,000 Australians having taken up the first home buyers grant. Volumes of sales in my electorate of Calwell, and specifically in the suburb of Craigieburn, have gone up by 25 to 30 per cent.

The Rudd government will also invest $187 million to create 56,000 additional training places, an initiative aimed at doubling the Productivity Places Program so that we can strengthen productivity and protect the Australian economy. This takes the government’s total investment in training places to more than $400 million since April 2008. This particular measure will be of immense benefit to those in my electorate who need assistance with entry into the workforce either for the first time or following some retraining. The people in my electorate are very worried about the security of their jobs. They are worried about their ability to meet their mortgage commitments and to meet the demands of their family budgets.

People in my electorate come from a very diverse social and economic background. Calwell, as I have said many times before in this House, is home to a high number of families, to sole parents, to low-income earners, to single income earners, to carers, to age pensioners and to people on disability pensions. My electorate is also home to many tradespeople and low-skilled employees, and we rely heavily on the manufacturing sector for jobs. We have seen far too many jobs lost in Calwell over the last 18 months, particularly in the automotive and textile industries.

It saddens me to inform the House that this morning I heard that Pacific Brands—the manufacturer of Bonds, King Gee, Holeproof, Yakka, Sheridan and Dunlop Volleys—announced the closure of its clothing manufacturing facilities in Australia, with the intention to shift to global sourcing. A total of 1,850 jobs, including 1,206 direct manufacturing jobs, will be lost nationally. In my electorate, in Coolaroo, Broadmeadows and the Craigieburn area, 298 jobs will go as of February 2010. Pacific Brands attributes this to what it calls a ‘debt reduction strategy’ as a consequence of the global financial crisis and long-term unviability of manufacturing in Australia. I certainly hope that this is the case and that companies are not just using the global financial crisis as an excuse to shift jobs offshore in search of cheaper labour. I and my constituents have no choice but to take Pacific Brands at its word. But, as you can see, a large number of Australians are going to be left without an income and will need to be retrained in order to re-enter the workforce. Hopefully the retraining package that I referred to earlier on will be of assistance to my constituents who face this latest round of job losses.

Calwell has two major growth corridors. This growth has brought with it an influx of young families with hefty mortgages. Financial counsellors in the various local welfare agencies began sounding alarm bells some 15 months ago as they experienced record levels of people seeking their advice and assistance. People had gotten themselves into so much debt and credit card debt that they were unable to meet repayments and ran the risk of being unable to feed their families and keep their homes. That is why, when it came to making practical decisions to help working families to balance their budgets and stimulate economic growth, the Rudd government delivered $3.9 billion to families raising children. This support was given to families who receive family tax benefit part A through a one-off payment of $1,000 for each eligible child in their care. Families with dependent children who receive youth allowance, Abstudy or a benefit from the Veterans’ Children Education Scheme also received a one-off $1,000 payment.

The appropriation bills we are debating today have gone a long way to assisting my community, because my community has been a beneficiary of them. In fact, it is estimated that some 44,000 households have directly benefited from this package. Appropriation Bill (No. 4) allows for our $300 million Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program to be directly allocated to individual councils. I can report that my council, the Hume City Council, has already compiled a list of projects it has put forward, and I have already met with the mayor and the CEO to help move that agenda forward. Our council is very excited about the opportunities that have been made available by the federal government and is looking forward to meeting the challenges. Our council has received $1,627,000 under the program. That is the sixth highest figure in the state and a good indication of the level of need for infrastructure works in my electorate.

The top of my council’s list—and I would like to outline that list; I am sure they would be chuffed with this—is a $9 million Craigieburn library and learning centre, an important piece of infrastructure in a suburb that has experienced phenomenal growth. I referred to that ongoing growth in the figures that the Minister for Housing announced yesterday in relation to the First Home Owner Grant scheme. If you bring young families into new housing estates, you need to attend to their social, educational and recreational needs. This particular facility is an extension of the iconic Hume Global Learning Centre in Broadmeadows. I am very pleased that the council is keen and committed to establishing an outpost of the Hume Global Learning Centre in Craigieburn.

The council has also sought approval to build a car park on the western side of Progress Reserve in Coolaroo, a footpath along the Hume Highway between Fordson Road and Somerset Road, stage 1 of the shared footpath and bike path along Merri Creek from Western Ring Road to Barry Road in Campbellfield and an extension to the Gladstone Park Bowls Club and to design and construct a state park in Broadmeadows and work on the Sunbury town centre streetscapes on the east side of Evans Street. The council also wishes to build two extra courts at the Greenvale Tennis Club and a new outdoor netball court at Broadman Reserve, with training lights for the rear oval at Langama Park. As you can see, all are works for the direct and overall benefit of our community, in particular our young people’s learning and recreational activities.

The Rudd Labor government has risen to meet the most difficult economic challenge of our time, and it has resolved to do everything it can to help limit the worst impacts of the global recession in this country’s future as it navigates through what many are predicting will be a long period of hardship and uncertainty. It goes without saying that today’s announcement by Pacific Brands, for my electorate and for those of many other members of this House, will be an ongoing, rolling experience of job losses that need to be addressed by this government. This government is doing that, and I can only commend the bills to the House. I certainly hope that, in the next 12 months at least, my electorate in particular will not be the recipient of further bad news.

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There can be absolutely no doubt that in recent months—indeed, in recent weeks—the global financial crisis has entered several dangerous phases which have had inevitable consequences for the Australian economy. That is why it is imperative that the Rudd government stays one step ahead by initiating serious solutions rather than giving knee-jerk reactions to serious problems.

Responsible governments around the world have acted in these dangerous and uncertain times to secure industries, to secure jobs and to ensure that their respective countries are prepared to make the most of economic opportunities once they present themselves. Domestically, this is not possible if steady hands and rational minds are unable to restore confidence in Australian markets, which have also been battered from pillar to post by the global financial crisis. In an article titled ‘Herd instinct rules in the circle game’, Ross Gittins states:

… humans are herd animals. We’re heavily influenced by the mood of the people around us, so feelings of optimism or pessimism are contagious. We all tend to be optimistic at the same time, then swing to pessimism at much the same time.

Often it’s not easy to pinpoint—

what—

caused the herd to change direction but we can say that the general mood at any point tends to be self-reinforcing, so that when consumers and businesses swing from optimistic to pessimistic, they won’t be swinging back to optimistic … soon.

The role of government in addressing consumer and business sentiment or confidence takes on enormous importance, given the scale of the global financial crisis, its unprecedented nature and the rapidly unfolding events overseas. The contemporary role of government has also taken on increased significance in the light of the obvious failures brought about by lax regulation and disinterest by the state.

I commend the Treasurer and the Prime Minister for taking swift and decisive action to address shortcomings that have originated from poorly regulated global markets and to restore confidence in our own economy. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the government’s swift commitment to the banking sector, which globally has had to bear the brunt of much of the crisis. Rather than stand idly by and allow the legitimate concerns of Australians about confidence in their deposits to go unaddressed, the Rudd government acted.

It is true that the Australian banking system is strong, has demonstrated its resilience to the turbulence overseas and is well capitalised. Our regulations and regulators are first class. We have long benefited from a framework of regulation which balances financial safety and efficiency as well as competition and competitive neutrality, yet the government was aware that it could not view the position of our banking sector through this narrow prism.

The risk of consumer sentiment changing direction without warning is always of pre-eminent concern. Uncoordinated international announcements could, for example, have had the potential to destabilise the Australian banking system if prompt action were not taken domestically. It would not have been hard to imagine the serious risk of an outflow of capital away from the unsecured Australian banks to foreign financial institutions with government guarantees. The stability of Australia’s financial system and our institutions’ ability to attract new funds for investment in the Australian economy were very real considerations. Rather than allow first-class Australian banks to be discriminated against by foreign government backed institutions with potentially poor balance sheets, the Rudd government acted rationally and immediately.

That is why I am proud of the government’s guarantee for all deposits in Australian banks, credit unions and building societies. When coupled with common-sense regulations and credible regulators to whom appropriations will be made by this legislation, the public’s confidence in Australian financial institutions was not going to be compromised. This was a clear demonstration of decisive government action and appropriate intervention being used to stimulate consumer and business sentiment. It was also a clear demonstration that the era of unbridled, neoliberal, free-market fundamentalism has no place in Australia. As the Prime Minister has quite rightly pointed out, the global financial crisis has proven that:

… it falls to social democracy to prevent liberal capitalism from cannibalising itself.

While it would be easy to throw the free-market baby out with the bathwater, doing so is premature, unjustified and unhelpful. Just as the excesses of the Right have caused much of the destruction we are seeing in today’s markets, an extreme reaction to the Left and the notion of an all-pervading state is an experiment that has been had and is best forgotten. There is still much value in the productive capacity of well-regulated, competitive markets coupled with appropriate government intervention.

The Labor Party, the party of social democracy, has long stood for promoting the productive capacity of competitive markets, rebuilding confidence in markets when necessary and protecting individuals that are invariably left behind. The legacy of the Hawke and Keating governments should not be understated in this context. It also should come as no surprise that the Rudd government is working around the clock to rebuild domestic demand as well as to ensure that domestic and global markets are appropriately supervised. Much has already been said about the government’s $10.4 billion economic security strategy package to stimulate the economy by providing one-off payments to Australians who are most in need as well as boosting the first home buyer grant. The strategy provided support against the impact of flat domestic economic activity by targeting the people most likely to drive consumer spending as a result of the one-off payments.

More recently, the government announced its $4 billion partnership with the banking sector to finance office buildings, shopping centres and other commercial property projects. Because of the weakening demand and the tight availability of credit, almost 50,000 direct and indirect jobs are under threat in this industry. The risk of nonintervention by the government was best summed up by the AMP chief economist when he stated:

The alternative, unfortunately, would be more job losses and corporate closures.

The government announced its most recent stimulus package, the unprecedented $42 billion Nation Building and Jobs Plan, a couple of weeks ago. This is on top of the $4 billion nation-building package, the $12 billion Building Australia Fund and prior commitments to skills training and an education revolution. By combining immediate cash payments with an investment in longer term drivers of productivity, the government’s stimulus packages strike an appropriate balance between immediate support for jobs now and delivering long-term investments for future economic growth. The many initiatives in the Nation Building and Jobs Plan alone will provide a boost to economic growth of around half a per cent of GDP in 2008-09 and around three-quarters to one per cent of GDP in 2009-10. No-one could possibly argue that free markets should be left to wreak havoc on the Australian economy without government intervention. Concomitantly, no one could accuse the Rudd government of complacency in this context.

The temporary costs of these initiatives are a small price to pay for the security and confidence that will be provided for Australian industries, Australian jobs, Australia families and the Australian economy. With that in mind, the bipartisan support of these initiatives ought to have been a fait accompli. However, the opposition’s track record throughout the crisis has left much to be desired. We will long remember the shameful attacks on the Secretary to the Treasury, Dr Ken Henry, during debate on the government’s bank guarantee proposal. We all remember the opposition’s disgraceful claims that the Treasury growth forecast had ‘the whiff of manipulation’ about it. We remember the opposition bombarding Dr Henry with frivolous suggestions for six hours in Senate estimates, when Dr Henry’s time would have been better spent talking to bank chiefs about the banking guarantee. We all know that Dr Henry is one of Australia’s pre-eminent public servants. He has been held in the highest regard by both sides of politics and the business community. He did not deserve the misguided attacks on him by an opposition seeking to score a cheap political point in a time of crisis. We had hoped that the opposition would refrain from making further cheap political points during the global economic downturn.

No doubt members of the business community would be feeling the same way. While commenting on the government’s banking guarantee in October 2008, National Australia Bank chief executive John Stewart said:

It is unfortunate that this process has been so highly politicised ...

He is not wrong. The government’s stimulus package, like its banking guarantee, deserves the full support of the opposition, free of the usual political pointscoring. The packages are far more important for the national interest than the opposition’s short-term political interest or anachronistic ideological obsessions. Unfortunately, it has not taken long for the coalition’s ideological obsession to rear its ugly head.

As we now know, the Leader of the Opposition stood in this parliament in the middle of the global economic maelstrom to baselessly attack the Rudd government’s numerous stimulus packages. He continued his misguided attacks on the government’s deposit guarantee. He could not resist the cheap political shot of pleading against deficits for the sake of our children. He described the government’s $10 billion Economic Security Strategy as ‘ill considered’ and ‘ill thought out’. This is despite retail figures showing that sales skyrocketed 3.8 per cent in December compared with November. If the opposition leader’s attacks were anything other than an attempt to cling to the last vestiges of neo-liberal economic thought, he would have presented a detailed alternative vision of strong government intervention. We would have seen attacks grounded in fact and current economic orthodoxy. The fact that we did not speaks volumes about the nature of the opposition leader’s pious attacks.

Several things are now clear: (1) the coalition has no alternative plan, no alternative solution, to the crisis that confronts us, (2) the coalition is still stuck in the quagmire of discredited economic orthodoxy from another age, and (3) you cannot trust the coalition to guide us out of these dark economic clouds, because they have a natural aversion to economic stabilisers. They would rather pontificate on the sidelines while the market spins wildly out of control. This approach is not only unwise; in my view, it is extremely dangerous. It is tantamount to committing economic suicide. The opposition would do well to listen to the many families and community groups that are crying out for more support, particularly in my electorate of Lowe. They would also do well to observe the advice of the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry Group, the Property Council of Australia and the International Monetary Fund—all of whom have applauded the government’s handling of this crisis.

Market libertarians are no longer justified in making an argument against public spending and intervention or against better regulation and closer supervision. That said, we cannot allow the world to return to protectionism under the guise of stimulating domestic demand and consumption. Australia’s fate is inextricably linked to that of the other world economies. The continuing financial crisis has provided a pertinent reminder of just how closely the world’s major economies are linked. Six out of Australia’s 10 largest trading partners are already in recession, and that has clearly contributed to the $115 billion hole in Australia’s budget. Opening the door to global opportunities also means exposure to global risk. However, this crisis does not warrant calls for isolationist policies. No-one can argue that the globalised economy, which has brought tremendous benefits to Australia and other nations, should be wound back. World trade has been one of the drivers of global growth over the past six years. Trade is itself a stimulus because it has a multiplier effect on domestic activity. There can be nothing worse than one trading partner’s reversion to isolationist policies under the guise of ‘fiscal domestic stimulus’, invariably followed by a tit-for-tat response from other trading partners. We cannot allow global exports, global trade, to suffer in this way.

The global economic crisis tells us that only a truly global response can put our economies back on track. In November last year WTO Director-General Lamy said that the international response to the economic crisis must include initiatives that lock in the benefits of globalisation as well as manage its risks. He is absolutely right. Free trade is not part of the problem; it is part of the solution. That is why concluding the Doha Round remains one of the Australian government’s highest trade policies and also why the Minister for Trade, the Hon. Simon Crean, has been working tirelessly to generate the political will and high-level commitment needed to conclude the Doha Round. No-one has worked harder than Simon Crean in the international environment to resuscitate Doha, which is so critical for our country and so critical for the world at this time.

Finally, at this most critical of junctures for the Australian economy a successful conclusion of the Doha Round and a genuine liberalisation of trade in goods and services would provide a significant boost to confidence. Perhaps this is something that all sides of politics can agree on.

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to join the debate after the member for Lowe. I listened to his comments with great interest and in particular the comments he made in relation to trade policy. I wish to take this opportunity to acknowledge and take note of his great contribution in the role that he previously served in as the parliamentary secretary in that area. I know that he has been for many years now and will continue to be a very strong advocate for the people of Lowe. I first met the member for Lowe when he was campaigning for the seat in 1998.

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think you were very active in that campaign.

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I did assist, and it was a great pleasure to do so. I know that those efforts have been repaid to all of those people who assisted the member for Lowe, with his outstanding service to the people of Lowe and the people of Australia through this parliament.

It gives me great pleasure to contribute to this debate and I wish to make a few observations in relation to the government’s approach over the last 12 months in confronting what is without question one of the greatest challenges that the international economy has ever faced. It began with the subprime crisis. We saw those toxic loans, for those assets that were not worth as much as the loans that were taken out against them. We saw that trickle through various parts of the American economy and it was not long before we started to see the impacts of those difficulties flow through to other parts of the world economy.

We have seen some massive slowdowns in growth figures from some of our key trading partners. We have seen slowdowns of a magnitude that we have not witnessed in the global economy—certainly not in my lifetime and not in the lifetime of most of us in this parliament. I think the gravity of these times was brought to our attention with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September last year. These very difficult times have called for strong and decisive leadership, and that has become a mantra that has been spoken about and repeated in this place and outside this place. Strong and decisive leadership is what was required, and I think that on any measure what this government has demonstrated over the last 12 months is strong and decisive leadership.

There are many instances of that. Perhaps the first decision that was taken, which was such a significant decision in so many respects, was the government’s decision to guarantee bank deposits. That decision involved guaranteeing retail deposits up to $1 million, providing much-needed assurance to mums and dads—deposit holders all around this country—to ensure that they did not fear that their funds were under threat and to head off what might have led to some uncertainty and potentially, in the worst case scenario, a run on the banks. It can be said that we had not approached that dangerous territory where a run on the banks was a real threat, but, in a sense, the minute people start to ask questions about whether or not their money is safe is the time for action, and I believe that the government’s action in that regard has been vindicated.

That was a significant decision not just for retail deposits up to $1 million but, at the same time, in relation to the wholesale funding that banks secure. Providing a guarantee in that space has essentially allowed our banks to access funds and finance at a time when banks right across the world are finding it increasingly difficult to do so. Without access to that finance, particularly in the highly globalised and debt-dependent economy that we have developed into, the ordinary wheels of commerce could not continue to turn. But, as a result of providing that guarantee, we are seeing credit being made available to people and businesses throughout this economy.

Those decisions that were taken then were not made without controversy. I have to say that I found it disappointing that, throughout the debate that occurred on the guarantees, the opposition consistently took the duplicitous approach of, on the one hand, saying that they supported the package but, on the other hand, wanting at every opportunity to whinge, snipe and carp about specific aspects of the package. We all recall that Malcolm Turnbull had said he wanted a cap at $100,000. The government came out very decisively and said there would be an unlimited guarantee, and in effect that is what we have when you combine the two guarantees as they were ultimately implemented. I would have thought that that provided even more decisive action, worthy of the support of the opposition, but we did not receive that support.

In the kerfuffle that occurred at the time, I remember in particular that the Australian ran a number of articles that related to the comments attributed to officers of the Reserve Bank. There was much speculation about whether or not the Reserve Bank had in fact supported the actions that were being taken, so I was very pleased to have the opportunity just last Friday, through the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, to ask some questions of the Reserve Bank governor, Mr Stevens. I targeted some of those questions to this issue of the bank guarantee, and I was exceedingly delighted that his response was overwhelming in its support of the actions that government had taken in relation to the guarantees. In his evidence before that committee he made the point that in his observation as a citizen of the community, turning on the television and listening to the radio, he had started to pick up a little bit of comment and talk out there in the community from people who were concerned about whether or not their funds were safe and whether there was any uncertainty over the funds that they had placed on deposit in their banks.

The governor said that clearly in that context early and decisive action was required. I do not want to quote from his evidence at length, but I encourage members to look at the transcript because it makes for very interesting reading. The governor was referring to the guarantee when he said, ‘I think that has been very effective.’ His support of the guarantee is much more glowing than that but I do not want to waste the House’s time by going into too much detail on the comments he made. I implore all members to look at the transcript—it makes for interesting reading and is a very strong endorsement of the action that was taken by the government at the time.

We still hear from those on the other side—though not as much these days, I must say—criticism of the actions the government took in relation to the bank guarantee. But we see that on the one hand the guarantee has provided reassurance to deposit holders and on the other hand it has freed up those arteries of credit. Wholesale funding for banks has become more attainable and as a result of that they have been able to continue to lend throughout the economy, which has been a good thing. This is not some esoteric debate: if banks do not have the ability to access finance they cannot lend money. They cannot lend money to you and they cannot lend money to me. They cannot lend money to the small businesses that employ such a significant part of the workforce in my local economy in the Lindsay electorate. I am sure that is reflected right across the country—indeed, I know it to be the case.

The bank guarantee delivered on both those objectives: certainty for deposit holders and freeing up access to finance for banks. That was a significant decision that had been taken but the government recognised that the scale of the challenge ahead was such that more needed to be done. We will all recall that on numerous occasions the Prime Minister has said, ‘This is what we are doing but we stand ready to act.’ Not only has the government stood ready to act but it has acted consistently.

The next step in the process was to provide some stimulus to the economy. These days it is pejoratively referred to as the ‘cash splash’. There are various other names, but ‘cash splash’ is the one that we hear most. I remind those members on the other side that the so-called cash splash was that particular package that delivered the payments that pensioners across this country received before Christmas. We remember how all of a sudden—after having done nothing for pensioners whilst in government over more than a decade—the opposition, with obvious political opportunism attached to it, saw a great opportunity to run a campaign on how they would champion the cause of the low-income earner—of the pensioner, in that case. So they ran this minicampaign, but do not forget that in the first instance the then shadow spokesperson for that particular area had indicated that she was running a petition to increase the pension, until she got slapped down very quickly—on radio, as I recall—by the then shadow Treasurer, the member for Wentworth, who of course is now the Leader of the Opposition.

The shadow minister was out there saying she was going to start a petition to take up the plight of pensioners, and the now Leader of the Opposition slapped her down very quickly and we did not hear any more about the pension. Then, all of a sudden, the then opposition leader, Dr Nelson, the member for Bradfield—I know it gets a little bit confusing to follow, but stick with me—said that they would be introducing a bill into parliament to increase the pension. A big political argument occurred over whether or not pensioners deserved that money.

In the end, as part of the stimulus package—the Economic Security Strategy implemented before Christmas—we saw a significant bonus being paid to pensioners. I have to say that the response I have received in my electorate has been uniformly positive—people thought that was much needed and a very positive step. If we move forward a couple of months, all of a sudden we see that whenever they are talking about that package it is not about the pensioners—who have not only already received their money but also in many cases already spent it, for the good of the economy—but just some vague, nebulous notion of a cash splash. They were not suggesting to pensioners that it was merely a cash splash back when we were delivering some additional disposable income to people who were doing it tough at the time.

Much has been said in this place and outside of it by those on the other side about whether or not that package was effective. Well, it has been effective. You can look at the data or the commentary of those who are in the know. Looking at the data, the seasonally adjusted estimate for the retail trade figures which were released by the ABS indicate that there was a 3.8 per cent increase in December 2008. That followed a 0.4 per cent increase in November and a one per cent increase in October. December 2008 represents the largest monthly seasonally adjusted percentage increase since August 2000, following the introduction of a GST. So what we have seen is a very significant increase in retail trade. That is the first objective measure.

What else have we seen? We have seen an increase in housing finance approvals. I note that the ABS statistics show that there was a 6.4 per cent increase in December in home loan approvals. Most importantly, loans for new dwellings skyrocketed 15.2 per cent in that month. The significance of that is that that is in direct response to the government’s initiatives in relation to first home owners grants. By doubling the grant—and tripling the grant for those with newly constructed properties—we have seen a stimulus into the economy led in large part by first home buyers. We saw yesterday in figures released by the Minister for Housing that 29,489 first home buyers entered the property market by the end of January. So we have seen a significant influx of first home buyers.

I was discussing this increase with a local real estate agent on the weekend, Mr Terry Heidtmann, who I think I have had opportunity to mention in this place before. He is the current citizen of the year in Penrith. Mr Heidtmann told me that in January he had one of the best months that he has ever had, and he indicated that that was predominantly in the first home owners segment of the market. To those on the other side who say that these measures are not working, I say: go back to your communities and talk to the people whose lives are being affected in a very real way by this global economic slowdown and whose lives are being affected in a positive way by the impact of these actions and decisions that government has taken.

On all of these measures we see evidence that what occurred before Christmas has been working. On top of that, we had the grants to local governments, the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program. That is a significant investment from federal government in local councils of a scale that we have not seen for many years. As someone with a background in local government, I can only say that for many years there was considerable frustration throughout the local government sector with the lack of interest from the federal government. Not only do we now have a government that is showing interest, but they are prepared to put their hands in their pocket and they see the great opportunity that local government presents for investing in local communities—generating and delivering local economic activity and the jobs that will flow from that. In my local government area of Penrith, the only council area within my electoral boundaries, $1.7 million was the allocation that the council received. The Independent Mayor of Penrith, Councillor Jim Aitken, has been very glowing in his praise of this package, as has the entire council, from all political persuasions.

We have seen measures that have worked and will have an impact on the ground. Since that we have seen the stimulus package, and once again there has been much criticism of that coming from those on the other side. They said they would not quibble when the Economic Security Strategy was introduced. But then they decided to oppose the package. The hairy-chestedness finally prevailed. This time they were actually going to vote for what they believed in. On the earlier occasions they said, ‘We support it and we’re going to vote with it, but we will take every opportunity to criticise it.’ At least this time they had the courage of their convictions. I think it was a terrible decision for them to take. It was not in the best interests of people throughout this country, but at least they had the courage of their convictions in blocking it.

In blocking the stimulus package, which ultimately went through with the support of the Greens and the minor parties—the Independents in the Senate—they were also exposed for not having an alternative plan. We heard from the former shadow Treasurer that the best strategy was to wait and see. How many more jobs would have to be lost whilst we employ this wait-and-see approach? The only thing that the Australian people can be clear about is that, had a Liberal government, a coalition government been at the helm rather than the Rudd Labor government, then you would not have seen the bank guarantee, you would not have seen the stimulus package that came through before Christmas, you would not have seen the spending on local government and you would not have seen the stimulus package that has just been passed through this parliament. What you would have seen was more waiting and seeing. People in communities such as the one that I represent know that we cannot afford to sit back and wait. Urgent and very significant, very bold action was needed. That is what we have seen through the Rudd government.

We have heard from those on the other side that the stimulus package is too much, even though pitching it at around two per cent of GDP is what the IMF suggests to be an appropriate amount. But we hear that it is too much. When the Reserve Bank governor was asked about this, he said, ‘It does not strike me as obvious that somehow it is grossly excessive.’ And when pressed on the issue by the current shadow Treasurer whether or not it might be better to hold a little more ammunition in the weapon and not fire off too early, by asking, ‘Isn’t it better for us just to hold back a bit; not spend as much now so that we’ve got a little bit more ammunition in the gun?’ the Reserve Bank governor replied:

You can make that argument, but I think you can also make the argument that, the longer you wait, the more ammunition you will end up having to use. These things can get a sort of self-fulfilling momentum behind them and we may or may not be able to head that off. But I think you should try …

So, we have heard there from the Reserve Bank governor. Let us not leave the ammunition in the gun. We need to be firing to create economic activity, to protect and to create jobs, and that is what this government is intent on doing.

I conclude by saying that we have heard a lot about debt and deficit, but the one thing that you will not hear from those on the other side is that, if they were on the treasury bench, they would have no proposal and no plan that would allow this country to be governed without going into debt and deficit at this point in time. Tax revenues amounting to $115 billion have been lost. We confront that challenge. We will do our best to get the economy moving again and to get those revenues back up.

Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After being in opposition for more than a decade, the first year of the Rudd Labor government was an exciting change. We came into government committed to building a modern Australia for the 21st century and we are delivering on that promise. In our first budget we cut taxes for working families and low-income earners and we are well on the way to abolishing the Howard government’s extreme workplace laws. Our education revolution is underway with the building of trade training centres in high schools and the installation of thousands of new computers in schools across the country. We ratified the Kyoto protocol and, among a range of measures to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, we are well advanced on the introduction of our Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. The government is now starting to receive reports of several studies into options for improving healthcare services, and we have started to address medical workforce shortages with measures such as the establishment of more than 1,000 new training places for nurses. Of course, we also said sorry to the Indigenous Australians on behalf of the Australian parliament.

Late last year we unexpectedly had to respond to the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. The government took early, strong and decisive action, writ large, to protect the Australian economy and jobs and have continued to act as the crisis has developed. We injected $10.4 billion into the economy last year to stimulate economic activity and support jobs, followed by the recently announced $42 billion economic stimulus package. We protected the savings of working Australians by guaranteeing deposits in Australian banks, building societies and credit unions for the next three years.

Finally, the Rudd government has responded decisively to the tragedy of Victoria’s worst ever bushfires with practical measures to help victims in the immediate aftermath of the fires and during the long recovery and reconstruction process that lies ahead. This is a record of considerable achievement during the first year or so of the Rudd Labor government and one that all members of the Australian community can be proud of.

I now go to the stimulus package and Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2008-2009 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2008-2009. I am extremely proud that the Rudd government has taken more decisive action to strengthen the Australian economy. The direct investment by the government in long-term nation building will boost economic growth and productivity and support jobs in both the long and short terms. The targeted bonuses for low- and middle-income households will provide an immediate economic stimulus and help those most in need to deal with the flow-on effects of the looming global recession. Australia is fortunate it has a federal Labor government to deal with today’s unprecedented economic circumstances. Had the Liberal Party been in power, all that we would have seen would be more of the extreme neoconservative policies that got the world into this mess in the first place: tax cuts for the well off, unfettered free markets and the voodoo economics espoused by the former shadow Treasurer in recent times. Only Labor has the vision and determination to take actions that will help Australia weather the economic crisis while at the same time making keen investments in our future prosperity.

I particularly welcome the proposed investment in house construction and note that this has already been applauded by the Housing Industry Association. The $6 billion for new public and community housing will not only help more central Victorians find a home but also create jobs for local builders and contractors. Those earning less than $100,000 a year, single income families, farmers and students will all benefit under the package.

I also welcome the additional funding for regional roads, including black spot funding and additional level crossing boom gates. These initiatives will help make central Victoria’s roads safer and save lives. Businesses large and small throughout the Bendigo electorate will benefit from the tax breaks announced. These will help increase productivity through increased tax deductions for investments in plants and equipment. Improving the energy efficiency of existing homes will support jobs and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Free ceiling insulation and increased rebates for solar hot water systems will help make our residential houses more energy efficient and cut Australia’s carbon pollution.

The global recession is hitting the budgets of all countries. The Rudd government has reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining budget surpluses over the course of the economic cycle. As the economy recovers and grows more above trend, the government will return to a budget surplus by banking any increase in tax receipts associated with the economic recovery and hold real growth in government spending to two per cent a year. The Rudd government is taking the necessary and responsible action to help Australia through this global economic crisis.

Improving Australia’s education system was a key policy initiative in Labor’s 2007 election campaign. Now every primary school in the Bendigo electorate will benefit from the announcement of an investment of $14 billion in schools’ infrastructure. This will not only create local jobs in the short term but will benefit our economy for decades to come. Facilities such as libraries and halls will be built or upgraded in every primary school. Funding is available for new science and language labs in secondary schools, and every school will benefit from up to $200,000 for essential building maintenance. While improving the quality of education of every Australian child, this program will help deliver an economic stimulus today and underwrite higher productivity tomorrow.

The coalition continues to peddle the myth that the Rudd Labor government cancelled the popular Investing in Our Schools Program. Nothing could be further from the truth. This program had a limited shelf life. John Howard extended the program himself when he announced a final extension to the funding scheme. In fact on 19 February 2007 the former Prime Minister announced a $181 million extension to the program as a pre-2011 election sweetener to his 2004 election promise. In his media release he said:

To ensure that every school community has an opportunity to benefit from this program, we are providing an extra $127 million to Government schools and an additional $54 million to non Government schools in 2007 for a final round of funding.

Clearly, the Howard government had decided to end the program after the final extension of funding for 2007 was completed. In fact, on 28 August 2007 the member for Curtin, who was then education minister, announced that the Howard government would continue support for the Investing in Our Schools Program. The member for Curtin, now deputy opposition leader said that details of the continued support for the Investing in Our Schools Program would be announced in due course. The election campaign came and went, and it seems that due course never arrived, with no additional funding committed to by the Liberals.

Despite the failure of the previous Liberal government to come good on their promise of continued support, Liberal Party members continue to run around claiming that the new Rudd government had abolished the $1.2 billion program. What the opposition does not mention is the fact that, after the fourth and final round of funding for public schools in August 2007, $26.1 million remained unallocated by the previous Liberal government. At the direction of the previous Liberal government, this unallocated funding of $26.1 million was returned to consolidated revenue, ending the Investing in Our Schools Program prematurely. So not only was there no funding for the program beyond the 2008 round provided by the previous Liberal government but they failed to allocate all of the money announced and clearly did not plan to spend the money in any extension of the program.

The Liberals’ Investing in Our Schools Program was a hit-and-miss affair. Schools had to prepare a submission and hope it would receive funding in an extremely competitive environment, with some schools missing out. Labor’s $14.7 billion schools infrastructure and maintenance program announced by the Prime Minister will benefit every school in Australia—public, private and Catholic sector. Fourteen local secondary schools in my electorate will have $1.6 million to invest in the latest computer technology through a second round of funding from the National Secondary School Computer Fund. This fund is a key component of the Australian government’s $2.2 billion Digital Education Revolution initiative. I congratulate all central Victorian secondary schools that were successful in obtaining funding under round 2. This very important program was announced by the Prime Minister during the 2007 federal election campaign and has committed $1.9 billion in funding for new computer equipment in secondary schools. So far the Rudd government has invested more than $258 million in two rounds of funding, including more than $300,000 in flexible funding for students with a disability. The fund will give students greater access to and teach more sophisticated use of information and communications technology to prepare them for the jobs of tomorrow.

The National Secondary School Computer Fund is a partnership between the federal government and all education jurisdictions. The government has agreed to fund a further $807 million for on-costs to install and maintain the computers and costs associated with the subsequent funding rounds. A further supplementary round opened on 10 September 2008 for schools that have not reached the target ratio of one computer to every two students and have so far not applied for funding under the first two rounds. When this supplementary funding round is completed, all secondary schools in Australia will have been offered the opportunity to obtain funds to bring them up to the one computer to two students ratio, including funding for costs of installing additional equipment.

I am very proud that Elmore’s primary health service has received $506,000 from the National Rural and Remote Health Infrastructure Program towards demolition works and the construction of a new allied health unit. I am pleased that this important program is funding projects in rural and remote communities where a lack of infrastructure is a barrier to new health services or the enhancement of existing services. This investment in Elmore will improve access to and the quality of allied health services in the area. The NRRHIP fund was founded in the 2008-09 federal budget and is providing $46 million over the next four years for rural and remote communities, including strategic planning for small rural private hospitals. The fund is a competitive grants program and is a result of the government’s election commitment to reform the former Rural Medical Infrastructure Fund. There will be further funding rounds under this program and I invite interested parties to contact my office for more information. This program is one of the Rudd government’s initiatives to improve health care in rural and regional communities. The government is committed to important investments in rural health, including an initiative to address workforce shortages across the country. In November the government announced an investment of $1.1 billion to train more doctors, nurses and other health professionals. This is the single biggest investment in the health workforce ever made by an Australian government.

We are also assisting farmers in the challenges of climate change. The Rudd government is continuing to help our primary industries prepare for climate change, with applications now open for Farm Ready grants to reimburse the cost of training courses. Those in the farming, fisheries and forestry sectors can now apply to reclaim up to $1,500 per year for attending approved training courses. The Farm Ready funding is available under the Climate Change Adjustment Program, which aims to help primary producers with professional advice, training and re-establishment grants. It is part of Australia’s Farming Future, the Rudd government’s key initiative to invest in research and training to help the farming sector boost local productivity and adapt to climate change.

Labor will continue to deliver on our commitment to work with our primary industry sectors to meet the challenges of the future. In particular, the farming sector has the most to lose from climate change. In the last few weeks, southern Australia has experienced prolonged and extreme high temperatures which will impact on our dairy industry, pasture crops, horticulture and vegetable crops and intensive livestock production. While we do not know whether individual events are directly related to climate change, we know that extreme weather events will be more severe and will occur more often in the future. The initiative will help producers who want to learn about the impacts of reduced rainfall on their properties or to develop a long-term business plan. We must also continue to invest in technology, research and development and training to ensure our farming sector is resilient and remains globally competitive. The scheme will take the best science and technology and transfer it from the lab to the farm. Reimbursement grants are not means tested and are available nationally to those in the farming, fishing and forestry sectors and their immediate family members, management staff and Indigenous land managers.

We are also helping farmers by extending drought assistance. The Rudd Labor government has extended exceptional circumstances drought assistance to 31 March 2010 for the Central Victoria North regions including Bendigo and Redesdale. The government’s decision will ensure that eligible farmers suffering under drought will receive ongoing support. Drought continues to place immense pressure on farmers in the region of Bendigo, and I know this decision will be met with great relief. I am sure eligible farmers and small businesses will value the certainty of knowing that EC assistance will continue as the drought and its effects drag on. Exceptional circumstances drought assistance includes income support subsidies and interest rate subsidies for eligible individuals and small businesses. The declaration follows the government’s acceptance of the advice of the independent National Rural Advisory Council. Exceptional circumstances in the Bendigo area was due to expire on 31 March 2009. It will now be extended until 31 March 2010.

Orchestra Victoria delivers around 200 performances to more than 230,000 people throughout Melbourne and regional Victoria each year. Orchestra Victoria is one of Australia’s busiest orchestras. Orchestra Victoria is the performance partner for Opera Australia, the Australian Ballet and the Victorian Opera. In addition, the orchestra delivers free concerts and education workshops throughout Victoria via its community program. The community program is based on a unique model of partnerships in which the Orchestra works closely with local councils, charitable organisations and community representatives to develop concert and workshop programs that meet the needs of communities. I am delighted to say that the program currently reaches communities in Melbourne and in Bendigo, Shepparton, Horsham, Hamilton, Warrnambool, Mildura, Morwell and Moe. Orchestra Victoria has been awarded a grant of $1 million over three years to present a series of large-scale outdoor events.

The attached articles provide further context for the Myer 2009 Commemorative Grants Program, a special initiative of the Myer family to mark two significant anniversaries in the family’s philanthropic history. The Orchestra Victoria concert series titled ‘On Air—One Concert, Two Places’ will initially span three years, from 2009 to 2011, and will involve a free open-air concert in an iconic regional location each year. The live concerts will each be simultaneously broadcast to another ‘live site’ location in regional Victoria utilising state of the art audio and video technology. It is planned to build further support and sponsorship for the concert series to give it life beyond 2011. The inaugural On Air concert will take place in the idyllic surroundings of Bendigo’s Rosalind Park on Saturday, 28 February 2009. This free outdoor community event will be surrounded by other activities for young and old, including a late-afternoon street party in View Street and pre-concert entertainment. Under the baton of Principal Guest Conductor Marko Letonja, Orchestra Victoria will perform a thrilling program including works by Dvorak, Tchaikovsky and Strauss, and will be joined by renowned German cellist Nicolas Altstaedt. All the orchestral action will be visible on a giant video screen, and the entire concert will be transmitted by satellite to a big screen in the centre of Shepparton, joining the two cities in an evening of musical celebration.

I am looking forward to this particular concert because it is quite timely that it is going to be staged in Bendigo next Saturday. That follows on from the horrific events of Black Saturday, when Bendigo faced the worst disaster in its history. Those firestorms ravaged the whole community, resulting in about 72 homes being demolished. I am sure that a lot of people will take the opportunity to go to Rosalind Park next Saturday, listen to the superb entertainment provided by Orchestra Victoria and enjoy some much needed relief from the horrific events of the last couple of weeks.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2008-2009 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2008-2009. We are debating these bills during a very difficult time for Australia’s economy, and I want to take this opportunity to express my support for the measures undertaken by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer over the past few months to prevent Australia following the rest of the industrialised world into recession.

Right from the start the Rudd government showed that it understood the gravity of the threat posed to our economy by the financial crisis that erupted in the US in September. The government took two vital steps: the guarantee of all deposits in banks and similar lending institutions, and the $10 billion stimulus package to shore up demand, boost small business and protect employment. Both of those measures had the support of the opposition when they were announced. When the Prime Minister announced the bank guarantee the Leader of the Opposition said:

We welcome this measure, we support it and we will give the Prime Minister every assistance.

One week later, he changed his mind and described it as a ‘catastrophic unlimited bank deposit guarantee’. When the government’s $10 billion stimulus package was announced, the Leader of the Opposition said:

We support these measures and we are particularly pleased about the measure, the payments to pensioners.

Only a few weeks later he changed his mind and said that the package was reckless and ineffective. In fact, as all responsible commentators have acknowledged, both these measures are highly effective. The bank guarantee, which was announced on the advice of the Treasury and the Reserve Bank of Australia, was decisive in maintaining the stability of our banking system by preventing the lack of confidence that has undermined foreign banks.

In an environment where leading British, American and Japanese banks were failing, where giants like the Bank of America and Citibank were wobbling on the brink of insolvency, Australia needed to move quickly and boldly, and that is what the Labor government did. The opposition ridiculed the $10 billion stimulus package, just as they are now ridiculing the $42 billion Nation Building and Jobs Plan. The evidence is now in and it shows that the $10 billion package was effective in boosting demand and consumer spending in the pre-Christmas period. This boost to spending put money in the tills of Australian businesses and it prevented businesses from laying off staff. The Leader of the Opposition likes to pose as the champion of ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’, but it was the Rudd government that took decisive steps to protect the jobs of Australian workers and it was the Leader of the Opposition that opposed those measures.

Yesterday we saw more evidence of the effectiveness of the Rudd government’s response to the crisis. ComSec’s chief economist, Craig James, said that Australia will still have positive growth in this financial year. That is an amazing achievement when all of our major trading partners are sliding into recession. The Age, in a misleading line, led its story by saying that Australia may get lucky and avoid a recession in 2009. In fact, this achievement has nothing to do with luck. As Mr James said:

The relative strength of the Australian economy is due not to luck but by policy decisions taken by the Rudd government and the Reserve Bank.

He attributed our success to big interest rate cuts and federal government stimulus programs. He said:

No other country has received the same economic boost from all three factors - Government spending, lower interest rates and a cheaper Aussie dollar.

So if Australia does succeed in avoiding recession, there is no doubt where the credit will lie—it will lie with the current government’s timely, bold and decisive actions.

In considering these appropriation bills, I turn to an area of appropriation where state, local and federal governments have worked together to make sure that the parents and children of Melbourne Ports are provided with adequate child care, as per our election promises. I commented a few weeks ago that the Labor government has fulfilled its promise to establish 260 early learning and childcare centres to address unmet demand around the country. This news was of particular interest to young families in the city of Port Phillip, as the electorate is fortunate enough to have been nominated as one of the 38 priority sites in the first round of funding. In fact, we have received funding for two centres: one in Port Melbourne and one in St Kilda. The St Kilda one is already up and running as far as the funding is concerned.

Unfortunately, the nomination of these two new centres gives little comfort to parents at the two ABC Learning Centres in South Melbourne and East St Kilda, who are no doubt feeling less secure about the futures of their children. The incompetence of ABC Learning’s management is no secret and has been well known for quite some time. The two ABC centres in question in my electorate are not exempt from this strain of mismanagement. Despite having an occupancy rate of 75 per cent, both centres are considered by those who have looked at them to be unviable. It seems that unfortunately even the Port Phillip council may not be able to proceed with the preparatory bid that they have made.

The national press has widely condemned ABC Learning—accurately, in my view—for the shocking way the nation’s now-defunct childcare provider ran its business. Now it is alarmingly clear that a hefty number of the 241 ABC Learning Centres classified as unviable have been subject to exorbitant commercial rents. Unless liquidators or the owners of these properties—mysterious entities who will eventually be got to the bottom of—negotiate new rental agreements, the two centres in Melbourne Ports, in the city of Port Phillip, will probably close by 31 March this year.

Most members are aware that 80 of the 241 failing ABC centres are owned by the Australian Education Trust, which is in turn owned by Austock, a company in which ABC founder Eddie Groves has a percentage stake. Lest we forget Mr Groves—the member for Oxley should know him quite well—he was one of the paymasters of the Liberal Party in Queensland. Groves infamously told Canadian television, when it was proposed that that country adopt the privatised childcare system on the Howard Liberal model, ‘Government subsidies make child care in Australia a licence to print money.’ Very subtle! In addition to Mr Groves, the chairman of Austock is Bill Bessemer, a founder of ABC Learning. Austock received almost $48.3 million from ABC Learning in commissions and corporate services and management fees between ABC’s float in 2001 and 2006.

Let there be no doubt: ABC Learning, Mr Groves and Austock let our children’s infrastructure in their privatised centres go down a slippery slope for too long. The ordinary men and women of Australia have helped ABC Learning stay afloat—thanks to the good management of the Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Childcare, Maxine McKew, and the Deputy Prime Minister—but we cannot support all of these centres forever. Many of them are commercially viable, but some of those that are not come up for decision on 31 March. The onus is on the liquidators or the owners to negotiate new rental agreements to make these centres with large occupancies in my electorate viable. I call on members of the opposition and government to pressure the liquidators and owners to do so. It is imperative that we work together to ensure that the parents at our ABC centres in various electorates, including mine in South Melbourne and St Kilda, not be subject to fear and uncertainty over the future of their children’s care and that proper commercial rent be negotiated for these places.

I turn to another area of the government’s appropriation that I have been following very closely. I am very pleased that we have been very active in my electorate in following through the national promises of the new government. A hundred and five thousand Australians spend the night without a home to go to. This figure is much too high. Our new government takes this issue very seriously, and we have acted promptly. We proposed at the last election to reduce homelessness, and late last year the Prime Minister and the Minister for Housing announced a plan to halve homelessness by 2020. The handling of this issue and, I would say, the issue of Indigenous affairs reflects well on the entire ethical standard of the Australian people and the Rudd government. The ethical way in which we have approached these issues reflects very well on Australia.

Shortly before election night, the then opposition leader and now Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, visited the Hanover Welfare Services centre in Southbank in my electorate. I think that visit was very emblematic of his concern with the issue of homelessness. Also in my electorate, the Sacred Heart Mission caters for the homeless. It operates an organised, efficient and successful program which focuses on assisting disadvantaged and homeless people in our borough. Sacred Heart is famous for its healthy lunch programs, which feed hundreds who might otherwise not eat a healthy meal in an entire day. On the day after Christmas, Boxing Day, 600 people are fed at the Sacred Heart Mission. Local schools have programs in place where students volunteer in the preparation of food and the cleaning up afterwards. One of my staff, Francis Ventura, is a former student of Christian Brothers College in East St Kilda, which runs a program whereby students volunteer their time during school hours to assist with the program. The program is very popular and reflects the good intentions of my younger constituents.

Earlier this year, Deputy Prime Minister Gillard, Australia’s first ever Minister for Social Inclusion, and Justine Elliot, the Minister for Ageing, made another announcement with a private Melbourne based organisation, Winteringham, for a further $3 million to provide affordable housing and support services to frail elderly homeless people. This organisation houses around 800 people on a nightly basis in Melbourne, and the extra $3 million will ensure a facility to accommodate 60 people can be built in Dandenong, in Melbourne’s outer suburbs.

Similarly, together with the Minister for Housing, Tanya Plibersek, I attended a wonderful briefing at the Salvation Army last year. They announced plans to build a centre for the homeless in my electorate, right on Punt Road. I hope this centre, which the Salvation Army would like to complete this year and which has received wonderful donations from local Melbourne philanthropists of great social conscience such as the Fox family, will get support from the federal government in the budget and we can look forward to commencing the fourth project to wind back the issue of homelessness in our electorates. This comes on top of the announcement by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Housing in December last year to provide $1.2 billion over the next four years, a 55 per cent increase in funding for homelessness from the previous budget, as part of the white paper The road home. As I said, this plan is the centrepiece of a 12-year reform agenda by the Rudd government, which aims to halve homelessness and provide shelter for 16,000 Australians who currently sleep rough every night of the year by 2020.

I will turn to another area of appropriations which puts in context the two bills, Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2008-2009 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2008-2009, and which the Minister for Finance and Deregulation spoke on when he was discussing these issues. That relates to the funding of the United Nations welfare and relief association. In the past decade, Australia provided $16 million for such agencies, mainly via the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, set up in 1949 to provide funds for Arab refugees. Following the recent conflict in Gaza, Australia committed an additional $10 million aid to the Palestinian Authority, of which $7.5 million will be a direct budget support to the PA and $2.5 million will be for emergency food assistance. This brings Australian assistance for the Palestinians to a total of $45 million since 2007.

I remain in favour of humanitarian assistance to Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza, but at the same time we have to be very aware of the chronic corruption and mismanagement of the PA and the history of the unaudited expenses of UNRWA. UNRWA is the only UN agency which exists to cater for a particular refugee population. In my view, it has long outlived its rationale for a separate existence and it has been maintained by a majority in the United Nations for political reasons. In its bureaucracy there are many examples of officials who are in its employ who are also members of Hamas, which is officially classified by the Australian parliament as a terrorist organisation. And of course Hamas was involved in the recent conflict in Gaza, including the unprovoked rocket attacks on civilian population centres.

Even if all inhabitants of the camps of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon were classified as refugees, the Palestinians and their progeny would constitute 17 per cent of the world’s refugees, yet they receive 33 per cent of all refugee funding, 90 per cent of which comes from the developed world. Millions of other refugees in Sudan, Chad, Congo, Sri Lanka, Darfur, Burma and on the Thai border who do not have powerful friends in the United Nations continue to live in the most wretched circumstances. In my view, compared to the UNHCR, UNRWA is overfunded, overstaffed and unaudited. Notoriously, millions of dollars in aid channelled to the PA in the 1990s was diverted for the purchase of arms and into the pockets of the Palestinian Authority leadership.

The European parliament received a report from the German police that €800 million that went to the Palestinian Authority during the 1990s was unaccounted for and unaudited. This is completely unacceptable, particularly from the developed world, which is providing the majority of this aid. Honourable members who want to know more about this should read both Claudia Rosett’s very powerful article in Forbes on the comparison between UNHCR and UNRWA and the article on the British Labour government’s shift in attitude entitled ‘Palestinian power struggle swallows millions in aid cash’ in the Independent on 4 November last year.

Most Western donor countries have been reluctant, for obvious political reasons, to call the PA or the UN to account over what frankly is the theft and waste of our taxpayers’ money in the morass of corruption and extremism of the Authority in the West Bank and Gaza. The European Union has failed to exercise supervision over millions of dollars given to the PA. The British government, as I said, is more interested in examining this issue now. No other international authority that Australia gives money to would have unaudited expenditure.

I have recently read that colleagues in the United States congress are raising the issue of auditing UNRWA’s expenditure. They are not seeking to persecute people who need assistance, but want to ensure that that assistance is being given effectively and that the generosity and humanitarian assistance of the world is being considered in the context of what other refugees need in, for example, Afghanistan, Darfur and Burma. Australia can and should make a useful contribution to this process by assisting those elements amongst the Palestinians who accept the need for a genuine peace settlement and want to end terrorist attacks, suicide bombings, reckless talk of jihad and martyrdom, the endless exaggerated rhetoric, corruption, waste, factional fighting and lawlessness.

I think there needs to be much more open discussion in Western countries, including Australia, about where our aid money is going and whether UNRWA is any longer an appropriate recipient of our aid money. That is not to say money should not go to the Palestinian people; however, I think the fact that they have 26,000 employees and UNHCR has only 5,000 employees and looks after 11 million refugees worldwide says something about the effective distribution of assistance and the work being undertaken by the two agencies. UNHCR covers all of the refugees of the world and UNRWA is the only agency devoted to one lot of refugees. One agency, UNHCR, aims to get refugees out of their current circumstances and assist them to live the rest of their lives in fulfilment. The other agency seems to be focused on keeping people in their circumstances and not taking them to a new stage where their families and children can benefit and move on.

I will make some further comments on what might be useful appropriations for Australia in future military expenditure in Afghanistan. If one looks at the way the Australian Army training team in Iraq was able to train a large number of Iraqi infantry battalions—which now have obviously secured a successful, free and fair election in Iraq—one might think that that would be an effective way of spending Australian taxpayers’ money in Afghanistan. The Afghan ambassador has told us that the Afghan National Army stands at only 63,000 at the moment, out of a population very similar in size to Iraq. The proposal at the moment is to increase the size of the Afghan army to 126,000—that is, double what it is now. In my view, any request for Australia to increase its forces ought to be focused on having an Australian training team, of the size we had in Iraq, training the Afghans to eventually take over their own security. After all, Australians do not want to be seen as continuing foreign occupiers of Afghanistan. This would be a way of Australia transiting out of Afghanistan eventually, while at the same time providing effective, long-term security in Afghanistan through the Afghans themselves. I do not want to speak further on that issue now, but I will return to it and provide some detail on expenditure, as would be appropriate in an appropriations debate.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In speaking in support of Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2008-2009 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2008-2009, I want to talk about what I call the ‘Page priorities’. Quite a number of them were commitments that came out of the 2008 budget. Importantly, they were commitments that would contribute to building infrastructure in our community. I do not just mean roads and bridges—they are important, and some of the money is directed to projects in those areas. I also mean community infrastructure—the things that are the glue of communities, that hold communities together and that make sure communities work—such as local halls and the like, which help to create the social fabric of our community.

One of the hallmarks of the Rudd Labor government is that it is doing exactly what it said it would do. The government said: ‘This is the sort of government we will be: ideas matter; values matter; and infrastructure and projects in communities matter. These are the things that we are committing to doing for the Australian people, electorate by electorate.’ It proceeded immediately upon election to do that at the national level and at the electorate level. Some of those commitments on the national stage were clearly honoured almost immediately. There were no promises that were ‘core promises’ and ‘non-core promises’; each and every one of them is being rolled out.

The Rudd Labor government also talked about and committed to stopping the blame game and working in a cooperative relationship with the states to make sure that some of those community and infrastructure projects could move ahead without the ducking, shoving and argy-bargy that go on around a whole lot of projects. We all know that that is a challenging task. We understand our federation and the challenges of working cooperatively, but it is another hallmark of the Rudd Labor government that we have proceeded to do that. Quite a few of the agreements and a lot of the cooperation in seven particular areas are happening through COAG, but it is also happening in a range of other areas. Most recently, it has been happening as well with the Nation Building and Jobs Plan. A coordinator-general has been appointed at the national level, and I am advised that counterparts are being put in place at the state and territory level to make sure that a cooperative relationship happens.

Some of the things that happened immediately on the national stage were that the Kyoto protocol was signed—the Prime Minister said he would do it, and it was done—and we said sorry. I know a lot of members of parliament felt good about being able to say sorry. That was the commitment of the Rudd Labor government and a commitment of federal Labor, but equally I know that there were people on both sides of parliament who felt good about being able to say sorry on that day. In the area of infrastructure, a big commitment was made by the government; this commitment is delivered within the appropriations bills. Three bodies have been set up: one for education, one for health and also Infrastructure Australia.

Then there is the relationship with local government, which is reflected in the appropriation bills. There are two parts to it. One is about relationships and working with local communities. Under the previous government’s regional development program, a lot of local government was actually cut out or sidelined and a lot of priorities that local government had worked up with their local communities never really got a guernsey. It was a completely different focus. Again a hallmark of the Rudd Labor government is the close working relationship with local government. That has been cemented by the meeting here in December last year when mayors and deputy mayors came from right around Australia. When I was writing about it in my local paper, I said it felt like a big town hall meeting except that we were in the Great Hall in Parliament House. That is what it felt like with all of these mayors and deputy mayors.

The program that is operating with local government is the local community infrastructure program. That is a program that obviously is well received, welcomed and popular at local level. It has allowed the local councils to upgrade areas that they have not been able to tackle for years, and it reaches right across the local community. I will give an example from the seat of Page. I have five local government areas: Ballina Shire, Clarence Valley, Kyogle Shire, Lismore City and Richmond Valley. As I have moved around the community—and I meet regularly with the mayors and the councils—I have been well aware of all the local projects that they have not been able to touch for years. We also know that local governments have an increasing responsibility—burden, some would say—to deliver projects at local level. As there is more legislation, more policy initiatives, they have the burden to deliver those. In Ballina Shire, for instance, they were able to get $712,000 from the program for infrastructure spending. In Clarence Valley they got $1,406,000 and they have been able to address a whole range of outstanding programs in the community with various halls, with upgrades and the like. Kyogle Shire got $401,000, Lismore City got $1,049,000 and Richmond Valley got $534,000. They might not seem like huge amounts but they are in local communities, where we have all of those very local projects.

Another commitment that is being rolled out within the time frame up until 2013 is universal access to preschool for all children four years of age. That is another one that will take a lot of cooperation with the states and territories because they deliver the services to the preschools. In my state of New South Wales I know there are about 800 preschools. About a hundred of those are in public schools under the department of education, and they are relatively free; there is no cost. But there are about 700 that are community preschools and the families have to pay. I am told it is somewhere between $35 and $40 a day. I have had a look at other states and territories where some of it is actually free. I have been meeting regularly with the local community preschools and talking about this issue because it is one of the issues that need to be further worked on and resolved before the program of universal access can be implemented. I have advocated that they all come in under the department of education, and then it would be easier to implement. Some community preschools agree. I got an email last night from the president of the Lawrence community preschool advocating that. Some of them say no—that they want to stand alone and keep their own unique characteristics. This is clearly one of those issues that we have to work on. I hope that it will all be free, because I see preschool for four-year-olds not as being about child minding or child care, which is fine, but as being about education.

What I call the ‘Page priorities’ in terms of infrastructure spending are commitments that I went to the election with—and the commitments have been honoured. Some of them are still being implemented, but they have all been honoured. An example is the Alstonville bypass. Bob Wilson, who is the chair of the Alstonville Bypass Action Committee, has beavered away for some 18 years on a 40-year design project to get this funded and operational. He said that if it would come to fruition—that is, if the money would materialise—he would dance in the street with me. And that is literally what we did last week. We actually went out and danced in the street in celebration. We were both a wee bit embarrassed because it was very public, but it was one of those things that we said we would do and we are in the local paper, dancing in the street. I am afraid we held up a bit of traffic while we did that. That was one of those things that I felt good about. It had dragged on for years—everybody had made promises, no one had ever really honoured them and I knew that when I made that commitment with Kevin Rudd that it would be honoured and that is why I did it for the first time.

There are lots of projects. A small commitment was $125,000 for the upgrade of the Grafton saleyards. We have a beef industry, as well as a timber industry, across the Northern Rivers in Page and in the Clarence Valley, and $125,000 made a big difference to what could be done at the saleyards with steel fencing and the like. I hope that is the start of one part of the upgrade. I said that I would endeavour to get some more funding if and when it becomes available. That is a significant industry, and industries like that really need supporting because they add to our local economy.

In Lismore there was $140,000 for the Lismore Flood Management Plan. Lismore is my home and I know a bit about floods because often when I say to people that I live in Lismore they will say ‘Oh, you come from the flood place’—it has that reputation. We are pretty used to floods—not on the scale that we see right across Queensland, and we have not suffered any loss of life in recent years, but we did in earlier years in my neck of the woods. So $140,000 makes a huge difference. The issue is that it was responding to local priorities and local needs. One of the ways of doing that is to work hand-in-glove with local government.

I would like to comment on the money that goes to aid and I briefly mention Timor-Leste, or East Timor as we call it. I know that all members of this place support our ongoing commitment and program with Timor-Leste, as we do with many other neighbours but with that one in particular. It is one place for which I hope we can continue to enjoy bipartisan support, because they are neighbours and friends who really deserve any assistance that we can continue to give through appropriations and budgetary support and, equally, through friendship, the parliament and all the other mechanisms that we have at our disposal. I lived in that country for 3½ years and worked for the Timor-Leste government so I have not only a good working knowledge of the country, the people, the culture and the government but also an understanding and, obviously, a commitment to it. I commend the bills to the House.

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

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2008-2009 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2008-2009. Unlike some opposite, we do not have a zealot’s faith in the invisible hand of the market or the unblemished wisdom of overpaid merchant bankers in the financial capitals of the world. Thanks to the good sense and ability of Independent senators to negotiate in good faith with the government, rather than indulging in pointless political pointscoring, we have managed to pass our stimulus package through the Senate. However, I believe it is worth reminding the House of the reckless and a tad unprincipled opposition that our measures received from some opposite who appear to prefer us to sit back and destroy the jobs that thousands of Australian families depend on. The government, unlike the opposition, accept that there is a role for government in helping the economy and realise that the Australian public expects us to react responsibly to the economic crisis that is engulfing the world.

We know that the Rudd government’s October stimulus package had a positive effect on the Australian economy in the December quarter. Australia avoided the collapse in retail demand that hit other economies across the world over Christmas. Consumer spending in December last year was up two per cent on the year before thanks to the government’s package. AMP Capital Investors chief economist Shane Oliver was quoted in the Australian newspaper as saying the stimulus package announced last year had ‘done the trick’ in lifting consumer spending. Our stimulus package also got positive reviews from many economic experts. ANZ senior economist Katie Dean has said that without the package the economic outlook would be much worse, but warned that the boost to the economy will only be short term. Ms Dean said:

It actually may help Australia avoid a technical recession which is two quarters of consecutive negative GDP growth over the longer term.

If some in this place do not understand the virtue of trying to keep Australia out of a recession then heaven help us all. We know that the October package worked, but more was needed. That is why the Rudd government announced its second rescue package. Stimulus packages act like a defibrillator, jolting life back into the economy. Some opposite, unfortunately, are like a doctor who would rather watch their patient expire gently on the operating table than give them the treatment they require.

Serious economists across the world support the concept of governments stepping in so as to soften the impact of the crisis through spending packages. When the effectiveness of monetary policy is impaired, governments have a responsibility to step up, step in and unblock the economy. Chris Richardson from Access Economics also praised the second stimulus plan as a response to what he sees as a ‘diabolical international situation’. Commonwealth Bank of Australia senior economist Michael Workman said the payments to households would boost consumption in the short term. Mr Workman also said that the construction and mining sector workers, hard hit by the economic downturn, would benefit from the infrastructure programs and that construction workers at risk of losing their jobs could find work in government funded infrastructure projects.

When private spending falls away, government spending should step up so as to smooth out the economic cycle and reduce the devastating impact of unemployment on Australians. American economist Mark Zandi, a supporter of the stimulus package of US President, Barack Obama, has calculated that, for every dollar spent on infrastructure projects, we see a boost of $1.59 to a nation’s gross domestic product. This multiplier effect occurs as the dollars the government put aside for infrastructure spending flow through the economy. In this regard, at this particular point in time, tax cuts are not as effective as a well-designed and targeted stimulus package, despite what some in the opposition seem to think.

Some in the opposition are clinging to the discredited idea that simply cutting taxes for the highest earners in the community is the special economic tool that a government needs. Unfortunately, some of the Liberals have demonstrated their lack of economic understanding by referring to the payments to low-income families as a ‘cash handout’. Leaving aside their distaste at the thought of money going to families who are doing it tough, I believe that these comments show that the opposition does not understand how these payments assist the whole economic cycle. They are a payment that will flow through the economy and benefit small businesses, tradespeople and workers across Australia and their families. In this regard, tax cuts are not as effective as a well-designed and targeted stimulus package.

With regard to tax cuts, Australians will get income tax cuts, as scheduled, this July and in July of next year. However, tax cuts, which give a little bit of extra money each week, are simply not as effective as one-off payments in sparking consumer spending. The cash payments will go to low- and middle-income families and singles, with a back-to-school bonus for families with little children. These are the families who have the most pressing expenses and who will put money back into the Australian economy, continuing growth and keeping jobs.

The package, of course, is more than just one-off payments, as important as they are. For this government it is possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. We can offer a stimulus package that will deliver a short-term boost to the Australian economy while keeping our eye on the long-term game. This economic slump will be tough and it will get tougher, but it will pass. When that happens we will need a skilled, well-educated workforce to consolidate our productivity and our prosperity. That is why in this package for every dollar that goes in payments to low- and middle-income families two dollars goes to spending on vital long-term infrastructure.

Anyone who has ever driven across the Sydney Harbour Bridge or along the Great Ocean Road, both public works projects funded during the very tough economic circumstances of the thirties, will know that tough economic times are not incompatible with public works of lasting value. The Hoover Dam in the USA is another example of a national infrastructure icon which was completed during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Spending on schools, ensuring that young Australians get the best possible facilities, the best libraries, science labs and language labs that are available, will ensure that they are prepared to join a global economy which will be even more competitive in the future. The bulk of the package is taken up with $28 billion in spending on crucial infrastructure: social housing, schools and making our housing stock more environmentally friendly. The bulk of the social housing will also have greater access for people with disabilities, a particular interest of mine.

This spending has two purposes: first, to boost the economy and to keep jobs in the short term; second, to provide infrastructure to support our economic growth in the medium to long term. This is direct spending. This will be spent in Australia and provide jobs for Australians. It is labour intensive spending, and it will preserve the jobs of thousands of bricklayers, carpenters, labourers, trades assistants and builders, who are beginning to struggle to find work as the economy slows.

There is the usual objection which is raised when governments decide to increase infrastructure benefits in response to an economic slowdown, which is that, by the time the infrastructure projects come on stream, the downturn is already over and the effect of the spending is to increase inflation as the economy is picking up. No-one can forecast how long the current downturn will last or how serious it will be, but what is particularly clever about this infrastructure stimulus package is that the spending announced by the government focuses on projects that can be started quickly and where the bulk of the money can be spent quickly, thus avoiding that problem I alluded to briefly earlier. Further, it focuses on small-scale projects which are a lot more likely to be started straight away without some of the cumbersome start-up lags which can afflict larger projects.

Anyone familiar with the previous government’s neglect of, disdain for and disinterest in public housing will know that social housing is in high demand across Australia, and that any units built will be used immediately. That is why the 20,000 units of social and defence housing will, we hope, all be built by the end of next year, providing a valuable boost to the construction industry and relief for people battling in a tough rental market.

Anyone who visits public schools and talks to teachers will know that they do have urgent maintenance needs that do need to be fixed as soon as possible. This package will provide crucial, immediate funding that they are crying out for. It will encourage investment in infrastructure projects designed by the people who know exactly what needs to be done.

All of the measures in the package will act as immediate stimulators, giving the economy the jolt it requires to compensate for the sudden and unprecedented drop in private investment. The reason behind this package is simple. We shall not give up on Australian jobs without a fight. The main cost of a recession is not economic; it is human. It is the family struggling to pay off their home once the breadwinner is made redundant. It is the young person being knocked back at hundreds of job interviews simply because no-one is hiring. There can be little so demeaning, so corrosive to self-esteem and so damaging to a person’s confidence as being willing and able to work but being unable to find a job.

Our package is unashamedly about preserving jobs. We want to ensure that as many people as possible stay in the workforce. As well as being a social good, this will also be an economic good in the long term. Working Australians will be able to retain links to the workforce and not have their skills wither and their identities diminish during a period of unemployment. We have already seen employers making efforts to retain as many staff as possible, and they should be congratulated. They do this because they know that the cost of losing good workers and then having to rehire when the economy picks up will damage their business in the long term. Preserving jobs is the No. 1 concern of the government during this recession, unlike, unfortunately, some of those opposite who would wish to put thousands of jobs at risk by not supporting this package.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to bring the debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2008-2009 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2008-2009 to a close, and I thank those members who have made a contribution. The additional estimates bills seek appropriation authority from parliament for the additional expenditure of money from the Consolidated Revenue Fund in order to meet the requirements that have arisen since the last budget. The total additional appropriation being sought through Additional Estimates Bills 3 and 4 this year is $3.1 billion.

The government finds it somewhat disappointing that too many of our opponents have failed to take the opportunity afforded them in this debate to address the important measures proposed in these bills. They could not bring themselves to say ‘I support an additional $21.3 million to increase the number of organ donations and transplantations across Australia’ or ‘I commend the additional $14.4 million to meet the costs associated with an increased uptake of the breast cancer drug Herceptin’. Rather, the opposition have chosen to ignore these bills and instead raise quibbles with elements of the government’s plan to strengthen growth and support jobs through the $42 billion Nation Building and Jobs Plan. It is, therefore, worthwhile to remind them of the important measures contained in these bills.

The government will provide $300 million for the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program—an outstanding program which has been supported by local government across the country. Of this $300 million, $250 million will be distributed to local councils, with allocations based on a formula that recognises need and population growth. This is a transparent formula which has been published and understood by local government and advocates for investment in local government. The balance, $50 million, will be invested in larger-scale, local projects such as new sports stadiums, entertainment precincts and cultural centres that require a larger Commonwealth contribution of $2 million or more. That $50 million investment has been the subject of bids by just about every local government authority across the country.

There is $227.1 million that is proposed for drought assistance under the Exceptional Circumstances interest rate subsidy program. AusAID will be provided with $150 million to contribute to the World Bank, $50 million of which is for the trust fund established in response to the global food price crisis and $100 million of which will be contributed to the Clean Technology Fund. The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts will be provided with $101 million to meet the increased demand for household rebates under the Solar Homes and Communities Plan. The government will provide $61.6 million to assist small-block irrigators in the Murray-Darling Basin who are affected by drought and wish to cease irrigation farming but stay on the farm. An additional $93.3 million is proposed to meet the increasing costs of the LPG Vehicle Scheme, which arise from additional customers who are expected to access the scheme in 2008-09. The LPG Vehicle Scheme is designed to encourage the uptake of LPG as an alternative transport fuel and to assist families facing high petrol prices. These continued expenditures and policy origins grow from initiatives of the former government, so it is surprising that these initiatives were not endorsed fulsomely by those of the opposition who spoke in this debate.

The government proposes to reallocate $99.4 million to establish a Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute. The institute will accelerate the take-up of carbon capturing projects by facilitating demonstration projects and identifying and supporting necessary research on related topics, including regulatory settings and regulatory frameworks. Carbon capture and sequestration initiatives grow from many years of consideration and contemplation by the former government and ultimate execution by the current government. The government will provide an additional $39 million for the Job Capacity Assessment program. The additional funding is required to meet higher-than-expected demand for assessments and will provide for an additional 139,000 assessments to be undertaken in 2008-09.

The Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs will be provided with $70 million for the Australian Remote Indigenous Accommodation Program. This amount represents a reclassification of appropriation from the states, territories and local government item to allow the department to make payments directly to non-government organisations. An additional $17.5 million will be provided to improve access to childcare and early childhood services for Indigenous Australians. This funding will contribute to the establishment and operation of 15 new children and families centres in urban areas and will expand the government’s contribution to the establishment and operation of 20 centres in rural and remote communities that have Indigenous populations. An additional $7.5 million is proposed to increase the number of places available under the Prevocational General Practice Placement Program, which provides opportunities for junior doctors to gain clinical experience in primary care, with the aim of encouraging them to take up general practice as a career.

These bills are important pieces of legislation which build upon the budget’s far-sighted steps to address long-term challenges in infrastructure, health and climate change and which deserve support. I commend the bills to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.