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

I want to use the opportunity afforded by the appropriation debate to talk about where we now are in a global sense in relation to climate change issues. Obviously, the starting point for that has to be the Copenhagen climate change talks and, in order to set the scene, I want to recap on a few comments that I have made elsewhere.

Copenhagen was a complete and utter failure, and there is no purpose served by trying to pretend otherwise. As Mark Lynas said in the Guardian:

After all the hope and all the hype, the mobilisation of thousands, a wave of optimism crashed against the rock of global power politics, fell back, and drained away.

Mark Lynas was attached to one of the delegations and was present during the closed-door negotiations at Copenhagen. He has reported on what happened as follows:

China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful ‘deal’ so Western leaders would walk away carrying the blame.

China’s strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world’s poor once again.

Mr Lynas said that Sudan behaved at the talks as a puppet of China, ‘one of a number of countries that relieves the Chinese delegation of having to fight its battles in open sessions. It was a perfect stitch-up. China gutted the deal behind the scenes, and then left its proxies to savage it in public’.

Mr Lynas said that at late night meetings, as the heads of state from two dozen countries met behind closed doors, Barack Obama was present for hours, with Gordon Brown, other Prime Ministers including the Danish Prime Minister who chaired the talks, and the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. Only about 50 or 60 people were present in the room. The Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, did not attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier foreign ministry official to sit opposite Obama. Mr Lynas said the diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as were the practical consequences, and stated:

Several times during the session, the world’s most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his superiors.

Mr Lynas says it was China’s representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80 per cent cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. ‘Why can’t we even mention our own targets?’ asked Angela Merkel. Brazil’s representative also pointed out that this position was illogical—why should rich countries not announce this unilateral cut? But the Chinese delegate blocked it. Mark Lynas says this is because China did not want the talks to succeed and wanted the rich countries to get the blame for Copenhagen’s lack of ambition. He said:

China, backed at times by India, then proceeded to take out all the numbers that mattered. A 2020 peaking year in global emissions, essential to restrain temperatures to 2°C, was removed and replaced by woolly language suggesting that emissions should peak ‘as soon as possible’. The long-term target, of global 50% cuts by 2050 was also excised.

Mark Lynas went on to say:

No one else, perhaps with the exception of India and Saudi Arabia, wanted this to happen.

The Chinese delegate also moved to remove the 1.5 degree Celsius target so beloved of the small island states and low-lying nations who have most to lose from rising seas. President Nasheed of the Maldives, supported by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, fought to save this crucial number. ‘How can you ask my country to go extinct?’ demanded President Nasheed. The Chinese delegate feigned great offence, and the number stayed, but surrounded by language which makes it all but meaningless.

It is clear to me both that the talks failed to achieve anything like the action that is needed to stop the earth’s temperature from rising to dangerous levels with unpredictable consequences and that the dynamics at work which are preventing global agreement need to be shifted or else the crippling impasse at Copenhagen will continue indefinitely.

Climate change is the great moral challenge of our time, but the problem is not being solved. In order to solve it, I believe we are going to have to rethink a number of things that we have taken as articles of faith for quite some time. We are going to have to slay a few sacred cows.

Sacred cow No. 1 is population growth. I have written and spoken a lot about this particular sacred cow during the past six months. You cannot have a serious plan to tackle climate change which does not address the world’s dramatically increasing population—estimated to be over nine billion by 2050. It is pretty hard to reduce your carbon footprint when you keep adding more feet. Australia’s population has taken off in recent years and is now tracking for an increase of over 60 per cent to 35 million by 2050.

Once of the many disappointing features about the talks at Copenhagen was that there was negligible discussion of the need to stabilise global population. Countries talking about emissions per capita, emissions intensity or anything other than absolute emissions are not going to solve the climate crisis. Stabilising global population needs to be put on the agenda for all countries as part of a suite of measures to reduce carbon emissions.

In December last year Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy, from the Monash University Centre for Population and Urban Research, produced a report showing that population growth would be responsible for over 83 per cent of Australia’s growth in carbon emissions between 2000 and 2020 on Treasury’s base case scenario. Treasury has calculated that, without government measures such as the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, Australia’s carbon emissions will go from 553 megatonnes of carbon dioxide to 774 million tonnes in 2020. Of this 221 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent rise, Mr Birrell and Mr Healy have calculated that population growth is responsible for 184 million tonnes, that is to say over 83 per cent of it.

To put the impact of population growth on carbon emissions another way, Mr Birrell and Mr Healy state that if population had remained at the 2000 level of 19.2 million through to 2020, cutting carbon emissions by five per cent would only have required a per capita reduction in greenhouse emissions from 28.8 tonnes per head in 2000 to 27.3 tonnes per head in 2020. That is quite manageable. But with Australia’s population rising to a projected 25.2 million by 2020, cutting emissions by five per cent will require per capita emissions to fall from 28.8 tonnes per head to 20.8 tonnes per head. That is a much more challenging task, for a five per cent reduction which some green groups are saying is not good enough given the scale of the problem.

Sacred cow No. 2 is that the rich countries alone must solve the problem. It is quite correct that it is the wealthy countries of the Western world that have pumped the carbon pollution into the atmosphere which is causing the climate to change. It is, however, quite incorrect to think that if the rich countries now reduce their carbon emissions, the problem will be solved. If the space created by falling emissions from developed countries is simply filled by rising emissions from China, India and other developing countries, the planet will be no better off.

The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, which has been a key part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change for over a decade, is reasonable enough, but it cannot mean that developing countries have no responsibilities when it comes to carbon emissions. There is a risk that we have been trying to do too much at once—solve global heating and world poverty at the same time. Both of these challenges are massive, and like a diver attempting a triple somersault with backward pike, or a cricketer trying to hit every ball for six, we may overreach and fail to achieve either objective.

No doubt, it will be objected that this approach will hurt the poorer countries because they are the ones who are going to need to increase their emissions to break out of their poverty. There are a number of flaws in this argument. Firstly, it may have worked if the world had accepted it and come up with an agreed approach for the developing countries’ emissions. Copenhagen makes it clear that the world has not. The attitude that the rich countries have to fix the problem single-handed is a recipe for ongoing failure. It is simply not going to achieve the necessary carbon reductions.

Secondly, the ensuing stalemate—the stalemate we have now—damages many of the poorest countries most, because it is they who are in the firing line from rising sea levels and increasing climate disasters like hurricanes and floods, and it is they who have the least wherewithal to adapt to climate change.

Thirdly, we need action to produce money to help the poorer countries and reward those who are genuine about decoupling economic growth from carbon emissions. Of course it is desirable to close the gap between rich and poor. I support measures such as lifting Australia’s aid contribution to the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income with this objective in mind. But I fear that trying to close the gap between rich and poor through the same mechanism as tackling climate change is trying to do more than we are humanly capable of.

Copenhagen failed because it had only a very small carrot, and no stick. Why do I say this? Because China did not need anything to come out of the talks, and wanted to avoid the risk that in years to come it would be required to adopt more ambitious carbon targets. Its coal based economy is doubling every decade, and its leadership does not want to change this. China was not put under any pressure from within, where there is a glaring absence of democratic debate. In January, Google announced that it had detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack by the Chinese government on its infrastructure, including the theft of intellectual property and spying on human rights advocates. Google said it would not tolerate this, and that if it cannot broker a satisfactory new arrangement with the Chinese government it may shut down its Chinese operation altogether.

Nor was China put under any pressure from without, where non-government organisations routinely line up the Western countries for criticism, but ignore developing countries. Mark Lynas also noted a complete lack of civil society pressure on India, who he says uses:

… the language of equity (“equal rights to the atmosphere”) in the service of planetary suicide …

After Copenhagen, India skited about the lack of action at Copenhagen. According to an article in the Age, India’s environment minister, who attended the Copenhagen talks, told the Indian parliament:

… his mandate had been to protect India’s right for fast economic growth, and listed killing off binding targets for reducing emissions as a key victory for his country.

“We can be satisfied that we were able to get our way on this issue [targets],” Mr Ramesh said.

Mr Ramesh later told a news conference that a bloc of key emerging economies - Brazil, South Africa, India and China - had worked effectively to protect the rights of the developing world.

India is one of the world’s top five greenhouse gas emitters.

I want to express great disappointment at the role played by China and India in blocking action on climate change. I contest absolutely the idea that allowing carbon emissions to increase is in the interests of developing countries. The economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment, and the report by Nicholas Stern has made it clear that the costs of inaction will exceed the costs of action.

The developing countries are highly vulnerable to the impacts of extreme weather events, such as floods and cyclones. They are highly vulnerable to the impacts of melting glaciers, to drought related food and water shortages and to the resulting boat people and conflicts. China, India and all the countries of the world have an obligation to press for action on climate change; to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. In order to succeed we need a lot more of both carrot and stick.

Sacred cow No. 3 is 1990 baselines. I think one of the things which are causing us to struggle with climate change solutions is that we have tended to focus on big, far-off targets, which can be an excuse for inaction on both counts. If the targets are big, that can be paralysing—we think that the mountain is too high to climb. And if the targets are long term, we think we do not need to do anything now—we can act later, or even leave it to those who come after us.

I am attracted to thinking of the carbon reduction task in small bites which are at once both more manageable and more demanding because they require immediate action. Worryingly, Australia’s carbon emissions have been continuing to rise. I think we should be setting a goal of stopping them this year, stabilising our carbon emissions by the end of the year. Then each year after that we should aim to cut our carbon emissions by two per cent. It does not feel that impossible, taking it one step at a time. If we could do this for the next 40 years, we would have cut our carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, and if we could do it for the next 50 years we would have made our country completely carbon neutral—a 100 per cent reduction by 2060.

These reductions use a 2010 baseline rather than a 1990 or 2000 one. So some environmental organisations may see them as too soft, but the fact is that emissions rises have already happened. In Australia’s case, they were authorised under the Kyoto protocol. So harking back to 1990 is particularly onerous for Australia—effectively an attempt to rewrite Kyoto history—and I also think it complicates matters so much that it makes it impossible for the public to understand who is doing what and when. If we reset the clock and ask countries to commit to stabilising their emissions this year and reducing them by two per cent every year from now on, this is something that communities in Australia and around the world could potentially understand and embrace.

For Australia it could demystify the task of reducing greenhouse emissions and make it more publicly understandable and, therefore, make governments more accountable. Australia’s present greenhouse emissions are around 550 megatons of carbon dixode equivalent. If we are committed to cutting them by 80 per cent by 2050, which is consistent with what the climate science is telling us, and committed to a two per cent annual reduction target, we could cut to 440 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2020, 330 megatons by 2030, 220 megatons by 2040 and 110 megatons by 2050. Indeed, we could seek to go the extra mile and make the economy completely carbon neutral by 2060, which would simply involve more annual two per cent reductions. The Australian Capital Territory government has committed to being carbon neutral by 2060, in 50 years time, and I commend it for this initiative.

I know these sacred cows will take a lot of slaying. They are sacred cows for a good reason. The population growth sacred cow is one very beloved of the business community and the right of politics while the climate change sacred cow that rich countries must solve single-handedly is much beloved of the left of politics, and the 1990 baseline is much beloved by environment groups who do not want countries that have been slack over the past 20 years to get off lightly. But the present approaches are simply not working. We cannot solve this problem by being less than honest about the situation. The fact is that our global measures to tackle climate change have nowhere near the seriousness or the urgency that the problem demands and, therefore, some new thinking is required.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010

I am reminded of the delivery of the budget back in May, when I went to a briefing by KPMG after the event and they were giving their assessment of the budget. At the briefing I asked the question: when did the government expect to pay off the debt? A Labor member who was sitting close to me muttered around the table: ‘In 2016. Why don’t you read the budget papers?’ In fact, that is not when the debt will be paid off; that is when Australia stops going into further debt. The debt will still remain. That is when, according to the government’s forward forecast, the books will balance, but we will still have the $150 billion to pay off. So, in fact, I think the government can be likened to a bunny sitting in the headlights. They are paralysed and can only watch the headlights of unsustainable debt bearing down on them. They just hope that perhaps the truck will make a deviation and go around them.

So what will the electorate make of a government which has taken us from a net savings position of $60 billion and is now planning to be in net debt of $150 billion?. The government has not had the intestinal fortitude to face the long line of people and organisations in the electorate to whom it has promised largesse and tell them that the party is over and that its stimulus program is not well targeted, is not adding to Australian productivity and is undermining our ability to compete in the future. We have had the appallingly managed ‘pink batts’ scheme, now officially also a dangerous scheme; the equally appallingly managed Green Loans scheme; and the borrowed billions to put $900 cheques in people’s letterboxes. The government has tried to convince the general public that borrowing money to give to taxpayers to spend as quickly as they can was a stroke of economic genius. I wonder whether, if the government had explained that the $900 cheques will ultimately have to be repaid with interest, the public would have been so pleased with it.

We have had the Julia Gillard memorial school hall project. While it is to be expected that most schools will welcome any assistance, not all have been happy with the funding guidelines; in fact, some are extremely resentful of the autocratic direction behind the project. Local communities, in many cases, are bewildered by the blow-out in costs that they know are not justified. A number of small schools who qualify for the $255,000 assistance have chosen covered outdoor learning areas, or COLAs. They have reported to me that they know these glorified haysheds should be constructed for well under $100,000, when in fact they take the full $250,000. These people are not silly. They come largely from rural communities. They know a shed when they see one, and they know what it is worth.

I might point out also that a number of these schools have been told that, as part of the $250,000 construction, they will install rainwater tanks. One would think that that is a very worthy cause, except that they may not use the water out of these rainwater tanks and they have to be plumbed to the mains supply so they can be kept full at all times. It is a nonsensical suggestion. They are supposedly put there for fire water supplies, but in many cases adequate fire water supplies exist within a very short distance. One would think that, if we are going to put rainwater tanks into schools and capture rainwater—which is a very good idea—we would actually use the rainwater, not just let it sit there.

This government is accumulating the biggest failure on electorate commitments seen in modern government in Australia. Financially inept, the government is prone to grand announcements, having never given a thought to how it might deliver. I refer to an article in the Adelaide Advertiser by Ben Packham, published last Thursday:

An analysis of Labor’s 2007 election commitments reveal many have been quietly axed or are far from being met.

The Prime Minister apologised to the Stolen Generations and signed the Kyoto Protocol, but just one of 2650 promised trades training centres will accept students this semester.

Of 260 child care centres he pledged would be built in schools and TAFEs, only one has opened its doors. And just two of Labor’s 31 promised GP Super Clinics are fully operational.

Promised Healthy Kids Checks have failed to make an impact on pre-schooler health, with GPs seeing just 62,823 children so far.

Plans to attract retired nurses back into hospitals have also bombed, with just 752 accepting a $6000 return-to-work bonus. Labor hoped 7750 would take up the offer.

And 52 of a promised 2500 new aged-care beds have been opened within two years.

Labor’s original election policies have been removed from the ALP website, but a copy of the website as it was on election day has been preserved by the National Library of Australia. Promised A-E grading of childcare centres, listed on the site, has been dumped.

A replacement grading system will use terms such as “unsatisfactory”, “operating level” and “national quality standard” to assess childcare standards.

The much-vaunted “education revolution” is taking its time putting computers on desks—only 28 per cent of promised computers have been delivered halfway into a four-year program. The Government’s biggest broken promise was largely outside its control as it pushed the Budget into deficit to fight off recession.

But its move to scrap its $4.7 billion National Broadband Network was deliberate. The five-year plan was replaced by a $43 billion eight-year project. The Auditor-General yesterday—

this was published last week—

revealed the aborted tender for the project cost … $30 million.

Other—

big-ticket—

promises such as Grocerywatch and Fuelwatch have fallen by the wayside, while the Government is yet to take Japan to court to save the whales.

I did not write that; that is what others are saying. It is a sad story; it is a story of unfulfilled commitments.

Now I have another broken commitment to bring before the House: the saga of a committed magnetic resonance imaging machine for Port Augusta. It is not just for Port Augusta but for the whole region, including Port Pirie, Whyalla, Port Lincoln, the farming areas of the mid-north and the Eyre Peninsula and the growing mining region in the far north of South Australia. This machine, along with another 12, was committed to by the Howard government in the second half of 2007, and its strategic placement in Port Augusta would see it service 75,000 people. Tenders for the installation and operation of the service were called and were due by mid-November 2007. I have since found there were three tenders.

On the election of the Rudd government, the Minister for Health and Ageing, Minister Roxon, affirmed the new government’s commitment to delivering this service, and I welcomed that. Tenderers initially expected decisions within six months, but they have suffered no fewer than three extensions, eventually being informed in September 2009—almost two years after the tender was lodged—that the government had decided that none of the tenderers were suitable and it was cancelling the project. At no stage had the tenderers been asked for additional information or to make any alterations. Nor had it been adequately explained to them why they had been rejected. In fact, the one tenderer who has confided in me said that during a debriefing after the rejection he was told that his submission ticked all the boxes; it was an excellent submission.

The tenderers have had their lives on hold for almost two years, financially committed to property so they could deliver what they had promised, only to be informed at the end of the process that the government was not interested. It is a pity that other parties, namely the government, would not keep their commitments. Tenderers were required to meet a number of prerequisites, including public access, professional standards, business plans, staff training programs et cetera. I have since the election inquired of the minister on a number of occasions as to when we can expect this service to commence, and have continually been referred to the minister’s statement of January 2008 affirming her commitment to the establishment of the service.

Following the news of the cancellation, I contacted the minister’s office and sought a meeting as a matter of urgency, and I was pleased that she granted me an audience. At the meeting I explained that I believed her department had made an error of judgment and she committed to review the process. She also asked me to in the interim not publicly attack her and to work with her on the process, to which I agreed. On 22 December, after the country media had gone to sleep for Christmas, I received information from the minister’s officer reaffirming her decision to slash the project. I had by this time been privy to one of the tender documents. While it requested start-up finance, it clearly stated that if it were not forthcoming then the proponents were prepared to meet the whole cost of establishing the service, the building, the machine, the staff—the whole lot. What a deal for the taxpayer: no money, no risk.

All the proponents are asking for is the operating licence and the Medicare fee-for-service payments—the same as for every other MRI machine in Australia. The financial risk is all to the proponents. If their business were to fail, what would be the cost to the taxpayer? It would be nothing. The taxpayer has not funded the machine or the premises. Surely this decision must just be a bureaucratic stuff-up. I wrote twice more to the minister, asking her to take personal interest in the issue. My last correspondence was on 18 January. I have made repeated attempts since then to elicit a response from her, and last week was told to wait another two weeks. My patience is at an end: I have appealed to the minister in the most reasonable manner on this issue and been repeatedly rejected.

If the minister believes that this is a cost-cutting measure, it is a disgrace, because if we assume these services are delivered anyway—in this case, in Adelaide—then there will be no increase in the number of MRI scans, just a displacement. It just means that South Australians living in the region will not have to travel thousands of kilometres to access services others take for granted. If the department does assess this move as a saving then that is an admission that we in regional Australia are underserviced, and that is even worse. That decision would infer that we in country Australia are second-class Australians.

It is a sorry tale of promises abandoned to go with all the other commitments this government is running away from on the day. There may be some light on this particular project, but it comes not from the government but from the party for all Australians, the Liberal Party, which has always recognised the worth of regional Australia. Last Saturday, the state Liberal leader, Isobel Redmond, committed $2½ million to establishing this service, and the voters of South Australia will have the opportunity in six weeks time to make that happen. It is an opportunity to get rid of another underperforming, smug, out-of-touch Labor government, but the central question will still remain: will the health minister stand by her 2008 commitment and supply the operating licence. If she does not, it will not matter who pays for the installation; it will still need the operating licence.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010. These bills appropriate funding for government decisions included in the Mid-Year Economic and Financial Outlook and decisions made since its release. Last Wednesday was the anniversary of the $42 billion Nation Building and Jobs Plan, and I think it is worth reflecting on how our nation has fared over these last 12 months. I think it is also worth reflecting on the very clear delineation of economic policy that the stimulus policy has made stark in Australian politics.

On the one hand we have the government’s response—to take timely and effective action in the face of the most serious financial and economic crisis that the world has faced in more than 75 years. It is a response by a government that was prepared to use the full range of policy tools at its disposal: fiscal policy, both through transfer payments and government investment in infrastructure; monetary policy; financial regulation and intervention in financial markets; and international trade and finance policies. It is a response that has involved the federal government working with other nations, with the state governments, with local governments and with businesses to craft a response that would protect and strengthen Australia’s economy now and in the future. Fundamentally we have a government that understood that to contain the damage caused by the meltdown in global financial markets we had to maintain confidence in our financial system, encourage households to maintain consumption and provide businesses with the certainty and confidence to continue investing.

On the other hand and in very stark contrast we had the opposition’s reaction. The Liberal and National parties opposed the infrastructure stimulus package at the height of the global financial crisis and have continued to oppose the stimulus package since. We have had the new Leader of the Opposition saying in the last day or two that the stimulus was a waste of money. We have had the new opposition leader saying in the clearest possible terms that it is the intention of the Liberal and National parties to stop the stimulus. That provides the clearest possible contrast. We have an opposition that would, by stopping the stimulus, stop economic policy which is supporting thousands of jobs, supporting tradies and small businesses across Australia and supporting thousands of Australian working families. As I say, the contrast could not have been clearer.

And now, as Australia makes its way through this crisis, we are beginning to see the effects of the government’s response. The response has helped to maintain and rebuild confidence in the Australian financial system, it has helped to sustain consumer and business confidence and the government has made up for the decline in business investment and household consumption by injecting significant government spending into the economy. The Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook included significant upgrades in economic growth compared to the budget forecast for financial year 2009-10, which improved from negative 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent. Forecasts for 2010-11 improved from 2.25 per cent to 2.75 per cent. The fiscal stimulus added around one percentage point to GDP growth in 2008-09 and should add 1.5 per cent to GDP growth in this financial year. According to the Mid-Year Economic and Financial Outlook, private demand will contract by 0.75 per cent rather than the four per cent in the budget forecast.

Australia has managed to avoid a recession through the worst global downturn in more than 75 years. Australia’s economy is the only advanced economy that expanded in the year to June 2009. According to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook update, Australia’s economic growth was positive, and Australia was the only advanced economy to achieve this. No major Australian financial institution collapsed; none required government to take significant shareholdings in return for dealing with toxic debt; nor were any nationalised. This can be contrasted with the situation in the United Kingdom, where the government has nationalised Northern Rock and taken significant shareholdings in Lloyds and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Most importantly, the government’s response to the global economic crisis has helped to protect hundreds of thousands of Australian jobs. Unemployment is now expected to reach around 6.75 per cent. This is 1.5 per cent lower than it is estimated would have occurred without the stimulus. It is now clear—if there was ever any doubt—that the government’s response has been the correct response. It has left the opposition with no credibility on economic matters.

On 12 October 2008, in the days after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Australian government took the first steps to secure Australia’s economic position in the face of a rapidly deteriorating situation in global financial markets. Through the guarantee scheme for large deposits and wholesale funding, and the financial claims scheme, the Australian government made it clear that it would ensure confidence in our financial institutions was maintained. These measures ensured continued consumer confidence in our financial sector and guaranteed that Australian banks would still be able to access global capital markets—in particular, to rollover debt that was falling due. Without the guarantees that the government provided, financing for business investment would have dried up, interest rates would have been higher and we would have seen a sharp contraction in economic activity and a resulting loss of jobs for Australian workers.

The very next day, 13 October 2008, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer announced the $10.4 billion Economic Security Strategy, which would become the first part of the government’s program of economic stimulus. It contained $4.8 billion for immediate financial assistance to Australia’s four million pensioners, carers and seniors; $3.9 billion for low- and middle-income families; $1.5 billion for the first home owners boost; and $187 million to create 56,000 new training places in 2008-09. It also brought forward significant investment in nation-building infrastructure projects to 2009.

This first initial boost to the economy focused significant transfer payments to those most in need and most likely to inject that money straight back into the economy—pensioners, carers, seniors and low- and middle-income families. It provided significant help for the building and construction industry as well as for first home buyers seeking finance in the midst of a drastic credit tightening by Australian banks. It helped to boost economic activity by bringing forward the government’s investment in infrastructure to make up for the failure of the Howard government in dealing with the capacity constraints during the boom.

As the global economic situation deteriorated, the first stimulus the government announced was followed in February 2009 by the Nation Building and Jobs Plan. We had the anniversary of that plan, that infrastructure stimulus, just last week. Key details of this plan included $12.2 billion in one-off cash payments and $29.9 billion in shovel-ready infrastructure projects, including investing $14.7 billion in schools across Australia; $8.5 billion in critical road, rail and port infrastructure; $4.5 billion in the Clean Energy Initiative; $2.6 billion in the Education Investment Fund; and $3.2 billion in the Health and Hospitals Fund. The final element was investing more than $1 billion in the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program, which is the largest one-off investment in local infrastructure in Australia’s history.

Locally, in our community, what this infrastructure program has meant is large local council projects. The two key examples are the complete rebuilding of the Noble Park pool, which is now over 50 years old. That coincides very happily with the centenary of the community of Noble Park. The complete refurbishment of the Noble Park pool is a long overdue local project. The federal government funding is in the order of $7 million, and to that is going to be added a contribution from the City of Greater Dandenong and a contribution from the state government from its Better Pools program. What you see there is the three tiers of government—local, state and federal—working very cooperatively together to produce a community project which has been long awaited and is much needed. The work on that Noble Park pool refurbishment is well underway and will provide very direct benefits to the whole of our local community in Noble Park.

The other major council in my electorate, the City of Kingston, received funding for the refurbishment of the Kingston Heath soccer facility—a project of over $2 million, provided through Commonwealth funding through the Regional and Local Infrastructure Program. Again, the works at Kingston Heath soccer facility are well underway. It is a much used and much valued local facility, used by soccer clubs from across south-east Melbourne, and the refurbishment of it is going to make a very substantial contribution to the sporting facilities in our area.

The two main councils in my electorate, the City of Kingston and the City of Greater Dandenong, as well as the City of Frankston—which is responsible for the Carrum Downs area in the south of the Isaacs electorate—have all embarked on a range of smaller infrastructure projects, which have been funded by the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program. Many of those smaller projects have already been completed or are well underway. I could mention a couple: the opening in January of the refurbished Tatterson Park, with a very extensive playground, in Keysborough, which is a City of Greater Dandenong Project; and the extension of bike paths in and to Braeside Park in the City of Kingston—notably, bike paths from waterways to Braeside Park. Again, these are much needed and much welcomed local projects that the local councils have been able to undertake with the assistance of Commonwealth government funding.

The schools projects, which have been funded by the Building the Education Revolution funding, have produced construction programs in every primary school in my electorate. The projects that have been undertaken at every primary school in my electorate are all welcome. They are all now underway and some of them are on the point of completion. I think the first primary school in my electorate that is going to complete its Building the Education Revolution project will be St Joachim’s in Carrum Downs. They have built a truly excellent school hall, which has already been welcomed by the whole of the school community. It is a facility that St Joachim’s, in the Catholic system, thought that it was never going to be able to build, and it is a hall that is going to provide a terrific facility for not only the school community but the wider local community as well.

Other primary schools have embarked on the construction of classroom complexes. Again, many of the school principals, school council presidents and parents throughout my electorate have said to me over and over again over the last year how pleased they are at the building works being undertaken. They know very directly the support that these building projects at primary schools have provided for local tradies, in the creation of thousands of jobs through this program, and the great benefits which will flow from the construction of classrooms and halls—which primarily is what is being constructed—at each of the primary schools in our electorate. They are in no doubt as to the timeliness of the economic stimulus and the long-term worth of what is being constructed with the Commonwealth government funding.

Returning to the national level, according to the latest Global Economic Prospects from the World Bank, the worst of the global economic crisis is behind us. Although this can provide some confidence, it should not allow complacency. The opposition, having opposed the effective and timely economic response of the government, is now demanding that that response, the stimulus, be withdrawn. That can be contrasted with the comments that have been made by economists across the world. To pick one, notably the International Monetary Fund in the November edition of Cross-Country Fiscal Monitor called for countries to maintain fiscal support but to devise credible exit strategies. That is precisely what the Rudd government has done. In contrast to the opposition—and the contrast could not be greater—the government has a clear and properly communicated strategy to withdraw the stimulus progressively as private demand recovers. As Peter Anderson, Chief Executive of ACCI, has said ‘an in-built scaling down of economic support is preferable to sudden withdrawal’.

There should be no doubt as to how the infrastructure funding provided by the stimulus package has been able to step in to take the place of a downturn in construction activity in a whole range of sectors across Australia. You have only to look at the construction figures in different sectors of the economy to see just what a downturn there was and to readily understand that, if the government had not stepped into the breach and provided this infrastructure funding, there would have been a disaster for the Australian construction industry, with the direct loss of thousands of jobs and the direct removal of support for thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Australian working families.

You can contrast the steady, measured and decisive approach of the government with the immense risks to the Australian economy which the opposition presents. It is a contrast between the Rudd government building a stronger economy for Australian working families and an economic team that could best be described as a rabble, an economic team which cannot even agree among themselves—highlighted by the extraordinary statements made by the opposition’s finance spokesman, Senator Joyce, just yesterday. Commenting on debt, Senator Joyce said:

You have got to ask the question, how far into debt do you want to go? We are getting to a point where we can’t repay it.

One can only listen to that kind of comment in amazement and think, ‘What was the shadow minister for finance, the alternative finance minister of this country, thinking in suggesting that Australia lacked a capacity to repay its debt?’ It is a direct attack on confidence in the capacity of our economy. It is a comment that the shadow Treasurer did not waste any time slapping down, saying yesterday and again on radio today—correctly, I have to say: ‘Australia can repay its debt; there is no doubt about that.’

What we have is the shadow Treasurer saying correctly that Australia can repay its debt, in the face of ridiculous comments—and they are not the first we have heard from the shadow finance minister—to the effect that Australia in some way cannot repay its debt. It is to be hoped that Senator Joyce will not much longer continue to occupy a senior position in the opposition’s finance team because—even though, happily, he speaks from opposition—it does no good for the Australian economy to have a person occupying such a senior position making these kinds of ridiculous comments. It is symptomatic of the confusion and uncertainty about economic policy that the opposition presently has. It is symptomatic of the fact that the opposition has not the faintest idea of what to suggest about the course of the Australian economy. And it is symptomatic of the fact that—faced with the government having taken correct, decisive and prompt action in the face of the worst economic downturn that the world has seen in 75 years—the opposition is simply bereft of ideas. It seems likely, given the confusion we have seen from the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Treasurer and the shadow finance spokesman in the last—(Time expired)

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to make my contribution to the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010 by dealing with a number of unrelated issues of relevance to my electorate. I have not spoken too often about legal matters in the parliament, but today I want to address serious concerns about the administration of justice, particularly the treatment of one my constituents, Mr Gavin Wright, who was formerly of Mackay but is now based in my electorate.

Mr Wright has a range of concerns about his treatment by the legal system, particularly regarding the performance of his solicitor, Mr Robert Cochrane. Mr Wright was referred to Robert Cochrane, the then principal of Hope Lawyers, a firm now bankrupt, to deal with family law matters following his family breakdown. Mr Wright alleges that Mr Cochrane did not handle his case in a competent, honest or professional manner, and that, as a result, his case was never properly presented to the courts.

I know many honourable members may have heard from people who are dissatisfied with the outcome of a court case but in this instance Mr Wright’s arguments are very compelling. I perused some of the documents in Mr Wright’s possession, and I have to say that I am also deeply disturbed about the management of his case and the failure of the legal system to address what has happened.

The allegations made by Mr Wright, which are supported by the documents, include that Mr Cochrane failed to appear in court on 6 April 2006 as required, even though it seems he charged Mr Wright for the appearance. The Federal Magistrates Court made an order which required action from Mr Wright before 7 June 2006; however, Mr Wright was only provided with a copy of the order on 9 June 2006—two days later—making it completely impossible for him to respond to the court’s requirements. Mr Cochrane informed the Federal Magistrates Court on 30 May 2006 through a barrister that Mr Wright could not proceed with the case because funds were not available, when in fact Mr Wright had paid all of the required funds. There were adequate funds available to meet all of the costs that were required by the court.

On 22 November 2006, in quite an extraordinary case, the Federal Magistrates Court ordered that Mr Cochrane, the solicitor who was representing Mr Wright, be made a second respondent in the matter and ordered all costs against Mr Cochrane because of his incompetence in managing the case. We have an extraordinary case where even the magistrate came to the view that this guy was so incompetent that he made him a respondent to the case and then ordered all the costs against him. The costs have never been paid and Hope Lawyers went into receivership. It does not end there. Mr Wright complained to the Legal Services Commission about Mr Cochrane. On 28 February 2008, the Legal Services Commission wrote to Mr Wright advising that the commissioner had filed a discipline action with the Legal Practice Tribunal against Mr Cochrane.

In all, some 15 charges were laid against Mr Cochrane, only two of which involve Mr Wright. Eleven of the charges concerned non-compliance with the notices from the Legal Services Commission or the Queensland Law Society. The others involved misleading the Federal Magistrates Court, contempt of the Family Court of Australia, failure to return trust account monies within 14 days of being required to do so and engaging in legal practice without a practising certificate. Whilst all of these charges related to quite grave events, the actions taken by the Legal Services Commission were more in relation to technical matters such as failing to comply with notices issued to Mr Cochrane to respond to requests for information rather than dealing with the substantial allegations of misconduct against Mr Cochrane.

Consequently, most of the serious allegations against him have not even been assessed by the Legal Practice Tribunal. In view of the grave nature of the charges against Mr Cochrane, including the 15 specific charges arising out of his general conduct between 5 August 2005 and 13 December 2007, the penalties which were imposed on Mr Cochrane seem to me to have been manifestly inadequate. The penalties involved a public reprimand; a fine of $7,500, which he had a year to pay; $2,500 worth of costs; being restricted to a practising certificate for three years which required him to practise under supervision; and some mentoring requirements.

In view of the scale of this misconduct, it seems to me that those penalties were manifestly inadequate. If you read the judgment by the tribunal, all the way through it seems to be trying to find excuses for Mr Cochrane and his behaviour, pointing out in one instance in relation to my constituent’s concerns:

… the charge does not impute any neglect or default. It is not alleged, for example, that Mr Cochrane misled the court carelessly or neglectfully, let alone recklessly or, worse still, knowingly. The charge concerns a result: that the court was misled. It ignores the cause.

The reality is that is because the issues involving the clear careless and neglectful behaviour of Mr Cochrane were not even considered by the tribunal; it was merely whether or not he had responded on time to notices from the legal commission. Of course he acted carelessly and neglectfully. He told the court that funds were not available when in practice they were.

In relation to the misuse of the trust fund, the tribunal said that the client had not suffered any loss through the delay in the repayment and:

… it is not charged that Mr Cochrane suspected that he had no lien …

Therefore, the tribunal was trying to excuse the solicitor for his behaviour. The judgment makes comments like this:

Things were not going well, professionally, personally or financially.

…            …            …

He experienced anxiety attacks when things got too much: for example, on receiving a notice from the Legal Services Commissioner. Clients lodged complaints.

These are all supposed to be excuses for Mr Cochrane’s clearly unacceptable behaviour. It further said:

The difficulties festered.

…            …            …

He was forced to house-share. He drove a damaged car he could not afford to repair. Debts were piling up.

In Family Court proceedings, Mr Cochrane defended allegations that he was drug-dependent. And the ‘constant battle to try to see (his daughter) has been very stressful and upsetting’ …

In early 2007, Hope Lawyers was placed into receivership.

The judgment is full of excuses. The tribunal simply failed to address the serious issues of Mr Cochrane’s conduct.

I am also concerned that the Legal Services Commission were reluctant to take the matter any further. When they got some legal advice, they took the view that they would be unlikely to succeed if they appealed against the leniency of the judgment. They were also concerned about the leniency of the penalty. The Legal Services Commission acknowledged that. But their advice was that an appeal would be unlikely to succeed.

Part of the reason that they put up as to why the appeal would not succeed was that Mr Cochrane had lost the file, so the information upon which to further the charges was not available and they would have to rely entirely on Mr Wright’s record. As far as I know, the man is still practising under supervision. He has never paid the costs that have been awarded against him and he has never returned Mr Wright’s file as he clearly ought to have done. But my biggest concern about this issue is that there may have been a miscarriage of justice because Mr Wright’s arguments were not properly presented to the courts as a result of the unprofessional conduct of his solicitor.

It is clear that there does need to be a better way to resolve these sorts of issues. The tribunal itself did not seem to care that the clients had been failed. They were more interested in finding excuses for the solicitor. Injustices may have been perpetrated because the cases were not properly presented to the courts. I do not think it is good enough for people in the legal profession to say, ‘Well, Mr Wright can go out and get a competent lawyer and seek to have his case reopened—it is no good suing the lawyer; he’s already bankrupt.’ But how can he go out and have the cases reheard? It is four years ago now. The man is homeless. He does not have the resources to be able to undertake this sort of action. In addition, the Family Court orders have, of course, all been activated by now. The children’s care arrangements are in place and the property division has all occurred. It cannot be undone. So the activities of this solicitor in the case of my constituent—and, I might add, in the case of a number of his other clients—simply cannot be undone.

I know the legal profession has a bit of reputation for looking after its own, for those of us who are not a part of the legal profession—I know there are lots of people in this place who are. But, if the profession wants the public to respect its competence, it has to find a way to deal with those amongst its number who are not performing satisfactorily. In this particular instance it is the Queensland Attorney-General, who unfortunately is also a lawyer, who must have the courage to investigate the activities of the Legal Services Commission and particularly the way in which the Legal Practice Tribunal deals with the cases of solicitors, such as Mr Cochrane, who have clearly failed their clients. In dealing with this issue, the priority needs to be: how can we make sure that those people who trust and rely on a solicitor get justice and value for their money? Almost everyone goes to a solicitor because they are dealing with issues they do not personally understand or are not competent to deal with themselves. So they have a right to expect a quality of service and competence. The profession itself, as a group, has an obligation to make sure that the expectations of the community in relation to solicitors are, in fact, met.

Now I want to have a complete change of pace and talk about something completely different, and that is the plight of Australia’s koala population. I have to say that I have a particular love of koalas. I live on a one-acre block and koalas are regular visitors to our allotment. In fact, I prize a picture, which reached the final of the Pulitzer Prize last year, of a koala and her baby in our backyard. But I am concerned about the plight of koalas, particularly in New South Wales and Queensland. I accept that, in some places, koalas are in what is referred to as ‘plague proportions’

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

Kangaroo Island.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and need to be moved, but the numbers in Queensland and New South Wales are becoming seriously depleted. Many people say that this is because of a loss of habitat, and that is certainly a factor. Farmers tend to get the blame for that, although I think that is unfair because a lot of the habitat is, in fact, destroyed for urban development. The areas where koalas live are also the areas where people like to live and so the koalas’ territory is often invaded for urban development. But it is possible, as I mentioned from my own personal example, for koalas and urban populations to cohabit. There are risks—for example, motor vehicles on the road. Also, domestic dogs can attack koalas. Even seemingly pleasant little pets, if they have a koala crossing their yard, will see it as invading their territory. While koalas carry a nasty scratch, a dog will often win the fight.

There are issues, but the biggest concern affecting the New South Wales and Queensland koala population is the onset of a range of new diseases which threaten the entire population. There are some colonies where there are few breeding animals left, and science does not really understand these diseases. There is a need to do a lot more research on trying to find a way to address the diseases and establish and preserve disease-free colonies so that the populations of koalas in Queensland and New South Wales can be at sustainable levels.

Ms Carolyn Beaton, who has been a koala advocate for many years, has been advocating the establishment of a sanctuary in the Noosa area for koalas. The iconic Noosa National Park is thought to have as few as 10 or a dozen koalas left. She would like to see that population enhanced or in fact see new sanctuaries established in the region to make sure that the Sunshine Coast koala population is maintained and preserved. She has sought funding for a Noosa koala sanctuary education and research centre. She has the cooperation of a number of the other wildlife establishments in the region, and I think it would be a very sensible move to establish a research centre for koalas in the Sunshine Coast area. Its priority needs to be to address disease issues to make sure that we do not—as with the Tasmanian devils—run the risk of having the population lost not because of the intervention of man but because of the advent of a disease that we do not seem to be able to effectively combat.

I wrote to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts about this issue. He tells me:

I have asked the Australian Government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee to assess the status of the koala for possible listing as a nationally threatened species under the … EPBC Act …

The Australian Government is also leading a steering committee to revise the National Koala Conservation and Management Strategy … under the auspices of the National Resource Management Ministerial Council … The Strategy provides the national framework for conserving koalas.

I have to say that that is a bit of a bureaucratic response. A strategy is not going to cure the diseases. A strategy is not going to deal with the need to preserve and provide appropriate habitat. It sounds like talk rather than action. Indeed, as the honourable member opposite interjected, there are some places where koalas are anything but an endangered species, so that is not the solution.

We simply need to deal with the impact in New South Wales and Queensland. We need to address the ongoing loss and fragmentation of habitat. We need to look at issues like the threats from dogs and motor vehicles when koalas and people seek to cohabit in residential areas. And we certainly need to better understand the effects of disease. The minister says some of those issues will be central to the strategy, but unless there is a real commitment of funding to research efforts I am afraid that the strategy will just be an empty talkfest. So I call on the minister to think sympathetically about the proposal on the Sunshine Coast to establish a suitable reserve and research strategy to deal with the small remaining population of koalas in that area and to take positive action in the interests of preserving this really iconic Australian species in New South Wales and Queensland.

Finally, in the few minutes that are left to me, I want to refer to digital television, particularly the close-down of analog television which begins in regional Australia later this year. This must be the first thing that a Labor government have done for the country before they have delivered it in the cities. We are the first to lose our analog television, and it is clear that there are going to be serious issues about reception for people living in country communities.

The minister has announced that 100 of the existing 600 self-help television transmitters—these are mainly the black spot transmitters provided by the previous government—are to be converted to digital. For those people the transition should, therefore, be relatively smooth. However, what about other 500 transmitters? The government said it is going to cost $18 million to convert 100. That means $90 million would convert the other 500. The government is proposing to set up new satellite services. They will end up costing more than converting the existing transmitters. Once more, these satellite services will mean the death of localism. No longer will people have access to their local television advertisements or their local community service announcements; those will come from Sydney or Melbourne and will be irrelevant to their needs. As one satellite covers all of Tasmania, South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria, maybe Tasmanians are going to have to start looking at rugby league football instead of something they might want to see, because it could be coming out of Sydney.

So the government has not answered these sorts of issues. They are proposing a new satellite to deal with news services. But that is not the only thing that people want to see from their own local region. They do want localism, and I call on the government to make sure that there is a system in place—before they start closing down analog transmitters—that guarantees that everyone who gets television now will have it after digital television is introduced.

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

I rise today to support the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010. These two bills provide timely funding for numerous very successful government programs, schemes and funds, with the appropriations being sought amounting to a little over $2 billion. A lot of these projects have been part of the federal government’s successful stimulus plan. Our nation-building plan has been very successful and widely appreciated, certainly in my electorate of Kingston.

Only two weeks ago I went with the Minister for Housing to visit some of the projects that are happening on the ground in the area of social housing. We visited 16 houses being instructed in Hackham—a lovely suburb—and these houses are well on their way. I visited this location with the minister only six months before, and at that time it was an empty block waiting for construction. At that time, we met with the company organising the construction of these houses. Six months later, we are seeing houses having their kitchens put in, the plastering done, the insulation put in and very soon will be ready for the first tenants to move in. This is an incredibly successful scheme not only because it has provided much-needed housing in my local area but also because it has provided an economic stimulus and has supported jobs.

When I visited there six months ago, we discussed with the project managers, Quattro, that we wanted to ensure that local people were employed. So I was very pleased to have a visit from the Minister for Employment Participation, Senator Mark Arbib. He came down and had a ‘keep Kingston working’ forum. As a result of this, we saw on the worksite, only a few weeks ago, local tradespeople—local kitchen makers from Lonsdale, local tradies from Aldinga—all working on this project. They were all getting work because of the government stimulus strategy. So I think that was an exciting project and I thank the Minister for Housing for attending that.

While the minister was in the electorate of Kingston, we also visited Southern Junction Community Services, a very reputable non-government organisation providing housing to people most in need. I do note that Appropriation Bill No. 3 provides an additional close to $20 million to the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs for payments under the Rental Affordability Scheme. The Rental Affordability Scheme is a particularly important scheme for electorates such as Kingston where we are seeing that the affordability of rent—and I have spoken about this many times in the parliament—is becoming out of reach. We do know that when the cost of rent or repayments exceeds 30 per cent of someone’s income they are under housing stress. I meet people day after day in my electorate who do feel housing stress, so I was very pleased that, when the Minister for Housing was down, we were able to visit Southern Junction Community Services in an area where the scheme will deliver 83 new affordable rental homes in Adelaide’s southern suburbs by 2011. We met with Graham Brown and his board of Southern Junction Community Services and we were able to discuss exactly how this was going to impact on people within our community, particularly looking at people under housing stress whether they be families or young people in southern Adelaide.

These houses will have a significant impact and deliver some great outcomes. The 83 homes being built will include a mix of studio apartments, two- and three-bedroom townhouses and three-bedroom houses. This is really important because in the southern suburbs of Adelaide we have often seen that housing availability has not always accommodated the different types of households looking for it. In some areas there is not enough housing for individuals—single person houses—and in other places there is not enough housing for families. These houses are really important and they will be rented out at at least 20 per cent below the market price to tenants who meet eligibility criteria.

The financial pressure caused by high rental prices is something which is hurting low- and moderate-income earners around Australia. The additional funding proposed in this bill is required due to the larger than expected number of charities and non-government organisations, such as Southern Junction Community Services, seeking to participate in the scheme. The previous government really did nothing when it came to housing affordability. I know that this was an increasing issue in my local electorate. Certainly, people in my electorate have welcomed the very practical and positive things that this government has done. There is the National Rental Affordability Scheme, which I have mentioned, and also the social housing under the Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan. These two things are really making a difference on the ground in Kingston.

Appropriation Bill No. 3 also proposes to bring forward $290 million from 2011-12 for the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts to meet the increase in demand for the Home Insulation Program which is, once again, part of our practical solution to dealing with the financial crisis. This program offers up to $1,200 in ceiling insulation to owner-occupiers, landlords and tenants. Having opened on 1 July 2009, this has been an incredibly popular program that many people have taken up. To illustrate how popular it has been, as at November last year take-up of the government’s Energy Efficient Homes package saw ceiling insulation provided for over 600,000 Australian households and around another 100,000 households took up the solar hot water package. This compares to the previous government where only 4,000 people took up the solar hot water rebate.

This government has seen where there is a need. It has looked at it in a time where we needed to actually do something that not only stimulated jobs and interest in the short term but also in the long term. These programs will help many people to cut their electricity bills. I think that this is really important. We have seen in South Australia just how hot it can get. Last year we had record heatwaves. This year we have certainly had many days over 43 degrees. This does produce significant stress especially on the elderly. We saw in the 2008-09 heatwaves that people had a lot of complications and found it very difficult to keep cool in their own homes. Certainly, a number of people have approached me who do not have insulation and cannot afford air-conditioning. Enabling these people to put insulation into their homes will be particularly important.

The Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2010 also proposes an extra $510 million for the Solar Homes and Communities Plan. This program will be replaced by the solar credit scheme, but they both provide assistance to households, small businesses and community groups for the cost of installing solar panels on their roofs. Once again, this has been a particularly exciting and well taken up program. I know that the opposition will say, ‘Well, it was our program.’ But let us just contrast how many people have taken this up in the two years that we have been in government. In less than two years, as of November, the government was on track to fund more than 120,000 installations of solar panels. This compares to just 10,000 rebates funded over the entire period of the previous government. This is another example of where this government is taking practical action to help people reduce their energy costs and to let them feel like they are making a contribution to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. I do know, despite what the opposition might have us believe, that people are concerned about climate change. They do want to do their bit to reduce carbon emissions, and the assistance through the government’s energy efficient home package and the solar credit scheme will specifically do that.

Specifically, $40 million will also be provided to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations to meet the increasing demands of general employee entitlements and the redundancy scheme caused by the significant increase in bankruptcies and insolvencies. I have spoken about this before, and I anticipate that the reforms in the Bankruptcy Legislation Amendment Bill 2009 will pass through the Senate committee process. Additionally, this bill provides more remedial assistance to those affected by the provisions in this bill.

Finally, these appropriations bills propose an additional $12.5 million for the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government for the Local Government Reform Fund. This will allow the fund to continue helping councils to manage their infrastructure plans for the future and will assist in the construction of community buildings such as libraries, community centres, sports grounds and environmental infrastructure.

I make the point that this is really important for electorates like the electorate of Kingston. It is an outer metropolitan electorate where a lot of the community infrastructure was built perhaps 30 or 40 years ago, and nothing has really been done on that community infrastructure since. So 40 years later we see infrastructure that is ageing and—unfortunately for the local council—it is in need of repair and update all at the same time because it was all built at the same time. This is causing significant concern for the council and also shows that when infrastructure is built it does need a plan for how you are going to update it, because 30 years does come around pretty quickly. In my electorate we see the need for significant upgrades in community infrastructure but, at the same time as the infrastructure that was built 30 years ago needs updating, we also see new suburbs being built that are in desperate need of this sort of community infrastructure.

Once again, the government’s Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan did provide significant money to enable a lot of local community infrastructure. I was very pleased to see that the council put that money into things in my electorate such as upgrading footpaths, which were in dire need of upgrading or, in fact, needed to be put in. It sounds like a very small thing, but not having footpaths is a really difficult thing, whether for parents trying to walk around pushing prams, or for older people in their gophers. Footpaths are just a basic thing to be provided, and I take this opportunity to reflect what my constituents are saying. Whether it is local or state government, these footpaths really do need to be made a priority. So I am very pleased that the money that the federal government gives will really help local government plan for the future in terms of infrastructure. I just want to note that footpaths really need to be one of those things.

In conclusion, it is important that we pass these appropriation bills in a timely fashion because they will provide money to some significantly popular programs that are creating some real stimulus in the economy. We know that the opposition wants to pull the rug out from under the stimulus, but these programs are on the ground, helping to ensure that people remain employed and building some significant benefits for the future of Australia. I commend the bills to the House.

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

I take this opportunity firstly to publicly and formally welcome the member for Bradfield to the parliament. I certainly hope he represents my two sisters, who are members of the Roseville and Lindfield communities, very well. He also has another new resident who was born overnight—Alex Emma Lackenby, who is the fourth daughter of the best man from my wedding.

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

No doubt there will be a card!

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

I am sure she will be a valued member of his community.

When I first arrived in the parliament I had a difficult decision to make in my first couple of weeks: whether or not to spend $80 billion. It was a pretty big call for someone who I do not think had ever used the word ‘billion’ before. It was a challenging decision to make, and the tipping point for me was listening closely to the head of Treasury, Ken Henry, who is from the electorate of Lyne and still has a lot of family there. I listened to him argue the case quite clearly that we should hit the ‘Go’ button and hit it hard. His reasoning caused me to support that stimulus package. It seems like an age ago but it happened only 14 months ago, at the end of 2008.

With the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and the cognate bill, we are seeing some of the results of those actions taken 14 months ago. They appear to contain some reallocation of funding to the various programs that are wrapped up in the ongoing workings of government and also some funding for many of the stimulus measures. As this proposed legislation is being debated in the Main Committee it is not opposed. I am sure no-one in this place would oppose these appropriation bills, so I will give a bit of a rundown of some of the issues from a local perspective contained in these appropriation bills.

I am pleased to say that, 14 months down the line, now that we are starting to see some of the results of the stimulus, we on the mid-North Coast have been incredibly resilient during what was supposed to be a year of economic storm clouds. The regional labour force figures, which are released about two weeks after the national figures, came out last week. They have us for the first time under the levels prior to the global financial crisis. Unemployment on the mid-North Coast is at record lows. The figures for the Port Macquarie-Hastings region are just extraordinary at 5.8 per cent. While they are still slightly higher than the national averages, for a regional community that has traditionally had an entrenched problem of higher than normal unemployment rates to be now just about at the national average is a pretty exciting thing for us on the mid-North Coast. Communities in the north and south, in the Macleay and Manning areas, are still about three or four per cent higher than national averages, but, as everyone knows with statistics, it is all about the trend lines, and the trend lines are down and those trend lines are good. So there will be exciting times on the mid-North Coast if we can keep those unemployment figures heading in that direction.

All the feedback throughout the end of last year and the start of this year is overwhelmingly of a sense of resilience within the small business community and within many households. Yes, lots of people with their personal savings—in particular those who were on fixed retirement incomes—took a real hit throughout 2009, but what we are seeing is that even some of that is now starting to swing around. I would hope that, regardless of your politics in this place, that is a shared sentiment of, hopefully, good times ahead for all. So things are good on the mid-North Coast. Yes, there is plenty to be done, but those unemployment figures last week, in particular, were pretty exciting, I think, for everyone involved in the process of community building and trying to make a better place.

Over the last 14 months we have seen record funding into the electorate of Lyne. It is the most Commonwealth money ever going into the seat, and it is largely based around the issue that hit us at the end of 2008 and the stimulus package response. Also linked in last year—which I think was helpful and did make a difference—was a two-day visit from the Prime Minister and a community cabinet. They are things that inject a bit of spunk into the local settings, and many people had the opportunity to put their issues directly to cabinet ministers and to the Prime Minister. We are all watching to see how some of those issues are responded to.

It is one of those that I want to lead with, and that is the issue of health services. There are some mentions in here in regard to some allocations, rollovers or reallocations in health. On the mid-North Coast, we are sweating, and in fact in many ways it is D-day for this government in regard to how it responds to the issues around the Commonwealth’s role in the delivery of health care in Australia. The Prime Minister, to his credit, visited a local hospital in my electorate that is under enormous physical strain and physical pressure. Its ED and ICU are operating at twice the capacity they were built for. Everyone is doing a marvellous job in clinical care, but the physical infrastructure remains a problem. To the Prime Minister’s credit, he came for an hour’s meeting and stayed for two. At his call, he extended the meeting with the clinicians to hear firsthand what their views are on health care not only on the mid-North Coast but for future plans in Australia.

We are now sweating for some feedback. We are looking for some significant and difficult decisions from the Commonwealth about the future direction, and I would hope that sooner rather than later—sometime in the next three or four months—we get that announcement from government and that it is a good and strong one. It needs to be, because business as usual is unacceptable. As a growth region—and we are no different to any other growth region—we are missing out on equity in the state’s own funding formulas that they use. Populations move and government decisions seem to be very slow in responding to that population movement. We on the North Coast of New South Wales are consistently anywhere between two and four per cent under equity on the state’s own funding formulas—which in percentage terms does not sound like much but in dollar terms is around $50 million a year that we are missing out on because of the lack of decision-making fortitude to take away from somewhere else to deliver equity across the board. That is where the Commonwealth now has to kick in and start to flex a bit of Commonwealth money, show a bit of care on where those Commonwealth taxes end up on the ground and make sure that there is equity.

Importantly as well, the other message that came out of our community is that efficiency is not rewarded at present, and efficiency should be rewarded. Those hospitals or those others within the system that deliver efficiently in their health care seem to be asked for more rather than supported by more. If anything, the current mantra within the health system seems to be not to come in under budget but to come in over budget because, if you come in under budget, you will lose your allocation next year. There is no incentive for efficiency built into the system at the moment. There should be, and I hope that is a significant part of where the Commonwealth comes in and starts to claim a bit of ownership for the flowthrough of their dollars. So we watch and wait in anticipation. I hope that the Prime Minister and the community cabinet heard the messages about the importance of upcoming health care announcements loud and clear, and I hope that they respond and respond strongly.

There is also the issue of education, and we are trying to have our own mini revolution on the mid-North Coast. We are trying to really fire up the aspirations for education within the households of the mid-North Coast. Traditionally we have been an area that comparatively does not get as involved in education as other areas. That is to our detriment and I think it is not too much of a leap to directly link that to issues of lower than comparison wages and higher than comparative unemployment rates. Therefore, this aspiration for education is a goal that many of us are really trying to push our regions on.

The work that government is doing helps in many ways. For example, on the issue of tertiary education, we are traditionally an area where about one-in-six school leavers go on to education at a tertiary level. That is a long way short of the government’s own target of 40 per cent of 25 to 34-year-olds having a bachelor degree or higher by 2020. We have a lot of work to do and we need government to assist us in that work. That is why issues such as the youth allowance debate need to be resolved. They are not assisting in building aspirational spirit within the homes of the mid-North Coast. If anything, they are causing confusion, and the lack of a resolution through this place is scaring people away from making choices for their future that they might otherwise have taken and which have broader community benefits—and that is going to tertiary education of some sort.

The removal of caps in 2012 is pretty exciting for universities, and I think that is one decision that really talks to our region. I would hope that we can get some greater assistance from government in this environment in regard to the consideration of a window of about a five-hour drive between Newcastle and Coffs Harbour for a population of roughly a quarter of a million people who have no bricks and mortar campus. We rely totally on universities coming in and delivering a low number of places or an online university and distance education in an area where telecommunications are not crash hot. We have natural barriers in place at the moment which I would hope the government, as part of their revolution, are willing and wanting to blow up, and that we do have an NBN rollout that makes a difference in the delivery of distance education and that we have consideration of regions of Australia that do not have a bricks and mortar campus.

There is therefore the choice of either providing that and providing a campus experience or working overtime to get the universities—many of them with inward-looking sandstone views of the world and as to how their institutions run—to deliver and deliver well to regions such as ours. To date, it has been piecemeal and it has been in many ways more about a marketing exercise than anything else. It really has not crossed that bridge of allowing someone to truly go to university but still live in the location they choose to. So I would hope that we are in an environment where that matters to government as well.

At a school level, I want to mention some of the stimulus packages. I had a message come through only today about some of the ones that are being completed, so this is an opportunity to put those on the record. I will just run through the six schools involved. I have just had a report that Upper Rolland Plains has been finished as a stimulus job. Byabarra is a week away. The Comboyne renovations are just being completed, so they are nearly finished. The Long Flat school is almost finished. The distance education centre at Port Macquarie Primary School—and I hope everyone in this place has a love of distance education; it does matter, so those centres are critical—has been completed. The nice one today is Beechwood Public School. They are moving into their new library as we speak. That is some good news on the record with regard to education.

There are two issues I wanted to touch on in the time left. There are some moneys, allegations—sorry, allocations—and partial offsets with regard to immigration and citizenship tied into this appropriation bill. It probably is a Freudian slip to say ‘allegations’, because it is a topic that in this place has a lot of allegations wrapped in it. It seems to be a continual political sore, incredibly sensitive in the eyes of many. I went to a breakfast this morning with Catholic Social Services. Many other MPs attended. There was Justice Brennan. I quite clearly remember some of his campaigns over the last years to get government to think more clearly about this topic rather than messing with Australian borders and including or excluding islands. The issue here for us, I would have thought, is how we meet our international obligations of justice and how we process in a timely way those who, for whatever reason, are coming to this country.

The benchmark that is used internationally is 90 days. I would have thought that was a very nice goal for us to try to meet in our processing requirements, for good or for bad: weed out those who are unwelcome, throw arms around those who are welcome and try to do it within that 90-day time frame. If we spend our resources and put our focus on that, I do not think the Australian communities, pubs I go into or barbecues I attend will have conversations focusing on Christmas Island, Nauru or whatever location in which this processing takes place. So long as the process is timely and just, the location is less important. But there seems to be a lack of focus on the process and meeting those processing deadlines in a timely manner. The focus in this place seems to be more about where, and I think that that is disappointing and, hopefully, something for us all to reflect on.

An anecdote: I ended up on an email list of Rural Australians for Refugees and had some refugees who had finally made it as Australian citizens staying in my house. They wanted a holiday after having two years in detention and being split from their families. It was extraordinary to hear from them what the Australian process is: essentially, splitting families and putting them in jail for a couple of years in an exercise that is disguised as processing. I think we can do better. I hope we can do better. If we are going to welcome people into this country in a way that tries to make a better place, we want to have the best possible Australians coming through that process. At the moment, if we delay this process too long, we mess with people’s heads. We do not make better Australians; we make worse Australians as a consequence. It is in our national and sovereign interest to make it a timely and just process. I would hope that it is considered by all those who want to make the allegations on this topic in the future, picking at the political sore that is immigration and citizenship.

The final issue I want to raise is in relation to aged-care funding. I make mention of some aged-care packages that have just been released on the mid-north coast. The Greater Taree region has just received 180 residential places. The Hastings and Great Lakes regions have received 62 community aged-care packages. Hastings and Kempsey have both received 10 extended aged-care in the home packages. Coffs Harbour, which is outside, my electorate, has also received six dementia-specific aged-care packages.

These aged-care packages are critical for the future of this country. We are an ageing population. Unless we nail this, we are going to have some substantial issues at a community level. These packages are welcome, but I urge government to spend more and focus more on these aged-care packages, and in particular on the community aged-care packages. Everyone seems to love delivering those. It is the way aged care needs to be delivered in the future—in the home as much as possible. I urge the government, therefore, to up the efforts to greater than what they already are in order to make sure we meet that ageing population bubble in Australia that is hitting us right now. So, with that, I do not oppose the bill, and I certainly hope the money is spent wisely.

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

I congratulate the member on his contribution to the debate. I would like to join him in welcoming the member for Bradfield into this place. I listened intently to your first speech yesterday, Member for Bradfield, and remembered my own. While I did not agree with everything you said, I certainly respected the passion with which you delivered your speech. So congratulations to you. I can see you are already working your way up the chamber—whipping duties in Main Committee—so it will not take you long to work your way into a shadow ministry.

I would like to speak today on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010, because I think they relate to the nuts and bolts of being a member of parliament. The reason a lot of us are here is to represent our region. We have debates on various issues to do with the national interest—whether it be border security or the global financial crisis or different positions on climate change or how to deal with its effects. Certainly, as the federal member representing the Darwin-Palmerston area, the electorate of Solomon, my job is to go in to bat for my electorate, to push as hard as I can, and to get what I can for the people who have elected me to this place. I think that all members do that.

It is an interesting conversation that I often have with people back in my electorate if we do not get as much money as people thought we should from a spending package. People need to realise there are 150 electorates in Australia and we all believe that we are the best electorate and that our needs are more important than everyone else’s. We all believe that we have the best population, that we are the most multicultural and that we have the best of everything. We all believe in our electorates, and we get in here and we scrap as hard as we can to get our share of it. I am realistic enough to realise that you are not always going to get everything you want. I am an Australian as well as a Territorian, and I know that there are areas in Australia that need assistance. My area has a young population, and we are a developing area—remembering that Cyclone Tracy basically devastated Darwin in 1974. When you look at it like that, we are only about 35 years old at the moment. And we are growing. Our population, like those in a lot of regions in Australia, will continue to grow.

I remember the caucus meeting back in, I think, October 2008, when the global financial crisis was first mentioned to us. I remember the measures that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer put in place to put us in the best position to continue to develop and grow during what was the worst global financial crisis in 75 years. We know that we are not out of it yet, but the measures that have been put in place by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have gone a long way to protect us against the worst of it. By comparison with other countries, we are doing remarkably well.

Part of that program was Building the Education Revolution. I would just like to touch on a few of the things that my electorate got from that, and will continue to get into the future. Part of that program was the National School Pride Program. The government put $1.3 billion nationally into this program, fixing up existing infrastructure and helping to keep people employed during this time. In my electorate we received $5.4 million for 36 schools in round 1, and $1.8 million for 13 schools in round 2. It was great to see our local schools and community benefiting from the money that the government was prepared to give us with regard to refurbishing a lot of our schools.

I would like to also outline a couple of the things that the government is doing with regard to infrastructure for the schools through the Building the Education Revolution. It is a diverse list. There is Primary Schools for the 21st Century, science and language labs, the National School Pride Program, as I mentioned, trade training centres, digital education and local schools working together. The Australian government’s Indigenous Boarding Infrastructure Program funds urgent projects. We have three very successful Indigenous focused boarding schools in St John’s College, Kormilda College and Marrara Christian School in Darwin. There is the Diversity And Structural Adjustment Fund. The Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation has been very well received in my electorate as well. Alawa school, and now Driver school, have started that program, and it has been very well received by the students. Then there is the Early Learning and Care Centres Program, and the Investing in our Schools Program. So some $55.5 million has been put into our electorate. If the coalition win they have flagged that they will cut back on the stimulus. My opponent in the election will need to come clean with the people in Solomon and Darwin at some stage and tell us which schools will not be getting the funding.

Another area that has been fantastically well supported by the Rudd government in the electorate of Solomon is the health area. It was with a great deal of pleasure that the Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, and I announced the Rudd government’s commitment to investing a massive $85 million in three key health projects for the people of Darwin.

The $28 million Flinders University project, to build a dedicated network of hospital and community based medical education facilities to allow a full medical program to be delivered in the territory, is a significant investment. For a long time we have lost our best and brightest kids who have graduated from high school with fantastic marks and have gone interstate to study medicine. Unfortunately, a lot of the time when they go interstate, they make new friends, they find life partners and we never get them back. So we have a shortage of doctors. Often we have to fly doctors in from southern capitals, and they stay a short time. I remember the days when we had Dr Scatini and Dr Short in Katherine. They were long-time residents. I have probably had my own personal doctor for 17 years. It is not the sort of thing you chop and change; you like to have your doctor long-term. I think that for the people in Darwin it will be significant that, starting next year, we will have our own doctors being trained. By 2015 I think we will have about 40 a year graduating.

Recently we had an information night at Charles Darwin University, where a facility is currently under construction for the students. About 80 parents, students and people interested in how this program will roll out turned up. I am very happy about that. For the government and the minister to commit to that, and to see the bigger picture about the north of Australia, is such a significant investment.

Our government will provide $18 million to build an accommodation complex of 50 units on the grounds of Royal Darwin Hospital for patients and their carers. Once again, we have a lot of people come in from communities who have treatment. Once they are discharged from the hospital and become outpatients, often they sleep rough; often they do not have family support or accommodation, so they will sleep rough and then come in and have their outpatient treatment. This hostel will allow a lot of community people who come in and use the hospital services to be able to stay somewhere safe and clean and will aid in their rehabilitation from whatever medical problems they have. It was much needed. It was an investment to alleviate the problems I just alluded to. It shows that we are moving forward within our health precinct on the Darwin Hospital campus, and to have that hostel will be fantastic.

More than $34 million has also been invested in a centre of excellence in Indigenous health and education in Darwin through the Menzies School of Health Research—a leading researcher of health, especially Indigenous health. Indigenous health is something that is close to my heart. I have lived in the Territory since 1974 and a lot of people I have known and have played football with have died prematurely, a lot of them because of heart disease through having rheumatic fever as a child and then getting into their late 30s or early 40s and dying. That is something that as a nation we have to address. We have to address the gap in the life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

I would like to put on the record the efforts of the Menzies School of Health Research in continuing to research and continuing to close that gap. The research is in integrated clinical care and workforce training and focuses on early childhood, education—certainly preventative education—chronic diseases, substance misuse and child abuse. The funding will also mean an increase in Indigenous employment and training at the Royal Darwin Hospital campus and remote communities. That is significant in itself. I would like to see a lot of Indigenous health workers working with Indigenous people, because they have an acute understanding of the challenges that community life brings and are able to assist them in closing those gaps that I spoke about.

Other investments include the $10 million superclinic. I was out there inspecting it with the minister a couple of weeks ago. It is moving ahead pretty well, considering the weather. We have had, I think, nearly 100 inches of rain so far in this wet season. It has been an enormous wet season. It has been a very difficult task, but the companies that are working on the GP superclinic are working diligently. Already, we are averaging about 30 people a night using the after-hours service. It is now a 24-hour service, which has taken a lot of pressure off the Royal Darwin Hospital. These investments are significant in the way the Rudd government is assisting my electorate in improving our health services.

We have also been very well supported, to the tune of $130 million, in the Northern Territory’s roads and rail infrastructure—an investment that will support local jobs and local businesses. In fact, our government has delivered an increase in federal funding of $51.4 million or 66 per cent over the 2008-09 budget for Northern Territory roads and rail projects, as well as putting in place modern, well-planned transport infrastructure—vital to the Territory and the nation’s long-term prosperity. Our record investment program will support jobs and provide an immediate stimulus to local economies.

There has been $25 million allocated to stage 2 of Tiger Brennan Drive. That is a significant investment, which will now give seamless access basically from the Stuart Highway down to the port facilities at East Arm. From a commuter’s point of view, the families living in Palmerston and the rural area who commute into the city to work will have a better run that what has been in the past bumper-to-bumper traffic. It will mean that people will be able to get to and from work quicker, in a safer environment, and be able to spend much-needed time with their families. Completing this extension is certainly something close to my heart, as I live in Palmerston. There are thousands of other Palmerston and rural residents who sit in the gridlock every morning and afternoon getting to and from work. I can see that progress is being made by Macmahons, the company that has the contract. They are doing a fantastic job in getting that ready.

One of the things that we as a government focused on was better interaction between the federal government and local councils. I know that my councils—the Lord Mayor of Darwin, Graeme Sawyer, and the Lord Mayor of Palmerston, Robert Macleod—are very grateful for the efforts that the federal government has made towards working more closely with local government. They only have praise for the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government for the way in which he has gone about getting projects on the ground. We realised that with the money spent in the stimulus packages we needed to engage Australia in working and building projects to protect jobs. Certainly, the councils around Australia have benefited greatly from these programs.

We received $2.1 million for bike paths around the Darwin area from the $40 million National Bike Path Projects. That was greatly needed. Any time that we can make bike paths safer and make bicyclists safe from cars is important. The government provided $3.6 million to improve the CBD of Darwin and a lot of these landscaping and streetscaping jobs are going on at the moment. Places for people to sit are being put in and the planting of trees along roads in the CBD is taking place. It is really beautifying the city of Darwin. A lot of people come up there. Darwin is a great place to live, it is a great place to visit and it is a great place to bring up a family. These types of projects in the CDB are ever expanding. We are getting a lot of high rises and I can see that in the future the CBD will have many more people living there, and these types of projects are making it a great place to live and a great part of the Territory lifestyle. Darwin City Council, the Palmerston City Council and the Litchfield Shire Council have all been able to receive money through the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program. I commend the minister for that program.

The Darwin port expansion is also very dear to my heart as we grow as a city. There has been the Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce report on the live cattle industry. We currently move a substantial amount of cattle across our port each year. A feasibility study was funded by the federal government to look at the expansion of the port facilities. We initially contributed $50 million to the Darwin port facilities. That was for some pond work in reclaiming some land there and putting in a rail loop, as well as a conveyor belt, to move iron ore more quickly off the port. It was a substantial investment. More needs to be done and I will continue to harass and harangue the minister, as I often do, by leaving very pointed voice messages on his phone about the funding requirements of Solomon.

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You have done very well.

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

Yes, I have done well by doing that. I will continue to do that because I know that investment in Northern Australia and in our area is very important. Defence is huge in our electorate. This year we have got some key capital works projects going on. I was on the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works earlier in the parliamentary period. There is $19 million for the $72 million Robinson Barracks redevelopment and $16 million for the $49 million RAAF Base Darwin redevelopment. Those are significant investments in both those bases. There is also $9.8 million for the fuel installation at the Darwin naval base.

Defence Force homes have always been an issue and we were lucky enough in Solomon to receive the most funding for Defence Force homes—some 185 new homes for defence families. We can now get defence families into comfortable accommodation and, as we know, they deserve to have that sort of accommodation. They move around a lot and it must be very unsettling for families with young kids in school to continually move around. It is a great investment by the government into making housing much more comfortable for our defence families. They bring a lot to our community and they are very valued members of our community.

All in all, these appropriation bills signal a significant investment by the Rudd Labor government in the Northern Territory, particularly in the seat of Solomon. I do not like to make this public because some of my colleagues do get a little envious, but the Prime Minister has dropped in on eight occasions—which can be good but it can also be a double-edged sword because sometimes I think he is just coming up there to check on me—and his visits have been very well received by the people in my electorate. The more he is there, the more he gets an understanding of the challenges that we face in Northern Australia.

The Inpex project will be an investment in the Northern Territory of anywhere between $30 billion and $50 billion over the next 40 years. It is a very significant investment by Inpex, a Japanese company, that will see my electorate become bigger and stronger, and put more money into Australia’s GDP. I will continue to fight very hard for the people of my electorate. I believe that the federal government will continue to support me in those endeavours. I would like to thank all the ministers who make the effort to visit Darwin, hang around and listen to what the locals have to say.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on several issues of significant concern to my electorate and which, in the spirit of Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010, will deliver excellent value for money to our nation if they receive the support of this federal government. I take up the contribution of the member for Solomon, in particular his final references to those valued members of our community: Defence Force personnel. It is in that spirit that I refer to my first issue of concern relating to the East Sale RAAF Base. I am sure the member agrees with me that on issues of defence there is no room for politics and that a bipartisan approach has to be taken by both sides, and decisions facing the future defence needs of our nation should be based entirely on merit.

It is on that note that I raise the future of the East Sale RAAF Base within the context of the current review of defence facilities right across Australia. I know that reviews often lead to some ill-informed speculation and rumour. I recently had the opportunity for a briefing from the Department of Defence and an adviser from the minister’s office—and I do appreciate the courtesy extended to me by the minister’s office—in relation to the future plans for a Defence Force base at East Sale. In that meeting, I stressed the case for East Sale’s continued role in meeting Australia’s future defence needs. I highlighted the fact that East Sale RAAF Base has many advantages in terms of its geographic location and the availability of airspace for training Australia’s next generation of defence pilots. I know the future operations of the base at East Sale have strong support from the Wellington Shire Council and the local community are very much behind it. The council have been very proactive in protecting land for future development which may take place at the East Sale site.

Following the successful development of the officer training school at East Sale—driven in large part by my predecessor, Peter McGauran—I have been in regular contact with the Minister for Defence to seek support for the future expansion of the East Sale RAAF Base. I make no apologies for continuing to lobby the minister at every opportunity and to support the council in the work it has done to show its full support for future development at the site. The East Sale RAAF Base is well regarded and I am confident the base will continue to grow.

In relation to the specific opportunity of Gippsland hosting the interim basic flight training program, I have made representations to the minister and there is certainly strong support from the local community and Wellington Shire Council, and the Victorian government have been on board with this particular issue. I urge the state government to continue to do everything in its power to talk to appropriate people amongst Labor colleagues to help secure the facility for Gippsland. I recognise it will be a hotly contested contract and I expect the decision to be based on merit. I am sure the state government is well aware of its regional development responsibilities and will continue to support Wellington Shire Council in that regard.

The opportunities that would be available in Gippsland from the interim basic flight training facility coming to Gippsland would be significant in terms of local contractors and businesses supplying the facility. It is anticipated that it could start operations in 2012 and it would operate for six years. There would be scope for local contractors and businesses to assist in the supply of fuel, building, security, health services and transport amongst a range of other needs. If it gets the go-ahead for Gippsland, there is a forecast of a $90 million boost for the regional economy over the school’s six-year life cycle—before a permanent basic flight training facility is established. I am sure, Mr Deputy Speaker Washer, you would understand why it is a matter of great interest to the people of Gippsland where the interim basic flight training facility is located and where it is located in the longer term. I am very confident that East Sale RAAF Base will expand in the future and continue to play a very important role in meeting our nation’s future long-term defence needs.

12:09:30 I recently had the opportunity to meet with the new senior ADF officer, Group Captain Glen Coy, and Wing Commander Sharyn Bolitho. They were outstanding service personnel in the way they recognised the need to keep building links with the local community to ensure that the great reputation that the East Sale RAAF Base has in the Gippsland community is enhanced into the future. I really appreciated the opportunity to speak to both service personnel and to discuss the opportunities for the community to work closely with the base in the future.

I certainly welcome the news that there are plans to spend $140 million upgrading the base. A step forward has been taken with the construction firm Thiess being signed as the managing contractors to undertake the scoping work for that project. It is certainly positive news for the region. In the past, Thiess have held the management contract for the officer training school development which I referred to previously. In that case, local firms like GBG Concrete and Construction and Laser Plumbing were able to subcontract, generating significant employment spin-offs to the local community. It really does underline the importance of putting locals first.

In that vein, I would like to refer to another organisation in my electorate that also recognises the very important need of putting locals first—Centenary House in Latrobe Valley. I have spoken before about the important work that Centenary House does in my community. It is worth repeating, though, just to remind the government that we have such an outstanding asset in Latrobe Valley. It does, however, need support looking towards the future. Centenary House provides support for patients and their families attending Latrobe Regional Hospital, primarily the patients attending the Gippsland Cancer Care Centre. These patients and their families are at one of the most vulnerable times in their lives and it is reassuring to know that they have that support available. Centenary House is only 400 or 500 metres away from Latrobe Regional Hospital. It provides on-site accommodation units for people at vastly discounted rates. No-one has ever been turned away for not being able to afford to stay a night at Gippsland’s Centenary House. It is something that the volunteers from the Rotary clubs right across Gippsland wear as a badge of honour. It is a matter of pride that, over a few years now, they have been able to establish these units which have been servicing people who do not even live in the local community.

That is the remarkable thing about the Centenary House project. While it is based in Latrobe Valley, the patients and their families, rather than being people who live in the immediate vicinity, tend to travel from 200 and 300 kilometres away, from East Gippsland, West Gippsland and South Gippsland. So it is a real credit to the business houses and the Rotarians of the Latrobe Valley that they have been able to establish this facility even though the benefits extend to a far broader region. I have had the opportunity to visit Centenary House and to attend their fundraising functions on various occasions and I am always amazed at the spirit of the committee and its dedication to raising funds on an almost continual basis.

There are always improvements being made at the facility and quite often the improvements are being made by the ‘guests’, if you like, of Centenary House. You will have, perhaps, a mother in for some treatment for a few days and she may be accompanied by a husband or partner who has some skills in a trade and is happy to help out around the place. A lot of improvements have been made on the basis, with new barbecue areas constructed, a playground installed and a range of facilities created which you would not have been able to get in any other way than by members of a regional community helping each other out and providing voluntary services in that way.

The current facility contains six large ensuite units and two smaller self-contained units, along with a communal kitchen, a dining room and lounge facilities. As I said, there is also a children’s play area and there is a quiet room for family consultation and privacy. The first stage of the work received significant state and federal government support. It was a coalition government at federal level and a Labor government at state level, so it certainly had bipartisan support and, as I said, Rotarians across Gippsland answered the call and raised a considerable amount of money for this first stage, which was a $2 million project.

I have spoken directly to the Minister for Health and Ageing, Ms Roxon, about Centenary House and I invited her to inspect the facility if she ever got the opportunity to come to Gippsland. She would certainly be very much welcomed by the committee. They are not interested at all in playing politics, I can assure you. They just want to see some extra support coming forward in the future. It is an open invitation, so if the minister is ever in the area and has the opportunity to drop in for 10 or 15 minutes, she would be very much welcomed by the committee. They would love to show her around and let her know exactly what it is they do there. They are very proud, and justifiably proud, of what has been achieved at Centenary House. Of course she would be particularly welcome if she turned up with a large cheque.

The Centenary House board has recently applied for funding from the Health and Hospitals Fund under the regional cancer centres initiative and I sent a letter of support to the minister. Naturally enough, I pointed out that Centenary House is, perhaps, a victim of its own success in the sense that it is quite tragic that the demand for units is outstripping supply and is continuing to grow. With an ageing population in Gippsland, it is almost inevitable that we are going to require more of this sort of service in our community. Plans have been drawn up for another nine units and some of those will include facilities for people with disabilities. I strongly recommend the project to the minister.

Supporting the next stage of Centenary House would have to be about the best $1.5 million the federal government could spend in the Latrobe Valley this year, if it has it within its capacity under this program. I urge the minister to support the outstanding and selfless efforts of the local community and to do everything in her power to assist this project both now and in the future.

The issue of Centenary House is about delivering an improved service. I have another concern with a service that does not even exist in my electorate. For the benefit of the House, I want to give a brief history of the lack of childcare services in the small community of Yarram. Prior to the 2007 election, building a childcare centre in Yarram had bipartisan support. My predecessor, Peter McGauran, and the Labor candidate both indicated to the community at that time that they would support the development of such a facility if they were successful at the subsequent election. I draw the House’s attention to the headline in the Yarram Standard on 31 October 2007. While I am on the topic of the Yarram Standard, I would like to congratulate the staff and the owners of the Yarram Standard. It is a magnificent little country newspaper which this year received the award of best country newspaper in its circulation category in Victoria. It is well-deserved recognition for a little country newspaper. It is very critical for us in regional seats that these community newsletters are able to prosper into the future. They are such an important part of community life.

Back to the topic at hand, on 31 October 2007, under the headline ‘Labor backs childcare centre’, the story reads:

The Labor Party has pledged to offer child care services in Yarram if voted to government on November 24 … Ms Rowe—

The Labor candidate—

has pledged a child care centre would be incorporated into a broader community centre, rather than a stand alone complex.

So it is fairly unequivocal. We had a strong endorsement by the Labor candidate at the time, the coalition candidate at the time also expressed strong support for the establishment of childcare services in Yarram but, unfortunately for the community, precious little has happened in the subsequent months which have passed. Since the election and the change of government, there has been a lot more talk in the community about the need to establish such a service, but here we are almost three years later and the issue of Yarram childcare services has not been resolved and I am certain that it will be an important election issue again for the local community as we move forward in 2010. I am personally frustrated and disappointed—and I know the community is as well—with the lack of progress, but the community does remain determined to secure such a service in the future, and I will continue to back the Yarram community 100 per cent on this very important local issue.

There is a committee in place to investigate a range of issues, including the best location, what sort of operational model will work best, and funding opportunities, and there is strong support in the local community. In fact, I would suggest that support is stronger now than it was 2½ years ago. Without childcare services, it is very difficult for a small regional centre to secure professional services and professional people in a whole range of industries. Yarram is currently experiencing quite a bit of difficulty in recruiting doctors, and I have no doubt that it is going to be easier to attract such professional people in the future if support services such as child care are in place. The provision of appropriate childcare services for Yarram remains an issue that I would like to work in partnership with the federal on to solve in the months ahead.

Mr Deputy Speaker, in case you get the feeling that I am being a bit too negative, I would like to give some bouquets to the government in relation to some funding announcements in my electorate which have been very well received. There was a timely announcement by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry in May 2008. Given that the Gippsland by-election was in June 2008, it was very timely that the minister announced a funding commitment to the establishment of Cunninghame Quay in Lakes Entrance. I understand that it is a $4.4 million project with the East Gippsland shire receiving $1.6 million for the on-land works—the car park, the paving works and the boardwalk access and bollards. It has been very well received and I am happy to report that construction is underway on the esplanade at Lakes Entrance on this project. Gippsland Ports will also receive $2.8 million for the on-water component of the project.

The federal government’s commitment in this regard stands in stark contrast to the state government’s attitude towards the Gippsland Lakes and towards infrastructure on the Gippsland Lakes. It seems to be a situation where the state government has dropped the ball in relation to the future management of the Gippsland Lakes in terms of both its environmental management and its infrastructure. We have seen from the federal government a small commitment of $3 million over three years to the environmental health of the Gippsland Lakes and catchment, and I have written to the minister previously in that regard to encourage him to ensure that funding is ongoing in the longer term.

The environmental pressures upon the Gippsland Lakes are growing on an annual basis. For those not familiar with the Gippsland Lakes, it is quite a large waterway—it is the largest inland waterway in the Southern Hemisphere. Even though it is a large lake system, it is actually impacted on by a massive catchment which stretches right throughout the Gippsland-Latrobe Valley region. The environmental characteristics of the lake system have changed dramatically since an artificial entrance was opened more than 100 years ago. The lakes have been the subject of much debate. Graham Harris told me I think eight years ago that CSIRO research showed that the lakes were at an ecological tipping point as an estuarine system heavily impacted on throughout the catchment. Major work is required to address these very significant signs of stress, with algal blooms occurring throughout the lake system on a far too frequent basis.

It disturbs me greatly that we do not seem to have a commitment by the state government in particular in terms of the future environmental management of the Gippsland Lakes system. I look back to 2002 when the state government allocated $3.2 million per year over a four-year period to the Gippsland Lakes and Catchment Task Force, primarily directed at reducing the amount of nutrients entering the lake system. Contrast that to four years later, 2006, when the funding was cut by 50 per cent—it was cut to $2 million per year over the future three-year period. Last year the state government made no allocation whatsoever to the Gippsland Lakes task force in terms of ongoing funding. It is an appalling situation. I urge the federal minister and any others with any influence over their state colleagues to see what they can do in terms of raising the pressure on the government in that regard. We have seen the federal government’s announcement of its Caring for our Country program, and they talk a lot about the Great Barrier Reef and making it a national priority. As far as I am concerned, the Gippsland Lakes are the Great Barrier Reef of the south—they are so critically important to the future of my region, to the environmental health of the Ramsar wetlands that are there and to the future of the tourism industry. It is a critical issue for us.

In conjunction with the environmental needs not being addressed, the infrastructure needs of the lake system are not being met either. I referred to the project which the federal minister for agriculture announced a couple of years ago. That stands out as a beacon amongst a couple of years of neglect—more than a couple of years of neglect; it goes back decades. The Gippsland Lakes system has become increasingly popular and recreational vessels are getting larger and larger. But the infrastructure in place to accommodate those vessels has not been replaced in the Gippsland Lakes system. You can only wonder how organisations like the East Gippsland Shire Council and Gippsland Ports can continue to stretch a shoestring to try to accommodate the future needs of a very popular lake system. The boating community is demanding improved facilities in terms of jetties and wharves and boat launching ramps, and the infrastructure backlog is getting out of control. Without the state government taking a greater interest and perhaps without the federal government also taking a greater interest, I fear for the future of the tourism industry in the East Gippsland region and the Gippsland Lakes in particular.

I would like to end my contribution on a more positive note by referring to the Lakes Entrance Surf Life Saving Club. It is about to host the Victorian state junior and senior titles, in March this year. The Lakes Entrance Surf Life Saving Club is one of those little institutions in regional towns that you take for granted to some extent until you realise just what sort of contribution they make to your town. I am a member of the Lakes Entrance club and three of my children are enrolled in the Lakes Entrance nippers program. Last year Lakes Entrance was awarded the Australian Surf Life Saving Club of the Year, which is an extraordinary effort for a small country town of only 6,000 or 7,000 people and when you compare the size of the surf clubs it was competing against.

The surf club does play a critical role in the social life of our town and the economic life of the region, providing the safe swimming beaches which are so important for the tourism industry. As I said previously, tourism is a major industry in the East Gippsland region. Without the surf club providing those controls on the Ninety Mile Beach on a daily basis through summer I am sure it would be very difficult for us to attract any families to that beach. Perhaps the greatest service that the surf life saving club does provide to our town is the development of our young leaders of the future. It is an incredible program to see the young people develop through the nippers program, to take on responsibility as only 13-year-olds on surf patrols, and it really gives them a sense of the importance of belonging in the community, of making a contribution to their community.

It is with great pride that I inform the House that Lakes Entrance will host the Victorian junior and senior titles in March this year. It is an incredibly important event for the town in terms of the economic benefits it will bring over that weekend, with thousands of competitors and their parents in the town. We are hoping for perfect weather so the young nippers can enjoy their stay in Lakes Entrance, and we hope for some bigger waves for the seniors to be well and truly tested as they take on the elements. The club did a magnificent job of holding the junior titles in 2008. It is a credit to them that, only two years later, Surf Life Saving Victoria has seen fit to give the club both the junior and the senior titles on the one weekend. This will inject thousands of dollars into the local community. More importantly, it will give the region an opportunity to showcase its attractions and encourage people to return in the future. I commend the Lakes Entrance Surf Life Saving Club on its efforts to secure these titles. To finish on a positive note, I commend the state government for providing some assistance with the future infrastructure needs of the club and allowing for the expansion of the clubhouse in the future.

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

I rise to speak in support of the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010. In the time allotted to me I intend to speak about what the Rudd government is doing in terms of local and regional community infrastructure in my electorate of Blair, and also what we are doing in terms of infrastructure relating to school funding. This goes hand-in-glove with supporting jobs and getting us through the global recession—nation-building—and this is particularly important in South-East Queensland. I have lived in Ipswich all my life, and my family has lived for many generations in the area I have the honour to represent. The Ipswich and West Moreton area is the fastest-growing region in South-East Queensland, which is the fastest-growing area in Australia.

Apart from Ipswich, there are regional council areas to the north, the north-west, the west and the south—Somerset, the Lockyer Valley and the Fassifern Valley. These regions include Hattonvale, Glenore Grove, Fernvale and rural communities such as Boonah. These are extraordinarily fast-growing regions, with people moving there from overseas and interstate. But these councils face the challenge of council amalgamations. The Somerset region is a new council, formed from Esk and Kilcoy. The Lockyer Valley Council was formed from Gatton and Laidley. The Scenic Rim Council is an amalgam of the Beaudesert Shire, the Boonah Shire and part of Logan City. These councils face infrastructure challenges—road funding and school funding—which are so important. They also face the challenge of getting these communities together to form the kind of community life which is necessary. Areas such as Boonah and Kalbar have not always seen eye-to-eye on issues. Accordingly, the Scenic Rim Council has challenges. Gatton and Laidley have had a friendly rivalry for a long time, as have Tagoolawah and Esk. Putting people together and building a sense of community is important. This is why the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program is so important. The appropriations bills deal with this sort of funding.

The Intergenerational report just released by the Treasurer makes it clear that Australia faces substantial change in the next 40 years. We need to lift our productivity by investing in skills and giving our young people every opportunity. But we need to invest in infrastructure as well. The Building the Education Revolution funding is critical to ensuring that our young people have 21st-century libraries. I went to Ipswich East State Primary School for seven years. It was across the road from me. We did not have the kinds of library facilities which I hope will be provided under the BER across so many schools in the Blair electorate.

The infrastructure funding in my area was sadly neglected under the Howard coalition government. The best example of that was the Ipswich Motorway, the most important arterial road in South-East Queensland, linking the rural areas of Ipswich and Toowoomba to Brisbane. The Rudd government is putting $2.5 billion into the Ipswich Motorway, upgrading it, making it six lanes and also improving the service road and bikeways which are so important for community life along that western corridor.

What the government is doing in facing the economic challenges that confront it is critical to the people who live in the western corridor south-west of Brisbane and the rural areas outside. If we want to build a strong future for the fastest-growing region in South-East Queensland, we need to make sure that we increase the funding for it. Within the boundaries that the Blair electorate had in the 2007 election, the BER funding is providing 313 projects, totalling about $124 million across 85 schools. There are literally thousands of people who have jobs and are keeping jobs by reason of that funding.

The Somerset Regional Council—which has been added to the Blair electorate for the next election, as it lost Fassifern and Lockyer—is receiving, across 28 projects in 18 schools, $20.8 million in BER funding. I have spoken to a number of the school principals in the Somerset region. Recently I had the privilege of talking to David Raine, the principal at Fernvale State School, inspecting the school and looking at the infrastructure funding there for the multipurpose hall and the new library. David has been at that school for about 10 years, and he said how wonderful the school funding is. I also spoke to Ray Maddison, who has been the principal at Kilcoy State School for a long time as well, and Ross Robertson, the principal at Kilcoy State High School, about the BER funding in those schools. Each of those men, who have been at those schools for a long time, spoke about the importance of not just supporting local jobs but giving the young people in those areas every opportunity. Whether they live in Kilcoy, Fernvale, Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane, those young people should have every opportunity in life.

We are also partnering with local councils, because local councils are at the coalface of our communities. The Australian Local Government Association says there are about 6,600 elected councillors in Australia. There are many hundreds of councils across our continent. They provide very important infrastructure: social and community infrastructure, town halls, community centres, libraries, public squares, sporting and recreational facilities, walking tracks, playgrounds, tourism infrastructure, footbridges, bus shelters—you name it, they provide it. In our community infrastructure funding, we are giving those councils the money they need to provide for the community life in those regional and rural townships west of Ipswich and in Ipswich itself. We have provided record amounts of money for those councils.

In the general purpose and local road financial assistance funding for the 2009-10 year, the cash payment made, for example, to Ipswich City Council was just over $5.6 million. In the Lockyer Valley, it was just over $2.9 million. For the Scenic Rim Regional Council, it was just over $3.2 million, and for Somerset it was just over $3 million. For each of those councils, this is a record amount of money for general purpose funding and funding for local roads. If you travel on those roads in the rural areas outside Ipswich, you know how important that is. I have spoken to Councillor David Pahlke, whose rural division makes up much of the rural areas of Ipswich, about the importance of road funding in those rural areas of Ipswich city itself.

Partnering with local councils has made a big difference in my area. For example, for many years a lot of people have campaigned hard for the construction of a hydrotherapy centre in Boonah, and I pay tribute to the many people who have campaigned so hard and long and who have recently received plaudits from the local council and the local community. The Boonah Shire Disability Support Group, ably led by Natalie McDonald and her husband Kevin, has done great work in partnership with the Rotary Club and the Lions Club of Boonah, working hard to ensure that funding has been given for the construction of the Scenic Rim health and hydrotherapy centre. Last year on 17 May I had the privilege to do a sod turning with the Scenic Rim mayor, John Brent. I commended the council for putting federal government money to the tune of $480,000—out of the $667,000 given to the council—to that project. This is important community infrastructure, providing jobs in the local area and also tending the health and fitness levels of the area.

We have provided an enormous amount of money to the Lockyer Valley Regional Council area, and the council, to its credit, has put that money into upgrading things like the Lions park at Laidley, the streetscape enhancement for Patrick Street in the middle of Laidley, the Lake Apex playground equipment which the children will benefit from in Gatton and the upgrade of the of the Laidley skate bowl. It is very interesting to see young people across the region using those skate bowls and skate ways to get away from committing acts of vandalism and violence. It is important to provide barbecues and better parks, better shelter for people as they wait for a bus—such as in Winwill in the Lockyer Valley—and to refurbish our parks. This is what the council has done with the federal government money in the Lockyer Valley. I have spoken to mayor Steve Jones and been told that that is what they have done in the past and that is what they will do with the most recent funding.

The Ipswich City Council has put money into many projects with the federal government money. On 16 December 2009 I, with Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale, was pleased to launch the Terrace Sails, a cafeteria at the Ipswich Civic Centre. The federal government is providing money to help the Ipswich City Council undertake the refurbishment and redevelopment of Ipswich CBD, and, to the credit of the council, they put money towards this project. There was also a canteen opened there. The Ipswich Civic Centre was officially opened in 1975 by then Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Since that time the facility has become more than a hall; it has become a premier entertainment venue, not just for shows but for eisteddfods, for weddings and for ceremonies—and I have attended many citizenship ceremonies in that locality. I am pleased that the council has undertaken to use some of that money that we gave for community infrastructure, totalling $921,000, towards that project. In fact, the council put $336,500 towards that outdoor area and the Terrace Sails cafe.

There are many other projects the council undertook with federal government money in partnership, such as the disability access footpath in Canning Street in Ipswich, curbing and channelling in Redbank Plains, the construction of an ecofriendly public toilet in Springdale Park, improved disability access in Barkell Street and the Cobb and Co display at Rosewood Community Park, which is another great project. All these projects are important for community infrastructure, for the lifestyle and livelihood of the people of the Ipswich and West Moreton area. But none of it—not one cent of it—could have been done without the support of the Rudd Labor government.

It is a shame, and it is to the discredit of the opposition that they have opposed funding and the Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan which is so vital to the Ipswich and West Moreton area. The funding here has made a difference and will continue to make a difference in Ipswich and the rural areas outside. I just cannot understand why those opposite oppose the economic and infrastructure stimulus. Dozens of people have come and told me that it has been important for their areas. A number of school P&Cs have spoken to me about why the nation-building funding was important. For example, Craig Isaacs, who is the president of Immaculate Heart School P&F Association, a great little school in the Ipswich area, has told me:

My children attend Immaculate Heart Primary. As a parent and current President of the P & F … I am pleased to see the government improving our schools’ infrastructure, benefiting the economy and investing in our children’s future.

Julie Jackson, the Vice President at Boonah State School P&C Association, says:

The federal government investment in our school has been enormous. As a parent I am thrilled to see the improvements underway. This is a great investment in my children’s future and the entire community will be able to benefit from the new facilities now and into the future.

Troy Barton, President of Riverview State School P&C Association, says:

Construction is well under way at our school thanks to the BER … building programs and our school is getting a much needed face lift. The outdoor learning centre and the new hall will be valuable assets that we believe the whole community can benefit from.

Councillor Andrew Antoniolli, who happens to be the councillor in Ipswich City Council for the CBD, who also is the President of St Joseph’s Primary School P&F Association, says:

Our children have been going to St Joseph’s since 2000. As a parent it’s great to see this investment in their school. The new classrooms and library will greatly improve the learning environment and benefit the entire school community. It’s an investment for the future and good news for Ipswich.

Indeed, the nation-building plan and the economic stimulus we have given Ipswich and West Moreton area, is good news—as Councillor Antoniolli says—because it makes a difference. Those practical things do make a difference.

I want to finish in the time that remains by talking about some community infrastructure we have put into the Somerset region. I was very happy to be at the Australia Day awards in Esk recently and see the enthusiasm on the young people’s faces as they were competing in the skate park competition. Around $120,000 of federal government money went into the construction of the skate park just opposite the Somerset Regional Council headquarters. Every single time I have been in Esk I have seen young people at the skate park. They absolutely love it. I have to confess that there is a picture in a few local newspapers of me on a skateboard, which caused great merriment in my household, with my daughters. It is a great community facility. The Esk fitness trail was constructed for $167,560. I admit that council workers were using that fitness trail in a sort of ‘Life. Be in it’ campaign. They were encouraging Mayor Graham Lehman to also get involved. This is a gravel surface walking trail on Sandy Creek in Esk. It is important.

Recently I was also in Fernvale, where the Campdraft Park amenities block was opened by Senator Mark Furner and myself. That was the construction of a 65-square-metre facility containing showers and toilets. This is important for tourism as well as for the pony club. Finally, there is the $2.1 million that the Rudd Labor government is investing in the indoor sports centre.

But there is another important piece of funding for regional and community infrastructure, and that is the $10 million that the Rudd Labor government is giving to Ipswich city for the Springfield Central Parklands. Recently the first stage was opened by Premier Anna Bligh; Ipswich Mayor Paul Pisasale was there, as were a number of other people. I want to congratulate Springfield Land Corporation, particularly Maha Sinnathamby and Bob Sharpless, and to acknowledge that Bob and his wife were also specially mentioned on the day and that they have had the first stage named after them.

This important community infrastructure will make a big difference in the election of Blair and the whole western corridor. It is the Rudd Labor government which is making a difference. But, sadly, by indolence, by idleness and by ignorance, those opposite have failed community infrastructure. And, sadly, they have voted against the very infrastructure which I have described in detail today.

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

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010. These bills continue the Rudd government’s policy of spending sensibly to steer this nation through the global financial crisis. They continue our policy of keeping unemployment as low as possible through the tough conditions that the world experienced over the last year. Amongst other initiatives, they include funding for the Solar Homes and Communities Plan, funding to make us better prepared for a viral pandemic and funding for the Home Insulation Program. They include extra funding for the Regional Local Community Infrastructure Program to support investment in valuable infrastructure such as libraries, community centres and sportsgrounds. These are real projects that meet a real need in the community. They provide work for local builders and tradespeople in a tough time.

The bills continue this government’s support of the General Employee Entitlements and Redundancy Scheme to guarantee workers’ entitlements in the event of corporate insolvency. To lose a job is bad enough, but to lose the money that is rightfully yours and which you have been relying on to help feed and clothe your family and pay your mortgage is something that no family should ever experience. The global economic crisis has led to a higher possibility of companies failing, and that is why we have budgeted an extra $40 million for the GEER Scheme to which I have just referred. This money will help see many families through the loss of a job, and ease, at least somewhat, the stress and fear that spreads when companies collapse.

These bills will continue our economically responsible approach to the global financial crisis—an approach which has seen us avoid recession whilst maintaining lower debt levels than our OECD trading partners. We are not a government that is content to focus on the 24-hour media cycle. We are thinking about the big challenges of an ageing population—about how we want our country to look in 2050. The Intergenerational report released by the Treasurer last Monday laid out the stark challenge facing us: how do we increase our productivity as our population ages? I regard our ageing population as a triumph, not a problem; an opportunity, not a challenge. There will certainly be many opportunities arising from the fact that the number of people aged over 65 will double by 2050 and the number of people over 85 will quadruple—and that number will, hopefully, include me.

Many people will acquire a disability as they age. And one of the effects of an ageing population is an increase in the rate of disability. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released figures last year that show that there are around 1.5 million people living with a severe or profound disability this year, and it will be almost 2.3 million people by 2030. Added to the moral challenge of how we empower people with a disability and their carers there is now an economic challenge. To keep Australia a wealthy and productive country, we will need to reshape the way we think about disability and how we include people with disability and their carers in our society. We must cease thinking of people with a disability in terms of charity or as a burden. These people cannot be an afterthought. We will need to recognise that people with a disability are people with skills and talents who can contribute to any organisation and help build our nation.

There are two million Australians either living with a severe or profound disability or, indeed, caring for a person with a severe or profound disability as their primary carer. We cannot prosper as a nation and do as well as we should do whilst this group remains minimally engaged in the workforce. We need to recognise that making our public buildings and our private buildings, our housing stock, suitable for people with a disability is not a cost—it is an investment in our future. I believe it is a sad fact that people with disabilities are still not equal citizens in our country.

Too many Australians live in a state of under-resourced poverty due not just to their impairment but to the attitudes of society towards their impairment. The truth of the matter is that, if you are a person living with a significant disability or if you are a primary carer for such a person, you are likely to be poor and powerless. These people are continually forced to make hard choices. They are forced to save every spare cent for aids and equipment and to have their lives limited both by their impairment but indeed, more significantly, by the community’s treatment of their impairment—something which something can be done. People with disability in Australia, by and large, are forced to bear the stigma of being different and to accept reluctantly a second-class status. Changing this will be a long-term process that will involve not just governments but the whole of society.

The Rudd government has made a start, and I am proud of the real improvements that we are making to the lives of people with disabilities and their carers. We doubled the funding to the states and territories under our national disability agreement last year, including the highest ever level of indexation. We have increased the disability support pension for around 740,000 Australians and given extra payments to carers. We have brought in the first support program for children under six with autism, which has provided early intervention to thousands of children. We are working to help people with disability into work, and away from the purgatory of long-term unemployment.

The ageing of our population gives new urgency, I suggest, to reforming how we fund disability in this country. Without fixing up the funding of disability in this nation, the rest of the valuable efforts we are currently making will be undermined. Despite the best efforts of thousands of professionals in the disability sector, the system we have remains a patchwork of services which remains crisis-driven and inactive. We have started working on benchmarking with the states, but there is still too little information about how much money is spent, where it is spent and what the unmet need is. People are not treated according to their need but according to how much money is left in rationed budgets. Recent trends indicate that the demand for specialist disability services will grow about seven per cent a year in real terms over the next decade, as ageing carers, sadly, can no longer support their children or their spouses.

It is clear that the current system cannot go on forever, and this is why the Rudd government has asked the Productivity Commission to investigate a national long-term care-and-support scheme. This kind of scheme, popularly known as a national disability insurance scheme, which has huge and growing support among people with disabilities and their carers, has the potential to change the way that disability is supported in this country. A child born with an illness can receive medical and hospital treatment under Medicare if necessary, for some conditions. A person injured in a car accident is paid compensation under third-party insurance schemes, in most jurisdictions. An employee hurt at work is appropriately eligible for workers compensation. But for people who are deaf or blind or autistic or who have cerebral palsy or Down syndrome or severe intellectual disabilities—or any other kind of disability—there is no coherent system and there is an inadequate safety net.

Why in this country is the manner in which you incur your impairment the determinant of the level of care you get, as opposed to the effect of the impairment itself? We know that a disability can be acquired in an instant, through an accident, through a genetic quirk or, indeed, through the consequences of age. But we should not have in our society these strokes of fortune defining and limiting a person’s life. Acquiring an impairment should not sentence someone to a life of boredom, unemployment or discrimination. Disability in Australia should not mean internal exile. We are a rich nation which is capable of doing better than to be unable to answer the question posed by thousands of ageing carers: what will happen to my adult child when I die? Until our nation can provide an adequate answer our job is not done. Parents with a child diagnosed with autism or another global developmental delay should not be left alone to struggle with the challenge and the trauma of having a child diagnosed with special needs. They should not be forced to turn to Google to find out where to go next. And their children should not miss out on early intervention services which can improve their ability to learn at school, to interact with their peers and to hold down a job in later life.

Starting this year, the Productivity Commission will look into the costs, benefits and feasibility of approaches which provide essential care and support, on an entitlement basis, for eligible people with a severe or profound disability. It will look at a no-fault social insurance model reflecting the shared risk of disability across the population. Such a scheme will be a massive task to implement. It will have implications for our health system, our schools, medical negligence, and road accident and workers compensation schemes. The detail will be complex, but we have given the Productivity Commission the time and the tools to do the job properly. We have provided them with an advisory panel of eminent people to assist in all these matters. We have appointed an associate productivity commissioner, John Walsh, who has been researching these questions for a lifetime.

We are not a government that shies away from major reforms. Labor governments in the past have fought cynicism and opposition to introduce programs like Medicare and compulsory superannuation. The governments that introduced these schemes were told that they were too hard or impossible or too expensive, and I predict that we will hear, yet again, these arguments of ‘too expensive’, ‘too hard’ and ‘impossible’ and, for people with disability: ‘What can they expect? You can’t cure their disability, so there’s little that can be done.’ Yet we have schemes like Medicare and superannuation, which make us proud to be Australian, as bedrocks of our political system.

I suggest today, in discussing the appropriations bills, that a national disability insurance scheme would provide a better deal for people with disability. I believe that this is something we owe our fellow Australians with a disability, their families and carers, who struggle every day to pay bills, to get adequate care and to find work. I believe we owe it to the ever-ageing parents of needy children, who chew up the best years of their lives in ever-lengthening sacrifice. People do this not because they are saints but because they love their children, but we have too many people with disability living in what amounts, as I have said, to second-class exile in our country, which is still sometimes in denial of the existence of people with disability, their uniqueness, their numbers or, indeed, the cries of their hearts. There are things that many take for granted here in our nation: a job we like, a house we may own outright, retirement years in comfort as the respected elders of our community. Unfortunately, too many people with disability dare not hope for or even dream of those things—not in this lifetime.

The New South Wales government has introduced a scheme in recent years called the Lifetime Care and Support Scheme for people with serious motor vehicle injuries such as spinal cord damage, multiple amputations and burns. The New South Wales scheme pays for medical treatment, rehabilitation and care, including domestic help, child care and educational and vocational support. The scheme currently only benefits people injured in car accidents, but I believe it is an indication, a sign of hope, of what can be achieved if the political will is there.

The Rudd government is committed to social inclusion. We are committed to moving people with a disability from the margins to the centre of our society. We do this, I suggest, because we believe that it is not right for a wealthy nation in the 21st century to have people who are shut out and denied opportunities available to the rest of the population. But the argument for a national disability insurance scheme is not just moral; it is about responsible economic management, of productivity and of planning for the future of our ageing population. Australian governments spend approximately $20 billion a year on our disability welfare system. There is perhaps $8 billion to $9 billion spent on the disability support pension and another $4 billion spent on payments to family and carers. Another $8 billion is paid for community care and support providers across the federal and state governments and local government. When I look at some of the indirect costs of disability—the fact that nearly 20 per cent of the population of our jails are people who have an intellectual disability and the cost to the health system of disabilities diagnosed and treated too late—and when I look at the opportunity cost of two million Australians not having the opportunity to be productively engaged, I recognise that it is an economic issue.

It will be up to the Productivity Commission to crunch the numbers of an insurance scheme and look at competing models, but I believe it is common sense that a better system is one that intervenes early, that offers support before a problem becomes a crisis and that gets people into work where they can and want to. This system will actually save us a lot of money. We are still some years away from a final scheme. I know that the disability community is patient—they have had to be, sadly. The progress of disability rights in this country has been too stop-start, and my words take nothing away from the many accomplishments of many people who have accomplished much. There have been the efforts of hundreds and thousands of committed activists, people with disability and their families, winning one small victory at a time to get us to where we are today. But these people are tired and they need our assistance. They need the assistance of the mighty Australian society.

The Rudd government is committed to policies that will rethink the way we support people with disability, not just putting money into a system that is not coping but big game-changing ideas like a national disability insurance scheme. I believe the Productivity Commission study will be the most important breakthrough, potentially, in disability in a generation. It starts to tackle the fundamental problems of disability, which are poverty and powerlessness. We recognise that it is inevitable that profound and serious disabilities could afflict any of us at any time, through birth, accident, disease or old age. I think it is one of the tasks of our civilised society, which we claim and aspire to be, that we determine how best to ensure that those who are struck by a disability are given that measure of security, of freedom from fear and of hope for the future that should be their birthright as Australians; that our society can move from looking at the person’s impairment to looking at the person’s ability and including them with all of us.

Debate (on motion by Ms George) adjourned.