Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Social Security and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009 deals with two measures from last night’s budget. The first aspect of this bill is the provision for an ongoing lump sum payment of $600 a year for people on carer allowance and on carer payment. This provision regularises payments that were made since 2004 under the Howard government. In the case of those payments, it was a $600 annual lump sum for people on carer allowance and a $1,000 lump sum for people on carer payment. The second aspect of this bill is to suspend for three years the indexation of the income thresholds for people accessing family tax benefits. It is a straight savings measure.

The opposition certainly does not begrudge carers their money. Carers are the unsung heroes of our society. Many of them do it very tough indeed and that money will certainly be welcome, although, as I said, it is largely a continuation of measures that have been included in budgets since 2004. As well, the opposition recognises the need for some savings in these circumstances and certainly the opposition does not intend to oppose this bill.

It is worth observing the context in which this bill has been presented to the House. For weeks we have been hearing from government ministers, from the Prime Minister down, about the tough decisions that were going to be in last night’s budget. The only really tough decision in last night’s budget was the cuts to the private health insurance rebate. I have to say that they are cuts which I think this government will live to regret—first, because the private health insurance rebate is a very good way of getting more money overall into our health system and, second, because the private health insurance rebate has been very important in taking the pressure off public hospitals. It is highly likely that, as a result of the cuts announced last night, there will be more people clambering to join the already very long public hospital waiting lists.

Members opposite have always hated private health insurance. I stood at the dispatch box on the other side of this House day after day prior to November 2007 and predicted that the private health insurance rebate would be cut, would be means tested and would be abolished. Day after day members of the then opposition, led by the Deputy Prime Minister, would stand up and absolutely deny any intention to cut the private health insurance rebate, but of course they have. This is an absolute crystal clear case of a broken promise. They have been caught red-handed breaking an important promise. A press release dated 26 September 2007 from the then shadow minister for health states:

On many occasions for many months, Federal Labor has made it crystal clear that we are committed to retaining all of the existing Private Health Insurance rebates … The Liberals continue to try to scare people into thinking Labor will take away the rebates.

This is absolutely untrue.

The untruth was not coming from the then government; the untruth was coming from the then opposition. The world now knows that this is a government which does not keep its promises. This is a government which says with a straight face one thing while all along intending to do something else. We learn from George Megalogenis in the Australian today that in fact the government wanted to do this last year. They were a bit scared of doing it last year, but now, under the impact of the so-called global financial crisis, they have summoned up the courage to implement it. All along their true belief was that this was bad policy. That was a belief that they did not have the courage to put into words prior to the last election.

That was, in fact, the only hard cut in this budget. It was the only cut that involved taking away from people something that they already have. All of the other spending cuts in this budget involve stopping people from getting something that they do not already have now. There is the change to the family tax benefit thresholds, which is the subject of this legislation. It will stop some future claimants from accessing the family tax benefit to which they might otherwise be entitled. There are the changes to the pension taper rates. Again, this is only for new pension claimants. There are the changes to the superannuation contribution rules. Again, it is only for future contributions to superannuation. Of course, then there is the change to the age pension eligibility age. That lift in the official retirement age will not even begin until 2017, which is three elections off, and it will not actually be completed until 2023, 14 years into the future, when almost none of us will still be sitting in this parliament.

What we saw last night was actually well anticipated by George Megalogenis in the Australian a few weeks ago when he forecast what he thought would be ‘a horror handout budget’. There was a lot of talk about the horror in the weeks leading up to the budget, but last night all the Treasurer could bring himself to talk about was the additional benefits that he was going to give. In fact, the one thing that never escaped his lips in his 30-minute address was the fact that there was a $58 billion deficit attached to the goodies that he was giving out.

What we have is a government that is very brave to spend. It is so courageous when it comes to handing out the money that other people have accumulated and handing out the money which has been borrowed at the expense of the future taxpayers of this country. It is very courageous when it comes to spending, but it is extremely timid when it comes to cutting, which is why so many of these cuts are soft cuts and why so many of them are scheduled to start well into the future. Yet, the regrettable truth is that a $200 billion plus forecast reduction in the revenue over the forward estimates period means that there must be cuts, there must be higher taxes or there must, as there inevitably will be, higher interest rates in the future.

This is a budget which is based on utterly unrealistic assumptions. Last night the Treasurer told us that the budget would return to surplus by the 2015-16 financial year—shades of former Treasurer Paul Keating saying that the budget would ‘whirr back into surplus’. That was the former Prime Minister in his ‘Captain Wacky’ days, a memorable phrase of which I am reminded by the presence of the parliamentary secretary across the table.

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

Thanks, Tony!

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This idea that the budget is going to be rescued by returning to 4.5 per cent economic growth from 2012 is just utterly unrealistic. Economic growth of 4.5 per cent was barely reached at the height of the recent economic boom, a boom which members opposite say has gone, and gone forever, and yet now they are relying on the magical reappearance of 4.5 per cent economic growth to do the job which they should do themselves—namely, putting this budget and the finances of this nation back into the good repair that they inherited from the former Prime Minister and the former Treasurer.

I want to pay tribute to the former Labor government, the Hawke-Keating Labor government, because that Labor government used the recession of the early eighties to introduce serious economic reforms from which this country is still benefiting. The Hawke-Keating government, for all its mistakes and for all its faults, was a government of courage and insight. The Hawke-Keating government turned out to be a different kind of Labor government: a Labor government that was, in significant respects, pro business; that could slay Labor sacred cows in order to produce a stronger economy and, ultimately, a better country. But I am afraid this Labor government is a government of a very different ilk. What Prime Minister Rudd has done is use the recession to revert to traditional Labor type. What we have seen confirmed over the last few weeks but particularly in last night’s budget is that this is a borrow-and-spend Labor government to its core. It has far more in common with the tradition of Gough Whitlam then with the tradition of Bob Hawke, and Australia will pay the price of this for many years to come.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Social Security and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009. It is important to be honest with the Australian people, and that is what we are. Those opposite talk about slashing and burning and cutting. Their alternative would have to be, if they were really honest, that they would dismantle Commonwealth departments in relation to, say, education or health or they would raise taxes. And just what budget deficit would they have? They are never really honest with the Australian public. We believe it is important to be fair dinkum with the Australian people, and that is why we take them into our confidence and tell them what we are going to do. That is why we were upfront about what our plans were before the last election. That is why in this difficult time, when government revenue has been slashed by $210 billion across this year and in the forward estimates, we are upfront with the Australian people and tell them just what challenges we face in the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. Those opposite are not fair dinkum about this, and we will hear what the Leader of the Opposition has to say about it in a couple of days time.

I would like to outline to the Australian parliament and to my electorate of Blair in Queensland just what we are doing for pensioners and carers. That is the substance of this bill, not the rantings and ravings of the member for Warringah. Of course, he is a frustrated man. We know he wants to be in a more prominent position. We know he really does not want to be talking about these types of bills. We know he wants to be the shadow Treasurer or the Deputy Leader of the Opposition or, indeed, the Leader of the Opposition. We know he is frustrated in this portfolio, and he made that very plain.

This bill is about helping carers. We need to look at some history of what the Rudd government has done in this area. The Rudd government has a good record on caring for carers, particularly in my electorate of Blair as well as nationally. Let us look at what we are doing here. For year after year after year, carers had to worry, to be anxious and concerned, about what governments would do in the budgets and what assistance they might get. Is it a one-off I am going to receive? What sort of payment am I going to get? Am I going to be given anything for the self-sacrifice I make for those whom I love? What we are doing here is giving certainty and sustainability to carers. We are providing for them; recognising social inclusion and social capital; recognising their love, affection and commitment to those they look after. These are the unsung heroes of our community. These are the people who every day, 24/7, look after someone in need. They deserve our respect, our support and our financial assistance, to the extent we can give it in these difficult times. Let us look at what the Rudd government has done for those in need—pensioners, carers, people on disability support. Let us look at what we have done since we came to sit on this side of the House, as opposed to what those opposite have done. We have put support for carers on a sustainable footing in this budget, we have helped them in the past and we will continue to do so in the future.

In the 2008 budget we acted decisively to ease the pressures on the people who look after our most vulnerable, weakest, often disabled and challenged people in our community. We paid a lump-sum seniors bonus of $500. We increased the utilities allowance from $107.20 to $500 per annum. We increased the telephone allowance from $88 to $132 per annum for those with an internet connection. As part of our Economic Security Strategy, we announced a $4.9 million payment leading to a comprehensive reform of the pension system, and that is what we are seeing here: the most far-reaching and comprehensive changes we have ever seen to the pension system in this country. As part of our $10.4 billion Economic Security Strategy, we provided lump-sum payments of $1,400 to single pensioners and $2,100 to couple pensioners.

We provided for carers, including the many carers in my electorate. Nearly 43,700 people in my electorate received payments from the Rudd government last year to ease the pressure on them. We have an enormous number of people who are veterans and people who care for disabled people. For example, there were 2,921 people in my electorate who received payments; 1,222 single carer allowance, 841 carer payment couple and 395 carer payment single. And we have a very large veterans community in my electorate. Looking after those people who are caring for those in greatest need in our community is a noble thing to do and it is the right thing to do. It is the decent thing. It is the honourable and just thing to do if we say we are a compassionate society.

In our Nation Building and Jobs Plan, many families on low incomes and people on pensions who are also earning some form of income received assistance. We saw 12,553 families in my electorate of Blair receive the Back to School Bonus of $900 to help with the costs of their children returning to school. And we saw farmers also receive assistance—people in need, people doing it tough on the land. One hundred and nineteen farming families received that assistance.

Our care for our community and for the people in greatest need shows what sort of society we aspire to be. It is true that as a country our spending on family payments is the third highest in the OECD at 2.2 per cent of our GDP, well above the average of 1.3 per cent, but we need to make sure that our payment system is sustainable in the long term. We need to make sure that we have reforms which will provide future security and certainty.

As has been said before, we have maintained the higher income threshold for family payments at their current level for three years, and that is a savings measure, but we are providing support for low- and middle-income families with the costs of raising children, particularly if they are carers. We are promoting workforce participation and inclusion, and we have provided significant assistance to low-income earners. Witness, for example, the increase in the low-income tax offset and the introduction of paid maternity leave. That will make such a great difference in my electorate, which is full of young families.

The benefits we have provided in terms of our education tax refund, the Medicare Teen Dental Plan and the 50 per cent childcare tax rebate are all great Labor initiatives that make a big difference in the lives of families, particularly those with young children and others in need for whom they care. We have put forward an ambitious goal and we have set aside the funding for it. We are providing $4 billion of additional assistance to low- and middle-income families over the next four years. That is a wonderful statement of Labor’s commitment to those in greatest need. A further example is the assistance we are giving to veterans, including those in my electorate.

The Amberley air base is the biggest RAAF base and perhaps the biggest military base in the country. We think it is a super base and we are spending in excess of $1.1 billion to make it the greatest base in the country. We have 9 FSB and we are getting another construction battalion there as well, in Ipswich, and we warmly welcome them. They are part of our community. They attend our schools, they worship in our churches, they play sport with us. We even have RAAF sporting teams. Ipswich has warmly welcomed the military since 1860—but of course there were not planes back in those days. It was only when we purchased the land in about 1938, and the RAAF Base Amberley was formed thereafter, that we saw aircraft in Ipswich. We hear those flights across Ipswich as the price of freedom, and we warmly welcome the military in our community. We will have approximately 6,000 people living in Ipswich who are associated with the military base. In fact, I have made the comment on many occasions that, until I was in my 30s, in the various houses I had lived in I had always lived beside people who were in the military or were ormer members of the military, because Ipswich and the military go hand in glove.

We are providing a tremendous amount of assistance through the particular payments under this piece of legislation for veterans and those in the military, and those who have suffered and those in need. About 500,000 carers across Australia will receive a new, permanent carer supplement, and that will help their security and their sustainability in the future. Knowing that you have got an income, knowing that you have got money coming into your family every week is important. How can you pay your mortgage or your rent, how can you put food on the table and how can you care for your kids and educate them if you do not know you have got money coming in?

I know that the 140,000 carers who receive carer payment or related income support will receive these pension increases with welcoming arms and be very grateful for the assistance that this government is providing. From 20 September this year, we will see increases in the carer payment of $32.49 per week for singles on the full rate and $10.14 per week combined for couples on the full rate. The new, annual carer supplement of $600 will be paid to people who receive the carer payment, both wife pension and carer allowance, both Department of Veterans’ Affairs partner service pension and carer allowance, and the DVA carer service pension. That is why literally thousands of people in my electorate who are associated with the military will receive these payments. In my electorate, 23,500 families will receive support as a result of the budget measures that we handed down last night. That is an enormous number of people in my electorate. I have got about 155,000 people in my electorate, about 92½ thousand voters. This new supplement then will help so many people in my electorate.

The new supplement will provide about 450,000 recipients of carer allowance with $600 for each person they care for. The first payment of the new carer supplement will be made to carers before July 2009 and regular payments will be made from 1 July 2010 onwards. So carers know with certainty that they are getting the money. They do not have to watch the Treasurer, whoever he or she may be standing at that dispatch box, and worry whether they are going to get that additional assistance. They will know that it is in the budget. As I said, it builds on the 2008 extension of the utilities allowance to carer payment recipients, which is now valued at $518 per year.

The reforms here are vital. We need to ensure that our carers are included not just in the life of their families but also in the life of the communities. We would like to see their compassion and their understanding replicated out in the community. So many carers do not have the time or the resources or the money to be involved in community life because they are so wrapped up in caring for those in need whom they love. This is vital work they do. They provide untold and incalculable assistance to our community by caring for those they care for. So generally speaking, they are doing the work that we really should be doing at a broader level. The importance of this legislation cannot be underestimated. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of Australians now getting the kind of assistance they deserve and need.

This is a piece of legislation of which the Rudd government is particularly proud and which I am particularly proud to vote for. Not every time we vote in this House do we vote for things that we are particularly enamoured with. But we vote for lots of things that we think are necessary for the good of the community and the country. There are many pieces of legislation that the average person would think are particularly uninteresting but that we believe are necessary, so both sides of politics often vote for them. But the truth of the matter is that this particular bill will make an appreciable difference in the lives of people who live in the streets, in the suburbs, in the rural communities and in the cities of our electorates across the country, and for that I am very grateful and I commend the bill to the House.

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make two very simple but important points in endorsing the Social Security and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009 in this place. The first, and it is in line with the previous speaker’s comments, is about the importance and worth of carers in all regions—and the one I represent, of course, is on the mid-North Coast—and within Australia. If carers were removed from the system altogether within this country, in my view Australia would collapse. Similarly, on the mid-North Coast, if all carers were removed from their role in keeping our community together then, likewise, communities there would collapse. In my view they are the glue that keeps our communities together and keeps them strong. Their role has been for too long undervalued, and I think it is a significant step to see this $600 payment now included in an annual return to carers. Significant also is the $32.49 payment to singles and $10 to couples, increasing the full rate of the pension.

From an economic point of view we worked out as a very rough estimate last night that the pension rises in our area—where we represent one of the highest pension numbers in Australia—amount to about an $18 million injection into the economy on the mid-North Coast. So not only from an individual and a couple’s point of view but from a local economic point of view it is a significant step forward for the economic life on the mid-North Coast. Likewise for the carers’ payments, if we did some very rough calculations there would be approximately a $5 million to $6 million increase in the economic opportunities on the mid-North Coast—again, a significant contribution to the economic life on the mid-North Coast as well as for the individuals concerned.

Just picking up on the previous speaker, I really enjoyed one point that he did make, which was that a commitment from government—and I hope all governments, regardless of political persuasion—is and should be not only to make carers important in the lives of their families and the people they are caring for but also to make and, in many ways, showcase carers as model citizens at a community level. If that role is being played by government, or is attempted to be played through these financial contributions, then it is a good role and an important role, because the example that carers provide at a community level is an incredibly good one.

The other point I would like to make about this legislation is, I guess, the zero-sum game in the financials attached to this legislation where we see $460 million in commitments in 2011-12 to the carers supplement pretty well matched by $432 million saving in 2011-12 with regards to the removal of the indexation for three years on the various family assistance income threshold amounts. I would hope that that second factor on the indexation is one—and I am sure it is—that is constantly under review by government and by the executive over the next three years. For the very same reasons that I have just been talking about with regards to the value of these payments at the most local of community levels, the loss to the individuals and communities such as mine of not receiving those indexation payments do make a difference in many lives and in many communities.

I therefore ask this in good faith and with hope. I do assume that it is something that is under constant review. If you look at some of the reports coming out with regard to when we are going to come out of this recession and have the great recovery, some of the reports are saying that we are going to come out strong and hard and almost better than many other countries in the world. If that happens sooner rather than later, I hope that some of these questions are revisited—the freeze for three years on indexation questions and the related impacts on communities such as mine. I certainly support this legislation. It is really good to see carers getting a voice within this parliament. I certainly hope that from a financial point of view consideration is given to the other family assistance payments with regard to those threshold and indexation questions so that we can see more people recognised for the good work that they are doing at a community level on the mid-north coast of New South Wales as well as throughout Australia.

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

I too rise very proudly to support this particular budget measure, the Social Security and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009. I do this because amongst a number of measures that were addressed by the Treasurer in the budget last evening, the support for carers that is contained within this particular piece of legislation is something that we as a parliament and a community should automatically be united behind. Indeed, I doubt that you could possibly find any criticism for supporting the carers in our community.

Before I go into detail, I first of all congratulate the Treasurer on the budget that he presented last evening. We all know that there is a very significant financial crisis within our country and indeed across the globe. We are facing the worst global recession since the Great Depression and these are very challenging times for all of us. For those who have to balance our books and manage expenditure it is particularly difficult. I do not envy the Treasurer his job. On a personal level, I think the budget that he introduced was one that we can all be proud of. In the past, in many political debates in our own party and elsewhere, the Treasurer and I have not always agreed on policy issues so I can say with genuine and heartfelt consideration that I am very proud to support the budget that he introduced. The reason is that it not only deals with the very difficult economic circumstances which we as a globe and as a nation face but it does so with fairness and compassion. It ensures that we address the investment that we need to make. It ensures that we put together a path to recovery that is sustainable and responsible. But it does so not at the expense of those who are most vulnerable and in most need within our community. So to be able to put together a budget that is responsible and that addresses unique economic circumstances in our modern history but does so with fairness and compassion is a testament to the skill of the Treasurer and indeed of the whole cabinet from the Prime Minister down.

No more so do we see evidence of that fairness and compassion than in the introduction of this particular piece of legislation, which provides some very important income security for carers in our community. I do not think we, as individual members of parliament, can stress too much the role carers play. Both the previous speakers have already talked about the invaluable, in fact incalculable, contribution that carers make to our community. We can look at the cold hard economic facts and, I guess, measure up what it would cost all of us as a community—and indeed all of us who are taxpayers—to provide the level of care that our carers provide to those in need. More importantly, I do not think we should acknowledge carers just in terms of the financial savings that they provide us as a community. We should acknowledge them because they do much more as carers than provide basic quality of life assistance. They provide emotional support, they provide encouragement and they provide a community for those they care for, which they otherwise might not have—they might otherwise be living in an institution rather than in the warmth and comfort of a domestic environment. Our carers do an incredible job when it comes to those they care for.

It is also important to acknowledge that it is not easy to be a carer, that it requires an incredible level of determination, patience, fortitude and tireless commitment often without any respite, or very little respite. It is a certain sort of person who is able to be a carer in our community. I think all of us who acknowledge that perhaps our patience and tolerance levels are not quite as good as theirs must also acknowledge how special those people are. I do not think any of us can talk for too long about their important contribution.

This particular piece of legislation supports carers on two levels. Those who receive a carer payment—indeed the 140,000 Australians out there who are full-time carers—will get a pension increase of $32.49 per week for singles and $10.14 per week for couples. This pension increase is not confined to carers. Indeed, it is for all of those in receipt of an old-age pension and a disability pension. Again, this is an initiative that I commend the government and the Treasurer for. On top of that, these carers will also receive a supplement of $600. These recipients are those on a carer payment, those on a wife pension and a carers allowance, those on a Department of Veterans’ Affairs partner service pension and a carers allowance and those receiving a Department of Veterans’ Affairs carer service pension. On top of that, there is a further $600 payment that will be made to those who are in receipt of a carers allowance. All of those people who will receive the carers payment will also receive the extra $600 of as to a carers allowance. Indeed, some further 450,000 Australians will receive this allowance for every person in their care.

What is really important to note about this is not just that all this, at a time of economic uncertainty and crisis, is a very important injection into the cash flow of all of those households but also that this supplement will actually be introduced as a legislated annual supplement, not simply as an ad hoc bonus. I cannot express adequately how significant this change is. It does two things. It provides those people who are most vulnerable and the people who are caring for them with some level of income security without hoping and praying every budget night that they will continue to receive their bonus. At a time like this, when every dollar counts, it is a significant amount of money to put into their household and it is an amount that they can be sure of because it will be enshrined in legislation. Just as importantly, providing that income security is not just about the household’s ability to plan its financial affairs with more certainty. It is also actually about the dignity of that payment. It is about saying to people: ‘This is your income. You aren’t waiting for a handout which may or may not come every budget night.’ It is actually saying to them that this is part of their income, we value them, we value their work and we believe that they deserve this level of economic security. I believe that change alone will create great joy amongst the households that are the beneficiaries of this particular payment.

Why is it important that we introduce these measures in this particular budget? Because in fact it is in tough times, more so than in any other times, that you cannot leave people behind. It just does not make economic sense and none of us advance—when some people continue to prosper and flourish and when some people are in a position, in terms of their income and their employment, to weather the storm ahead—if those who are the weakest and most vulnerable in our community are left way behind. So, unless we actually address their needs and support them through this financial difficulty, we will all be disadvantaged.

It is also a great shame that the sorts of needs of people who are carers and pensioners or those most vulnerable in our community have been ignored for so long. We know, and this has been said many times, that the revenues, resources and productivity that came out of the boom times, which have now gone, were wasted by the previous government. There is no doubt that the windfalls that occurred through the mining boom could well and truly have been invested in much-needed infrastructure, support services and resources throughout our local communities. Unfortunately, they were not. But I think the greatest travesty of the previous government’s approach to this particular issue was its lack of care for the most vulnerable, given the fact that pensioners, carers or people on a disability support pension were completely ignored in the boom times. I think it is a shame and certainly an indictment of its period of government that those who were most in need were left alone and left behind when times were good. Good heavens, what would be happening to those people now? It is incredible to think that many families, often not even means tested regardless of their income, actually received more benefits from the previous government than did pensioners and carers and those on a disability support pension. It is incomprehensible to think that those people who could well and truly support their own families were provided with support at the expense of those who were caring in very difficult circumstances.

So once again I cannot understate how important this legislation is and what an incredibly good budget measure it is. It is wonderful for carers and it is wonderful for those in their care, therefore it is significant for all of us as a community. But do not take my word for it. A media release put out by the Chief Executive Officer of Carers in Australia, Joan Hughes, has already said:

… the $600 per year supplement for those receiving carer payment and the $600 per year in carer allowances for eligible recipients was very welcome because its status was assured in future budgets. Planning for the future will be a little easier now. They know they will get this supplement each year.

I think that is a ringing endorsement by the CEO of Carers Australia, who clearly acknowledges not just the significance of the increase but the significance of that being enshrined in legislation. It also goes hand in glove with other reforms that this government has already introduced when it comes in particular to the carers of children with a disability. Last week the minister introduced changes to the carer payment for a child which actually broaden the definition of a child with a disability, thus enabling more families to receive the carer payment. It is actually a much more realistic assessment of the needs of children with a disability and an acknowledgement of the struggle that many families have in catering for the needs of the particular child. The changes broaden the assessment so that you do not purely have a clinical or diagnostic assessment; you actually look at a whole range of things when it comes to the care of that child, not just their specific condition but their age, their medical requirements and a whole range of different categories that will enable a broader assessment and therefore will enable many more families to be eligible. Indeed, some 19,000 more families will be able to receive that carer payment.

I have three special schools in my electorate of Bonner: the Mount Gravatt Special School at Mount Gravatt East, the Mount Gravatt West Special School and the Darling Point Special School. I regularly visit them and talk to teachers and the parents and families of children attending those schools. I know that there are many parents out there struggling with the demands of raising a child with a disability while juggling the needs and demands of other children, and they are doing it with very little income support. So I am very pleased that, in conjunction with the significant reforms announced last week, the government has made a genuine commitment to greater income support and better certainty for those on carer payments.

We all know that this budget is not going to be unanimously supported and endorsed with the accolades that I think it deserves. We know that there will be criticism, and we are already hearing criticism about the level of deficit. I believe that these criticisms are unwarranted. We should be prepared to look at a temporary deficit if it is needed to support the people covered by this legislation, their families and their carers.

What if we did nothing? What would happen to our economy if we did nothing with this budget and let the global recession rip, as the Prime Minister puts it? We know that the recession is burning a hole in budgets across the world—it is not just our budget; it is happening across the globe. No matter what government was in power, regardless of how good it thought it was, it would inevitably be looking at a deficit. But I guess the difference is whether you address the fact that you are dealing with a recession that is beyond your control and bigger than anything we have seen our lifetimes. Should the government play an active role in dealing with the situation by not only addressing the underlying financial problems but making sure that those most vulnerable and in need in our community will not be completely left behind? Should we allow unemployment to increase and business activity to decline? Can you imagine what would happen to the government’s books if that occurred? What would happen to our revenue? What would happen to the size of the deficit if we had higher unemployment and a decline in business activity? It is too frightening to contemplate. On the other hand, should we invest in the economy? Should we acknowledge that it is worthwhile, indeed necessary, to have a temporary deficit in order to support employment and business activity by building the infrastructure that we need and increasing the assets of our community, thereby providing jobs not just now but into the future?

This may be a naive assessment, but it occurred to me that it is effectively a question of either sitting on your haunches and paying dead rent as debt or taking the initiative by accepting a responsible level of debt, taking out a mortgage and ending up with a valuable asset once you have paid it off. That is the fundamental choice—it is, I think, the fundamental difference between us and the opposition. We actually believe in taking action, being proactive, building up our skills and assets base and on the way supporting those who are most vulnerable rather than throwing our hands in the air, saying it is all too hard and possibly ending up in a worse debt position than we otherwise would.

In conclusion, I do not think the criticisms are valid. I commend the Treasurer for the budget he brought down. If there is any one particular program in this budget that indicates the compassion of the Labor government and its support for investing in our people, it is contained in this bill, which provides support for carers in our community.

Debate interrupted.