Mal Washer (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before the debate is resumed on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010, I advise the Committee that in the House it has been agreed that a general debate be allowed covering this bill, the Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2009-2010 and the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I outlined last night before the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 was adjourned, it is not just those with private health insurance that will bear the brunt of this senseless cost-cutting move; rather, eventually, all Australians will pay a price for Labor’s $2 billion attack on private health insurance. Every Australian knows that the cost of health care is growing, as are the waiting lists for public hospitals. The hospitals in my electorate are already struggling under the pressure of limited resources and funding provided to them by the New South Wales state Labor government and the federal Labor government. Now, Labor plans to go ahead and introduce plans which will consequently increase this pressure. This can only be described as absolutely absurd. This savage cut will drive up premiums and place unsustainable pressure upon the public health system. Those with insurance face higher premiums as others drop out or lower their cover. Those relying on the public health system will face longer hospital waiting times and queues.

The coalition believe in the right of all Australians to take charge of their own healthcare needs and plan for the future. We have always worked hard to deliver incentives to promote the uptake of private health insurance and take the pressure off the public health system. There is an alternative. The Prime Minister can accept the coalition’s suggestion to increase taxes on cigarettes instead of changing the health insurance rebates. In doing so, Kevin Rudd could raise the same amount of money for his cash-strapped Labor government and provide positive health outcomes.

Now I come to the Prime Minister’s ludicrous plan to place a benefit cap on a range of services previously available under Medicare. Labor’s budget will see services such as all obstetric services, some ultrasounds and all assisted reproduction technology services significantly capped under the Prime Minister’s grand plan. The Prime Minister’s grand plan will undo much of the good work introduced by the former Howard government to assist patients with high, cumulative out-of-hospital medical expenses, and the Rudd Labor government’s plan to place a cap on some services is a direct step back from their given word to retain the safety net and not to put more pressure on family budgets by taking away that assistance. Labor have trashed their health commitments because of their reckless spending and, once again, have left Paterson constituents in the dark.

Not only will Labor’s reckless spending mean that Paterson families will have to pay more for their health care; they will also feel the sting of higher unemployment levels in their local communities, if not in their own families. Simply put, the Prime Minister has ignored small business in the Paterson electorate, the engine room of the local economy, growth and jobs. After inheriting the strongest economy in the world, this Prime Minister is recklessly spending money and failing to properly assist small business, the key to Australia’s economic recovery. Small businesses in Paterson employ the bulk of locals; therefore it is necessary they receive the right government support to get them through these difficult economic times. There are 9,438 small businesses in Paterson, and nine out of 10 are under some kind of cash-flow stress. There is nothing in Labor’s budget that will assist small business cash flow, which is its single biggest challenge, yet small business is expected to help pay off Labor’s record net debt of $188 billion.

Small businesses are the key to Australia’s economic recovery. If jobs are going to be generated in Australia, they are going to be generated by small business. I have hosted Jobs for Australia forums across the Paterson electorate to listen to the needs of my constituents and have heard firsthand how the Rudd government’s lack of accountability, red tape and flailing incentives are hurting their back pockets. Labor’s budget is slugging small business even more by increasing the fees and charges collected by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. This extra tax slug will cost Australian businesses $84.3 million and impact even further on business cash-flow stress. The Rudd Labor government certainly has mastered the art of hitting someone hard when they are already hurting.

Our youth are feeling the sting of the Rudd Labor government’s reckless spending spree and they will be terribly disadvantaged under Labor’s plans to tighten the criteria for establishing independence under the youth allowance scheme. Youth allowance is a vital avenue of income support for students, particularly those from regional and rural areas. Plans to tighten student eligibility from the beginning of 2010 will mean that some people currently working towards meeting the criteria will have their plans for further study thrown into disarray. As the parent of three teenage children, I understand the expenses involved in pursuing further study, particularly if children are forced to move away from home. Many young people in the Paterson electorate have told me that under the planned changes they will not be able to pursue further study at university or TAFE purely because they cannot afford to do so. These students’ parents are above the threshold for income support but are nowhere near wealthy enough to be able to pay for their children’s rent, food and educational expenses. Remember, these students simply do not have the option of staying at home while they study.

I would like to draw the parliament’s attention to a letter I received from a very concerned constituent, Eric Stewart, who wrote to me about this very matter. He wrote:

Bob, I just wanted to express my disgust at the Labor party’s plan to make it more difficult for students to become independent for youth allowance. My son has signed up for a 12 mth gap year with the army this year. He is not aware that, if this bill is passed, he will not be going to university next year. He is 19yo and eligible to vote. His 17yo sister had similar plans, I am on a modest income and will be unable to support them through university. Shame on the Prime Minister for allowing things to come to this point, due to his reckless spending spree.

This is an enormous failure for a government who claims it wants to increase university attendance particularly from disadvantaged groups.

Now I come to the portfolio area of defence science and personnel, and my views on the defence budget. First, we have had the much delayed defence white paper, which was finally released on 2 May and attempted to build upon the defence reforms inaugurated by the coalition when it released the 2000 white paper. The 2000 white paper enshrined a modernisation process which had at its core a vision of an ADF equipped with world-class equipment that would ensure Australia maintained its regional technological advantage. However, this all came to a grinding halt with the election of the Rudd government. In the first 18 months under Minister Joel Fitzgibbon, we have seen $5.6 billion worth of delays against only $101 million worth of projects brought forward on time.

The defence white paper was so muddled and disjointed, as anyone in the military will tell you, and is based on a false and dubious premise—a premise that calls into question its very credibility. Take, for example, the complete lack of financial detail. In the 144-page document, there are only 1½ pages of vague budget estimates. There is a widely held belief in academia and even within the defence department that there has been a complete lack of transparency with regard to defence funding now and into the forward estimates. When the white paper was released, the Australian people were asked to be patient, to wait for budget night for the unveiling of the details of the defence budget. But the Rudd government has once again failed. The defence budget has retreated from transparency, accountability and reality, and we are still waiting for details of that defence budget.

In the 2009-10 budget there is a commitment to increase real defence spending by a maximum of three per cent annually out to 2018 and 2.2 per cent from 2017-18 to 2029-30. However, if you read a little more closely you notice that the numbers are not what they seem. Defence’s total funding of $26.6 billion in 2009-10 shows an increase of 14.9 per cent, largely because of the $1.4 billion commitment to support our forces in Afghanistan. However, the increase in 2010-11 is only 1.45 per cent, to $27.028 billion. After that, the funding level falls even further, to $27.001 billion in 2011-12 and $26.337 billion in 2012-13. The Labor government’s commitment to defence over the next few years is nothing more than what was originally planned, and less than the coalition government’s guaranteed minimum three per cent annual real growth. It is built on a premise that savings of $20 billion, nearly the same amount that was recklessly spent on Rudd’s cash splash, can be found internally, with the Department of Defence still required to fund an ambitious acquisition program. Not one new dollar is being spent. The $20 billion worth of savings over 10 years will be difficult for defence bureaucrats to find, if not impossible. Geoffrey Barker, from the Australian Financial Review, has stated:

This year’s Defence budget has retreated from transparency, accountability and reality with the speed of an Iraqi regiment fleeing into the desert. But here is the rub … nor is it possible to know how Defence will find $20 billion in savings over the decade through the strategic reform program. It was particularly galling given that last year’s Defence Portfolio Budget Statement promised that the White Paper would ‘include the fully costed Defence capability of the future and fully costed support functions informed by a long term cost model’. It didn’t—and neither has the budget.

Let me reiterate: what is astounding about this defence budget is that there is not one new dollar being spent. Against almost every new initiative the budget papers state:

The cost of this measure will be met from within the existing resourcing of the Department of Defence.

Despite making lots of promises, the fact is that this funding growth for defence will actually be reduced in 2017-18, just when the huge costs of acquisitions kick in.

There are a number of specific defence budget items I would now like to address. In the past I have expressed serious concern that thousands of defence personnel and their families are still missing out on basic medical and dental services promised as a part of Labor’s 2007 election commitment. Prior to the 2007 election, defence families were promised $33.1 million for the establishment of 12 defence family healthcare clinics to provide free health care for ADF dependants, spouses and children. Again this promise has been stripped back. Instead of allocating money to the establishment of these clinics, the Rudd government is again deceiving ADF families and personnel by announcing no new initiatives in this budget to assist with the provision of basic medical and dental service. In fact, the recent defence budget statements all but confirm that defence families will lose local support as services are centralised under the auspices of a national service delivery model.

The defence budget announcement to extend the trial of provision of basic medical and dental services to dependants of full-time ADF members is not a new budget initiative. We knew about that back in October 2008. The extended trial will again only provide $300 of dental care per dependent per annum and access to GP services. This broken promise and lack of foresight will see personnel at RAAF Williamtown, HMAS Albatross, RAAF Edinburgh, Elizabeth North in South Australia and RAAF Amberley missing out on this important health initiative. Why is it that in defence housing in Maitland, in the Minister for Defence’s own electorate of Hunter, the house with the family member posted to Singleton Army Base gets the package whilst the next-door neighbour with the family member posted to RAAF Williamtown does not? It is just another poorly thought out plan by Labor.

Superannuation benefits are also a key component of the total remuneration package for ADF personnel and are therefore critical to recruitment and retention of service men and women. There is considerable frustration within the defence community due to the lack of initiative shown by the Rudd Labor government in addressing ADF superannuation. The inaction of this government has failed Australian service men and women past and present, whose current superannuation arrangements are not in line with modern standards. The Rudd Labor government’s budget shows a clear hole with respect to any reform of super arrangements for ADF personnel. Labor has deprived thousands of ADF personnel who remain under lagging superannuation conditions by failing to act on findings published in the reports of the review into military superannuation arrangements, which have been out there for the last 18 months. This is despite lobbying by the coalition and numerous submissions from serving and returned ADF personnel. It is beyond belief that nothing was mentioned in the budget regarding this very important issue.

The coalition’s ADF gap year program is a highly effective recruitment tool for the ADF. What is more, the gap year has proven to be very popular amongst young Australians who are looking to experience what the ADF has to offer. In fact, demand has outstripped supply. I am therefore very concerned that the Labor government has decided to reduce the size of the gap year program. In its blind pursuit of savings, the government has reduced the number of available places from 700 to just 600. The coalition government’s policy has always been to increase the size of the program from the initial 700 to at least 1,000 available places. In light of the government’s continuing inability to address ADF members’ health and superannuation needs, it comes as no surprise that it has failed to comprehend the enormous benefit the gap year program has for the ADF and the wider Australian community. At a time when the Navy is unable to crew the existing six Collins class submarines—let alone the planned new 12 submarines—it is a true mystery as to why the Labor government will reduce the number of gap year participants.

In conclusion, the defence forces are finding it hard enough to recruit enough young people to their ranks, yet because of the Rudd government they will have to slash and burn to achieve the savings asked of them. Where will they find these savings? Reduce the workforce? Close bases around the country? These are questions that Mr Rudd and Mr Fitzgibbon are avoiding. In the typical smoke and mirrors style that we have become accustomed to with the Rudd government, there is no real detail as to how defence will secure the savings it has been asked to find—and that is simply unacceptable. This has all happened against the backdrop of a net debt of $188 billion and a forecast of one million unemployed.

The coalition is focused on recovery and growth. We do not think it is fair that families in the Paterson electorate and families across all of Australia are now paying the price for Labor’s reckless spending. We, the coalition, have a plan. Our plan is based on four key principles: protecting and creating jobs for all Australians, keeping debt as low as possible, targeting spending at jobs and economic infrastructure, and supporting private enterprise and small business, the drivers of economic growth. This plan will ensure that Australia remains the prosperous nation it has always been under a coalition government. It will ensure that no-one is left behind and that the Australian economy again becomes the envy of all nations around the world.

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

I rise to support the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010, the cognate bills and what I think is a fine budget that is genuinely in the national interest. This budget builds on the economic stimulus packages that we saw at the end of last year and earlier this year. Together, and importantly as part of this budget, they protect jobs for Australians now and into the future. They create necessary infrastructure which not only generates many of those jobs but also provides an important base for future growth—and that is an important aspect of this budget. It does help build for future growth. It positions Australia so that when this global economic downturn ends we are able to take advantage of the opportunities that are presented.

I am also very pleased that in the sound traditions of Labor principles this budget has also been able in difficult times to provide increased support to some of the most vulnerable in our community. In these difficult economic times, I think it is a great credit to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer that a very substantial increase in pensions was also announced as part of this budget. Millions of Australian pensioners—all pensioners: age pensioners, disability pensioners, carers, wife pensioners and veterans income support recipients—will see the single rate of pension increase by up to $32.49 per week. That is a very significant increase in the pension.

Indeed, I noticed that in the normal lead-up to budget night, when oppositions typically set the benchmark higher than they think a government can jump, the opposition and minor parties in the Senate said that they wanted to see an increase of at least $30. Others said that they wanted to make sure it did not just go to age pensioners. The government met and exceeded what are the usually unrealistic benchmarks and hurdles that oppositions seek to set prior to budget night. Under this budget, couples will also receive an increase of $10.14 per week, and these increases will take effect from 20 September 2009.

These increases, taken together, ensure that the single rate of pension will become two-thirds of the combined couple rate—one of the recommendations of the Harmer review. Importantly for the future, it sets a new benchmark. In the past there has been an expectation and a benchmark set that the pension would reach 25 per cent of male total average weekly earnings. This budget increases that to 27.7 per cent and it will be maintained at that level. That is a very substantial real benefit to some of those Australians who struggle the most and in these difficult times deserve additional support.

I also want to highlight one aspect of the budget that I think is very timely—indeed, beyond time. It is a pity that many years ago we did not have governments in this land willing to commit to renewable energy in the way that this government has. The budget before us and the appropriation bills before us provide $1.6 billion to boost investment in solar power in this country. It simply astonishes most people that Australia is not the world leader in solar technology and the commercial application of that technology. That has been neglected for far, far too long.

This budget allocation of $1.6 billion to invest in solar power will see up to four new solar generation plants created that together will generate electricity on a scale currently only provided by coal fired power stations. It will represent the generation of power from a renewable source three times the size of the world’s largest current operating solar energy project. We will, as a result of this investment by the Rudd Labor government and this budget, see Australia leapfrog the world as one of the premier providers not just of research in this field but of the implementation of that technology.

I know that much of the comment from those in the Liberal and National parties has focused on the debt. I want to spend a moment or two making some comments about the actual government debt. Most people in this parliament probably do not know, and therefore can be forgiven for not realising, that between World War II and the election of the Howard government there were only ever four surplus budgets delivered in this country by the federal government. There is a very useful table in the 1991-92 budget papers that sets out the outlays, revenue and balance for budgets from 1953-54 through until 1991-92. That tells us that all through those golden years of growth and prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s, those glorious days of Liberal Party hedonism with Robert Menzies as Prime Minister, not once did the Liberal Party produce a surplus budget.

I am not standing here criticising that, because the truth is the 1950s and 1960s were very prosperous times in this land and it was not essential for the Commonwealth to run surplus budgets. But the truth of the matter is they did not at any time through those golden years of growth in the post-war development period of the 1950s and 1960s ever return a surplus budget. The first surplus budget occurred in 1987-88, and it was the start of four surplus budgets in a row. The first surplus budgets post World War II in this country were delivered by the Hawke and then Keating Labor governments.

I recommend members look at the 1991-92 budget papers for the details. In 1988-89 the size of that surplus was $5.8 billion, and that is in 1988-89 figures. It was a very substantial surplus. A year later there was an $8 billion surplus. They were very significant surpluses. Indeed, the first surpluses the Commonwealth had returned since World War II were returned by a Labor government.

The government deficit projected in the current budget is, as a percentage of GDP, less than the government deficit in 2000-01 when John Howard was Prime Minister. Let us put the current financial year government debt into proper perspective. We should compare it with what happened historically since World War II and more recently when John Howard was Prime Minister, when the member for Higgins was still the Treasurer and when a number of current members of parliament were already members of parliament.

Every single economist in the world, every government in the world and every national opposition in the world but the one here in Australia has recognised the importance of ensuring stimulus packages of the sort that the Commonwealth has embarked upon in its economic stimulus packages and in this budget. Were it not for that the Australian retail sales and employment figures we have seen over the last four months would be dramatically worse.

That said, clearly difficult decisions have had to be taken as part of this budgetary process. Nobody in politics, irrespective of their colour or brand, likes to take measures that they know will remove money from folk who currently have it. That is never a popular thing to do. But, if we are indeed to build for the future and see our way through these economically difficult times that have been pressed upon us from the global crisis, then there do have to be some changes, and I want to refer to two of those that have been mentioned by some of those opposite.

Firstly, with regard to the changes to the private health insurance rebate there are two huge myths that those opposite have sought to foster. The first is that people in the Labor Party have no interest in, support for or desire to see private health insurance develop or grow and the second is that the private health insurance rebate is critical to the take-up rate of health insurance. Let me address the first. I happen to have had private health insurance cover for my entire working life. I probably know a bit more about it than most people in this chamber because I think I am also the only person who has been on the board of directors of a health insurance company. I spent a decade on the board of directors of a health insurance company in Queensland. To suggest that people on my side of politics do not have an interest in health insurance is, frankly, offensive and wrong. It is not the case. I spent a decade on the board of a health insurance company in Queensland during the period when Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister and when Labor governments were in office and I have seen different policies come and go.

One of the things I take an interest in is looking closely at the effects of those different policies. Let us go back to look at the effect of the 30 per cent rebate when it was introduced on 1 January 1999. What was the percentage of the population taking out private health insurance cover prior to the rebate being introduced and after it was introduced? If we go to September 1998, the quarter immediately before the rebate was introduced, the percentage of the Australian population taking out private health cover was 30.4 per cent. If we go to the March 1999 figure—that is, the quarter after the rebate was introduced—what did it stand at? It stood at 30.4 per cent. There was no change at all in the percentage of the population taking out private health insurance cover over the six-month period—from the beginning of the three months before the rebate came in to the end of the three months after. In fact, you can go back to six months before and forward to six months after and get the same result. There was no adjustment over that period. In fact, not only did it not move much in the six months after but you can go to the end of 1999 and even to the start of 2000 and find that there was virtually no adjustment even then.

At the time the rebate was introduced I made a speech in this parliament based on the fact that I had spent a lot of time engaged in private health insurance—10 years on the board. I said that I did not think the rebate was going to make any difference and that the problem was not the cost per se but the churn in the industry—people who take out private health cover for a short time, then leave, then come back, depending on how they see their family circumstances or whether they think they may need to make health insurance claims. The government, in trying to do something about the percentage of Australians with health cover, then hit on a mechanism that does make a difference—the lifetime health rating. If you have a look at the difference with respect to the lifetime health rating, you get a very different picture. If you fast forward to July 2000, the period immediately before the lifetime rating came in, health insurance had risen to 32.2 per cent. So a year after the rebate had been introduced it had only increased the total percentage of the population taking out cover by less than two per cent. However, after the lifetime rating was introduced it jumped immediately to 45 per cent. The thing that made a difference in people taking out private health insurance cover was not the rebate; it was the Lifetime Health Cover.

Yes, some people who currently get the rebate will not get the rebate or will get a lower amount and that is politically difficult—a necessary decision in these difficult economic times. Is it likely to make a difference to the total number of Australians taking out health insurance cover? Not based on the introduction of it. Is it likely to make a difference to the scale they take out—that is, will they increase their excess or reduce the sorts of things for which they are covered? Quite possibly. Is it likely to mean that they will leave altogether? Very unlikely. It is, in the circumstances confronted by this government at this time, a very reasonable change. It is about time this debate had a little bit of that fact in it instead of the hyperbole that we hear from people opposite. We just heard the previous speaker talking about the death of health insurance, the massive costs being imposed on people and what effect it is going to have on public health. It is an absolute nonsense and there is not a shred of evidence to support it. Indeed, all the evidence shows otherwise.

I am also aware that the decisions that have been taken about increasing the age at which Australians can access the age pension are also difficult decisions and there will be some people who are now nearing retiring age—people who are 57, 56 or 55—who will have to wait, in some cases, for six months longer before they can access the age pension. I am aware that that is a difficult decision as well but I happen to think it is also one of those tough decisions that is necessary in the face of the evidence.

Currently, there are around five people of working age to support every single person aged 65 and over. That is going to halve—in fact, more than halve—to 2.4 people by 2047. We actually have to do something to address this problem. If you look back at the retirement age of 65 you will see, when it was introduced, a very different picture. When the male retiring age of 65 was introduced, the life expectancy of a male then was 11 years in retirement. At the time, around half the male population reached the retirement age. Today, over 85 per cent of the male population reaches retirement age and they can expect now to live a further 19 years, not 11 years. We cannot ignore those facts.

Indeed, those opposite did not ignore them. When the government announced this policy, what was the reaction of the shadow minister, Mr Abbott? The shadow minister actually said: ‘The Labor Party has stolen the Liberal Party’s policy. This is our idea, not the Labor Party’s idea and, what is more, we think it should be done by 2015, not by 2023.’ That is what the shadow minister said when it was announced. Of course, since then, the Leader of the Opposition and those opposite have decided there was a bit of politics they can play with this and so they will come out and say that it is a terrible idea and we should not be doing it at all. Well, the truth is the Liberal Party knows it is the right policy; indeed, the shadow minister complained that we were pinching Liberal policy and not doing it fast enough. The idea is right; it is a change that the demography requires be undertaken. We think our more generous implementation time frame is better than that proposed by the Liberal Party. But the disingenuous comments from those opposite that the Labor Party and this government deserve to be criticised for having done it are really drawing a long bow.

It makes me think of the other things that have happened in this economic debate that has been going on since the global crisis affected this country. We have seen the situation where the Liberal and National parties say they support the new buildings that are being constructed in every primary school and yet they voted against it. The Liberal and National parties say they support the $950 back-to-school bonus Labor provided to families but they voted against that too. The Liberals and Nationals say they support the $900 tax bonus for working Australians but, yep, they voted against that as well. The Liberals and Nationals say they support the building of 803 new defence homes but they voted against that. They say they support 20,000 new social houses and they voted against that as well. The Liberals and Nationals say they support the $1,600 rebate for ceiling insulation but they voted against that too. The Liberals say they support the increase in the solar hot water rebate but they voted against that. Finally, although this is not an exhaustive list, the Liberals say they support the $950 cash bonus to farmers devastated by drought but—would you believe it?—they even voted against that as well.

It is about time the opposition were responsible in this economic debate. These are serious times for our nation confronted with a global economic crisis that is not the creation of anybody in this land, whether they be in government, in business or of any political background. It is time those opposite engaged in it seriously. By and large, I think the government have approached it on that basis. But, given that there has been the odd bit of political banter in this debate, far be it from me to miss the opportunity today to join in.

If you look at the decade just passed, the legacy of those opposite, the legacy of a decade of Howard government, was to leave the Australian people with a goods and services tax and Work Choices legislation. That is about the sum total of what will be remembered from that decade. Their idea of nation building was not new libraries, new assembly halls and investment that we are making in roads, rails and harbours; their idea of nation building was to put a flagpole in every school and to build the RG Menzies Memorial Walk path on the other side of Lake Burley Griffin.

That is not nation building. Nation building is the sort of thing we are seeing in this budget and that we have seen in the announcements of the economic stimulus packages. The long list of suburbs and schools in my electorate that are benefiting at the moment from that investment is a testament to that. I have no doubt that the people in Brisbane are strongly supportive of the key initiatives in this budget, including services, infrastructure and other economic measures that the Rudd government are providing.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to respond to Kevin Rudd’s re-election package, thinly disguised as the 2009-10 budget. At the outset I should say that, as a Western Australian, some of the infrastructure projects are good. It is just a shame that they were not part of the first stimulus package instead of the billions of taxpayers’ dollars that were thrown around like confetti, falling near and far and, from what my constituents are telling me, missing many of the supposed intended targets.

I remember prior to the 2007 election being told—as was every other Australian—that the then opposition leader had a plan for everything. As we soon found out after the election, with the so-called 2020 Summit, he had virtually no ideas at all beyond changing the industrial relations regime to reimpose the power of union bosses. Imagine what could have been done to help the now apparently unfashionable working families with the millions of dollars wasted on that PR photo op extravaganza.

The main problem that I have in addressing the budget is where to start. There are so many gaping holes and lack of consideration for the implications of measures and the sheer unconscionable debt burden for working families and individual Australians in the future, but we all know that the only future Kevin Rudd is interested in is in the short term: getting re-elected. Anything past that is irrelevant. Let me start with the changes to the taxation laws governing income earned outside Australia, outlined briefly on page 19 of Budget Paper No. 2. I have been inundated with calls and emails from concerned constituents which can be encapsulated in this email:

The Australian Government is proposing changes to section 23AG of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 which currently provides an income tax exemption for Australian residents’ foreign earnings derived from foreign service employment.

The Government believes these changes will recoup additional funds by increasing the personal income tax (PIT) payable by Australian workers employed overseas.

I believe the Government is missing the bigger picture, and that these proposed changes will overall have a negative effect on the Australian economy, with the resultant loss of incoming earnings and jobs, outweighing any return from the collection of PIT from those workers who may choose to continue in their overseas employment once their income is subject to full Australian PIT.

With full PIT for Australians working overseas, there is no incentive to remain working overseas. Some workers may choose to become non resident.

Either way, the Australian economy misses out on these overseas earnings returning to Australia and being circulated into the economy.

The recent cash handouts from the Government were intended to inject funds into the Australian economy, hence it seems odd to now be considering policy that will cause a reduction in funds entering the Australian economy.

With rising unemployment, it is nonsensical to create a disincentive for Australians to seek work overseas.

On the contrary, the government should encourage overseas employment.

What better panacea for an ailing economy than to have Australians gaining employment overseas instead of taking jobs in Australia, and their subsequently returning home to invest their foreign income in the Australian economy?

Encouraging Australians to work overseas is a simple and very cost effective means of boosting the Australian economy.

It provides a net gain in available jobs and injects foreign sourced funds, thus providing a positive contribution to Australia’s economic recovery.

The email finishes by saying:

I ask that you vote against any changes to section 23AG of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936, and instead, consider various means to encourage Australians to seek employment overseas, whilst remaining resident in Australia.

That says it all, in a nutshell. The government should be roundly condemned for proposing such a short-sighted move without considering the obvious consequences. But lack of understanding is a common thread throughout this budget. The government’s proposed changes to superannuation highlight the key changes of this budget: lashings of reckless spending, no proper planning or cost-benefit analyses and large helpings of 1950s style politics of envy. Superannuation is a prime example. My constituents who have contacted me on this issue are not multimillionaires spending the summer in Monte Carlo on their 40 metre yachts. These are men and women who have worked hard all of their lives, often living quite frugally so that they can put money by for their retirement.

Given the proposal in the Henry report to lift the preservation age to 67, the first thing the government clearly does not understand or appreciate is that superannuation funds are not public money. The Prime Minister should pay attention to the TV ad featuring a certain Scottish comedian. The final three words are ‘It’s your money’. I have a message from my constituents: ‘Hands off, Prime Minister! It’s our money and we’ve worked hard for it.’ It is another example of the lack of appreciation by the government for possible consequences. Where will be the incentive to put money into superannuation if the government is going to deny access to it? Today it is 67; tomorrow who knows—70, 75, 80? This of course was after the Labor spokesman said in April 2006 that Labor would maintain the existing ages for access to superannuation. Prime Minister, superannuants have already taken a battering from the global financial crisis, and now this. It is disgraceful.

The bank guarantee was another knee-jerk, superficially clever stunt that has backfired on many Australians. I have a constituent whose husband suddenly died recently. She wanted to take his ashes back to England, to their previous home town. The financial organisation that controlled their pension initially said she could have access to a small amount and then refused access to any money. It took a phone call from me, quoting ASIC regulations on this, before the company acquiesced and gave her a reasonable amount of her money. As with its state counterparts, this Labor government has no concept about the creation of wealth—that it is not done by government but by business. And yet, the government does nothing to help business; in fact, it only makes things more difficult.

It is only the opposition that have policies to help business—especially small business—through this difficult economic period. We are proposing tax loss carryback and fairer rules for companies in temporary difficulties. In addition, we are proposing minimising red tape and better targeting training programs. And what is the government proposing? Tax breaks, which many businesses will not be eligible for; increased fees; reviving a helpline for businesses, which Labor axed last year; and an online initiative somewhat hampered by the continuing non-availability of broadband to so many Australians. And speaking of broadband, what a disaster that is; a $43 billion proposal with no business plan. That amount of money would pay for more than four Snowy Mountain schemes today.

A popular cliche in politics is ‘the devil is in the detail’. The government have cunningly avoided this criticism with the simple tactic of not having any details. They want to be taken on trust. After 18 months of PR snow jobs, motherhood statements and broken promises, who in their right mind would take this government on trust on anything? This government could not manage a lemonade stand let alone a multibillion-dollar budget. Where are the new broadband services promised by 2008? Where is the approximately $20 million spent by this incompetent government on a flawed tender process which ultimately collapsed—gone, wasted, blown? And my constituents cop a further hit with the closure of the Perth ACMA office at a time when it needs more resources to identify television black spots with the change from analog to digital.

I have also been getting many complaints from constituents about another prime ministerial popularity stunt—the $900 stimulus payment. One man drew money down from his superannuation to pay his mortgage off and he said that was used as the reason to reduce his payment to $250. A lady who was recently separated said she did not receive the payment because she was not working and therefore did not pay tax in the 2007-08 period, but she is now in quite straitened circumstances. She did not get the $900. Another constituent rang and said she works in a very low-paid job part-time. Because she got all her tax back, she did not qualify for the $900 payment. Compare these genuine cases to the reports of money being paid in all sorts of unsuitable ways—money going overseas to deceased estates, in the casino et cetera. Once again, it was a rash decision, appallingly badly implemented, which will mainly result in just a larger debt burden. Everyone who did get any payment should think a while on the debt burden that payment represents. It is a bit like taking blood from your left arm, putting it back in your right arm but spilling 90 per cent on the floor.

Further highlighting its gross incompetence, the government has had to make several embarrassing backdowns. A constituent of mine is a gifted young musician. She was devastated at the decision of the arts minister to stop funding the Australian National Academy of Music. After representations from many people, including me, that ridiculous decision was reversed. Then there was the proposal to limit the eligibility of superannuants to have access to a Commonwealth seniors health card, which I spoke about in this House recently. This was a measure that was kept strangely hidden during the 2007 ‘I have a plan’ campaign and only surreptitiously brought out afterwards. Thankfully, due to overwhelming pressure brought by many members and individuals, including the 3,000 signatures for a campaign against this measure which I brought to Canberra, did we see this iniquitous proposal shelved. Of course, the question still remains: is this proposal truly dead or has it just been put in the bottom drawer for another time?

This government claims to be so concerned about global warming that it is spending millions of taxpayers’ dollars on insulation batts. However, when questioned by the shadow Treasurer recently, the Treasurer could not say where these would be manufactured—presumably more taxpayers’ dollars taking an overseas holiday, just like the Prime Minister and much of the other stimulus payments. However, despite this alleged support for alternative energy and energy saving, the government keeps tampering with the successful Howard government $8,000 solar rebate. First the environment minister placed a means test on the rebate. Then he attempted to fix up this mess by putting in place another scheme, which will still not deliver the benefits that the coalition government’s program did. Now I understand that the minister is set to introduce yet another scheme, which still will not be good as ours was, which means that not just working families but also businesses and industry are hit hard. It is more lack of thought and understanding by this shambolic government. Too bad the minister did not burn a bit of midnight oil thinking this through properly instead of subjecting the Australian people to such a farcical scramble from one disaster to another. There seems to be a disturbing similarity between his choreography of the past and his policies of the present.

Much was made by the government of its education revolution. We have already seen what a roaring success the computer on every desk promise of the education minister was! From day one it has had problems—from backdowns to questions as to who will pay for the necessary and utterly unforeseeable infrastructure needed to support such an increase in computers. ‘Gosh, we didn’t think of that’ example No. 612.

There was also the Whitlamesque funding for school infrastructure. Anyone who has been following politics over the last few years knows that the state Labor governments have wasted the boom and let essential infrastructure decline to a poor condition. This includes the problem of maintenance for schools which the new Liberal-National government in Western Australia is facing, just as was the case in 1993. Here is a classic example of Labor scrapping an effective coalition program—Investing in Our Schools—out of pure political spite, then having to replace it with another funding regime because schools still needed proper funding. So, instead of the highly successful and smoothly-running coalition system, we have this new program which is offering schools money but not giving them enough time to decide how best to spend it. Some only had a few weeks—totally insufficient when considering the amounts of taxpayers’ money involved. Still, when your government does not give that proper consideration and thought to detail necessary before spending $43 billion, why should you, as a principal, hesitate for even a heartbeat before splurging your grant? The answer, Prime Minister, is that school principals actually care about their schools. They do not just see them as a vehicle for self-aggrandisement. They use the funding as best they can, but of course the ‘Rudd Election Express’ stops for no one.

There are numerous other areas which would have been better uses of the so-called stimulus funding than untargeted checks—222 unfunded childcare centres; no new funding to protect women and children from domestic violence, merely a rebadging of the highly successful Howard government program; and cuts of seven per cent to the Australian Crime Commission’s budget, to name but a few. One cut which will have terrible ramifications is the $58.1 million cut to the Customs budget. The shadow minister for justice and customs outlined recently the increased possessional use of cocaine, which has risen nearly 60 per cent in New South Wales during the past year. These budget cuts will probably put Australians at risk from an increase in criminal activity in illicit drug supply.

The implications of drug abuse has actually been an area of interest to me, especially since meeting Dr George O’Neill. As I have mentioned in this House before, Dr O’Neill runs a marvellous program treating drug addicts for both legal and illegal drugs with Naltrexone. It negates the effects of the drugs, making it a waste of time and money for his patients to buy and use more drugs. Dr O’Neill has been granted funding from the WA state government but needs assistance from the federal government in two ways. One is funding especially to help those addicts who come all the way from the east coast to be treated as they have heard how successful the treatment is. Secondly, he needs the Therapeutic Goods Administration to approve the treatment, as at the moment he is operating under a special licence which is causing some problems. The extra funding would be good and would make a huge difference to the lives of addicts, as the existing funding has already. However, the TGA approval is the most important thing. The government should look at why it is taking such a long time. Dr O’Neill’s patients would benefit so greatly from this approval, and the length of time taken for the approval is of great concern to us.

Another group which needs a continuation of the funding provided under the previous government is the Disabled Workers Union, which I have referred to before in this House. This incredibly successful organisation, run on a shoestring, helps many disabled people, including quite a few from my electorate. But is the government willing to help the most vulnerable, deserving and needing members of our community? No, the government is using a ridiculous, bureaucratic excuse to sound the death knell of this excellent service. This shows how empty the government’s words are about helping those in need. How many millions does the union need? Not even $1 million. All it is asking for is $60,000 a year—a drop in the ocean in budgetary terms. It equates to about one $900 stimulus cheque in each Labor electorate.

All in all, this budget reeks of desperation, a lack of imagination and understanding of finance, employment and people, and a party looking for the easy, short-term way out instead of thinking about the long-term welfare of the country. Ironically, for a party forcing people to work until they are 67, there was a certain 67-year-old whom the Prime Minister characterised as ‘too old’, ‘past it’ and ‘should be replaced with new blood’. But many are fed up with the incompetent and inexperienced new blood and long for the stability and good governance of the coalition. I have lost count of the number of people who have said to me or my staff, ‘I wish we had you lot back in charge.’

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and cognate bills—that is, the budget for 2009-10. This budget represents a commitment by this government to build Australia and to make it stronger for the future—to really build this nation for recovery from the current economic climate. The budget is a testament to this Treasurer’s foresight, vision and values, and I commend him for his hard work. The budget he has delivered is a true Labor budget: it is a budget that supports jobs and small business, it is an education budget and it is a budget that invests in the infrastructure we need for the future prosperity of our families and the nation.

Australians are currently living through the worst global recession since the Great Depression. This recession is being felt across the world. Unemployment rates in Europe and the US are increasing and Japan is experiencing record levels of negative growth. Ninety million more people are now living in extreme poverty, most of them in South-East and West Asia. The global recession has seen our major trading partners’ economies contract by two per cent, a worse outcome than during the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, particularly as eight of our top 10 trading partners are projecting contractions in growth in 2009. It is simple: for the first time since World War II, the global economy is expected to contract. This accumulation of global economic forces has wiped $210 billion from the projected government revenue. This is a fact and this is reality. If the opposition get up and talk about debt and deficit, they need to recognise—which they still seem to refuse to do—that this is a significant issue that needs to be grappled with by the government. The Rudd government has grappled with this problem in this budget.

Tough decisions have had to be made in the form of savings measures and the reassessment of priorities. In this budget, we have also had to take on debt to meet the huge revenue shortfall. Everyone has been asked to do their bit to help find savings to make the government’s budget position more sustainable. This is the point I would like to make. The previous speaker, the member for Tangney, talked about ‘long term’. Well, there is nothing more long term and sustainable than the measures that are outlined in this budget. It is incumbent upon those who have done well and can afford to contribute more to do so. That is why the government has created a better targeted pension system, reformed the superannuation tax laws, applied means testing to private health insurance and made reforms to family payments. These are significant structural savings that are pivotal to ensuring that these programs are sustainable over the long term.

Unfortunately, these savings are not enough in the current economic circumstances to offset the collapse in the government’s revenues. And given that more than two-thirds of our borrowing is a result of the global recession, it is important to put this in perspective. Firstly, Treasury predictions show that the budget deficit is not permanent. There is a clear plan to return the budget to surplus, and the Treasurer outlined this on budget night. Secondly, our borrowing is dwarfed by the levels of debt being taken on by other governments across the world. Australia’s debt is expected to peak at 13.8 per cent of GDP in 2013, which is drastically lower than the 81 per cent of GDP average projected for the advanced economies around the world.

Yet these plain-as-day facts do not stop the opposition continuing to be opportunistic about their short-term political interest, putting that well before the national interest. The opposition have to take responsibility for running a dishonest scare campaign on government debt. When they are put under pressure, they have to admit that they would also have to borrow to make up for the government revenue problem. They talk about debt, but they never mention whether, to fix this tax revenue problem, they would increase taxes or whether they would cut services or whether they would stop investing in infrastructure. Would they just allow the global recession to take its path through the Australian economy and not cushion average people from the worst effects of this crisis? They do not talk about which infrastructure projects they would cut—and I will get to some of the important infrastructure projects in my electorate soon. I am calling on the opposition to be honest with the Australian people. If they want to talk about debt and the Labor government’s debt, well, let us talk about their debt. What would their debt be? What would they cut? What would they increase? Or would they just have the same level of debt as this Labor government? They need to be straight up with the Australian people, to be honest with them and to tell them exactly what they would do, if they wish to continue to run this scare campaign.

People in my electorate of Kingston have welcomed the $1.5 billion for the jobs and training compact. This will ensure that young Australians, retrenched workers and local communities do not suffer any lagged effects of the global recession. They are at the centre of Australia’s economic recovery. One key component of this is the $277 million that the government will spend to make sure that every young person under the age of 25 who wishes to upskill will be able to undertake some sort of training. There will also be an extra $41.60 per fortnight to support new job seekers undertaking approved training. In economic downturns there is a real risk that those who lose their jobs then join the unemployment lines permanently. To make sure that such a tragedy does not occur in this recovery, the government is committed to this compact with retrenched workers which provides immediate assistance to those who have become unemployed, many not as result of their own devices. Key measures that form part of this compact are an increase in the liquid assets test threshold for Centrelink support, which strengthens the safety net for everybody, and an additional 10,000 training places through the Productivity Places Program, taking the total number of training places to around 700,000. These measures show that this budget puts jobs at the top of the government’s priority list. Meaningful, decent and fair work for all is a key Labor value, and I am proud to support a budget that so unambiguously makes jobs its focus.

I am also particularly proud to be a member of the government that will finally introduce paid parental leave. The implementation of a paid parental leave scheme from 1 January 2011 is an extremely important step in improving both child and maternal health and in guaranteeing the rights of women in the workplace. Since 1952 the International Labour Organisation has recognised the importance of paid maternity leave, and the Maternity Protection Convention was revised only nine years ago, but Australia continued to refuse to accept the benefits of maternity leave. This budget repudiates that previous recalcitrance and allows families to plan their careers and domestic lives in balance. The scheme is a $731 million investment in better, more productive workplaces and its announcement was an excellent way for this government to have celebrated Mother’s Day this year.

As I said at the outset, jobs today and jobs tomorrow are what this budget is all about. This means more support for job seekers, but it also means an investment in the fundamentals of our economy—our infrastructure and the knowledge and skills of our citizens. I want to talk a bit about infrastructure because it is a key measure of this budget. This is all about nation building. The infrastructure spending in this budget sets two vital policy objectives. It provides much-needed economic stimulus today, generating and supporting jobs in construction and services. It also ensures that we do not suffer the difficulty of capacity constraints on our growth in the future. The government is investing a significant amount of money in this budget to improve Australia’s transport, energy, education and health infrastructure. This money is being spent in the national interest. This is about money going into local communities to support local jobs but also to set those communities up for economic prosperity in the future.

In this budget, the Rudd Labor government is investing almost $380 million in South Australia’s road and rail infrastructure—an investment that will support local jobs and local businesses during the current global recession. Key projects that are welcomed in my electorate of Kingston include the Victor Harbour Road and Main South Road intersection upgrade. Some money was put in the previous budget for some planning, and the final $3.5 million from the federal government is in this budget to ensure that construction is completed by 2010. This is a very important intersection because not only is it used by my electors in Kingston but also it is used by many people from around the country who like to holiday on the Fleurieu Peninsula. They are frustrated that there is congestion at this intersection, and certainly I have received a lot of positive feedback about the plans for the intersection.

On top of the additional money for upgrading poorly designed and congested intersections in the state’s road network, this budget also provides for a range of initiatives designed to improve road safety. Particularly in my electorate it includes funding for upgrades of Wickham Hill Road at McLaren Flat, and Meadows Road at Wilunga. This has been welcomed by the electors in Kingston. Certainly there has been a lot of worry about the condition of both these roads. Families are concerned about the danger of travelling on these roads and I am very pleased that in that in this budget we will go some way towards improving them.

This funding comes in addition to the Roads to Recovery funding that has been provided in my electorate—as it has been in electorates all around the country—to the City of Onkaparinga and the Marion City Council, which exceeds $2.3 million. These funds will assist these councils with the maintenance and upgrade of roads right across the state. Jobs generated by this activity, in tandem, will increase the capacity for better roads to be delivered to the people of South Australia. Certainly people in my electorate, once again, have welcomed this infrastructure.

These better roads have been coupled with funding delivered through the Marion and City of Onkaparinga councils to invest in community infrastructure. Only on the weekend I was approached by a local community member who said to me, ‘Look, we are so thankful for this infrastructure money’. This infrastructure money has meant that certain things in the older suburbs in my electorate that had been missed by the council, that had not been done, are now being done. These include footpaths, modernising the local community centres and ensuring that parks are kept up to date and there is basic infrastructure. Under the government’s Better Regions program, this budget also provides $2 million to the local council for the development of the Aldinga recreation centre. This has been identified by the council as a priority. I have noticed, moving around the area of Aldinga, that this is incredibly important.

I would like to also speak about one of the most important infrastructure spends in my electorate, and that is the rail extension from Noarlunga to Seaford. The corridor for this rail extension has existed for 30 years, and governments over the last 30 years, and members over the last 30 years, continued to promise that they would fund this extension. However, it has taken the Rudd Labor government in this nation-building budget to actually fund this rail extension—$291 million has been made available. This is something that was overwhelmingly supported by the council, by local residents and by the state government. I am very pleased that we have delivered this commitment, starting in 2010, supporting local jobs, and being completed by 2013. We have seen a lot of discussion from the opposition about whether they will support the infrastructure spend or they won’t. We see that in their own electorates they do support the infrastructure spend, but when they come to Canberra they do not. I challenge the Leader of the Opposition to come and tell the residents of Seaford whether or not he has listened to them and will support their rail service. My understanding is that the Leader of the Opposition has said everything is up for review—all of these infrastructure projects are up for review. If they are up for review, the residents in my electorate will not accept that. They want action.

Finally, the infrastructure spending in this budget will impact the lives of all southern Adelaide residents by investing more money in the desalination plant at Port Stanvac in my electorate. This is a commitment to secure water for South Australia. Adelaide’s water security has been under threat from drought, and the investment in this desalination plant will go a long way to alleviating that. I visited the plant with the Prime Minister and we could see that this is a shovel-ready project where work is already happening on the ground. It is employing local businesses and supporting local employment, which is very important. It is a very good example of supporting jobs today but providing infrastructure for the long term. This investment in desalination comes in addition to the federal government’s investment in stormwater projects, water recycling projects and water buybacks as part of the Murray-Darling scheme. This government certainly has invested a lot in water infrastructure and I am very pleased to be part of it

The Building the Education Revolution program is another hallmark of the budget. The budget shows the government’s commitment through investment in a world-class system that introduces key elements of the proposed education revolution. Funding through this budget builds on an investment in early childhood education, school education and vocational education, as well as incorporating the government’s response to the Bradley review of higher education. A lot of people have welcomed these changes because the knowledge and skills of our citizens will aid us in the recovery from this global recession.

Another hallmark of this budget which some opposition members are against and some are in favour of is pension reform. This was a very difficult reform but has delivered to the people who need it most. Like many members, I know that retired Australians really do need help. Single age pensioners have been doing it very tough. It was important that the government responded in this budget to the Harmer pension review and increased the single full age pension rate by $32.49 a week, which is a significant increase that has been rightly welcome by the community. This complements a more flexible and simple pension system that combines the pension supplement and allowances to create a more streamlined, simpler pension supplement. The increase to the couples pension has also been welcomed by many people. The budget also provides for the indexation of the pension in a more sensible way. That is why the government is developing a new price index that is designed to consider the price of goods that pensioners typically purchase. This will mean that the index of the pension is better calibrated and considered against the actual living experiences of pensioners.

These measures are all good news for pensioners, but, as I said at the outset of my speech, this budget also includes some tough decisions that need to be made to ensure the sustainability in the long term of the pension system. One such decision is the increase in the age of eligibility for the pension. There will be a gradual increase in the eligibility age from 65 to 67. We have to acknowledge that the eligibility age for the pension has not changed since the first Fisher government in 1909. Since we have seen life expectancies increase by more than 20 years, this is an issue that the government has had the guts to tackle. I think that that is really important. We have allowed sufficient time for it to be phased in so that people can be prepared.

In conclusion, this budget represents a roadmap. It represents a clear vision for a fairer, more productive and more prosperous Australia as we recover from the global financial crisis and the global recession. It sets us up for the future. (Time expired)

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is very interesting to look at the history of this country since Federation in 1901 till 1991. In that time we had two world wars, the Great Depression—and that was far worse than what we are going through here—other skirmishes abroad and we had to build our national capital, including this building we are in now. In those 90 years we as a nation accumulated just $16 billion worth of debt. From 1991 to 1996 we repeated every year something that had taken us 90 years to do and we went from $16 billion to $96 billion of debt, which of course this country had to repay.

We on this side of the parliament know how hard it is to pay off debt. Do we really believe that Labor will repay the $220 billion net debt in the seven years leading up to 2022 at about $30 billion a year, or two per cent of GDP? That has been done only three times in the last 40 years at two per cent of GDP: under Liberal governments in 1970, 1971 and 2000. Did we ever see Whitlam repaying debt? No. Did we ever see Hawke repaying debt? No. Did we ever see Keating repaying debt? No. Of course, Labor have form on creating debt and never repaying it.

Earlier this week I heard the member for Canberra tell the House that her speech this year on the budget was significantly different to the one she made last year. It is no wonder that is so. In one year we have gone from every man, woman and child in Australia having over $2,000 of credit to every man, woman and child having net projected debt of $10,000. It is not surprising the member for Canberra could see a difference. Unfortunately, that is not so for me. Apart from the difference in the debt level, as a representative of a large rural and regional electorate, my first impression of the Rudd government’s second budget was that of deja vu.

Twelve months ago in this place I remarked that it had not taken Labor long since the election to show their attitude of ideological indifference and callousness to the needs of rural and regional Australians, especially to those in the electorate of Barker. This budget is the same old Labor with the same old disregard for the rural sector. Rural and regional communities across Australia are diverse. There are great differences even within my own electorate—the size of the towns, the demographics, the wealth and the environment. What they have in common is a small population spread across a vast area.

Constituents in my electorate are concerned with agriculture as well as other industries. The seat of Barker produces nearly half of Australia’s wine—the best half—and has heavy agricultural industry in the traditional areas of beef cattle, dairy cattle, sheep, horticulture, cropping and forestry, which also cover a very large growing area in the electorate. We certainly are very much the food bowl of South Australia, if not Australia; therefore, what the budget offers for rural and regional Australians in not only agriculture but also water and transport is very important to my constituents in Barker. As with last year’s budget, this budget offers them little. In fact, this a horror budget for the agriculture sector and for the thousands of people who are employed in the agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries.

The Rudd government’s second budget is not only plunging the nation into $220 billion of accumulated deficit but also compromising our farmers’ ability to feed and clothe the nation. The lower south-east of my electorate took a hit earlier this year when the exceptional circumstances declaration was abolished, notwithstanding that the drought was not over for it. For the Riverland, in the north of my electorate, the drought goes on. Riverland residents continue to do it tough with the reduced water allocations, the drought and the economic downturn. Despite the Riverland continuing to be exceptional circumstances declared until 31 March next year on the basis that circumstances warranting the initial declaration have continued—in fact, even worsened—a number of the support measures available under that declaration are due to cease at the end of next month.

The measures that have been discontinued are the Exceptional Circumstances Exit Grant and the Small Business Drought Assistance Grant. The Riverland people have a proud history of overcoming adversity. However, with the resilience and optimism so necessary in the past to keep going, many growers and small business operators who believed themselves to be financially capable of continuing in business before 30 June 2009 will instead find themselves in more dire financial circumstances. It simply does not make sense to abolish drought support after July 2010 when the drought in South Australia is now entering its seventh year and when there are record low inflows and water allocations in the Murray-Darling Basin. Cutting support measures while a region is still exceptional circumstances declared is another Rudd government hit at the bush.

Funding for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has been slashed by $908 million. There will be 312 staff dismissed from Land and Water Australia, as it has been abolished, and another $12 million will be taken from the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation. Not satisfied with cutting the agriculture research budget, Labor has also taken the hatchet to the quarantine budget. Cutting the agriculture research budget is unforgivable, but cutting the quarantine budget is criminal—and the legacy will be a diseased, debt-riddled nation. Just one incursion of foot-and-mouth disease could cost up to $13 billion a year and would result in the slaughter of potentially millions of animals, crippling our economy and devastating regional Australia. The decision by the Rudd government to cut funding has placed at risk our trade markets in agricultural produce, seafood and timber products, worth more than $30 billion each year, much of which comes from my electorate. Not content with cutting its contribution to our quarantine and biosecurity program, the Rudd Labor government is also raising taxes and user charges on exporters, who have no choice but to use AQIS services, by up to 1,352 per cent—destroying jobs and export income.

At the last election, Labor committed to expanding the role of the area consultative committees, re-branding them as Regional Development Australia. It was the ACCs who ensured that input was provided to governments on key regional development issues and priorities. They promoted secure, sustainable long-term jobs in the regions; they promoted investment and regional prosperity; and they raised awareness of programs and services available to regional communities. I guess it follows that you do not give a hoot about rural and regional Australia when you are not interested in facilitating development for that sector. By closing the ACC network and absorbing it into state government agencies, the Rudd Labor government have absolved themselves of any concern or specific responsibility for regional development. On the one hand the Labor government were assuring the ACC networks of their future by asking them to engage their communities and to develop work plans and regional strategies, but on the other hand they were preparing for the elimination of those area consultative committees.

The Rudd Labor government has already closed most of the state based offices of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. But, in a clear snub to regional Australia, the government has established a new Better Cities unit in Sydney. Labor promised to offer a Better Regions funding program to support community, economic and environmental projects. However, the program was never opened to receive applications; instead, the government used the program to fund commitments made by Labor candidates only in electorates it targeted at the 2007 election.

If it is a location the minister is after for a Better Regions unit, I would like to put forward a number of sites in my electorate: Mount Gambier, Murray Bridge and Renmark, in the Riverland, or the Barossa Valley. I am happy to support a Better Regions unit anywhere but, of course, we no longer have one. Labor promised to retain and enhance the Regional Partnerships and Sustainable Regions programs; however, the Rudd Labor government abolished them and even cancelled grants for projects that had been approved for funding by the former government. I find it incredible that in a budget that predicts that one million Australians will lose their jobs and saddles every man, woman and child with a $10,000 debt, the Rudd Labor government has failed to establish a regional development program that supports economic and social opportunities that create jobs in local communities.

In addition, Labor have chosen to move millions of dollars of funding away from roads and rail into urban public transport projects. The Regional Strategic Roads Program is to be abolished and the money made available to the cities. Rural research funding has been cut and, as I said earlier, drought aid is to end. The Rudd Labor government’s demolition of their own regional development policy is another demonstration that the Rudd Labor government are not interested in regional Australia. Indeed, Labor have made it eminently clear that the regions are not even a concern for them, but it is rural and regional Australians who will pay the price for Labor’s economic mismanagement.

Of late, we cannot open a newspaper anywhere in Australia without encountering a photograph of the Prime Minister in a hard hat and fluoro vest, turning a sod on a building site or gazing benevolently over the future site of a city rail development. Mind you, he is carefully avoiding the places where projects are stalled indefinitely, and we certainly have not seen him anywhere in my electorate. Labor’s much boasted about infrastructure spending has turned out to be a squeak rather than a roar. Of the only $8.4 billion of new projects funded over the next four years from the former government’s surpluses, most will be spent on transport projects in capital cities and most of this has come from money set aside by the Howard government in its Future Fund. More than $1 billion is directed to metropolitan railways, none of which comes anywhere near the Barker electorate. It is even funding the O-Bahn extension in Adelaide against the recommendation of its own Infrastructure Australia, no doubt to help the Labor member in the seat of Makin. All the infrastructure announcements in South Australia are to help marginal Labor seats in Adelaide.

Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel with Infrastructure Australia and making financial promises that they could not keep, Rudd Labor should have stuck with the comprehensive forward plan developed by the coalition under the AusLink National Transport Plan. Even that they are going to change. They do not like the use of the moniker ‘AusLink’ because it was a successful program under the Howard government and they are going to get rid of it. The result is that rail and road spending will go backwards next financial year, not forwards. When the worst of the recession begins to impact on Australia in the coming months, Labor will be spending less to keep road and rail builders employed.

Both the Prime Minister and the infrastructure minister have repeatedly said that the infrastructure spending is as much about economic stimulus as it is about creating projects of lasting value. Tellingly, Labor plans to spend less in the next six years than the coalition committed to spend over the next five under AusLink. It comes as no surprise that these projects are city centric. Electrifying the Gawler railway is probably going to help the member for Wakefield; extending the O-Bahn against the recommendation of Infrastructure Australia is supposedly going to help the member for Makin; and the Noarlunga railway lines are good news for the residents of those metropolitan Labor-held electorates but they are not going to do much for any other electorates in Australia. If, instead of promoting the idea of electrifying the railway down south, they had committed to expanding the Southern Expressway, which goes through the seat of Kingston and is very useful for areas south of that in other electorates, it would have had my support. Presently, we have a one-way expressway which changes direction twice a day and of course on weekends it actually changes around the other way. It is a bit of shemozzle, so that would have been of a higher priority than any of the other projects.

Less than 48 hours after the Rudd government brought down this budget, I spoke in this place on the grossly unfair treatment of our young students seeking a tertiary education. Changes to the criteria for youth allowance independence of the parental income test will directly impact on rural and regional students who, despite the disadvantages of distance, unreliable broadband and ongoing drought, achieve great year 12 results and high TER rankings and are offered places at university. Labor has seen fit to abolish the criteria which enabled these students to work part time to fund their own education, to contribute to the enormous cost of moving up to 450 kilometres to Adelaide and paying for board and lodging and the occasional trip home. By doing so, Labor has just made it much harder for many students to attend uni. These students have the ability and the motivation to undertake tertiary studies; they are the professionals of the future and this government should be paving the way for them to continue the academic success they achieve at school.

Universities would generally grant rural and regional students a gap year to enable them to work to fund the high costs associated with moving and studying hundreds of kilometres away. These students do not have the convenience of an 80c bus ride to university in the morning and back home for tea with mum and dad, as city students do. They rely on a gap year to earn money to qualify for the youth allowance as independents. They are not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. There is no way that youth allowance alone will fund that accommodation and transport. Parents will still have to find a lot more to enable their students to travel and live in the city. Youth allowance helped, and now these students are being denied the one opportunity they had to gain tertiary qualifications. And that is an absolute disgrace in the treatment of country students in this country.

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

Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish to intervene.

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Is the member for Barker willing to give way?

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. Telling a rural and regional student they have to work full time for two years before they can receive youth allowance is akin to denying them a university education. Universities will rarely defer for two years. For many, part-time work in fast food, the local garage or even the pub is all that is available in the remote or rural centre in which they live—if they can get it. Linking the relocation scholarship to receipt of youth allowance is a double whammy for students whose goal is to attend university in the city. Labor has removed the Howard government scholarships of $5,500 per annum, which were at administered by the universities, and replaced it with a lesser, means tested student allowance administered by Centrelink. Of course, it was the former Minister for Education, Science and Training, who is beside me, who brought those scholarships in.

It is bad enough that Labor sees fit to abolish funding to the regions; it is utterly criminal that they now deny our students the income support they need to study. Regions have not been totally forgotten by Labor. Indeed, Labor has done something big for the resilient people of our great electorate. It has imposed on each and every one of them a huge debt of $220 billion that will take years to repay. Even by the most promising and generous suggestions that it will be paid off by 2022—and I do not believe that would happen under this government—under the pretext that we are going to get four or 4½ per cent growth for seven years and we are going to repay a government debt at the rate of two per cent or more of GDP for more than seven years in a row, I do not think so. All Australians, including the rural and regional people of my electorate, are paying the price of Labor’s ill-directed, reckless spending. This is a government that has recklessly spent in a way that has no precedent in our history and has imposed a stupendous level of debt on a nation that 18 months ago was completely free of debt for the first time since Federation. This is a government with all its priorities wrong.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In rising to support the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and cognate bills, allow me to quote the words of William Shakespeare from the play Julius Caesar:

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

The 2009-10 budget, delivered by Treasurer Wayne Swan a little over two weeks ago, is a budget for its time. In part it forms the third element of the government’s ongoing response to the global financial crisis, the effects of which began to be felt here last October. There can be no argument that these are indeed economic circumstances unprecedented in scale since the Great Depression. This is a budget which takes on the global recession head on. Members opposite would have us do nothing but sit patiently and wait while the recession ravages our country and our people. That appears to be their preferred strategy—or at least it appears to be their preferred strategy except when they are announcing intervention projects in their own electorates.

We all know what a success that approach was in the thirties. Our country and our people were, as Shakespeare said, ‘bound in shallows and in miseries’ for too many years. This time our government is determined to avoid those mistakes and those consequences. Members opposite should talk to Australians who as children remember the Great Depression or, if they are too young to have experienced it, whose parents instilled in them the perils a depression contains. There is nothing uplifting about living in tents; there is nothing dignified about the susso queues; there is nothing commendable about forced family separations; there is nothing splendid about scrounging for food, clothing and shoes. Yet this is the fate the coalition would wish upon the very people who expect them to act in their interests—the people of Australia.

Throughout the world, country after country have adopted the Australian strategy of stimulus packages that have and will boost the economy not only immediately but also in the short term, the mid term and the long term. The longer they have delayed, the bigger their packages have had to be. As early as July last year there were calls from long-time US political strategist Brent Budowsky for an emergency stimulus package in that country. It should be, he said, ‘no smaller than $100 billion and no later than 1 August or the economic crisis will worsen’. As it turned out, on 19 February this year, 6½ months later, President Obama signed a US $787 billion stimulus package into law in circumstances that were described as ‘racing to reverse the country’s economic spiral’. It is a sum significantly larger than the original recommendation.

Australia’s more timely interventions, in October to December 2008 and in February to May 2009, have helped to prevent Australia experiencing the same economic spiral. A lot has been written and said about how the global recession will affect Australia. Consistent amongst commentators is the opinion that, among developed nations, Australia is or was best placed to avoid the worst of the global financial crisis. That position carries with it the generally agreed advantage that, although the global recession will strike Australia, it will arrive later than for the rest of the world, it will bite less deeply and recovery will come sooner. There is no doubt that, through consumption, expenditure and infrastructure investment, driven by the government’s October 2008 Economic Security Strategy, the December 2008 nation-building package and the February 2009 Nation Building and Jobs Plan, this country will be cushioned even further. These earlier interventions and this budget, and in particular the $22 billion infrastructure centrepiece of this budget, build on the advantages that commentators agree exist.

I am happy to acknowledge that the former government is due some credit for those advantages, but, unlike members opposite, I also lay at the door of the former government the blame for one significant weakness: the debt position of the states. The states were forced to borrow to build infrastructure, because, despite having their hands on the levers during unprecedented times of plenty, the Howard-Costello government refused to provide sufficient funding to the states. That is clearly a Howard-Costello legacy. To my mind there are two signature non-achievements of the nearly 12 years of the Howard Costello government. Despite having obscene riches, courtesy of the mining boom, the Howard-Costello government made no provision for the end of the mining boom. Despite those same riches, they did nothing to provide for essential economic infrastructure, so necessary to ensure future economic prosperity.

Like the Menzies Liberal government, who believed in their day that our country rode on the sheep’s back when wool was £1 a pound, they did nothing to inoculate our economy against downturns such as the one we now encounter. Having developed a do-nothing habit in government it is no surprise that the course they advocate from opposition is the same do-nothing course. The coalition’s carping criticism of every element of the government’s strategy at a time when the community is calling for national unity in the face of the global recession and at a time when business and industry—which, they would have us believe, are best represented by them—are universally supportive of the government’s actions because they know them to be the right actions simply shows the coalition for what it is.

As Aaron Sorkin wrote in the popular movie The American President for his presidential candidate, Andrew Shepherd, ‘We have serious problems to solve and we need serious people to solve them.’ It can be truthfully said of the coalition parties in this place, just as he went on to say of his political opponent: ‘They are not the least bit interested in solving those serious problems. They are interested in two things and two things only’—making the community afraid and telling them the Rudd government is to blame. That strategy is not going to work this time because the Australian public is awake to the over-used coalition tactic of scare, blame and then claiming to have the solution. The budget reply speech by the Leader of the Opposition is a case in point.

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

It wasn’t as good as yours, Brendan. It was nowhere near as good as yours last year.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the interjection from the member for Shortland in that regard.

Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A very interesting interjection.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes. The budget reply speech by the Leader of the Opposition spoke firstly about scare—scare about deficit and debt. Blame the Rudd government—never mind the global factors and dramatic drop in government revenues. Offer no solution other than a badly costed, as it turns out, tobacco tax but claim to own the title of competent financial managers. Even former Prime Minister John Howard was not that brazen.

In 1996 John Howard, having recently arrived at the Lodge—well, at Kirribilli House—as Prime Minister of Australia, told an international monetary conference in Sydney, ‘I inherited an economy in good shape, in some parts better than good.’ I understand that at a black tie Liberal Party function in Sydney in 2007, where people no doubt choked on their rubber chicken, John Howard was acknowledging structural changes made during the Hawke-Keating years as amongst the most important economic changes in Australia. In fact, he credited Labor with bank deregulation and floating the dollar. He claimed for his own government a half share of tariff reform and for the Howard-Costello government he fully claimed tax reform and industrial relations. Mind you, for tax reform and industrial relations you have to read ‘GST’ and ‘Work Choices’—both of them attacks on the most vulnerable people in our society and both of them universally reviled by our society. That is the truth of the matter.

No one side of politics has a mortgage on good economic management. History will show that the Rudd government’s pre-emptive strikes against the global financial crisis are precisely the right actions, and its conservative forecasts concerning the return to surplus budgets and the repayment of debt are, if you will forgive the pun, on the money. On the other hand, the coalition still supports and pursues policies that favour the wealthy at the expense of the needy.

The 2009-10 budget unveiled by Treasurer Swan does a number of key things essential for a budget in the current economic climate. It has been described as having three narratives—fiscal stimulus to combat the recession, charting a path back to surplus and meeting the fiscal challenge of an ageing population. It supports Australian jobs at a time when we all know that jobs are under threat and it does this by investing in infrastructure for the future—nation-building infrastructure of roads, rail, ports, broadband and clean energy—that will add to the strength of our economic recovery and ensure a more prosperous future.

In the context of a savage drop of $210 billion in government revenue over the forward estimates that was largely due to the end of the mining boom and the associated collapse of company tax and mining royalties, the government’s choices were limited. It could cut spending on services or it could raise tax revenue, both of which would impact adversely on the people of Australia; or it could borrow to finance services and job-supporting infrastructure. It is interesting that, when pressed on his response to the drop in revenue, the opposition leader indicated that he too would borrow to cover the revenue shortfall. The opposition’s scare campaign on debt and deficit is in overdrive, but it has all the traction of a race car fitted with a set of slicks on a wet track. The public is, as I said earlier, awake to you.

The opposition derides the information in the budget papers mapping the nation’s way out of deficit and debt, despite the fact that Treasury head, Dr Ken Henry, has gone on record defending the projections. This is the same Dr Ken Henry who, for the last six years or so of the Howard government, held the same position he holds today. This is the same Dr Ken Henry who, in 2008, the member for Higgins and former Treasurer, Peter Costello, declared to be a highly competent and dedicated public servant. Mr Costello went on to say that Dr Henry was chosen for the role by him on merit and that the important thing was to get the best person qualified for the job. The best person qualified for the job is telling you that you are wrong. Yet, it seems that the member for North Sydney and shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, does not have confidence in this highly competent and dedicated public servant, who was selected on merit as the best person for the job.

The member for North Sydney spent question time yesterday attempting to deride the path back to surplus and the repayment of debt. I recommend to the member for North Sydney that he read Dr Henry’s address on 19 May because, if he does so, he will understand the error of the propositions that he was putting to the parliament in question time yesterday. Australians realise that Treasury is a key element in the construction of any budget. Whether the Treasurer is named Swan, Costello, Keating or Howard, Australians realise that the differences in political philosophy will always play a role in the choices made by the Treasurer, based on the options presented by Treasury. So to accuse Treasury of producing unsustainable forecasts is simply beyond the pale.

I know that Australians are well aware that there are difficult times in our immediate future, and I also know that they are grateful that we have in place a Labor government that has compassion for the circumstances of the whole community. Like them, I welcome the changes to the payments made to our pensioners. As a representative of an electorate with a high concentration of age pensioners, I know that the single pensioners amongst them have welcomed the increase of $30 a week in their base pension. The benchmarking, too, of the single age pension to two-thirds of the couple rate is an appropriate move. That will make a substantial difference to most pensioners, leaving aside those who are in aged-care residential facilities or, to a lesser extent, in public housing. I wish that more could have been done. I know that we would have liked to have done more, but we are obviously constrained in these matters by the global recession. However, 23,200 pensioners in my electorate will benefit from the changes that have been made as a consequence of this budget.

We also need to face the challenge of a rapidly ageing population as we baby boomers reach age pension age. The maternity leave provisions are welcomed as an appropriate measure for ensuring that Australian women are not penalised in terms of their career or their financial wellbeing by their decision to have a family. This country needs children to ensure economic growth later on and to fund the pensions of older Australians. The changes to the age pension eligibility age have raised some concern in the community, particularly amongst those who work in heavy manual occupations and who are looking forward to turning 65 during the period that the gradual change will take place. For them, this is not an enormously welcome provision but it is one that we need to take for the sustainable future of the pension system in this country.

In the few minutes left to me I would like to talk about some of the particular benefits that, as a consequence of what has happened in the budget, will flow through to the seat of Longman, which I proudly represent. For members who are not familiar with the location of Longman, the northern boundary is on what we would probably call nowadays the rural-urban interface of Brisbane city. Six new areas of my electorate have been declared eligible for rural incentives under the health scheme. This will help us attract medical practitioners to our area, and I have heard a number of members in this debate mention the fact that they would like to have received some rural eligibility in their area. As we know, Australia is going through a difficult time in the provision of general practitioners. In that regard, I am very pleased to see the Moreton Bay division of general practice receive additional funding. This division of general practice is very active and is of great benefit not only to representatives like myself who are seeking to help people with issues in relation to the health care system but also to the doctors who are its members, and they do undertake a number of valuable research projects.

We have some road projects going forward under the Roads to Recovery program and under the nation-building program. The total value of those will be around $8 million, and we have $6 million going into community infrastructure as well. The total budget spend in Longman is just a little over $16¼ million. One project I want to mention is the planning for the upgrade of interchanges on the Bruce Highway, which bisects my electorate. There is one project currently underway on the Bribie Island road, which hopefully will be completed by August. Other areas are also in great need of upgrade.

I also wanted to mention one element of the expenditure in this budget that does not take place in my electorate but is paramount to some infrastructure that has long been sought, at least in the southern end of my electorate. It would be very welcome were it to occur. I refer to the $2 million that has been provided for a study of the city rail infrastructure in Brisbane. There has long been a call for a railway line to Redcliffe, the Redcliffe Peninsula, which is in the electorate of Petrie but the path of a railway line would serve the people of Kallangur, Deception Bay, Mango Hill and North Lakes, which are the southern boundary suburbs of Longman. However, without an increase in capacity on the central city network, there is no capacity to take additional trains. That $2 million will assist Premier Bligh’s announcement of some six or eight months ago that there needed to be a large infrastructure spend in the Brisbane city rail network. Once that happens, we can look forward to having extensions of the railway line out into our electorate, where people are desperately in need of public transport.

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

Three hundred billion dollars. I will say it again: $300 billion—or perhaps, if we work off the Treasurer’s lines, $315 billion. In any case, they are both huge amounts of money; astronomical amounts of money. It is no wonder that Australians are concerned. The $21 billion budget surplus left over by former Treasurer Peter Costello’s sound economic management is all but gone. How quickly can the good work of the last 12 years be undone? Now we know: 18 months it took. Of course the government have embarked on a smoke-and-mirrors job yet again. They come into this place, checking what little honour and integrity they possess at the door, stridently banging the drum, falsely claiming that in 12 years the previous Liberal-National government wasted the good years. How false and dishonourable a claim that really is. The Rudd Labor Government would falsely have the Australian people believe that Paul Keating’s former Labor government handed over a great economy. The truth is far different. The coalition received nothing but debt and lies from the previous Labor government. They covered up the levels of debt and they covered up the enormous $10 billion dollar black-hole deficit from the last budget. It was a deception, because Keating Labor had this country living beyond its means—and they did it for political gain. So when this current Labor government have the gall to lecture about wasted opportunities, we do need to look back for the truth. Ninety-six billion dollars of government debt was the legacy of the last Labor government. Ninety-six billion dollars sounds huge—and it is—but if we talk about debt and who is good at racking up government debt then the Labor Party have hit a new record in 2009 and beyond, but I will get back to that later.

When Peter Costello was faced with $96 billion in debt and a Labor secret deficit of $10 billion, hard decisions had to be made; cuts had to be made. Faced with a deceitful deficit, a false budget and a mountain of debt, plans were put on hold. Peter Costello faced the reality of the problem left to the coalition government and acted upon it. He did not talk about hard decisions; he made hard decisions that still get thrown back at us in this parliament. We still hear about various cuts and how the coalition government broke promises, none of which is ever put into the context of undisclosed deficits and huge debt. None of these problems were faced by the Rudd Labor government when they were elected: no hidden deficit, no false budget figures, and no mountain of debt. There were no black holes; there was, however, a surplus of more than $20 billion, there was a future fund, there were health and education infrastructure funds. Dollars were invested in this nation’s future and we were in the black. The taxpayers did not have a debt racked up by the government. Of course along the way the coalition government had to make some tough decisions. The reform of the tax system resulted in a number of Liberal MPs losing their seats, including my Liberal predecessor, Richard Evans. It was the right thing to do but it was a hard decision. The trouble was that the Australian Labor Party were always opposing these hard and necessary decisions. A look back through Hansard reveals hundreds of votes where important bills for this country’s future were opposed, not just in this place but in the Senate as well. The term ‘mandate’ was never honoured by the Labor Party.

In 2007 the Australian people decided on a change of government—and we respect that decision. Yet there is a substantial contrast between the government’s books in 2007 and what the coalition inherited in 1996. We were left with a deceitful deficit, a false budget and a mountain of debt. The Rudd Labor government inherited no debt, a budget surplus and a number of funds with billions of dollars of money. I understand, if we talk of the money put away by the former coalition government, that the surplus to GDP amounted to around four per cent. What a contrast that represents compared to the other nations of the developed world, already deep in debt before the economic challenges of the past 12 months began to be felt in any way. This is an important point. We on this side were very happy that, with the efforts of Australian businesses, workers and the assistance of the former government, the Australian economy was world leading. What a great starting point: in surplus, debt free and a world leader. That position was just 18 months ago, in November 2007, and how rapidly it has all been turned around in that time.

Members of this House will recall the Treasurer just 12 months ago claiming how he had built a strong surplus of more than $21 billion in just the six months since the election. Of course there was no mention that forecasts before the election had already been predicting more than $20 billion of surplus regardless. Here we are 12 months later and it is a much different story. Instead of proudly proclaiming the budget bottom line in 2009, the Treasurer did not even mention how far in the red this country now is. The figures, although unuttered on the night, were in the papers. There was a $32 billion deficit—$32 billion in the red; $32 billion on the downside of balance—which amounts to one-third of the previous Labor Party debt. Not good news in just 12 months! It does not just stop there as $315 billion was mentioned by the Treasurer this week. That is what this Rudd Labor government offer Australia in debt.

But I will go back to this budget and Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and the cognate bills. The government is $32 billion in the red after spending $33 billion with, next year, another $33 billion in new spending. Let us all remember that most of the spending in this financial year has been in the handouts, the big cash splashes and the $900 cheques in the mail. I said before that this country will see $315 billion in debt. The government has said that in the financial year 2021-2022, the debt will be paid off, 13 years down the track. I was doing the calculations before. That will mean that my six-year-old daughter will be 19 years old by the time this Rudd Labor debt is paid off. That is, of course, assuming that all the figures that the government has in its budget and the estimates and statements are correct. That remains a big assumption, because the government was continually wrong throughout the last 12 months.

The assumptions and predictions are important to recall and I want to look at them in detail and in context. We have had a 13 per cent increase in government spending, yet in the future, as the Treasurer has told us, that spending will increase by no more than two per cent. Quite a change in character and little wonder that so many people are sceptical! Although he said it, there is no backup to the statement—certainly no legislation or hard restrictions, just his statement, clearly as unreliable as all his work has been in the last 12 months.

Let us look at more figures: a retraction of the economy of 0.5 per cent in the next year and then growth of 2¼ per cent in 2010-11, and then it is motoring along at 4½ per cent for the two years after that. When you add those projections to the estimate of a two per cent of GDP surplus for years into the future in order to pay off the Rudd Labor debt of $315 billion, again clearly it is doubtful that the government will be able to take advantage of those figures. I am of course not the only sceptical one. Remember the front page of the Australian on Wednesday 13 May 2009, describing the budget as on a ‘wing and a prayer’. For some months now the Treasurer has been referring to this economic challenge as the greatest downturn in three-quarters of a century. I am not sure whether this is designed to scare Australians, make himself the hero or hedge the failures of the government to that comparison. But, if we examine the figures upon which this mountainous amount of reckless spending has been justified, the predicted contraction in the economy is 0.5 per cent, and 0.5 per cent is not good. But Australia has weathered these challenges before. In fact both the 1982 and 1991 recessions resulted in greater contractions than that. In fact, both these recessions resulted in higher unemployment than the 8.5 per cent predicted in the Rudd Labor government’s unemployment figures—almost 10 per cent, I believe, in 1982 and almost 11 per cent in 1991.

Although this budget is as questionable in fact as its deliverer in every respect, I will now turn to the GDP growth figures. All members of this House would know that Western Australia provides far more to this country in revenue than other states, with Queensland not doing too bad a job either. We would therefore expect that the GDP growth figures for Western Australia would be in excess of the growth figures for the nation, just to make up for the other states. Yet the curious part is that, while the Rudd Labor government is predicting 2¼ per cent growth in 2010-11, WA is predicting another retraction of 0.5 per cent. Take the next year. The Rudd Labor government is predicting 4½ per cent growth in 2011-12, which is well above the 30-year national trend of three per cent. But it is also far greater growth than WA is predicting at 3¾ per cent. My point is that, if in recent years Western Australia has been contributing more than 30 per cent of the Australian government’s revenue and if WA retracts again before growing at below the national predicted growth, then the Rudd Labor government’s figures look completely false. Recent years have shown the Western Australian figures to be accurate, and that cannot be said about the Rudd Labor government’s figures. The final point I would like to make on this issue of recovery projection is that, even if you accept all these highly dubious figures, the assumption is that tax revenues will contribute via bracket creep, meaning there will be no tax cuts and no indexation. That fact must be noted.

I also make another point related to the contribution the state of Western Australia makes to this nation. As I said, some 30 per cent of national revenue, such as royalties, flows from the west, which is pretty good given we have about 10 to 11 per cent of the population. In this big-spending budget, why did Western Australia get just over six per cent of the infrastructure spending? Western Australia and the people in the state, like my daughters, will end up paying the interest and principal bills for the high-spending and record-debt Rudd Labor government, yet we are ripped off in the spending.

That brings me to what is happening in the Cowan electorate or, rather, what is not happening. I recall clearly the election promises of 2007 made by the Labor Party. I recall them clearly because we promised most of them first: the overpass at the Reid Highway and Alexander Drive intersection, the Hepburn Avenue extension in Ballajura, the Hepburn Avenue duplication at Marangaroo and Alexander Heights, and the basketball complex at Woodvale Senior High School. We also promised some additional projects; however, so did Labor. I recall the GP superclinic in the suburb of Wanneroo and the youth drop-in centre in Ballajura. These promises languish in the same category. If there is any action, then it has not resulted in a sod being turned. That is the key point: those projects were promised, getting on to two years ago, and the people are yet to see any action.

I recall that at the recent community cabinet meeting in Ballajura, in Cowan, the Prime Minister told the whole crowd that the money for those projects was in the 2008-09 budget, which was last year’s budget. Having examined that budget carefully, I know that what he told the people there, who actually live in Cowan, was not true. I looked around at one group that was promised funding and they said that they did not have their grant. In fact, no-one has got the money yet and it remains very difficult to find the line items to cover those promises in this year’s budget.

I did however find a reference to one item of particular interest in the Leader of the House’s 13 May 2009 speech. The brief mention was ‘Works on the Ocean Reef Road’. Of course, the people of Cowan would know that, after a significant petition effort regarding local road safety by me in 2007, the federal government—that is, the coalition government—came in and provided $7 million of the $10 million for the job. As the minister had mentioned the exact project that was funded in 2007 and again in 2009, I assumed that more money had been allocated. I therefore contacted stakeholders in the project who did not know anything about any more money and were not expecting it. I wonder how many previously funded projects are having their figures rolled into government spending to make it look good in 2009. The reality is that the biggest federally funded project running in Cowan remains the Ocean Reef Road extension that the previous coalition government funded with $7 million and which the current government appear to be claiming as their own. Contrast the construction action in Cowan at Ocean Reef Road with the 2007 Labor election promises that are yet to see a sod turned and where the money has not arrived.

That takes me back to the community cabinet, where the Prime Minister restated almost all of the promises and told everyone that the money was handed over 12 months ago. I even heard him talk about the footbridge the government was funding in Banksia Grove. Unfortunately, the City of Wanneroo did not even apply for funds for the footbridge, so the accuracy at the community cabinet was falling down all over the place. They did in fact apply for $1 million for traffic calming and traffic island works. That said, in recent days I have been informed that the government has agreed to the City of Wanneroo’s application for that money. Although I have mentioned the need for action in several speeches and letters to the government, two weeks ago the member for Moore and I met with the parliamentary secretary and member for Brand over the matter. This week he signed off on the funding. I thank him for his responsiveness and attention to the needs of Banksia Grove. I note the local advocacy of the Banksia Grove Residents Association under the leadership of Geoff Westlake and Chris Baxter, who always kept me aware of the situation and progress. I also acknowledge the efforts of Mal Washer, the member for Moore, and Paul Miles MLA, the state member for Wanneroo, as we are all responsible for representing Banksia Grove.

I make this very clear: I stand in support of the election commitments that were made to the people in Cowan. I believe that they should have all been delivered well before now. Residents of Cowan will end up paying anyway for the reckless spending and cash handouts that the government wasted in the last nine months, so we should get our share of the infrastructure. The problem with this government is that the money should have been spent on real infrastructure projects. It should have been the first money spent, not the last. It should have been justified by cost-benefit analyses. Instead, the government has shovelled money out the door, spending recklessly close to the same amount as the deficit and more than what is finally being spent on infrastructure. As Peter Costello stated last night, when we had the money we could not afford these sorts of handouts; now that we do not have the money, we are spending it.

Before concluding, I will speak briefly about the allegation by the government of talking the economy down. Gee, isn’t this the pot calling the kettle black! Of course, this whole line is just their spin masters at work—the line of the week as they struggle against broad community concerns about massive and, sadly, generational debt. It is just another tactical line put out by the spin machine led by the Prime Minister. This has been just the latest of the lines. Speaking of talking down the economy, the government are the stars in this. We cannot go past the ‘inflation genie’ line. The usual format has followed, of course, generated in the Prime Minister’s office and focused grouped, just like an episode of The Hollow Men, before being floated in a press conference and in a question time answer. The line was then authorised for general use. The members for Port Adelaide, Throsby, Maribyrnong and Prospect all ran it out.

I raise this point because those sorts of lines were used by the government keen to blame inflation on the coalition. The Treasurer seemed devoted to undermining confidence in the economy and slowing economic growth, with such reckless talk as the inflation genie being out of the bottle and five-point plans. Egging the RBA on to lift interest rates, he and the government helped slow the economy. They did it to score political points. They did it in an attempt to trash the economic record of the coalition and they did it for political gain. Yet it was 12 months ago that the Treasurer proudly, yet falsely, claimed to have built a $21 billion surplus. He actually claimed that, in just six months, he and the government had created a surplus of that magnitude, with complete disregard for the previous budget estimates that suggested before the election that the surplus would have been about that size anyway. So it was a plan to falsely claim glory for economic success, recklessly blame the coalition for inflation and talk up that challenge. My point is that if the government were committed to Australia’s future and not to political point-scoring then they would have acted differently.

The gravity of the situation that faces us now is due to the reckless politicking of the Rudd government that, through their actions, slowed the economy when we did not need it slowed. The harsh reality is that in 2008 the Rudd Labor government slowed the economy down with reckless political talk. Since then they have passed laws and continue to pursue new legislation that will cost jobs. Then they handed out cash as the first priority before infrastructure spending. It has always been politics first and foremost for this government. The best interests of this nation have always been a lesser priority for the Prime Minister and the Labor government. The legacy of the Rudd Labor government will be a generation of debt, and history will always remember them for that.

Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2009-2010. As we have heard, a theme running right throughout this discussion on the budget is that this budget has been delivered during the greatest economic challenge that we have seen in our lifetime. It is a budget with good news for Australian communities, but it also contains the tough decisions that will ensure we are prepared for, and ready to take advantage of, the economic recovery. That is why I am pleased to join with my colleagues in supporting the bills and commending them to the House.

This budget is all about supporting jobs. It is about building productivity into our economy and building the infrastructure that we need for the future, whether that be in the form of broadband, roads, railways or ports. The budget builds on the education revolution, delivers for pensioners and carers, provides a tax break for small business and continues to support first home owners to get a leg-up into the housing market. It delivers on research, health and innovation and it ensures funding for our defence forces. And I am pleased and proud to say that it also paves the way for paid parental leave.

Turning firstly to health, there is no question that this budget delivers on health. That is certainly the case in Central Queensland, where the budget is providing major upgrades to the Rockhampton Base Hospital and a new medical centre for the town of Nebo. That is just a small snapshot of what is happening in the Capricornia electorate, and that is what is happening right around the country because similar boosts to health services right across Australia are provided for in the budget. All-up, this government is committing $20 billion to improve hospitals across Australia. That is against a history of the previous federal government in this country not playing its part and withdrawing money from those important public hospital services. This is a key part of the government’s reform agenda to equip our hospitals for the future, and we are making good on that commitment in this budget.

It is important to note that our commitment is not only about bricks, mortar and more beds, as important as those are. It is also about the people who work in our health system. We are tackling the rural and remote workforce challenge in the health industry. The government has pledged $134.4 million in a package that will re-target incentives to ensure that health professionals will receive a greater reward for travelling to work in more remote regions. There are plenty of these small rural communities in the Capricornia electorate and Central Queensland, so I look forward to seeing the benefits of this program in those communities that I represent.

Under the reforms, almost 500 communities around Australia will become eligible for rural incentive payments for the first time, and Rockhampton is one of those. This is a program that has been welcomed by a range of groups, including the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. They had this to say about the program:

These increases in funding are welcome given the difficult economic climate in which this budget has been delivered.

               …            …            …

We believe that the enhancements around support and training for locum relief will have a positive impact on the retention of rural GPs. The extension of the Training for Rural and Remote Procedural GPs program is a positive example of utilising existing and well evaluated resources.

Other lobby groups, such as the National Farmers Federation and AgForce have also welcomed the funding for rural doctors in the budget.

Just last week I toured the construction activity at the Rockhampton Base Hospital with the health minister, Nicola Roxon. She wanted to see for herself what the $76 million that was committed for an upgrade of the Rockhampton hospital is going to mean for not just the infrastructure there but the services that the hospital can deliver. Current construction work is already happening thanks to a $70 million-plus investment that is being made by the state government, and I am pleased to say that that investment by the state government includes a building to house the MRI machine. The MRI machine will be operated by Queensland Health, but the Medicare licence for that MRI machine is something that this government committed to providing in the 2007 election. It is something that we have fought long and hard for in Rockhampton at both the state and Commonwealth levels. We were ignored by the previous government but I am pleased to say that that MRI machine and the funding that the Commonwealth government is attaching to it through the Medicare licence are very close to becoming realities. People in Rockhampton and surrounding communities will be able to have that MRI service at the Rockhampton Base Hospital. Currently there is a part-time machine operating in the private sector, so the MRI machine at the base hospital will be an important addition to health services in Rockhampton in Central Queensland.

It appears that the $76 million dollars that the federal government is committing for expanding and improving services there will actually piggyback onto or dovetail with the current building program that is underway courtesy of the state government. The site is a hive of activity with cranes, bulldozers, trucks and tradesmen all working hard to deliver these infrastructure improvements, which will then in turn allow for improved and expanded health services out of the Rocky base hospital. To be there on site and to see this work really brought home to me what this government is about and what this budget is about—building infrastructure for the future, but right now creating jobs for Australians and creating jobs for people in my electorate. The director of Queensland Health in our region, Dr Coralee Barker, said to me that when the federal part of that investment kicks in there will be upwards of 200 people working on that building site. That is great news for people employed in those trades and associated supply industries, and good news for those people who might be finding themselves displaced from other sectors of the economy at this time.

That is what was happening at the Rockhampton Base Hospital last week. Right before our eyes we could see that theme of the budget playing out—jobs for today and infrastructure for the future. Of course, that is what will be happening at about 35,000 construction sites across the country funded through our budget and stimulus packages. As I said, the federal component of the work at the Rockhampton hospital will kick off later this year, piggybacking onto the work that the state government has funded. It will equip the hospital with two new operating theatres, two procedure rooms and a recovery area, an additional 30 inpatient beds, two linear accelerator spaces in anticipation of a future radiation oncology service, and additional clinical education and research space.

When I was talking to Dr Barker last week she confirmed what that additional clinical education and research space would mean. Currently in Rockhampton we have a rural clinical training school, which was provided by the former government. I was very pleased to welcome that program in Rockhampton, probably getting on for 10 years ago now. It has seen medical students coming up in large numbers to complete their undergraduate training in Rockhampton, and many of them have continued on after graduation to become junior doctors in our hospital. What has been happening is that after their first one or two years post graduation, they are finding that they do have to then head back south to undertake specialty training. So we are getting the doctors out of the rural clinical training school but there is in effect a glass ceiling at about that two-year post-graduation level, when they have to go off to pursue further specialist trading. These extra facilities should help address that in a small way. We hope to see doctors being able to really pursue their careers from start to finish in Rockhampton. It is clear that there will be benefits for patients through these extra services and increased capacity for training doctors in Rockhampton.

The mining community of Nebo, which is at the other end of my electorate west of Mackay, will receive $450,000 to build a new medical centre. It will be a modern and well equipped walk-in, walk-out health service. It is expected that construction will begin later this year. I want to pay tribute to the community and the local government that represents Nebo. They have worked really hard to put that facility on the agenda and chase the funding to make it a reality.

Another service in our community that will be improved thanks to this budget is the Bureau of Meteorology. Weather services right across the country will receive a boost, especially in rural and regional areas like the one I represent. In Capricornia weather services at Clermont, Collinsville, Moranbah, Rockhampton, St Lawrence and Yeppoon will receive next-generation weather forecasting and warning systems. This will expand their service to seven-day forecasting. This will mean greater and more reliable information for the people who live there. All this information will be available through interactive maps on the bureau’s very popular website.

For farmers and fishermen this information is not only useful; it is critical. It will equip them with the latest weather forecasts as they make decisions about getting out on the water or planting crops. You cannot overestimate the importance of that in making the pretty big dollar decisions that those primary producers have to make. Australia is a big place and needs reliable weather data, as we have seen demonstrated very clearly in the member for Fadden’s electorate with the extreme rainfall and storms just last week. Thanks to the $78.5 million boost in this budget for the Bureau of Meteorology, weather services will be improved in rural and regional areas.

This budget has also honoured our commitment to pensioners. The government has been committed to getting these reforms right. That is why we commissioned the Harmer review into pensions and that is why we have taken action in this budget. Single pensioners on the full rate will receive an additional $32.49 per week and couples on the full rate will receive an additional $10.14 combined per week. Pensioner payments will be simpler, fairer and more flexible as a result of the reforms contained in the budget.

Those payments incorporate an increase to the base pension level and also an increase to the new pension supplement, which incorporates several existing supplements into one supplement. The supplement will initially be provided fortnightly, and from July 2010 pensioners will be able to choose to take around half the new supplement in quarterly instalments. It came out clearly in consultations undertaken around the country as part of the Harmer review that pensioners wanted to have the flexibility to choose between regular payments and larger lump sums. This will give pensioners more flexibility over the way they receive payments and greater choice and capacity to manage their finances. The pension supplement will be indexed twice a year by movements in the consumer price index in March and September, at the same time as regular indexation of the base pension.

Another area I was very pleased to see addressed in this budget is higher education. Of course, the government came into office with a promise to deliver a much-needed education revolution in this country. We have seen that delivered in both the primary and secondary sectors. In the budget this time it was the turn of the tertiary sector, universities and the VET sector. This was in response to the reforms called for through the Cutler and Bradley reviews into innovation and education.

These reforms include a move to a student centred system underpinned by a national regulatory and quality agency which will enable an extra 50,000 new students to commence a degree by 2013; substantial resources to promote equity and performance funding tied to quality; a landmark increase to university indexation; a phased move to addressing the gap in funding for the indirect costs of research; major reform to student income support, to better support our most needy students; and an increase to postgraduate stipends. They also include major investment in higher education, research and VET infrastructure, through the Education Investment Fund totalling $3 billion; and additional recurrent funding of $2.1 billion over the forward estimates for higher education teaching, learning and research.

I will take the opportunity in this speech to welcome the announcement in the last couple of weeks of the new Vice-Chancellor of CQUniversity Australia, which has its headquarters, I guess you could say, or its main campus in the city of Rockhampton. We will be welcoming Professor Scott Bowman to our city and to the university. I look forward to working with him to build on the strengths of CQUniversity Australia and to make sure that it continues to play that very important role that it has traditionally played in providing opportunities for people in Central Queensland, for doing research and extension work, working with our local industries and generally adding great value to our communities and to our industries in Central Queensland. So congratulations go to Professor Bowman for being selected to take up that position, and I am looking forward to working with him. I know he has a great track record at James Cook University. I know he will have a lot of ideas for meeting the challenges that face CQUniversity Australia and also making the most of the opportunities that are presented in this reform package, which has been backed with significant funding in the budget this year.

I also want to talk about the first home owners boost. The boost to the First Home Owners Grants scheme has been widely welcomed since we introduced it in October last year. Since then, and up to the end of March, it has helped 59,000 first home buyers get a leg-up into the market. Real estate agents in Central Queensland have welcomed the boost, and with so many ‘sold’ signs on houses for sale it is easy to understand why. A major reason for increasing the boost was very much to generate and support construction activity in the housing sector, which is so important to creating jobs, not just in the building industry but also in all of the supporting industries, whether they be whitegoods, cabinetmaking or carpet stores, involved in the fitting out of new houses.

We have now announced that we are going to extend the boost as it stands until 30 September, and then phase it out responsibly through the remaining months of 2009. So, until 30 September, first home buyers hunting for an existing home will receive $14,000 towards that home and $21,000 if they choose to build a new home. That will taper down towards the end of the year.

One thing that I used to spend a lot of time talking about under the previous government—and I am very pleased to say that I am talking about it in a different light these days—is broadband. We made that commitment to the Australian people, going into the 2000 election, that we would build a national broadband network to deliver high-speed internet access to Australians wherever they live in this country. This budget reaffirms the commitment to developing a national broadband network, providing superfast broadband across the country. The company established by the government will invest up to $43 billion over eight years to build the network, and significant private sector investment is also anticipated. The government is making an initial investment in the network of $4.7 billion.

There has been a change to the way that we want to roll out the network. We now want to achieve 90 per cent fibre-to-the-premises coverage to deliver speeds of up to 100 megabits per second to consumers. The remaining coverage is to be provided through state-of-the-art wireless and satellite technologies, offering speeds of 12 megabits per second or more. I know that will be welcome throughout my community. We have been waiting far too long to have the technology you need to survive and prosper in the 21st century. I was very pleased to return to my electorate to tell them what we will be gaining out of this budget. Rest assured that the government will continue to support jobs and to bring the budget back to surplus when the economy recovers, as we expect it to. (Time expired)

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Rudd Labor government comprehensively failed to grasp the power of the pull factors when it dismantled the coalition’s asylum seeker and humanitarian program. When we looked at the government’s budget, delivered the other night, we saw that it reinforced the government’s failure to grasp the complexity of, and the very significant need for, properly delivered services when it comes to looking after our nation’s interests. Our immigration program must be delivered in an orderly way and the government must remain in control of who comes into this country and, indeed, the numbers. Quite simply, the Rudd budget has failed to put roadblocks in front of people smugglers. Instead, the government has couched its messages into the region in such a way that the flood is back and asylum seekers’ lives are again imperilled.

The majority of the budget in the area of border integrity—some $654 million was allocated to combat people smuggling—is basically being spent on improving the capacity of Australian officials to guide the boats organised by people smugglers to safe harbour at Christmas Island. The Minister for Home Affairs, Bob Debus, has a standard set of words he puts out after each boat arrival. There have been more than 20 boats since last August, so he has had many chances to repeat this message and it is beginning to amuse the media more than a little. He proudly announces that his officials have managed to locate and intercept yet another smuggler’s boat. We are apparently to applaud this cleverness is locating and intercepting. The point is, of course, that the people smugglers are paid to put their boats in the way of Australian officials. The asylum seekers pay to be delivered into the hands of Australian officials who will then, they hope, tow them or guide them to Christmas Island where the processing of their asylum seeker claims can begin. Unfortunately, this government does not seem to understand that basic point—or they think we, the public, are too stupid to understand exactly what is going on.

Last August, the Rudd government softened border protection by abolishing temporary protection visas. Senator Chris Evans, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, proudly announced that it did not matter from that date how you got into Australia you would be on exactly the same visa, even if you had spent nine years living securely in Indonesia since originally leaving a dangerous zone in Afghanistan or Iraq, for example, or if you had come down into Australia once before via the people smugglers. The Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Evans, stated in question time in the Senate on 12 May that there had been no softening of border security measures under this government:

… we retained all of the Howard government’s border security measures—every one of them …

Clearly, again, he thought the Australian public was stupid or he himself had forgotten about their abolition of temporary protection visas, about Manus Island and Nauru Island being closed, the more limited appeal processes than were once in place and, of course, the soft messaging that has gone out into the region, reinforcing all of those new removals from what was before a very strong policy.

Most recently, the Joint Standing Committee on Migration recommended that asylum seekers move out of detention as quickly as possible. In fact, before their security, health and identify checks are completed, they should move into the Australian community where they should be able to work—they would be given work permits—and they would get access to Medicare, supported accommodation and furniture; all the assistance needed that can be supplied by the taxpayer in Australia. You can imagine what sort of message that gives out to the region again, to the people smugglers who hardly need any more good, positive messages to give to their clients. But here is another set for them to add to the mix.

The joint standing committee also recommended that, if you have an adverse decision in your application for asylum, you can move straight out of detention into the community, where you would have work rights and those other taxpayer funded support measures. Imagine again how comforting that must be when you are being asked to shell out US$12,000, US$15,000 or US$18,000 for your spot on the boat. The budget introduces measures that can only be interpreted as a further softening of the integrity of our borders and providing even greater good news for the people smugglers. Good news for people smugglers leads to death and injury, and I think that should be abhorred.

New measures in the budget also include the introduction of so-called complementary protection visas. These, no doubt, will increase the potential for even more non-refugee protection applications by those who seek the residency associated with asylum seeking. Complementary protection visas can be applied for when you do not qualify for refugee status under the UNHCR criteria. From what we can tell by the budget announcements—we have not been given much detail—these new categories of visa holders will have permanent residency with all of the taxpayer funded trimmings or, if they are rejected, they will get the full appeal rights with work permits and the like while they wait. Why wouldn’t you apply and appeal?

The government will also abolish the 45-day rule, we are told, which means that, for example, an international student could complete their studies in Australia, after several years perhaps, and then apply for a protection visa. Currently, you have to apply for asylum within 45 days of your arrival in this country. We believe that within 45 days you should be able to get your act together sufficiently, even if very traumatised, to apply for asylum, but, of course, if you were unable to do so there was a mechanism to appeal to the minister to use his discretion to allow you to apply later than 45 days. But now this 45-day rule is to be abolished. You can imagine the vexatious claims, the months and years of appeals and the cost to the community with the abolition of the 45-day rule. On the other hand, you can imagine the lovely new message going out to the people smugglers: ‘They’ve even removed the 45-day rule. You can see just how good it’s getting to come through the back door to Australia.’

Combined with the staff cuts of over 600 in the past two budgets for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, there is a further cut of $120.6 million to the department over the next four years. With these new visa categories I have referred to and the extra softening of the measures which are supposed to maintain the integrity of our migration policy, you can imagine the extraordinary additional pressure that is now on Department of Immigration and Citizenship officials. We are told that they are also to have their consultancy budgets contracted. This will invariably lead to integrity and compliance failures as we see increased waiting times for individuals as they wait for visa processing offshore or onshore. There is already a 10-year wait for a parent visa and a wait of several years if you contribute to the cost of your parents’ upkeep when you are applying for them to come to Australia. You can imagine the frustration of someone in Kabul or Iraq or Thailand going to an Australian embassy or commission to find fewer officials and more locally employed staff bringing to that office their local ethnic prejudices and their own enculturation. This is not where Australia should be when we once had world-best migration policy and practice.

Yesterday in estimates the Federal Police conceded that they had, with the help of the Indonesians, stopped another 887 boat people attempting to leave Indonesia on their way through the back door to Australia. Considering more than 800 did successfully get past the Indonesians, you would think this budget would have given some special support to those involved in border protection and migration policy processing. But, no, we saw the reverse. In fact, we have seen another 220 staff cut from the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, 35 from the Australian Crime Commission, 18 from the Australian Federal Police, four from the Federal Court of Australia and 132 from the Federal Magistrates Court. I mention those courts because there are over 900 outstanding migration cases stacked up in our courts as I speak. It looks like those queues are going to get longer too. I think it is a shame.

Just before this budget, we also had the long awaited announcement that there is to be a cut in the migration program, which had been the biggest on record, reducing the skills component by more than 20 per cent but increasing the family component by five per cent. This was an unusual move. Of course, we all love our families and know the sadness when a new settler family leaves behind loved ones—cousins, parents, adult siblings and so on—but we also know that, when the country and the economy are in extraordinarily difficult times, migration other than by highly skilled workers who can fill critical skills needs, for example, by family members, is a great drain on national resources. This has been highlighted in a number of recent studies. We have a 20 per cent reduction in the skilled component, with the family component increased by five per cent—a fairly extraordinary move indeed. We know from extensive research that Australia’s migration program delivers economic benefits to the entire community only if the skilled portion remains at around two-thirds of the entire program. That is what the coalition did in 1996: it redressed the imbalance and brought the skilled component up to about 70 per cent of the entire intake.

The government also announced an increase of 250 places in the humanitarian program. At first blush, I thought that was a compassionate move, but then I understood that the number of UNHCR mandated refugees that we accept from the hell holes in Africa, Asia and the Middle East have not been increased; they remain steady at just 6,000. I think it is imperative to look at that mix and to see that those most in need should have perhaps had the additional 250 places. But no, the number of UNHCR mandated refugees is to remain the same.

This budget is an extraordinary disappointment, too, in that once you have settled in our country you expect and should receive support for English language learning. You cannot get a job if you cannot speak English. Unfortunately, we have seen a slash in funding for the English language program. How extraordinary. In the 2008-09 budget, the government set aside $49.2 million over four years for the Adult Migrant English Program. The allocation for financial year 2009-10 was $13.3 million, with $14.8 million and $15.9 million for 2010-11 and 2011-12 respectively. However, in this year’s budget, the allocation is only for $1.1 million, with a reduction of $3.7 million in 2010. Further reductions of $8.7 million and $9.1 million are targeted for 2011, making a total reduction of $20.4 million to English language teaching over four years. I say: shame.

I have spent a lot of time visiting electorates around Australia where our new arrivals have particularly settled. I have spoken to single mothers in electorates like Stirling who have come from African nations—from Sierra Leone and from the Sudan—and they are desperate to learn English. They need more support, not less, as they look for child care to be added to their English language training and as they look for a more flexible program so that they can perhaps combine part-time work with English language learning. However, this government has slashed English language training for new settlers.

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It’s outrageous.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is absolutely outrageous. It is inhumane and unjust. I just wonder what on earth is going on with a government which is so keen to wear its heart on its sleeve but which, in reality, slashes and burns and makes it harder for people whom we have embraced in this country and have said we would care for by cutting the fundamentals of English language learning.

The government has also slashed training in citizenship. We all know that, if you are from a non-English-speaking background, you often need a bit of help to learn the style of questions that will be asked in the citizenship test. You need to become familiar with the format. Of course, while the booklet is well written, you still need some help, especially if you are not literate and numerate in your home language, to understand the process of the test for Australian citizenship. We as a coalition ensured that there was funding for those training programs. This government has announced that it will not proceed with the funding of $15.8 million for the Citizenship Support Grants Program. I think that is very unfair. It really begs the question: if you are not helping those individuals to learn English and if you are now not helping them to learn what is behind our citizenship test, do you really want these people in this country? But then you see the softening of the border protection controls and the loss of the integrity of our migration program—the open-door, come on down policy—and you wonder what is going on with this government.

There was an excellent article, an opinion piece, on page 10 in the Australian on Monday, written by Barry Cohen, a minister in the Hawke Labor government between 1983 and 1987. I recommend that every Labor member and senator read that article. He says it exactly like it is. He says that you cannot have an open-door policy. He says in a rhetorical question:

Tell us, how many or if they would prefer an open-door policy?

He is addressing those who say that we do not have to deal with the current problem of the surge in people smuggling. He is a man whose own family escaped the hell of Nazi Germany. He says:

No Australian government, and for that matter, no government in the world has an “open-door” policy.

It is a real lesson for his contemporary Labor member and senator colleagues. I urge them to read that article.

I now address another matter which is of extraordinary importance and, I am afraid, one that is along the same theme of an uncaring or ignorant government. This budget has seen a change in the criteria for young people seeking financial support to go to university. It is a change in the youth allowance criteria. In the last two days, questions have been asked during question time in the House of Representatives which have shown that Julia Gillard, the minister in this area, does not understand, does not care or is that badly briefed that she is unable to explain exactly what this government has done in slashing the opportunity for 50 per cent of those on youth allowance to go to university. They are the rural and regional students.

What she has done is say that, in the future, if you are seeking independent status you have to work 18 months for 30 hours a week in order to qualify for it. Now, clearly, she has not moved beyond her own suburban environs or the capital cities for a very long time. There are no 30-hour-a-week jobs for year 12 school leavers in rural and regional Australia right now. If you work—if you are lucky—for 18 months as required, you lose your place at university because the universities only allow you to defer for one year.

The minister has said in her new program, her rewritten youth allowance criteria, that you have to work for 18 months—oops! She forgot that you would lose your place at university—and that you must work for 30 hours a week. Given what the Rudd Labor government’s unemployment figures look like right now and where they are going to, that is an unreal ask. Already there is a 50 per cent higher deferment rate of university offers to students in rural and regional Victoria than in metropolitan Melbourne. The gap year is not a choice for someone who simply wants to go on a lovely holiday or go on overseas. The gap year gives rural and regional students an opportunity to get government support to pay the extra $15,000 to $20,000 it costs to live away from home.

If the old system was being rorted, you should fix the rorts. You should go to the metropolitan families who were apparently working over the system in an unfair way and deal with them. You do not cut off the opportunities for rural and regional students to go to university, because we know, for example, that rural and regional medical, legal and engineering students and students studying to become surveyors and nurses—you name them—who are born and bred in country areas and who qualify for university are more likely to come back and work in rural and regional Australia. This government is taking generations of university graduates out of rural and regional areas. I think that is a disgrace and I beg the minister to look again at that criteria. She cannot tell us, ‘I’ve reduced the age of adulthood.’ You have already left university at the age of 22. She cannot say to us, ‘I’ve increased the means test,’ because at the rate she says you can still be eligible, you get zero for your student to live away on. This was a cruel blow for country people. They are up in arms. I have a rally on Friday in Shepparton, in the mall, where we expect hundreds, if not thousands, of year 12 students and those in their gap year to attend. (Time expired)

Sharryn Jackson (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to speak in support of Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2009-2010 and, indeed, the budget—a budget which is about nation building for recovery. This budget is outstanding in the sense that it invests in nation-building infrastructure like rail, road, ports, clean energy, schools, hospitals and universities—all infrastructure for the future. It delivers a fair go as well to pensioners and a sustainable pensions system, it charts a course for recovery back to surplus and, importantly to me, it delivers on the commitment for paid parental leave. Our budget supports jobs now and delivers the investment needed to strengthen the economy for the future.

We should not forget the context in which this budget has been framed. We are experiencing the deepest global recession since the Great Depression. I am proud that nearly 70 per cent of the stimulus is about investing in infrastructure. I say that we should not forget the context in which the budget is being cast, because it seems to me from comments, many of them made by members of the opposition, that they fail to understand, accept or even remember that we are in the greatest global recession we have witnessed since the Great Depression.

My own electorate of Hasluck has done exceedingly well out of the budget. Not only have I had pleased reports from pensioners throughout my electorate but I can proudly say that I have visited many of my 70-odd schools who have been the beneficiaries of funding, both under the Building the Education Revolution funding as well as the National School Pride program. I am also a lucky that I have had substantial investments through my local governments and local government infrastructure. I am very pleased to see the additional funding for the Swan River Regional Park, which will be an absolutely iconic 100 hectares at the gateway to the Swan Valley—the traditional meeting place of all of the Noongar tribes in the state of Western Australia, on the banks of Derbal Yerrigan, which will become a magnificent ecotourism area for visitors to the Swan region. I am pleased that a team of very enthusiastic young Indigenous trainees are already working in the park and developing the interpretive pathways and signage.

The other substantial funding in my electorate goes to the creation of the Kalamunda cultural centre, which will also be a significant added resource to the Hills community. It will provide a home for the tourism association as well as a display for the wines that are created in my electorate, just east of the Perth Hills. I could not possibly speak on the budget without also mentioning the absolutely magnificent investment of $180.1 million towards the midland health campus in the City of Swan—fantastic funding which, frankly, rescued the future of the hospital in Midland.

I could talk for hours about some of the funding that has been received from the nation-building program I talked about, especially for roads. In particular, there is the planned upgrade to the Great Eastern Highway-Roe Highway interchange, which has been a traffic hazard in my electorate for many years. There is also substantial funding for the Perth urban transport and freight corridor going through my electorate, which supports entry roads coming not only from the east but also the north. It is important to be able to see that freight moved in a sensible and safe fashion. There will be additional Roads to Recovery funding for each of the five local councils that are either in the electorate of Hasluck or border the edges of the electorate of Hasluck, and especially there is additional Black Spots program funding for a number of roads in my electorate. Most pleasing is to hear of the money for Welshpool Road East in Lesmurdie, where we have had some five fatalities in the last two years. I am glad to see that investment being made in hopefully making that intersection and that stretch of road safer.

I have talked about the expansion that will occur with the Midland health campus. That campus was originally part of a hospitals review and reform process in Western Australia, initiated by the then Western Australian state Labor government. In recent days and months we had become increasingly concerned by the media comments of Kim Hames, the now Deputy Premier and state Liberal Minister for Health and Indigenous Affairs in Western Australia, who had indicated that there was likely to be a substantial delay in the construction of the Midland health campus. He said he also believed that there would be a shortfall of some $100 million and, as a consequence of that, he had decided that he would delay the development of the Midland health campus. That would have been a great tragedy for my constituents and for the eastern suburbs of Perth more generally, and also for the surrounding regional areas. The hospital plays a crucial role but at the moment is only able to treat 35 per cent of patients in the area. It cannot deal with patients suffering acuity problems, and there was substantial disappointment in the local area that the project would be delayed. Indeed, on the day of the release of the federal budget my local paper, the Midland-Kalamunda Reporter, published their concern that the Midland health campus had, as the headline read, ‘one foot in the grave’. It reported on the fact that the state Liberal government was backing away from the commitment for the Midland health campus to proceed. You can imagine my pleasure a week later with the newspaper headlines about the campus lifeline and the delightful picture of the Treasurer pulling the casket of the Midland health campus out of the grave. This is an announcement that has been exceedingly well received by people in the eastern suburbs and in Midland more generally. The $180.1 million funding boost will ensure that the health campus can now be built on time and we should be enjoying the opening of the Midland health campus in 2013. Frankly, there is now no reason that the state health minister can point to, to say why the Midland health campus should not proceed on time.

It has been a bit disappointing in my local electorate to have to confront some of the comments from members opposite about not only the budget but in particular the Nation Building and Jobs Plan. Generally, it is a fairly dishonest scare campaign about debt and deficit. Only recently, for example, Senator Judith Adams put out a press release, on 21 May, accusing us of ignoring aged care in the electorate of Hasluck. Amongst other things, she said that in her view the government had completely ignored the industry of aged and community care and that instead of investing in the aged-care needs of our ageing population the government believed it was not a priority, and indeed it was suggested that aged-care providers had been completely excluded from accessing any of the funding under the economic stimulus package. Clearly that is simply not true, and the senator should stick to the facts.

It is quite cheeky for someone who was part of a government that, it could be said, had no plans for the future. It certainly had no plans for older Australians and no plan to deal with our ageing population other than to prepare reports. It certainly had no plans for pension reform despite nearly 12 years in government. As I have pointed out to the senator, we have increased funding for aged and community care service providers to a record level of $44 billion. In Hasluck, the Rudd government has increased aged and community care funding this year, and to that end there are a number of measures in the 2009-10 budget.

Senator Adams seems to be doing what most other members, at least federal members, of the Western Australian Liberal Party are doing—that is, completely ignoring the global recession and the reasons why the government has taken the path it has and gone into debt. Instead, they are concentrating on a more short-term political interest agenda rather than the national interest. She knows that the deficit has been caused by the global recession, the reduction in government revenues and the end of the mining boom. If the Liberals were in government, they would have no choice but to borrow and go into deficit.

Interestingly enough, this is not the attitude of the Western Australian state Liberal government. I was very pleased to be involved in a joint announcement with the Minister for Education and Tourism in Western Australia, Elizabeth Constable, on 5 April this year at the lovely Helena Valley Primary School about the National School Pride Program and the investment in Western Australia. The education minister, Hon. Liz Constable, said in her media release of 5 April that she ‘welcomed the federal government’s commitment to spend $46.47million on minor infrastructure and refurbishment projects in 330 schools in Western Australia’.

It does not end there. Troy Buswell, the state Treasurer, a reasonably famous or infamous political figure, put out a media release on Wednesday, 15 April—he is, amongst other things, the Minister for Housing and Works—which had the headline, ‘Tenders out for $100 million of maintenance and minor works in WA schools’. In the body of the media release it said:

Treasurer Troy Buswell … announced that tenders were now open for the National School Pride Program, the first stage of the Commonwealth’s ‘Building the Education Revolution’ program, which was welcomed earlier this month by Education Minister Liz Constable.

He goes on in the press release:

Apart from providing much-needed improvements to many schools, the National School Pride Program will provide many opportunities for businesses of all sizes to tender for works.

He goes on, towards the end of his media release, to say:

The Commonwealth’s ‘Building the Education Revolution’ (BER) program would see more than $1billion invested in maintenance and new capital works for almost 800 Western Australian public schools within the next two years

The tender released today listed 594 schools, with a further 195 schools to be added by the end of the month.

What Minister Troy Buswell has certainly cottoned onto, even though his colleagues in the federal parliamentary Liberal Party have failed to, is that this budget and the economic stimulus package are about jobs. He said in another media release on Friday 24 April 2009:

As part of our involvement in the ‘Building the Education Revolution’ program, the State Government is asking construction industry training organisations to submit lists of apprentices that have been unemployed, are under-employed or face the prospect of unemployment due to the current downturn in the economy.

We will provide opportunities for at least 80 additional building trade apprentice positions, including at least 60 in the metropolitan area and a further 20 in the regions.

The ‘Building the Education Revolution’ program forms a key part of the Commonwealth’s Nation Building - Economic Stimulus Plan and involves the rapid construction and refurbishment of school infrastructure.

Indeed, on their budget day on Thursday 14 May, the education minister, Liz Constable, launched what she described as ‘the most comprehensive public schools asset improvement program in the state’s history’. It was some $1.066 billion which would be spent on improving school assets. She says in her media release:

This includes Federal Government funding of $666million from the Building the Education Revolution infrastructure program, with projects due for completion in 2011.

Of course it is not just about the Building the Education Revolution and the National School Pride program, it is also about the social housing program, which the housing and works minister, Troy Buswell, boasted about in a gleeful media release dated 8 April 2009 and titled ‘Social housing boost for Western Australia’. In a joint announcement with Senator Mark Arbib, he said:

… work would begin on the first phase of construction of 2,000 new social houses in WA under a joint State-Federal initiative.

He goes on to say in his media release:

Creating these new homes will also provide a welcome boost to our local building industry.

To cap it all off was his own budget media release on Thursday, 14 May, where he said:

The Minister said the State had embraced the Federal Government’s Nation Building and Jobs Economic Stimulus Plan, to support economic growth and jobs.

“This represents an historic effort to collectively leverage State and private sector land holdings with Federal capital contributions,” he said.

“This will stimulate the local housing and construction industry, including the generation of many jobs in that sector, and significantly increase the supply of social housing—both through new construction and the refurbishment of run-down stock.

“Partnership between the State and Commonwealth will see at least 3,000 additional dwellings built throughout WA over the four years from 2008-09.

…            …            …

An initial $70 million has already been approved by the Federal Government for the immediate construction of 286 dwellings across the State, with the State Government contributing land worth $40 million

The Prime Minister accused members of the opposition of hypocrisy today. The point I am trying to make here is, I would be sorely tempted to be an observer at the WA Liberals’ state council meeting, I have listened and there is an obvious difference of opinion between the federal representatives in Western Australia, who are members of the Liberal Party, and what they say in the dishonest scare campaign they are running about deficit and debt, and their state colleagues who are responsible for running Western Australia. Their state colleagues are embracing the federal government’s economic stimulus package and congratulating the federal government on its investment because they know it is about creating and protecting jobs in the community and cushioning Australians against the worst impacts of the global financial crisis. Before we can honestly accept the comments of some of the representatives on that side—we already know that they come to Canberra and they vote against these packages, vote against the improvements in schools and vote against things like the Midland health campus in my community in Hasluck—they must know that there is support in the local community and there is an understanding of what the federal government’s budget agenda is all about. I commend the bills to the House.

Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I grew up in the quintessential Australian country town of Narrogin, which lies south-east of Perth in the heart of the wheat belt. The lessons I learnt from living with my family in a farming district are lessons I have carried with me throughout my life.

Farming and rural communities have evolved around perennial uncertainty, never quite sure about what the next season will bring or what effect the elements out of their control may have on their livelihood. Nonetheless, they continue to stand steadfast, ready to make the best of what comes their way. It is this stoicism, adaptability and sometimes just raw courage that has helped Australia to become the nation that it is today.

The government could learn a lot from our farmers and those living in rural Australia. It would be nice if they could visit a lot more often. They have talked incessantly about the unchartered waters from which they must govern and, as a consequence, people across Australia are feeling the tide of uncertainty rise through the doors of their houses and businesses.

Having to plan a budget within the context of the global financial crisis is clearly challenging the government, and, arguably, it is a job well beyond their capability.

They have talked up the unprecedented external pressures bearing down on them and placed too much reliance on a massive debt and deficit policy that will burden every man, woman and child in Australia for at least the next 13 years, by the Prime Minister’s own admission in the House yesterday, and that is considered an overly optimistic projection by most responsible commentators. This big spend may be justifiable if it was going to be a properly targeted and managed infrastructure plan that provides long-term improvement in standards of living and jobs.

One of the key issues in the first tranche of the government’s so-called cash splash was that it was going to create a vast number of jobs. That did not happen. Now the government is spending a lot of time and energy trying to convince the Australian public of the merit of their infrastructure spending, but from my observations much of it has been implemented in undue haste, without proper public consultation and without independent scrutiny. We only have to look at the $43 billion to be spent on the new broadband system, which was an amount taken out of virtually thin air, guessed at and with no figures around it to substantiate the merit of what was being planned. I fear that is the case with many of these infrastructure projects that are being constructed today.

There are a few landmark projects, such as the Oakajee project in Western Australia, which will create substantial jobs and generate billions of dollars of income, and the money that the federal government is putting into that is money well spent. We have to thank the Premier of Western Australia, Colin Barnett, for bringing that project to fruition. We are pleased that the federal government is putting in some of the money, because it is a real generator of wealth and of jobs. On balance though, I suspect that we may well look back in a couple of years and ask the question, ‘What have we to show for the high level of debt and deficit that must now be repaid?’ This government talks of the revenue drought and of fiscal discipline needed to get us through. But the people of Australia have not seen any so-called fiscal discipline. They have seen their hard-earned money being spent with profligacy.

In the face of all this uncertainty, perhaps it is timely that we share with the government the lessons that have been learnt by farming communities over many lifetimes on how to deal with the climate of uncertainty. After all, the agricultural sector is the only one to record growth in recent times. In the September quarter national GDP went up one per cent, yet farm GDP went up 14.9 per cent. Similarly in the December quarter, which was the country’s first quarter of negative growth in national GDP, national GDP went down by 0.5 per cent, and by contrast farm GDP increased by 10.8 per cent.

Primary producers have held their own under economic conditions that would literally floor most people. Drought, fire, flood, currency fluctuations, steeply rising costs of fuel, fertiliser and chemicals, and the global financial crisis have failed to dampen the enthusiasm and the determination of this sector. They just work harder, smarter and longer to achieve results.

As I move around the rural and regional areas of the electorate of Pearce, I am reminded of the most important lesson that we can learn from the farming community: they know to call a spade a spade; and they know to call the drought a drought and not a temporary reduction in localised precipitation.

The first lesson this government needs to learn is to call the deficit a deficit and call the debt a debt and, in the interests of transparency, quantify it rather than try to obfuscate. The obfuscation started with the budget when the government failed to portray the extent of the deficit and continued as the Treasurer refused to utter the word ‘billion’. Instead he referred to the deficit as ‘57’ instead of ‘$57 billion’, and the Prime Minister followed by referring to the projected debt level as ‘300’ instead of ‘$300 billion’. In fact, we saw him in the House just the other day admit that it is more likely to be $315 billion.

It is disingenuous of the Prime Minister to engage in such tactics and, frankly, it is an insult to the intelligence of the Australian people. The government appear to be incapable of answering a question directly or in a language that is intelligible. Further, they try to use a nice comfy phrase, to pull the wool over the eyes of people by referring to the great big hole in our national finances as ‘a temporary deficit’. Just like the current budgetary situation, farmers are frequently required to prioritise spending in the face of uncertainty. They know that, if their revenues are savaged, targeted spending is the only way they will recover. At the same time, farmers know that no matter how low their revenues get, there are some expenditures which simply cannot be sacrificed.

So what do we see in the budget? On a national scale, critical expenses are our quarantine and biosecurity measures, when the Beale review recommended that the budget allocate an additional $260 million per annum to biosecurity. This government publicly accepted all the recommendations of the review. How is it then possible that they have cut funding by $35.877 million? An investment in biosecurity is a small price to pay for the security of Australia’s clean food production and the health of all Australians. This may look like a saving in the short term, but the experience with equine influenza, avian influenza or melamine in Chinese milk shows us that it will cost much, much more in the future. Equine influenza cost the lives of Australian people, as well as decimating a whole industry.

This budget not only hits the primary production sector in the cut of $908,234,000 in spending but also it loads the rural sector up with increased fees and charges. In fact, the budget papers do not mention the $18 billion in tax cuts that will be borne by all Australians. Farmers and food producers will now face a bill of $618,000 for certification of agricultural exports. This represents a 767 per cent increase for meat health certification and—wait for it—a 1,352 per cent increase in manual document charges for exporting food and produce from this country. We get stuck into the banks for increasing fees but the banks, I do not believe, have ever managed an increase of that dimension in one year. Dean Logan, the chief executive officer of Small to Medium Enterprises Australia said:

This is one of the most ill-thought-out business-related policy decisions made by this government in what are unprecedented tough economic times for our exporters.

This kind of approach to budget is just daft. It is very difficult to understand. In addition, a massive $12 million was cut from the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation. One can only assume that this is an idea driven by short-term desire for retribution on a corporation that dared to speak out against the proposed ETS. There is no other logical reason for that massive cut in funding for rural industry research and development.

Most staggering of all, Land and Water Australia has been abolished altogether, while one of the most pressing problems facing this country is the supply of water, particularly for people in the horticulture and agriculture sectors. The main aim of that group has been to assist farmers with productive and sustainable farming. Their researchers help farmers across Australia to deal with the uncertainties inherent in modern farming. Farmers in the Avon region of my electorate benefited greatly from the work of Land and Water Australia in their Grain and Graze initiative.

The National Farmers Federation vice president, Charles Burke, has described the farming sector as ‘the backbone of the national economy’ noting that, ‘We have built the productivity of our farming levels off the back of research and development, but current investment is now at wafer-thin levels.’

Mr Burke noted that the National Farmers Federation were ‘deeply disappointed’ with the slashing of vital funding into research and development in agriculture. It is a very sad state of affairs when an Australian government would rather splash cash than continue to support the invaluable work of organisations like Land and Water Australia that are focused on addressing the long-term needs of the Australian community.

As those of us in Canberra look out at a sea of red ink in the national economy, many farmers are looking out at their fields of red dust. The member for the Riverina was telling me yesterday about the terrible dust storms in her electorate in New South Wales. Fruit and vegetable growers all over the country face a future where water is scarce and expensive. Seeing people’s lifework trashed is truly heartbreaking, but the real tragedy is that with better planning and attention to important water infrastructure, conservation and renewable energy programs we could minimise the failure and the heartache and improve our agricultural and horticultural output.

What farmers know and what the government clearly has not yet learnt is that in times of uncertainty spending must be productive and it must be sustainable. What this budget delivers is far from productive or sustainable. The massive $908 million cut in spending on Australian agriculture starkly demonstrates that long-term productivity and sustainability was low on the government’s list of priorities. It is clear that the agricultural sector is not well-served by the current minister for agriculture, who has failed to impress upon his leaders the importance of agriculture as a generator of jobs and wealth as well as producing the nation’s food for both domestic consumption and for export. Food production and security should be one of our top priorities. Instead it is clear that, for the Labor government, our primary production sector is always at the bottom of the barrel.

The government’s budget predictions include that there will soon be one million Australians unemployed. The solution lies in hard work and entrepreneurship of private sector enterprises which create the jobs. Any recovery will depend also on the workers who carry out the work that is generated by industry. Historically it is small and medium enterprises that drive job growth. They rarely ask for a handout but they do need a hand up. One of the critical issues facing many new and established enterprises is the impact government policies have on available liquidity. Many businesspeople tell me that liquidity is very tight. And what do we see this government do? Scrap the employee share ownership scheme. Not only is it an important equity issue for employees but it is an important revenue raising source for employers. What a crazy decision that is!

What we have seen so far is generous bailouts for big industries such as the four big banks and the motor vehicle manufacturers, and of course we have seen Ruddbank, which has been set up to bail out big property developers primarily. But there is nothing much to assist small and medium enterprises, the engines that drive this country’s economy. Just additional imposts on that sector—more taxes, more charges, more fees—is what they will get.

All Australians recognise that these are tough times and we can accept that tough decisions are needed. But what is unacceptable is the reckless approach to economic management displayed by this government. In an electorate survey I did recently the majority of the electors of Pearce nominated wise spending of taxpayers’ money as the second-highest priority issue along with access to hospitals and health care—another broken promise by the Rudd Labor government. They came to office promising to fix the hospitals and to take them over if the states did not fix them, and people are still concerned about that. But the important thing is that the electors of Pearce nominated wise spending of taxpayers’ money as a very high priority issue. It is not as though the government were not warned.

Labor beat up inflation soon after coming to government, overplaying that hand to the detriment of the Australian economy. They were warned that the real threat to the economy was the financial problems caused by the subprime market in the United States. The former Treasurer, in fact the member for Higgins, was branded a scaremonger for warning of the impending fallout from an overheated financial sector, particularly in the United States. So, having whipped up the inflation bogey, causing hikes in interest rates, the government then added fuel to the fire with an overreaction to the global financial meltdown, initially implementing an unlimited guarantee on the deposits of the four major banks. When investment bank liquidity dried up and car dealers could not get their plans funded, amongst other disasters, the government rectified their mistake only with a lot of prompting from the opposition leader, Malcolm Turnbull, who had all along called for an up-limit to the government guarantee.

The government has squandered the profits of Australia’s boom and impeccable fiscal management, recklessly spending into debt at the rate of $3 billion a week. That is what we are spending: $3 billion a week. To make matters worse, the legacy of debt that they will leave us with in this place will be a ball and chain around generations to come. I want to highlight that with a quote. There was an excellent article in today’s West Australian by Paul Murray, whom I must say has been writing some very fine pieces for the opinion page. He made this very telling point. He was actually contrasting the Western Australian budget, which has recently been released, with the national budget and drawing some comparisons between the rigour of the Western Australian figures and the lack of rigour in the figures produced by the federal Treasurer. He finished the article by saying:

The acute point here is that if the Rudd Government’s growth projections are wrong—

and he certainly gives information to suggest that they are highly optimistic and not really something we could count on—

and revenues remain depressed, then there will have to be a series of slash-and-burn Federal Budgets in those underperforming years.

That’s a future Mr Rudd doesn’t want Australians to see.

This is the reason that the Rudd government, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer do not want to let the Australian public know just how much debt and deficit they have got this country into. It is about time this government took lessons from those who built this country before they go dismantling and undermining all those institutions and the good work of a previous generation.

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

I rise to support Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2009-2010 and the range of measures that are contained within the budget that was handed down by the Treasurer—the second budget of the Rudd government. This is a budget that is about nation building for the recovery. It is about acting now to support jobs and provide an investment in the infrastructure that our nation will need into the future. It forms a part of the government’s overall economic strategy, which can best be described as being a three-tiered approach. The first tier was about providing the short-term stimulus involved in providing income support, in particular to those who needed it most. That came in the form of cash payments that began to flow in December last year and continued to flow in the early months of this year. The second tier of the approach was an investment in shovel-ready infrastructure. For many communities around the country, that meant an investment in local projects in their community. I for one was very pleased to see $1.7 million secured for Penrith City Council to undertake urgent works, shovel-ready works, in the local community to deliver infrastructure that our community has been crying for for many years.

In relation to where that money was spent, I can detail some of the projects, but it was largely spent on improving community facilities—childcare centres, neighbourhood centres and other community facilities that previously did not receive sufficient funding, or for which the council did not have the capacity to deliver the investment that their upkeep required.

In addition, out of the Community Infrastructure Program, a fund that councils could apply to, $5 million was secured for a commuter car park at Penrith station. This is a project that I have been very passionate about and have campaigned for for a very long time. It is not just about securing $5 million for a commuter car park. Some 800 cars will be parked on the north side of Penrith station on any given day, and they are currently parked in an informal way. There is no formalised car park. People currently park on a site that is owned by the Department of Defence, but there are no formal arrangements in place. Not only have we secured $5 million out of the Community Infrastructure Program but we have also secured an additional $5 million from the New South Wales state government to put $10 million on the table towards the development of a 1,000-space multideck commuter car park.

The significance of this car park is not just that it will provide for the parking needs of those hundreds and thousands of commuters who come to Penrith station each day and travel outside of the area of their employment. Clearly, they will be beneficiaries, but that is not all it is about. The most significant impact of delivering that car park, if that can be achieved—and we are still working through some elements of the process—is that it will unlock the development potential of the North Penrith Army land site. It is a 50-hectare greenfields development site adjacent to Penrith station. Penrith, under the New South Wales government’s metropolitan strategy, is a regional centre. So here we have a 50-hectare site adjacent to a train station—infrastructure already in place. We have the opportunity to deliver a mixed-use development on that site whose value is estimated to be in the vicinity of half a billion dollars.

So we are talking about a project that might otherwise not have been able to get off the ground. But, as a result of $5 million from the federal government and $5 million from the state government and subject to the Department of Defence working very closely with the New South Wales government and Landcom on the issue of a priority sale, it could be achieved. And if it can then we will see as a result of that contribution not just $5 million worth of investment but the unlocking of half-a-billion-dollars investment in our local community. It is a huge project and it shows the economic dividend that investment in local community infrastructure can yield.

So that is their second tier, the second phase—local community projects. Also tied into that component is the investment that we are making in schools, the largest modernisation of schools in Australia’s history. We are seeing all our primary schools—in my electorate, some 43 schools—entitled to funding of up to $3 million to deliver, on their premises, a school hall, library or multipurpose facility. This is a measure that has been acclaimed throughout my community, and I am sure that reaction is representative of the feelings of school communities right across this country. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make a serious contribution towards the education revolution that this government has been so passionately chipping away at putting in place since we came to office. The schools in my electorate have embraced the opportunities that come with this funding.

In addition, we have the National School Pride program, where not only our primary schools but our secondary schools, government and non-government, are able to access funding for repair and maintenance work—all those jobs that are on a list that every school principal in this country has but that very few have had the capacity to deliver. We are now giving that capacity to those principals, to those school communities, to those P&Cs, to deliver those projects and improvements to their local communities.

I have to say that a very large proportion of the work that has been generated by this particular program has gone to local contractors, local tradies and local workers within my community. I held a forum under the banner of ‘Keeping Penrith working’. We had over 200 people come together—a large collection of local businesspeople, local community leaders and tradies. It was an opportunity to make people aware of the funding that had been made available to schools and to try and bring schools and local business together so that partnerships could ensue—in order that we could deliver not only the education revolution that we are spending this money on in our schools but also that stimulus to our local economy. I can report that that has occurred.

The second tier of the stimulus also involves the contribution that we have made through public housing, social housing. There have been many reports in the papers—the Daily Telegraph in particular in the last couple of days—about some of the homelessness and housing stress issues that people in Western Sydney are facing. I can tell you that the plight of some people will not be addressed overnight. In fact, many people that are facing some of those accommodation challenges will not have their issues addressed overnight. But what we see in the range of measures that this government has introduced, both prior to the economic stimulus and within the economic stimulus, will take us a lot closer to where we need to be in delivering affordable housing, social housing, and facilities and services that homeless people require.

These are great advances: the money that is being spent on social housing; the money that is being spent on the National Rental Affordability Scheme, from which a number of allocations have been made to organisations within my community; and the Housing Affordability Fund. When we put all of these measures together, we are seeing a government that has taken its role in the housing market very seriously, and that is not to mention the impact of the first home owners boost and what it has done to stimulate activity within the local real estate market.

All of these measures together show, for the first time in a very long time, a federal government that takes its responsibilities in housing seriously. The former government did not even have a housing minister. It was not a priority—not on the agenda. I say to those people facing accommodation difficulties that we do not have an overnight solution. We will not be delivering it overnight. But we are working very hard towards delivering an improvement in the situation for those seeking housing as a result of whatever circumstances have befallen them. We will continue to push ahead passionately to achieve outcomes on that front.

All of these things form part of that second tier. But then in the budget we started to see some of the third tier—the serious, long-term infrastructure. We have been supporting local jobs and supporting jobs today, but the serious infrastructure that has come through in the spending in the budget will deliver, along with some of those other measures, the prosperity that our nation aspires to. It is about taking advantage, setting ourselves up and preparing for the recovery. We are doing that.

I can report one example from my electorate of where we are spending some money in a very significant way through the Health and Hospitals Fund. We are spending $96 million towards the upgrade of the Nepean Hospital. This is a significant contribution and it will be a significant redevelopment. Currently the Nepean Hospital has a north block, a south block and a west block. When this money is invested in our local community, we will have an east block as well. That is a significant improvement in local health infrastructure.

But that is not all that the budget did for local health infrastructure in my electorate. I am a very passionate supporter of clinical research and a passionate supporter of the fact that our hospital—the Nepean Hospital—is a teaching hospital. The University of Sydney uses Nepean Hospital as a base for some of its teaching activities for medical students. Many benefits flow from that for our local community. But one of the things that we have been missing in our community has been a dedicated facility for the medical school and for clinical research. As a result of a $17.2 million contribution out of the Health and Hospitals Fund, adjacent to the Nepean Hospital, across the road, on land already acquired by the University of Sydney, we will be seeing delivered a clinical school—the Nepean Clinical School.

The benefits that will flow from this will be tremendous for our local community. Apart from the fact that it is a major health workforce initiative, it will go a long way towards helping us to attract and to retain some of the best clinicians in the country—many of whom we already have, but that is always a challenge for hospitals in outer metropolitan and regional areas. One of the elements of this proposal is that free space will be provided to specialists on the basis that they meet two conditions: the first one being they have to allow medical students to sit in and observe them during their consultations; and, secondly and most importantly, they will be required as a condition of the free rental to deliver bulk-billed specialist services. This is a very innovative approach. Clearly the demand for those services will be much greater than any one facility can meet, but there will be many people in my community that will benefit from bulk-billed specialist services as a result of this initiative. I congratulate the University of Sydney for their efforts and in particular Professor Michael Peek for the work that he put in to developing this proposal—a proposal that I think will be of tremendous benefit to my local community.

In addition to that, we will have an expanded and enhanced research capability at Nepean Hospital. While that is a good thing in itself, clearly the access to medical trials and to cutting-edge research—the benefits of those activities will be felt directly by local residents. This is about acting now to generate that local activity to support jobs so we can deliver the infrastructure that our nation will need into the future. These examples are very good examples of where that is occurring.

We are also seeing some money out of the higher education fund being invested over at the Hawkesbury campus of the University of Western Sydney. This will be a very significant project in the form of a $40 million contribution for a Climate Change and Energy Research Centre. In relation to some of the capital works announced in the budget, more than $2 million was allocated for capital works at the Defence Establishment Orchard Hills, which will provide a further stimulus to our local economy, and of course there is the $91 million contribution for planning and environmental assessments for the Sydney West Metro.

I should also mention some of the other initiatives that are complementary to the suite of initiatives that have fallen in that first, second and third tranche of the stimulus. I make the point that, of the stimulus measures that the government has embarked upon, 70 per cent of those measures are in direct infrastructure. That is an important fact and figure. If we look at our newspapers or watch television, the airtime that has been given to the various components of the economic stimulus package is not a 70:30 split. The cash payments have received much more attention than the quantum involved requires. That is why this government is determined to make sure that the Australian people—who do require an investment in infrastructure and who have been calling out for a government to undertake the sort of nation building that we are undertaking—are aware of what we are doing and what we are planning to do.

Petro Georgiou (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

By advertising?

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

Not by advertising, by knocking on people’s doors. The member for Kooyong can come into my electorate at any time and join me as I go around shouting from every hilltop in my electorate and knocking on every door I can, disseminating this important message.

I note that when the Leader of the Opposition handed down his budget-in-reply speech he did not even mention ‘global economic recession’ in the entire speech. The reference to the global economic recession just could not be found in that speech. A lot has been said on the other side about the Treasurer’s omission in relation to the deficit. Let us put this in context: this global economic recession is the most serious economic downturn that we have faced since the Great Depression.

Let us not engage in hyperbole; let us look at the facts—let us look at global growth. This is the first time that global growth has contracted in annual terms in 60 years. These are unprecedented circumstances. There has been an 11 per cent drop in world trade. In addition to that, eight of our 10 most significant trading partners will be in recession and, of course, China and India are experiencing very rapid declines in growth—of course coming off a base that would warrant some growth in any event.

These are very serious economic circumstances and that is why the government has acted decisively and with such strength. We hear about the cash splash; we hear about the measures that have been taken to this point; we hear about modelling of all sorts. Let us look at the Treasury modelling. I have to say that the Treasury modelling in relation to the jobs that have been supported has not been contradicted. If there is an economist out there who is willing to put their name towards a piece of work that contradicts this, then let them come forward. But, to this point, the Treasury modelling clearly says that 200,000 jobs have been supported by the stimulus measures.

The alternative to acting decisively and with the strength that the government showed would be to abandon those 200,000 workers. When it comes to the issue of debt, a number of members of the opposition have said that they support the infrastructure spending—especially when it is in their electorates, I must say. There is much photographic and other evidence to that effect. They support infrastructure investment when it suits them, but they did not vote for it, and they now attribute the debt and deficit to that spending without acknowledging that revenue has been written down as a result of the global recession and the fall in commodity prices to the tune of $210 billion in four years. That means that one out of every five dollars of Commonwealth revenue has just evaporated, not because of anything the Rudd government has done but because of the global downturn and the fall in commodity prices. If you are managing your household budget and for every five dollars you lose one dollar of income due to a factor beyond your control, it makes it quite challenging to manage your budget. Sometimes you might even have to go into deficit. You might have to carry some short-term temporary debt. That is what we intend to do.

The important thing is to see what we are doing. We are acknowledging and absorbing the impact of that write-down in revenue, but we are investing in the sort of nation building that will set our country up for prosperity in the future. We need to make sure that we are ready to make the most of the recovery when it starts to kick in. It will kick in sooner in this country than in other countries because of the action that we have taken. We have been affected less than other countries because of the action that we have taken. That does not mean that we will not suffer adverse consequences, but in the end history will judge us on our actions and will judge the opposition on their calls for inaction. This is a good budget. It is a budget that supports jobs today and delivers the investment in infrastructure that our nation requires into the future.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and cognate bills. It is interesting to listen to the ideological spin that comes from the other side of this House. It is centred around trying to justify the incompetence of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer and it has no regard whatsoever for the intelligence of the Australian people, who will very shortly show the government just what they think about the incompetence they now confront. Having said that, this budget reveals the high price all Australians will pay for Labor’s reckless spending spree over the past 18 months. As someone who has been involved in politics at state and federal levels over 21 years, I have seen all this before. The one thing that I have learnt in that 21 years is that the Australian people are sometimes a little slow to work out what a bad decision they have made in relation to the government they have elected. I can tell you that they are learning very quickly and reacting very spontaneously to the incompetence that has been shown by this reckless-spending government headed by Kevin Rudd.

Having said that, the one positive thing to have come from the budget papers is that the government has finally recognised, albeit 12 months after we told them about it, that the pensioners of Australia are doing it tough and it has given them a well-deserved rise. It is interesting to note, however, that the rise of $32 has been given to single age pensioners only. Pensioner couples have only received $10. I have received many calls to my electorate office asking why couples only received $10 when they have the same expenses as singles when it comes to utilities, petrol and the like. But that is where the good news stops.

As a consequence of this budget, unemployment in Australia will reach the one million mark by 2010-11. The government has managed to turn a $22 billion surplus into a $58 billion deficit, a figure the Treasurer, as we all know, could not even bring himself to utter during his half-hour budget speech in the parliament. It has also managed to take the country from being debt free to having a record net government debt of $188 billion by 2012-13, and is allowing itself to borrow upwards of $300 billion on the Rudd credit card.

Two-thirds of the debt owed by taxpayers in 2012-13 will be due to spending decisions taken by the Rudd Labor government over the past 18 months. Since the November 2007 election, the Rudd Labor government has announced measures which have increased Commonwealth spending by $124 billion. That is an average of $225 million in new spending per day. Labor would have us and, more importantly, the community out there in Australia believe that the destruction of our nation’s balance sheet is an unavoidable consequence of the global recession. In reality, Labor has lost control of the public finances.

The government’s failure to deliver a credible plan for recovery has lumped an extra $9,000 of debt onto every man, woman and child in Australia. The interest that will accrue on that $9,000 is a further $500 per year. The 2009-10 budget delivers a dismal trifecta: record spending—29 per cent of GDP; a record deficit of five per cent of GDP; and a further increase in the jobless rate of 8.5 per cent.

Labor’s out of control, undisciplined and reckless fiscal management does not end at spending. Over the same 18 months since the last election, Labor has introduced tax hikes which increase revenue by $26 billion. Taken together, these decisions represent the biggest tax and spending binge in Australia’s peacetime history, driving an expansion in the size and scope of the public sector not seen since the Whitlam years.

By 2013, net public debt will surge to $188 billion—double the previous record peak under Paul Keating—and could even reach $300 billion-plus. It took the coalition and the Australian people more than a decade to pay off the previous debt left behind by Labor. It would appear that the Rudd government debt will not only take 12-plus years to pay off but be compounded by an increase in the level of taxes and charges unsurpassed in this great country’s history. The annual interest bill paid by the Australian people in 2012-13 will be in excess of $8 billion, more than the Commonwealth spends each year on infrastructure and housing combined.

The decisions of this government and its recklessness are to be felt by Australians for years to come. Like many people on this side of the House, I worry from my children and my grandchildren. In the electorate of Hume, the areas of health, superannuation and pensions, infrastructure, small business, education and training, taxes and rural Australia will be directly affected.

The 41,865 people aged over 18 in the Hume electorate who currently have private health cover will pay a heavy price for the Rudd Labor government’s sustained attack on health insurance. This represents 46 per cent of the voting public in the electorate of Hume, but it will affect a total of 58,929 people who are currently covered by private health cover. These people will be faced with higher insurance premiums after the Prime Minister broke his election promise not to change health insurance rebates. In a letter to the Chief Executive of the Australian Health Insurance Association, Dr Michael Armitage, dated 20 November 2007, Kevin Rudd, then opposition leader, said:

Both my shadow minister for health, Nicola Roxon, and I have made clear on many occasions this year that Federal Labor is committed to retaining the existing private health insurance rebates, including the 30 per cent general rebate and the 35 and 40 per cent rebates for older Australians.

This snake oil induced election promise backflip will mean most people will face an automatic increase in insurance premiums of up to 42 per cent, for some, while those people who are forced to abandon their private health cover will face a tax increase through the Medicare surcharge levy of up to 50 per cent. Every Australian will eventually pay the price for the Rudd government’s reckless spending, because these budget changes will mean people will drop out of private health cover and join the queues of people waiting for treatment in public hospitals, while those who keep insurance will have to pay more.

Every Australian will work longer under the Rudd Labor government’s irresponsible changes to super. Superannuation has been taken backwards. Over $4 billion has been slashed from superannuation, which has removed incentives for Australians to save for their retirement. The government has coldheartedly cut by one-third the superannuation co-contribution scheme which bolsters the retirement savings of low- and middle-income earners. Low- and middle-income earners receive $1 instead of $1.50 for every dollar contributed. Over 1.4 million Australians received a co-contribution in 2007-08. Labor has made superannuation less affordable and less attractive for millions of Australians, including many on modest incomes. Yet, it is raising the pension age from 65 to 67.

The $12.6 billion infrastructure fund, set up in 2008-09, all funded from coalition surpluses, has been raided and only $250 million is left. In spite of all Labor’s rhetoric about nation-building, the total expenditure over the next six years on roads, rail and ports will be less than that committed by the former coalition government. The $13.8 billion spent in total from three infrastructure funds—$3.2 billion from health and hospitals, $3 billion from education investment and $7.6 billion from Building Australia—is less than two-thirds of the $22 billion spent on Labor’s cash splashes. Labor will spend $53.2 million to conduct an implementation study into the National Broadband Network, which will examine detailed engineering, commercial and structural issues, even though Mr Rudd has already announced he will spend $43 billion on this unproven scheme. This $43 billion could increase dramatically if the government does not attract the private investment it is seeking to help fund the rollout of the scheme.

We all know that small businesses are the engine room of a local economy. In Hume, that it is no different. Some 13,653 small businesses operate in the Hume electorate. After inheriting the strongest economy in the world, Mr Rudd is recklessly spending money and failing to properly assist these small businesses. While he trumpets the increase from 30 per cent to 50 per cent in the government’s small business investment allowance as a saviour for small business during this time of economic slowdown, the majority of small businesses in the electorate of Hume are telling me that in order to gain benefits from this initiative you must first have the cash available to spend.

Award modernisation also places undue stress on small businesses’ cash flow, especially in the restaurant, catering and hospitality industries where labour costs will be substantially increased, forcing small businesses to shed staff or shut their business. The coalition has listened to the concerns of small business about the need for less red tape and more effective incentives to keep apprentices on during this tough economic period, and our proposal provides the right incentives to help small businesses throughout the whole of Australia during this economic downturn.

The education revolution is over and it was a miserable failure. After the massive cost blowouts of computers in schools and the disappointing mismanagement of the school hall program the government is offering nothing new in this budget for schools. There are no new initiatives for schools. All programs were already announced at the COAG meeting in December and in the second stimulus package in February.

In higher education, after 18 months of inactivity and lack of interest in higher education policy, the government has finally responded to the Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education in this budget. However, it is a great disappointment. The Bradley review called for a large intake of new students based on a demand-driven system and argued increased spending to improve quality and scholarship. In total the recommendations of the Bradley review were costed at an estimated $7 billion. The majority of the expenditure recommended in the government’s own Bradley review has been ignored. Australian universities have been left out in favour of cash splashes and pink batts.

In a savage indication of the Rudd government’s ideological hatred for all things rural the government has also changed the eligibility criteria for youth allowance. This will leave thousands of rural students who would currently be eligible for this income support out in the cold. The changes to student income support directly impact on the children of middle Australia.

Let me tell the House what these changes mean. The tightening of the workforce participation criteria will mean that from January 2010 a student must now work full time for at least 30 hours per week for at least 18 months in the two years or more since leaving school before qualifying as independent for the youth allowance payment. The 30 hours per week mean that in order to complete the 18-month employment criteria future students will not be able to work part time while studying to try and gain independent status. Students are only able to defer their university place for one year and may lose this whilst having to work in the second year and try to reapply. Students may lose motivation to study if trying to return after a two-year gap from school. They may also find it difficult to gain full-time employment with no skills immediately after leaving school, particularly in a time of quickly rising unemployment. This move effectively spells the end of the gap year.

This path to independence has been one of the only ways rural and regional students have been able to access university. I would like to read a comment I received from a young lady who comes from the electorate of Hume. Her parents are on a farm. She said:

Dear Mr Schultz

I am just writing to express my concerns in regards to the recent cuts to Youth Allowance in the 2009 Budget. Let me give you a bit of background information: I have always lived on a farm (initially near Carrathool, NSW and then from 1999 Boorowa NSW). My father is a grazier and we own a farm about 10km from Boorowa. I attended Boorowa Central School until halfway through year 10 when I became a boarder at Canberra Girls Grammar. My parents believed that it would be a good opportunity for me to broaden my horizons. I loved my time at CGGS. I finished year 12 last year and, after deferring a place at ANU, I am taking a GAP year. I am currently working full time at Blumers Lawyers as a legal assistant and I also work at Country Road on the weekend.

Moving to Canberra has meant that I have become financially independent. I also believed that it would mean I would be eligible to receive Youth Allowance after I had been out of school for 18 months. The thing is, I always expected that I would be financially independent for my time at university. The last nine years have been tough for my family and my parents still have my three younger siblings to educate (14, 12 and al most 10).

I am just enquiring about your views on the cuts as I believe that they will have great repercussions on rural students.

I will not go on but it gives you an indication of just how hard these heartless decisions are affecting rural students.

The Rudd Labor government has attacked the ability of many employees to participate in employee share agreements by forcing them to pay upfront tax before they can receive equity entitlements. Employees will have to find cash to pay or decline to participate. The modest cost of extending and almost doubling this tax break for small business investment shows that this tax break, despite being increased once before, is not being taken up by cash constrained businesses, just as the coalition warned. And you can go on and on talking about very important issues centred around rural and regional farming communities of Australia.

Let me now talk about some councils that have contacted me in the last week. Every council in the Hume electorate has received or is due to receive the first round of funding that was handed out by the government in the first stimulus package last year. However, every council in the electorate that applied—and they have all applied—for major infrastructure funding from Infrastructure Australia has had their funding submissions declined, all with the standard line that Infrastructure Australia was overwhelmed with funding applications from local government, receiving applications for over four times the amount that was allocated. There was no thought whatsoever for these worthwhile programs: delivery of new bridges over rivers; $2 million for a new community swimming pool at Goulburn-Mulwaree Council; Palerang Council applied for $6.8 million for an equestrian centre; Wingecarribee Shire Council applied for $2.7 million for upgrades to their waste recovery system; Yass Valley Council applied for $7.5 million to raise the height of the wall of Yass’s main water supply dam so that they could have some water through debilitating drought periods; and it goes on. It is just a classic illustration of how the Rudd government hates rural communities.

It is more poignant than that. It is about governments picking winners and losers and propping up marginal seats in their electorates rather than responsibly using taxpayers’ funds to look after the people of Australia. That is what I get angry about. I do not care whether programs do not meet the merits or the standards that are put before them and are rejected. What I do care about, and it happened in the previous government as well, is legitimate projects being ignored simply because of the politics that is played in certain seats throughout this great nation of ours. That is what is wrong about the whole system of allocation of money. So, for the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government to get up in this parliament on a day-to-day basis ridiculing members of parliament because they have a real, deep concern for their communities—particularly the rural members who know what it is like for their rural communities to struggle through the difficult years—indicates to me and to the public, who are waking up to it, just what this government runs on: arrogant disregard for the people in need in this great country of ours.

In a direct blow to the rural and regional farming community of Australia, we see the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry hit with an efficiency dividend, stripping away $12 million through identifying lower priority programs that can cease. That means 312 staff will be dismissed. Land and Water Australia is being abolished and another $12 million will be taken from the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation. This is great for a country still recovering and, in some areas of my electorate, still suffering from the effects of the worst drought in a hundred years!

In summary, the 2009-10 budget is a classic tax-and-spend Labor exercise but on a far more reckless scale than ever seen before. The Australian people will pay a high price in terms of high future taxes. (Time expired)

Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2009-2010 which underpin the Rudd Labor government’s nation-building to recovery budget. It goes without saying that each and every Commonwealth budget is a matter of great significance, but it is hard to not feel that the 2009-10 budget is a particularly important document. That is because the 2009-10 budget is a blueprint designed to address the worst global downturn since the Great Depression. It is a budget framed in the face of revenue that will evaporate some $200 billion over the period of the forward estimates. It is a budget that in response to the global recession and the savage contraction in private demand will seek to provide some essential cover for the gaping hole in Australia’s economy, with initiatives that follow a very simple rubric—that is, that we should do everything in our power to support jobs now through investments for the long-term benefit of this country.

The saving and funding initiatives that this budget contains and the policy reforms it implements are designed with one overriding principle: to put Australia on the path to a rapid and substantial recovery. It involves tackling difficult issues that our political opponents failed to tackle during the unprecedented economic sunshine of a global commodities boom; it involves navigating Australia through a period of deficit that is both unavoidable and necessary. We do not shirk the challenge that confronts this country, as it confronts nations around the world.

As the member for Fremantle, I can say that this budget includes a range of achievements large and small and that it takes big steps forward in areas that are of particular concern to my constituents. It tackles the issue of providing greater support for the elderly and the disabled in our community and for carers. It tackles the fiscally unsustainable revenue-to-expenditure churn that the Howard government practised and it provides a historic investment in areas that have been long neglected—areas like education, infrastructure, community assets and energy efficiency.

Households in Fremantle, and indeed across Australia, will soon see in their daily lives the proof of these nation-building initiatives. They may take the opportunity to install photovoltaic cells on their roofs, insulation in their ceilings or new gas hot water systems. Their kids’ or grandkids’ primary school will have a new library or multipurpose hall. The roads they drive on will benefit from massively increased black spot funding. In many cases their public transport options will increase and improve. There will be projects in their local communities that receive the support necessary to sustain green employment opportunities and trainee places.

Taken together, these bills and the measures they give rise to hold within them the blueprint for Australia’s secure, prosperous and sustainable future, and I want to discuss a few of these measures in more detail. The first matter I want to address is the long overdue reform of the pension payments system in Australia. This outcome of the budget is itself an instructive model of the Rudd government’s process. This government recognised that pensioners had been left behind and proceeded to give this problem due consideration through the mechanism of the independent Harmer review. It was on receipt of the Harmer review’s report that the government took action in this budget to comprehensively improve the Australian pension payment system.

From this budget forward, the single rate for the age, disabled, carers, spouse and veteran income support pensions has been increased to two-thirds of the combined couple rate, as recommended by the Harmer review. Pensioners across the nation, including more than 17,440 people in the Fremantle electorate, will benefit from up to an additional $32.10 per week for singles and $10.14 for couples. Three-quarters of single pensioners will receive the full increase.

The new pension supplement, which replaces four separate allowances for GST, utilities, telephone and internet, and pharmaceuticals, will simplify the ancillary payments to pensioners. The supplement will initially be paid on a fortnightly basis in combination with the pension itself, but from July 2010 pensioners will have the choice to receive half the supplement on a quarterly basis.

In addition to the pension increase, carer payment and carer allowance recipients have also been guaranteed an annual $600 supplement to help cover the unavoidable extra costs that come with the incredibly important task of providing care to those who most need it in our society. I am sure that the Corfield family of White Gum Valley—who I have come to know, and am honoured to know, through the ‘Adopt a Politician’ awareness scheme—will appreciate this extra support in their daily effort to confront the uncertainties of life with their daughter, Chloe, who suffers from Rett syndrome. This permanent supplement will hopefully allow the Corfields just a little bit more breathing room as they struggle to pay for the specialist therapies and medications that help Chloe achieve the best quality of life possible.

This government recognises that carers undertake some of the most necessary and difficult work that exists within the realm of the human condition. It is a labour of love, of absolute compassion, and it is work that is undertaken on behalf of all of us. It is only right that government supports the carers in our society, and we should always bear in mind that the expenditure to support that work in Australia is but a fraction of the value that carers save the Commonwealth through their efforts.

One of the initiatives that will be particularly welcome in Fremantle is the expanded support and recognition of midwives. The Rudd government’s commitment to strengthening Australia’s midwifery services follows the release of the maternity services review report. A number of the recommendations in that report are consonant with the views of numerous groups and individuals in my electorate, not least Community Midwifery Western Australia’s Pregnancy and Childbirth Centre, located in North Fremantle. They will welcome the government’s decision to commit $120.5 million over four years for the introduction of Medicare supported midwifery services to provide greater choice for women during pregnancy, birthing and postnatal maternity care. This measure includes $3.1 million in capital funding in 2009-10 for Medicare Australia.

The new arrangements will allow midwives to work as private practitioners, provide services subsidised by the Medical Benefits Schedule and prescribe medications subsidised under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Schedule. The government will also provide subsidised medical indemnity for eligible midwives working through collaborative arrangements in hospitals and healthcare settings. To ensure that Australia maintains its strong record of safety and quality in maternity care, a safety and quality framework, including professional guidance and advanced midwifery credentialling, will be developed and implemented. A new 24-hour, seven-days-a-week helpline will also be established to provide antenatal, birthing and postnatal maternity advice and information to women, partners and families during the antenatal period and up to 12 months following the birth of a child.

I am aware that this measure will also assist women in rural and remote areas by expanding the Medical Specialist Outreach Assistance Program to provide integrated outreach maternity service teams for women in under-serviced areas. The expanded teams will include midwives, obstetricians, general practitioners and other health professionals such as paediatricians and Aboriginal health workers. Additional funding will be provided for the professional development of midwives and for general practitioners to undertake additional training to become GP obstetricians or GP anaesthetists.

I want to turn now to consider some of the most substantial short- and medium-term benefits of this budget. It is no exaggeration to say that this nation building to recovery budget will literally change the landscape in my electorate. It will deliver a wave of significant and in some cases long-awaited improvements to 52 schools in the Fremantle electorate through the National School Pride Program. I am really pleased to see that the construction of a new library or multi-purpose hall has already been approved for 25 primary schools through the first two rounds of the Primary Schools for the 21st Century Program. Through helping schools to apply for their precise maintenance and building needs, I know, for example, that Caralee Primary School will receive new smart boards worth $100,000 and that Spearwood Alternative School will be able to adapt the cafeteria section of their multi-purpose building to fit in with their kitchen garden plans.

The changes to the landscape include a series of critical improvements in the area of transport safety, with an additional $850,000 allocated to road black spots, including $400,000 to supply traffic signals at the intersection of Spearwood Avenue and Barrington Avenue in Bibra Lake, and $200,000 to construct a roundabout at the intersection of McCombe Avenue and Winterfold Road in Samson. As the chairperson of the WA Black Spot Consultative Committee, I welcome all the many instances of remedial work undertaken in Western Australia through this program. Once again, this is work that supports jobs and that makes a critical and lasting improvement to safety on our roads. Members around the country will welcome the fact that this budget, in allocating $119.5 million, has doubled last year’s level of national funding for the road Black Spot Program.

A recent evaluation of the national Black Spot Program showed how highly effective it is in saving lives and preventing injury. In its first three years, the program was judged to have prevented at least 32 fatalities and more than 1,500 serious injuries. What is more, it is estimated that for every dollar spent on these safety measures, we reduce the costs of road trauma by $14. This makes the provision of additional funds all the more welcome. Similarly, the Boom Gates for Rail Crossings Program is aimed at making an equivalent contribution to improving safety at more than 250 high-risk crossings around Australia, and I am glad to say that this will include the introduction of further protection measures at seven crossings within the Fremantle electorate.

As I have said, this nation building to recovery budget is changing the landscape in Australia. Under the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Project Fund there will be a range of new and exciting developments that add to the social capital in communities across Australia. There are two projects in the Fremantle electorate that will go ahead thanks to the critical assistance of the Rudd government.

The first involves the new Coogee Beach Surf Life Saving Club, which will receive $2 million for the construction of an integrated community facility project, consisting of a sustainably-designed, two-storey clubhouse that will accommodate a cafe, gym, change rooms and a multi-use space. An interpretation centre will highlight the area’s environmental and Indigenous cultural heritage, and the site works will include improved beach access and facilities such as paths, showers, barbecues and a children’s playground. The club will also rehabilitate four kilometres of vegetation in the surrounding regional park.

The second approved project in my electorate is the development of the Hilton Community Precinct, an initiative of the City of Fremantle to which the Commonwealth is committing $3.5 million. Planning for the Hilton precinct project has been in the works since 2005. Hilton is an old, established suburb which has undergone a flood of residential development over the last few years. However, much of the existing community infrastructure dates back to the 1950s and 1960s, and the developments aim to integrate disjointed facilities to create a more user-friendly and cohesive town centre.

The Police and Citizens Youth Club will be linked through the construction of a new arts workshop with the nearby progress hall, which will also be upgraded with modern amenities and a toy library for the benefit of the large number of young families in the area. Landscaping and improved pedestrian access points will refresh the streetscape providing a modern, welcoming focal point for the Hilton community. Both of these projects will make an immediate and a lasting difference to their communities.

Just as the local and community infrastructure program is designed to support local employment as a by-product of building new facilities right across Australia, so it is that the government’s Jobs Fund programs will result in valuable heritage and environmental projects while supporting at-risk jobs and creating training opportunities. In the last fortnight I have been very happy to write letters of support and recommendation in relation to several exciting proposals from community groups, not-for-profit organisations and local governments within the Fremantle electorate. Time does not allow me to mention them all but I do want outline a couple of the proposals to give a sense of the potential that these projects contain.

I have supported, for example, the Rottnest Island Authority in their application for funding to support jobs that focus on maintaining the island’s unique built and natural heritage environment. Rottnest has a fascinating but also tragic history as a place of imprisonment for many Indigenous people in the early years of the Western Australian colony, and subsequently as Fremantle’s first line of defence during World War II, with its extensive network of guns and tunnels that were constructed as a base for the region’s defence force. In addition to this unique Indigenous and military heritage Rottnest also has significant environmental values. Of course, Rottnest is now a vibrant and widely popular tourist destination for both domestic and international tourists.

In its proposal the Rottnest Island Authority is seeking funds to implement new strategies aimed at developing and maintaining the island’s heritage and thereby providing heritage employment and training opportunities. The authority intends to employ an Aboriginal heritage officer to redress the current insufficiency of available information related to the island’s Indigenous history, and a cultural heritage interpretation and tourism officer, whose role it would be to promote the island’s significant defence heritage through cultural and tourism based initiatives. In addition, the proposal includes funding to complete conservation works on the Governor’s residence, which is one of the oldest colonial buildings in Western Australia.

I am confident in saying that the Fremantle electorate is among the federal districts with the very highest heritage value. Of course I welcome the support that exists within the framework of this budget for heritage work, and for the training and expertise that is necessary to enable that work to occur now and in the future.

The second proposal I want to mention has both a Jobs Fund and an infrastructure employment fund aspect. As a starting point, Greening Australia WA has applied under the Get Communities Working stream for funds to allow the native species environmental restoration of a section of degraded bushland within Booyeembara Park in White Gum Valley. The site work will occur, as with all Green Corps projects, through the provision of a certified vocational training program in conservation and land management up to certificate II level, with Challenger TAFE delivering training to certificates III and IV.

Then, in what will potentially represent stage two of the project, the City of Fremantle will make an application for assistance under the infrastructure employment fund to support the construction of a Green Building Council of Australia 5-star rated, multiuse building. This will form, in part, the new headquarters for Greening Australia WA but will also provide both space for general community use and dedicated space for a range of important local groups, namely the Fremantle Men’s Shed, Fremantle Environmental Resource Network ,or FERN, the popular Western Farmers Market, White Gum Valley Precinct and Booyeembara Park Task Force and Friends.

If it is approved this entire project with its comprehensive and innovative environmental jobs and training focus will serve the triple purpose of creating jobs now, of providing training opportunities for the green jobs of the future and of creating a much needed and best practice facility and community hub for the long-term benefit of the wider Fremantle community. Indeed, each of the Jobs Fund project proposals I have mentioned demonstrate the government’s guiding operational theme at work, that is, to invest in projects that support jobs now and that create the jobs of the future—the community infrastructure of the future, the education and social capital of the future.

This budget and the appropriation bills that form its foundation constitute the government’s blueprint for building a stronger Australia. It is a budget framed in extremely difficult circumstances and in the context of great and continuing uncertainty. But it is also an opportunity because in difficult circumstances people come together and governments are given the chance and the responsibility to act in the national interest for the long term. That is what the Rudd government is doing. I support these bills and the historic Nation Building for Recovery blueprint that they represent.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and the associated bills. The electors of Sturt have suffered from this budget in myriad ways. Before I turn to the 72 per cent of my electorate with private health insurance—who have been particularly and poisonously hit by the government’s changes—I would like to talk more generally about the electors of Sturt who will now wear the burden of $300 billion, at least, of Rudd government debt into the future.

The young people of Sturt—my children, and not just my children but other people’s grandchildren and young people generally—who, in the first blush of the election of the Rudd government, believed that they would be treated with some respect, with some occasion, by a new government, have found themselves to be the biggest losers from the election of the Rudd government. Young people in Australia will be paying off the government’s debt of more than $300 billion decades into the future. It will materially affect their lives and their living standards.

Most generations in Australia’s history have tried to leave behind them an equal or better standard of living for future generations. This government, in a short 18 months, has managed to bequeath a legacy to young people of tremendous debt that they will almost certainly struggle to ever be able to pay off. It will not be paid off in my lifetime or your lifetime, Mr Deputy Speaker, I warrant. It may be paid off in the lifetimes of my children, all four of whom are under nine years old. But unfortunately it will materially affect their capacity to grow the economy; to get jobs; to provide for their own children, if they choose to have them; to save money to buy a house; or to put their children into non-government schooling, if that is what they wish to do. This is all because, in 18 months, this government has gone on a spending spree of mammoth proportions. The government seeks to try and blame the global financial crisis but let us not forget that $124 billion, net, of the $188 billion of net debt is actually new government spending in the last 18 months.

The budget papers indicate that unemployment will rise. Electors of Sturt will bear a part of that burden in the next few years. There will be people who will be jobless in Sturt in the future who would not have needed to be jobless but for the handling of the economy and the handling of the budget by the Rudd Labor government. It is a tragedy for them when you think that the Rudd Labor government was left an enormous budget surplus, low unemployment and a growing economy. This government came into power on that basis and, in a short 18 months time, have trashed the Australian economy, ripped up the fiscal responsibility of the Howard government and delivered higher unemployment and increasing joblessness. The voters in the electorate of Sturt will be the recipients of this mismanagement.

Young people leaving school today are now palpably nervous, palpably concerned, about what the future holds for them—whether they should study, whether they should go out and get work or whether they should start their own businesses. This was not the case under the 11½ years of the previous government when there was a growing economy, when young people looked with confidence to the future and recognised that they were living in a country with tremendous capacity to deliver them the standard of living that they had expected and hoped for in Australia. Eighteen months later, it is a very sorry tale indeed.

That is just the debt that the government has left young people. The deficit of $57.6 billion in the budget is an enormous turnaround, in the 18 months that this government has been in power, from the $23 billion of surplus that was left to Mr Rudd and Mr Swan.

My electorate has a very high proportion of people who are in higher education or who have parents that were in higher education. Sturt has the highest number of students in higher education and the highest number of people with a tertiary qualification of any seat in South Australia. People in my electorate had, I expect, anticipated that the Bradley review, which proposed $7 billion of new spending to grow and improve our higher education sector, might have been paid more than lip-service by the government. Unfortunately, there is no money left in the cupboard. The cupboard is bare.

The government has announced $1½ billion of new spending under the Bradley review. They would rather put money into pink batts. Your government, Mr Deputy Speaker, put $3.7 billion into pink batts. An idea that was put up over and over again by enthusiastic bureaucrats in the previous government, only to be knocked back, is a higher priority for this government than the higher education sector. Cash splashes of $900 each, many of them to dead people or to people who do not live in Australia, was a higher priority than the higher education sector. I am not surprised that the member for Fremantle studiously studies her papers rather than listen to this speech, because she would be embarrassed, as an educated woman herself, by this fact. The same cannot be said for the member for Braddon, but the member for Fremantle would be embarrassed that the government has made higher education a lower priority than pink batts and cash splashes.

Turning to private health insurance, 72 per cent of voters in my electorate are covered by private health insurance. In this budget, the government is returning to Fabian form by undermining private health insurance. When they were last in government, under Messrs Keating and Hawke, they did everything they could to poison the well of private health insurance. I think—I am sure I could be corrected—that only 30 per cent of Australians were left in private health insurance by 1996. Private health insurance was almost finished. In fact, Graham Richardson—a former member of this place—said that, if private health insurance fell again to the level it was at in 1995-96, it would not have a viable future.

The Howard government repaired and rebuilt the opportunity that Australians should have to choose to be in private health insurance and removed the burden of those people, who would otherwise have been in the public health system. There is a symbiotic relationship between private health insurees and the public health system. The Howard government helped rebuild that system and, as a consequence, removed pressure from the public health system. But we knew all along that Labor did not ever want to support the private health insurance system. We knew all along that in their Fabian dreams they do not like private health They do not like private property, they do not like private education and they do not like private health. They have done what they can in this budget to begin the process of undermining private health.

This is one of the most brazen broken promises from the government in the last 18 months. You would remember that Mr Rudd promised before the election that private health would not be touched—’Not one jot, not one tittle.’ Those were his words. He indicated that private health would not be altered one iota by this government. And yet, of course, within 18 months they have returned to their old ways—they have returned to the attack on private health, which they have always disliked and which they want to be in the public sector. Who is going to pay for it when people see their premiums rising, when they are incapable of being able to afford private health any longer and when they start joining the queues of waiting lists in the public health system? Attacking private health in the so-called higher echelons of income earners will flow through the entire private health system.

The most amazing thing about this reform, this change, is that it does not just attack those that Labor has never supported and never wanted. It actually attacks a lot of older people such as those in the electorates of the member for Forrest and me—not just self-funded retirees but many, many pensioners. I have had heart-rending letters, emails and phone calls to my office from low-income Australians, people on pensions, including the age pension, who go without in so many aspects of their lives. Goodness knows how they survive on the pension, but they go without.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They don’t eat.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the member for Forrest says, some of them do not eat. Some of them go without three meals a day to be able to pay for their private health insurance. They hold it dear—first from a desire for independence, second because of their desire to choose the health care that they receive and third because they want to be able to take care of themselves. They go without, in many cases, three meals a day in order to pay for their private health insurance.

The member for Braddon knows it is true, and it is disappointing for me to know that the member for Braddon has signed up to a policy that he knows will not just hurt middle-class Australians, will not just hurt self-funded retirees who can care for themselves in many instances, but actually attack the poorest Australians who have scrimped and scraped and saved to be able to pay for their private health insurance. Seventy-two per cent of the electors of Sturt have private health insurance; 72 per cent of the electors of Sturt can, today, recognise that they have been the losers out of this budget. That is putting aside the debt and the deficit and the unemployment that will flow from the government’s mismanagement of the nation’s finances. Putting that to one side, 72 per cent of Australians in my electorate will be materially affected financially by the budget brought down two weeks ago.

I should turn to education, as the shadow minister for education, and I have already briefly talked about higher education. I would like to touch on the Education Investment Fund. An amount of $6.2 billion was assigned in the 2007-08 budget for a new Higher Education Endowment Fund to provide an ongoing revenue source to pay for university infrastructure into the 21st century. Last year the Rudd government added $2½ billion from the Howard government surplus and renamed it the Education Investment Fund. This budget uses the funds to pay for 11 university projects and 12 state government TAFE and training projects. Successful applicants should be grateful for the strong economic management of the previous government which created the fund and provided the money. However, the government has also raided the EIF for a range of unrelated projects, including putting $400 million towards solar energy and carbon capture energy projects. These may well be worthy projects but they are not what the Higher Education Endowment Fund was created for. The universities and vocational education and training institutions have been seriously dudded, and they should say so. They should stand up for themselves.

In the final moments of this speech I would like to talk about the most pernicious aspect of the budget from an education point of view, and that is student income support. The government has changed the eligibility criteria for youth allowance. It will leave thousands of students who would currently be eligible for this income support out in the cold. Thousands of concerned constituents have contacted my office and the offices of other coalition members, especially people like the member for Forrest, the member for McMillan and the member for Gippsland—many members across the coalition side—regarding the impact of the federal budget on young Australians, and in particular the changes to eligibility for the youth allowance. I would warrant to this House that many members of the Labor Party caucus would have been contacted too by very concerned parents and families about the change to the youth allowance—probably not the member for Fremantle, who comes from the cafe latte set of Perth, but certainly the member for Braddon—

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

I would invite the member for Sturt not to seek to engage other members in interjection or exchange across the chamber.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I was not aware that standing orders did not allow me to mention members of the House who are in the chamber. But, in deference to you, I will not do so. The member for Braddon, of course, has a rural electorate, and I am sure that he would have been inundated by people concerned about the changes to the youth allowance. But also the member for Flynn, who is not in the chamber, the member for Capricornia, the member for Dawson and all Labor members in rural and regional seats could not have avoided being contacted by young Australians and their families who are desperate because of the changes the government has made to the youth allowance.

There are two particularly important aspects of this debate which need to be aired today. The first is that the transitional provisions for these changes catch thousands of Australians in their current gap year because they begin on 1 January next year. I cannot believe that the government will not return to this subject and deal with the transitional issues which leave thousands of Australians in their gap year out in the cold because they have taken decisions for 2009-10 which mean they begin university from 1 July 2010 and now face the prospect of not being able to access the youth allowance.

We will give the Minister for Education a rare opportunity to say: ‘I was wrong.’ It does not happen very often, but I imagine that this was an inadvertent error and that she is coming under tremendous criticism from her caucus about the need to reverse this decision. So we will give her that opportunity. It does not happen very often, but I will give her the benefit of the doubt that this is just another one of her bungles and that, given the chance, she will fix it. We will have a Senate inquiry—we will refer this matter to the Senate education committee, which will report in due course with the change that will need to be made in order to remove the transitional provisions that so disadvantage young Australians who are in their gap year. I hope the minister will be woman enough to come into the House and admit the error, admit this inadvertent mistake—we hope it is inadvertent; we hope this was not a deliberate attack on young Australians in their gap year—and reverse what is necessary to be reversed so that the law that was in place when people made those decisions will remain in place until 1 July next year. That will be a matter for her, but we will give her the opportunity through a Senate inquiry to save whatever face she wishes to save by backing down on that matter.

The second aspect about the youth allowance changes which must be worrying rural members of the Labor caucus as much as it is worrying my colleagues from rural and regional Australia concerns those rural and regional young people whose families have done everything in their power to get them into university and higher education only to find that they are now not eligible for the youth allowance but cannot stay at home with mum and dad, or mum or dad, and still go to university. If you are living in Toorak in Melbourne, Smithfield in Adelaide or parts of Brisbane, Perth, Fremantle et cetera and you no longer qualify for the youth allowance, often you will be able to stay at home and still go to university. But, if you are in the electorates of Forrest or Kalgoorlie, in outback Queensland, in seats such as Dawson, Flynn, Capricornia, Braddon or Leichhardt, in Solomon or in the electorate of the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel, Warren Snowdon, and you find you are no longer able to access the youth allowance, that is effectively the end of your dream of higher education. It is too bad. It is the cold shoulder, the rough pineapple, from the Labor Party. You will no longer be able to go to university because you cannot stay home with mum and dad and still access higher education.

It is a matter of social justice. The minister is supposed to also be the Minister for Social Inclusion. This government, as did the previous government, had a policy of trying to encourage young people from rural and regional areas and from disadvantaged backgrounds to get to university. This measure will diabolically affect those students who are incapable of accessing higher education simply because of the geographic place from which they come.

On Monday I gave the minister the example of Kieran Stubbs, the vision-impaired student from Victoria who is from Mount Martha in the electorate of my friend the shadow minister for the environment. Kieran is no longer able to access his dream of higher education because he needs to get to university every day and, if he has to go there from home, it is a three-hour bus trip either way. There is no possibility that Kieran Stubbs will be able to get to university because of this government’s change. His family are shattered, as you would expect them to be. I ask government members to search what hearts they have—what black and cold hearts they may have. But I give them the opportunity to change their position in a way that would allow a student like Kieran Stubbs the opportunity to get to university to fulfil his dream. His family have done everything in their power to give Kieran the opportunities that other young Australians have, and those opposite are snatching them away and giving him the cold shoulder in return. (Time expired)

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am really pleased to be able to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and the cognate bills because it gives me a chance to talk about the budget that was recently handed down by the Treasurer and to talk about how that budget affects both this nation and, most especially in my neck of the woods, Braddon, which is in north-west Tasmania and includes King Island. In a redistribution it will take in the west coast of Tasmania, and that has implications particularly as the west coast is a major mining area with a very rich mining history in terms of both Australian history and Tasmanian history. It has of course fared badly with the economic downturn which is the world financial crisis. Having listened to many on the other side—and this is not to say that some have not got some reasonable points to make about particular provisions in the budget—I have to say some of them should try to understand what a balanced debate is, because you would swear that we caused the global economic downturn, that we caused the worst recession in 70 years. You could not credit how some on the other side would not at least appreciate and acknowledge that this country is suffering just like others in this global economic downturn and that we are all experiencing it.

In comparative terms, Australia is faring better. That is nothing to crow about, except to say that we are faring better. When we compare ourselves with some of our comparable economic partners throughout the world, we see they are doing diabolically badly, very poorly indeed. So there are positives as to what is happening in Australia but of course it is not just by absolute chance. We do not deny the work of other governments prior to this in terms of their contributions to maintaining a sustainable economy and restructuring our economy through very difficult times so that we have a much better regulated financial aspect to our economy than most. We do recognise that. We also recognise that mistakes have been made in the past, particularly in terms of how we have directed the resources—and the revenues from those resources—that this country has been blessed with. We can argue about that all day and all night but what this government has done, warts and all, has been to attempt to stimulate this economy in the best way we believe possible in order to sustain jobs and to invest in infrastructure—and heaven knows we need it and have needed it for a long time—so that, firstly, we can cope with the changes we are experiencing now and, secondly, we can grow our economy into the future. That is at the heart of what this budget is about and what our previous budget was about and that is what drives our economic intentions and, of course, the social policy that flows from them.

So let us not deny that we live in the worst of times in terms of world economic circumstances—the worst in 70 years. We all hope and pray that we never experience the negatives of the years of the Great Depression. Australia and many other social democratic countries, and others, have attempted to collectively stimulate their economies and work towards continuing free trade so that the oil of the economic system, for all its faults, allows that system to continue to grind on and hopefully grind out of this much earlier rather than later.

What you do not hear from the other side is that Australia’s debt, which they bang on about all the time in their scare campaign—and that is what it is: scaring the community rather than supporting the stimulus—is the lowest of any major advanced economy in the world. That is a fact. That is something we have to manage and we are seeking to manage for the future. But we cannot deny that the debt is the lowest of any major advanced economy in the world. Another fact: nearly 70 per cent of our economic stimulus is for nation-building infrastructure—something that has been neglected for many, many years and, I would argue, at both national and state levels. What better way to invest your nation’s funds than by investing in needed infrastructure? It is not just about the immediate effects of investing in infrastructure, whether that be in the immediate term, the shorter term or the longer term, but also about investing in our future so that when the economic upturn occurs, and it will, we are able to grasp it, use it and have our infrastructure, our superstructure, ready for the economy to continue to grow. Of course, part and parcel of that is having our education, skills and training banks, if you like, ready to take up these challenges.

We have the biggest school modernisation program in Australia’s history, but you would not believe it when you listen to some of those on the other side speak. I listened to the member for Paterson. There was not one positive comment in the whole speech. There were denials of any positive investment in this country. The investment in our schools and the modernisation of our schools is not only a good thing; it is necessary. I do not hear many communities, schools or students tell me that they think this is a negative—not one—yet you would not believe it if you listen to the other side. Of course those on the other side will celebrate with those communities the investments in infrastructure that will be part of their communities—I understand that—but I suppose it is very difficult for a lot to be able to say, ‘I didn’t vote for it, though. I totally opposed it.’ That is something they will have to sort out, and that is part and parcel of politics, isn’t it? I think everybody celebrates the investment in our schools. It is much needed, very necessary and it has been a long time coming.

We are investing in our roads, rail and ports. I hope every electorate in Australia, from all sides of politics, is going to benefit from these investments, because we need them. We are investing in hospitals, contrary to exaggerated statements on the other side that our hospital systems are not improving. Our hospital systems are improving—not quick enough, I agree, but they are improving. We are actually putting more money into our public hospitals to tackle the waiting lists, to tackle the depreciation in equipment, to try and support increased training for those who provide those health services, to try and get more doctors and specialists and to use the health dollar better. With all its problems, we are investing in it, and you cannot deny that, particularly after we have had a decade of underinvestment. The days of blaming the states and the Commonwealth, toing and froing between them, are finished. The public now want that investment. It is taking place. It might not be quick enough, it might not be enough at the moment, but it is taking place and we cannot deny it. This budget continues that process.

We are investing in a national network for broadband. I am really pleased to say that Tasmania will be the first cab off the rank, through a partnership with the Tasmanian government and Aurora in Tasmania. I hope that many other communities throughout Australia will benefit from the lessons we learn from this rollout. It will be really exciting, and we will get into as many nooks and crannies in my beautiful state as possible the fastest broadband speeds and access possible. If we cannot get the fibre to the premises then we commit to the best technologies possible in wireless and satellite and to the fastest speeds possible via those means. This is a massive investment in this nation. It is a terrific investment in Tassie. We hope that this will get underway in July. So I am more than happy to update the parliament and you, colleagues, about how it is going.

I hope we can replicate this in other parts of Australia, too. It will have great implications both in training and in education, particularly for business and small business. Boy, what it will mean for people who want to use home as their base to create their businesses. And what types of exciting technologies are going to be available to us in the world of communications and getting our news and information. It is just phenomenal to think that we could work at speeds of 100 megabits per second. It is fantastic. This government is investing in it. Unfortunately you do not hear much support for that on the other side, but I know they will benefit from it.

Of course we are investing heavily in major solar energy projects. I am really pleased to note, and it is great to know, that the legislation is coming forward in terms of renewable energy. We certainly look forward to it in Tasmania, where, in my own neck of the woods, there is the potential for a nearly billion-dollar wind farm to come into existence. That would, again, add to the renewable energy stock in Tasmania, which is, after all, the renewable energy capital of this whole region. That is just some of the investment that we are dealing with in terms of infrastructure.

Why is the government doing this? We are doing it because we have to. It is not a question of, ‘Will you?’ ‘Maybe. Might.’ It is a question of having to stimulate our economy now, to support and sustain jobs now, to support and sustain small businesses now. That means that we have to go into a deficit. Several months ago we would not mention the word ‘deficit’. In fact it would not be mentioned anywhere in what would be regarded as orthodox economic discussions. But of course we share the deficit with just about every other country in the world. I hear some others say, ‘It is shocking that we are going into a deficit.’ I do not mind having that discussion so long as I know exactly what the alternative plan is or would be. So I look forward to hearing that, very much so. I know that some of my colleagues on the other side will be jumping up fairly soon to tell me exactly what their alternative would be. I will be reading that Hansard with much interest.

If we do not do something, we will have a deeper recession than we are going to have. There will be a slower recovery and—this is where we get to the nitty-gritty of it—we will have hundreds and thousands more Australians, our colleagues, our fellow citizens, out of work. They are people. They are human beings. They have families. They have obligations, responsibilities and feelings like everyone else. So what we are doing, warts and all, is attempting to keep as many people as possible in employment both now and in the future. For those who are not able to remain employed, we have programs—and we must invest in these programs—to support them when they are unemployed. Nobody likes to talk about that, but it is a reality, and we have to do it. I hope that we are able to use progressive, innovative programs that allow people to train and retrain. I also hope that they understand that they have not been made unemployed because of what others say in a scare campaign but because they are living at a time of global financial crisis that is almost unprecedented in their lifetimes. That is the reality, and for others to use dishonest scare campaigns to say the contrary is really, really unfortunate.

This government is taking responsible decisions throughout to try and return the budget to surplus. This House is debating that, and we will continue to debate it. That is our intention, that is our motive and that is the premise for some of the savings decisions we have to make which are not pleasant. It is also at the heart of how we are investing the moneys—so that we can get to a positive revenue return in the future, to progressively manage this debt. And, as I mentioned at the beginning, our debt remains the lowest of any major advanced economy in the world.

The majority of this debt is due to less tax being collected; that is an absolute fact. We projected a certain amount of revenue, demand collapsed for many goods and services both throughout the world and in Australia, and that revenue no longer exists. We could have shut up shop and held on, put our hands over our eyes and covered our ears, and hoped it would all go away and that sometime in the future we would come out of it. That is the old way of doing things; that was the way that people, in the main, dealt with the Great Depression. Well, Australia decided to act decisively, and that is at the heart of our multiple stimulus packages, our multi-stimulus budget. So I ask colleagues to remember to frame their discussions in the light of the economic realities that we face both as a nation and of course as part and parcel of a world economy in deep trouble.

Before I finish, if I may, to localise what I have been talking about, I would like to point to some of the government expenditure in my electorate of Braddon. Under the National School Pride program, we have a total of $8.5 million; under Primary Schools for the 21st Century, $21.5 million. These represent construction that is going to take place in the electorate of Braddon, which has a population of something like 111,000. So there are going to be plenty of construction sites and there is going to be plenty of work, and, of course, people will be able to provide services, equipment and all those things that go to make up buildings—the timber, the carpets and so forth. Under the computers in schools scheme, there is something like $1.2 million. There is $1.5 million for a trades training centre. In health, I estimate that we have spent and are spending $200 million to improve health services in Braddon. Now, there is a lot to do, but that is a lot of investment. In infrastructure in Braddon alone, there is $57.5 million for community projects.

So, again, there is a lot of construction and a lot of economic activity going on in Braddon, and I am pleased to say that this government delivered support for pensioners. It might not have helped all pensioners to the same degree, but it made it much more equitable and I was really pleased that we were able to do that. We have a lot more to do, and I look forward to being part of a government that will do that. But, in the main, we are doing the best we can for the most, and I look forward to participating in that.

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Training and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It will be a very long time before we see a Labor Treasurer delivering a federal budget in surplus. It has now been 20 years since the last time there was a Labor government with a budget in surplus. In my life, there have only been five budgets which the Labor Party has delivered in surplus in a succession of three different governments—the Whitlam government, the Hawke-Keating government and now the Rudd government. Compare that with the last government. There were 12 budgets, 10 of them in surplus. The current Treasurer has delivered two budgets and it is nought from two. As I said in my opening remarks, it will be a very long time before anyone ever sees a Labor Treasurer deliver a budget in surplus.

When I was first elected, in 1996—and I have been very honoured to represent the people of Boothby for the last 13 years—the outgoing Labor government left a $10 billion budget black hole. It was a budget which was said during the campaign to have been in surplus, and at the time that figure shocked everyone. But that $10 billion budget black hole was just a pinprick compared to the yawning chasm of budget deficit that we face now. It is extraordinary to think that last Sunday represented 18 months since the election of the Rudd government. It took the previous Labor government eight years to get to the point where we are now. We have gone from fighting a war on inflation to promising to create jobs, to supporting jobs, to having a budget in surplus—it was officially still in surplus only last February. I am very confident in saying that this Labor government will never deliver a budget in surplus. They will never pay off this debt.

In the time I have been in parliament there have been 13 budgets, and never has there been a budget deficit as big as this. Never has there been such a sign that a government has completely lost control of its finances. What we see in this budget is the price that future generations will pay for Labor’s reckless spending and their loss of control of the budget. The budget tells us that there will be almost one million Australians unemployed by June 2011. It tells us that this is a budget that is in deficit to $58 billion. People who watched the budget speech on the Tuesday night may not have heard that. The Treasurer was unable to say it. Of course, the Treasurer and the Prime Minister have been famously unable to say what the size of the debt will be—what the size of net debt will be or what the size of gross debt will be.

Record net debt will be $188 billion by 2012-13 while total government debt will be $315 billion. This debt overhang will be a drag on growth for years to come because the annual interest bill on this debt, which will be paid by Australian taxpayers by 2012-13, will be $8 billion. That is more than the Commonwealth government spends in a year on infrastructure and housing combined.

We see a government which has lost control of their finances and lost control of their budget. Never was this more obvious than with the $22 billion that was sprayed around in their two cash splashes. Every dollar of the cash splash was borrowed; every dollar will have to be paid back. The great achievement—so we are led to believe by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer from all of this money which they have spent so wantonly—is that they will keep unemployment to only one million Australians. One million Australians in unemployment is not something to be proud of. One million Australians is a disgrace; it is not an achievement. The previous Keating government had almost one million Australians out of work, and now the Rudd government tells us that their great achievement is to keep unemployment to such a low level.

We see the usual signs of a Labor budget: we have record spending at 29 per cent of GDP; we have a record budget deficit at five per cent of GDP; and, we have a sharp increase in the unemployment rate to 8.5 per cent. We know from past recessions that unemployment rises very quickly: sometimes it can rise in five quarters; sometimes it can rise over three years. We also know that there is a huge social cost for jobless families and it takes an enormously long time for the people who lose their jobs in a downturn to get back into work.

The government will have you believe that this is all due to the global recession. But in one area in particular there is every sign that this government have, by their actions, made things worse. In the way they have bungled their tender for employment services for the new Job Services Australia and in the way they have designed a model which was designed for a period of low employment, strong labour market and strong employment growth, this government have not been unwitting victims of the global economic recession; they have actually made things worse. The real test for this government must be what the official figures show each month on youth unemployment. The real test for the new employment services which begin on 1 July is what they do to unemployment and what they do to keep people active. We know around the world—and in Australia especially so—that when unemployment rises due to a downturn youth unemployment rises twice as fast. The test for this government will be to what extent their employment services system keeps youth unemployment at the low levels we enjoyed until very recently.

We have seen that there are a number of programs—the Productivity Places Program of $2½ billion over four years; the Jobs and Training Compact; a $650 million Jobs Fund. What the parliament and the people need to know is: what are the estimated employment outcomes of these projects? To what extent do we see jobseekers going into jobs after taking up this training? To what extent do we see people upgrading their employment status after taking up this training? These are critical issues because there is a lot of money being spent in this area. But the ultimate success must be to what extent it leads people into a job. The $650 million Jobs Fund will support projects that build community infrastructure and social capital in local communities, much like Work for the Dole. But what we need to see is to what extent this leads into a job.

Before the last election the Labor Party promised that it would maintain all incentives and subsidies to employers and apprentices. It was explicit, it was broken. In this budget, Labor has abolished the apprenticeship training free voucher, which provided up to $1,000 to apprentices to help pay for their training. It is gone. Labor’s focus is on apprentices who have been made redundant instead of helping those apprentices whose employment is in jeopardy. While the spending of money on apprentices is welcome, it is really not targeted in the right place. We need to look at those apprentices whose employment is in jeopardy. To focus on apprentices who have already been made redundant is like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted, especially when we are faced with a situation of one million Australians out of work by June 2011. So this budget offers nothing to apprentices whose employment is in jeopardy.

The Australian Industry Group in a January survey showed that manufacturing firms expected to cut spending on training by 7½ per cent this year, construction firms by 12 per cent and service providers by 12.7 per cent. That is why the opposition, along with other industry groups, has called for the government stimulus package to have both a jobs and a skills focus. Traditional trades will be particularly crucial to our future economic development. For this reason the opposition has proposed employer incentives targeted at the traditional trades to ensure that employers are able to maintain their apprentices during this economic downturn. In their November 2008 review of vocational education and training, the OECD were generally positive about Australia’s system of apprenticeships and traineeships. However, they did note that there were no strategies to mitigate the effects of a potential economic downturn that might lead employers to stop offering apprenticeships. They also noted that the current incentives are presently back-end loaded to help prevent dropout and suggested government funding for only the first three years of the apprenticeship. At present the basic rate for an apprenticeship is $1,500 on commencement and $2,500 on completion. For this reason the opposition proposal focuses on supporting employers to retain their apprentices during this economic downturn. Our proposal is for the basic employer incentives for traditional trade apprenticeships to be brought forward to the first two years of the apprenticeship. Our proposal aims to bring forward the incentives for employers to hold onto their apprentices during this economic downturn, appreciating that once the economy improves we will have a ready trained workforce capable of making skills needs and speeding up our economic recovery.

In the area of sport, there is not a lot to say in this budget. This budget delivered no new initiatives to increase participation and no new initiatives to maintain our international competitiveness. For children there is nothing extra, for community sporting clubs there is nothing extra and for our elite athletes there is nothing extra. It is very much a business-as-usual budget when it comes to sport.

The coalition were able to invest in sport because we kept control of the nation’s finances. By contrast, Labor are running up huge deficits as a result of their ill-thought-out cash splashes. Because we kept control of the nation’s finances we delivered record funding to elite sport, seeing through the 2000 Olympic athlete plan and the 2004 Olympic medal plan and establishing Backing Australia’s Sporting Ability, which provided an extra $122.2 million over four years for Australian athletes.

We put physical education back into primary schools, forcing state governments to provide at least two hours of physical activity to all students. We also established the Active After-school Communities program, which is now providing 150,000 primary school students with quality sporting activities taught by specialist physical education teachers. Next year we will see the budget of the Australian Sports Commission increase by one per cent—less than inflation—and in Labor’s first two budgets we have seen funding to the ASC increase by 2.86 per cent, which is a decrease in real terms.

One of the areas in the budget which is of particular interest to my electorate is Labor’s tax on the private health insurance system. In Boothby there are 93,685 residents who have private health cover. All of these people will eventually pay a price for Labor’s attack on private health insurance. When the Labor Party say that this is a savings measure which grows over time, what they mean is that over time more and more people will be caught up in it. More and more people will have their private health insurance rebate clawed back over time. That is Labor’s agenda. It has always been Labor’s agenda to wind back the private health insurance rebate, which is 30 per cent for most people, 35 per cent for people over 65 and 40 per cent for people over 70. As I said, there are 93,685 residents in Boothby—that includes children—who are covered by private health insurance. This is an attack on every one of them, a pulling back of the private health insurance rebate. After their explicit promise to keep the private health insurance rebate, the Labor Party, after less than 18 months, have brazenly broken it. As a consequence, everyone affected will be facing increased premiums to begin with. But with people dropping their insurance or lowering their level of cover, the remaining pool of people with private health insurance will face higher premiums than they otherwise would. People who drop out of private health insurance will now fall back onto the public health system, putting increased pressure on public hospitals and on public hospital waiting lists.

This savings measure is a result of Labor losing control of spending, losing control of their budget and delivering a record deficit and record government debt. As an alternative, the opposition has suggested increasing the tax on cigarettes instead of changing the health insurance rebates. In doing so, Mr Rudd and the Treasurer could raise the same amount of money and provide positive health outcomes by discouraging people, especially younger Australians, from taking up smoking. There are also some changes in the Medicare safety net which will have wide-ranging effects on Australian families trying to access essential services such as obstetrics, reproductive technologies, including IVF, and cataract surgery. Again, this is a clear breach of an election promise.

In another breach of an election commitment, the Rudd government has cut by one-third the Superannuation Co-Contribution Scheme, which bolsters the retirement savings of low- and middle-income earners. Ultimately, it will be left to a future generation to pay off this debt. It will constrain growth for years to come. It will take a long time to reduce the social impact of having one million Australians out of work. It will take a long time to reduce unemployment to the level that it was at when this government was elected.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with enormous pride that I rise tonight to support this year’s appropriation bills, being Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and cognate bills. This year’s budget will be remembered as a budget which has provided a $22 billion boost to our nation’s infrastructure, a boost which will transform our roads, rail, ports and freight infrastructure. It will be a budget that is remembered for ushering in, for the first time, paid parental leave for Australian mothers, a measure long overdue and a measure which the Howard government failed to introduce in its 12 long years of government. It will also be remembered as a budget which has been framed in the most difficult of circumstances; circumstances which have seen $200 billion wiped off the government’s revenues by virtue of the global economic recession. Yet it will also be remembered as a budget which has formed the central piece of architecture around the Rudd government’s actions to support 210,000 jobs in this country, providing a bridge over the worst ravages of the global economic recession.

Budget week will be remembered as a week when we had a budget reply from the opposition which failed to provide any alternative fiscal strategy at all, which in these difficult times is nothing short of a disgrace. They have bleated about the issues of debt yet, on the night of the budget reply, the only proposition they put forward would have had a cost-neutral impact on what the government was putting forward. That can only lead us to conclude that, had the opposition been in the seat of government, they would have been giving rise to precisely the same levels of debt. They have certainly not provided any form of alternative strategy to pay that debt off one single day earlier.

There is one particular piece of Commonwealth expenditure within the budget, to be made in my electorate of Corio, that I principally want to focus on tonight. On 10 May this year, I had the great honour of announcing, with Anthony Byrne, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, and Councillor John Mitchell, the Mayor of Geelong, a $3.1 million contribution, to come out of the Community Infrastructure Program, to a $6 million refurbishment of the Eastern Beach precinct in Geelong. The Eastern Beach precinct is located on the eastern shores of Corio Bay. The steep slopes which surround the Eastern Beach precinct and the north-fronting part of Corio Bay have been a natural gathering place for the citizens of Geelong since the very commencement of our city. It has been in continuous use in one form or another since the 1840s. It was in 1914 that it was first proposed that there be a development at Eastern Beach. Indeed, in September 1927 works commenced on a stairway up those slopes, which exists today, on the terraces and on dressing sheds. By 1939 a shark-proof enclosure, with its accompanying boardwalk, had been completed along with a children’s pool and it was opened in 1939 by the then mayor, Councillor Sol Jacobs. It was built at the cost of ₤40,000. It was stated at the time by the City of Geelong that it was an investment in Geelong’s future. What a wonderful legacy the foresight of our city leaders back in that time has left us in Geelong today.

What we have now is a semicircular boardwalk with a shark enclosure, which encompasses 8.5 acres of Corio Bay. At the apex of that semicircle is a diving tower and underneath that is a marked out 50-yard pool through boardwalks. There is a restaurant, a cafe, a children’s pool, a natural amphitheatre with lawns, picnic spaces and a children’s park. It is the work of one of Australia’s great architects and engineers, Harry Hare, and it is built in a wonderful art deco style. Since its construction it has been a focus of community activity in Geelong. The current mayor, John Mitchell, remembers how, during his teenage youth, he used the tower as a platform for performing for the young women of Geelong. I am reliably informed that back in those days our mayor had hair and, standing on the top of that platform in his swimming trucks, he must have been an imposing figure. My two elder sisters, Victoria and Jennifer, both learnt to swim in the children’s pool. It is where they obtained their Herald certificates under the tutelage of the legendary swimming teacher in Geelong, Herb Jeffrey. The Geelong Teachers College, which used to have as one of its requirements in order to graduate the accomplishment of a bronze star, did all of its bronze star training and testing at Eastern Beach.

Everyone in Geelong has memories of Eastern Beach and memories continue to be created right now. My four-year-old daughter, Bella, regards the children’s play park that is part of the Eastern Beach precinct as her favourite park. She affectionately refers to it as the ‘water park’. Since the Eastern Beach precinct was first opened in 1939, it has, for Geelong, been a centre of swimming, a centre of fitness activities, a centre of play and a centre for picnics. On hot days it is a mecca. There are thousands of Geelong citizens who use and enjoy the Eastern Beach precinct. It has been a place of major events within Geelong. To this day it hosts Carols by the Bay, which is hosted by Denis Walter.

It is the only survivor of the numerous sea baths that used to dot the shoreline of Port Phillip Bay. Its shark-proof enclosure, its boardwalk and the children’s pool are unique within Victoria. It is a wonderful, intact example of art deco architecture. It is also a wonderful example of the work of the architect and engineer Harry Hare. The refurbishment that is currently underway and being majority funded by the Commonwealth government will see a stabilising of the embankments, the reconstruction of sea walls, the rebuilding of the diving tower and the restoration of the children’s pool, which sadly is leaking considerably right now. There will be a replacement of the footpaths, a re-establishment of shade trees, an upgrading of lighting and an upgrading of street furniture. There have been previous refurbishments. There comes to mind the 1993 refurbishment of the boardwalk. There was a ‘buy a board’ campaign for the boardwalk, which now has the names of all of the benefactors who contributed to that refurbishment on plaques on each of the boards around the boardwalk. This is another wonderful reminder of Geelong’s legacy. But this will be the most significant refurbishment in the history of the Eastern Beach precinct and will restore it to a pristine state, which is a wonderful result for Geelong.

While the Eastern Beach precinct is central to the life of Geelong, in my view it is also an area that has national significance. Once completed, Eastern Beach will become one of the great public pools of Australia. It ranks up there with the sea pool at Bondi, with the North Sydney pool and with the newly constructed public pool in the town precinct of Cairns. This is a wonderful celebration of our nation’s love of the water and love of swimming, and that boardwalk is absolutely the icon of Geelong.

It is for that reason that tonight I am calling for the Eastern Beach precinct to be included on Australia’s National Heritage List. It is worth noting that there is currently no item or part of Geelong which forms part of the National Heritage List, which is a shame given the particular history that Geelong has had within our country. Geelong should have been the capital of Victoria but for some Melbourne shysters back in the 19th century who doctored a map which at that time showed Melbourne closer to the Ballarat goldfields than Geelong, which of course is not true. It was on the basis of that map that it was decided that development be placed in the port of Melbourne rather than in the port of Geelong. Unfortunately, that doctored map meant that Geelong was not then developed as the capital of Victoria and who knows—perhaps from there on in the aftermath of Federation—as our own nation’s capital. That, of course, is a separate story but a feeling dear to the heart of every red-blooded citizen of Geelong. But in telling that briefly the point is to emphasise how rich the cultural history is of Geelong.

When this country rode on the sheep’s back, Geelong was the wool capital of Australia. Most of the wool exports came through the port of Geelong. So there would be no greater fitting first entry for Geelong onto the National Heritage List than the Eastern Beach precinct. The National Heritage List criteria for something to be placed on the National Heritage List states that it must be a place that has:

… outstanding heritage value to the nation because of the place’s importance in the course, or pattern, of Australia’s natural or cultural history …

or:

… outstanding heritage value to the nation because of the place’s importance in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by a community or cultural group …

or:

… outstanding heritage value to the nation because of the place’s strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons.

I do not think you could think of a better place which fits those three criteria under the National Heritage List than the Eastern Beach precinct.

Geelong is really defined by Corio Bay. Corio Bay is why Geelong exists and why we are where we are, and in many respects the Eastern Beach precinct defines the connection between the people of Geelong and Corio Bay. Tonight I spoke to the mayor of Geelong, that same mayor who stood proudly as a teenager on the tower at Eastern Beach. I am committed to working with the mayor in seeking that a nomination be put forward to place the Eastern Beach precinct on the National Heritage List.

I want to mention briefly two more measures in relation to the budget which have particular application to Geelong. One of the key themes of Geelong’s future is being a lifestyle city—and Eastern Beach precinct is an example of that—as a place where people live and work in the greater Port Phillip Bay metropolis. Part of ensuring that that objective is fulfilled comes through the transport connection that exists between Geelong and Melbourne. As part of that $22 billion investment in our nation’s infrastructure announced in the budget, $3.2 billion has been committed to providing for a 40-kilometre dual rail track west of Werribee into Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station. This will be a fantastic development for the people of Geelong, because it will separate the regional trains that come from places like Geelong and Ballarat from the metropolitan trains.

Every commuter on the regional train system, of which there are 16,000 commuters from Melbourne to Geelong, has had the experience of having quite a good run through to Werribee and then finding themselves stuck behind a suburban train for the remainder of the run into Southern Cross Station. This will mean that will no longer occur as there will be a dedicated track for country trains going straight into the heart of Melbourne. It translates into another 9,000 passengers being able to be carried along that route every hour; it translates into 20 extra services across six different lines which include Geelong; it will end the very frustrating delays which commuters have had to this point; and it absolutely improves that link between Geelong and Melbourne. In my first speech I talked about the significance of Geelong as a lifestyle city and the significance of Geelong as part of a greater Port Phillip Bay metropolis. But for that to be realised and for Geelong to evolve as an alternative economic centre within a greater Port Phillip Bay metropolis, key to it is the transport link between Geelong and Melbourne—and this is literally going to revolutionise that rail link. While it will also provide for significant job opportunities for people from both Melbourne and Geelong in the construction of this project, it will provide a wonderful legacy for the people of Geelong when it is ultimately concluded.

I note one final initiative that came out of the budget which had application to Geelong. In my first speech I talked about one of the future themes of Geelong being a national transport and logistics hub. In the north of Geelong we have located very close to each other the national rail gauge, highway No. 1, an airport in Avalon which we hope will become an international airport, and the sea port of Geelong. All of these are located within 1½ kilometres of each other with land around those areas. In a national context Geelong is in a strategic geographical location with Adelaide and Perth to our west and with Sydney and Brisbane to our north. There is every potential for that region to become one of the great transport and logistics pieces of land within Australia. But to make that occur we have to ensure that the connections are right; that is, the connections between rail and air, the connections between rail and sea, and the connections between road and sea.

One initiative which came out of the budget is a $50 million upgrade of the rail connection to the port at Geelong, which will provide immediate access both southbound and westbound along the rail gauge to the grain port within Geelong. It is a really important initiative. It is not the complete story in terms of providing all the connections but it is a very significant step down the path of completing all those connections between the various modes of transport. It goes a long way to furthering the credentials of Geelong as the premier transport and logistics hub within our country.

All of these initiatives give a snapshot of how the budget is impacting on local communities around our country. This budget is so important to the people of Geelong for the three measures I have mentioned before we talk about the way in which it is impacting on paid parental leave or the way in which it is impacting on increasing the payments to pensioners and so forth. The investment in infrastructure is going to be a shot in the arm for the people of Geelong and is an example of the way in which this budget is going to re-enliven regional Australia. To that extent, it is a budget which will go down in history and will be one that is remembered. This will be remembered as a time when Canberra became concerned again with regional Australia. I very much commend the government for this budget. I commend it to this House and it is a great honour for me to be able to speak in support of it.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.