Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

From the outset, I want to declare my utter satisfaction with the digital clocks. I think you have done an excellent job in the timing of this chamber. I also take this opportunity to congratulate David Elder, the clerk at the table, for his promotion to Deputy Clerk. We value the contributions of both the Clerk and the Deputy Clerk. It is true to say that they are the two key positions in the House. I wish him well in his service to the House in his new position.

Last Saturday I was privileged to witness the first ever elite AFL game to be played at the new Blacktown Olympic Park venue. I confess that I have an interest in it because it is in my electorate. It is great partnership between the AFL, whom I congratulate, Cricket NSW, the state government and Blacktown City Council. This was a historic event for us. I was absolutely delighted that something like 10,000 people turned up. Lots of them were like me—rugby league addicts but wanting to give AFL a go.

I need to make a personal explanation at this point, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you know that a mutual friend of ours, Koula Alexiadis, is a devoted Carlton supporter. Whilst I thought that they perhaps played best in the first two quarters of the game, the Sydney Swans overtook them in the latter two. I do apologise—I am not gloating here—but it was an excellent game. It really did showcase AFL to an audience that had not previously had the opportunity to see it. I am sure that as the Greater Western Sydney team develops and gets its new name it is going to have an army of supporters out there.

16:35:00

It has always been a fact that AFL attracts much greater crowds than Rugby League does, and for a preliminary game in the AFL NAB Cup, in Sydney, to get 10,000 people is really something special. During the game, as inexpert as I am in the formalities of the game, I think it is true to say that the Sydney Swans unearthed a star in the making, Lewis Jetta. He was simply magnificent.

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

Are you sure you’re not from WA?

Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is good; my wife is from WA, so I do have an affinity with people who come from that great state. I must say that at half-time I was rather thrilled that some primary schools in my electorate who had participated in an Auskick clinic prior to the game ran out and had a game. They were Plumpton Public School, Shelley Public School, Blacktown West Public School, Hassall Grove Public School, Blacktown South Public School, Tyndale Christian School, Walters Road Public School, Crawford Public School and Mountain View Adventist College. I am very impressed with the way the AFL are supporting their code by encouraging kids at school. This is inevitably going to pay dividends.

Another innovative idea from the AFL was to have a citizenship ceremony at half-time, and some were done prior to the game by the mayor. The Minister for Immigration and Citizenship had been invited and, while he was not able to participate, I am happy to say that he asked me to represent him and so I broke my duck and performed my first citizenship ceremony. In all, 30 people from 20 different countries became citizens. They came from countries including Turkey, Brazil, India, Syria, Sierra Leone, Fiji, China, Slovakia and Lebanon. Amongst them was Syrian-born Guss Kewan, a biomedical engineer who arrived with his architect wife and two young children in 2007.

I want to express my sincere thanks to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship for their organisation of, and in particular for mothering me through, the ceremony. It is a little daunting to do it in front of 10,000 people, not all of whom are taking as keen an interest in the ceremony as they might. But again, I just want to say I thought it was a great initiative by the AFL. What a wonderful thing to become an Australian citizen in front of a crowd of 10,000 people. Those people were part of history on that day and I am sure they will treasure the memory of that ceremony for a very long time.

There is another matter that I wish to raise, and that is the rebuilding of the Serbian Orthodox Church at Rooty Hill. It has been rebuilt, and they wanted to get frescoes painted on the church. For a long time they were experiencing a lot of problems in trying to—

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And you did that?

Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No! I wish I had the skill, but I must say to the honourable member for Werriwa, no, I did not. But I certainly was approached by Father Slobo Miletic to see what we could do to get Deacon Miodrag Tomic out here to Australia. I took up the case with the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Evans, and I want place on the record my appreciation to him and the department for being able to cut through and get Deacon Tomic out here.

By the way, Deacon is a professor. After the fall of the communist regime he went to Russia to study and then he also went to Greece. He is a professor in the art, is highly qualified and is a lovely man. I was pleased to go back to the church. We got him out here late last year and this month the church had a bit of a banquet, and I was able to walk through the church. I cannot believe the progress that Deacon Tomic has made, with one assistant, to this church. It is unbelievable. In fact, I was a bit worried about whether I needed to remind him about our industrial laws. The church is going to be absolutely magnificent. Given his skills, there is some suggestion that perhaps after the completion of the church he may be able to set up a school so that the orthodox tradition of painting, whether it be Greek, Serbian or Russian can be taught here in Australia.

While I think about the Serbian community, late last year I celebrated 20 years of the aged-care facility which Lionel Bowen had opened in 1985 when I was the local member. I suppose it is a rare opportunity for a member to be at the opening of something and at the celebration 20 years later of its completely successful operation.

I have always enjoyed strong support from the community. I cannot think of a time I attended a function where there was not a presence of the community. I am deeply grateful for their support and encouragement in my time as federal member.

On Friday last week I had the great pleasure of having the Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, visit my electorate. We started off with a function at the Mount Druitt TAFE hospitality kitchens and commercial restaurant, the Greenview Room, where I had invited all the school captains and principals to meet the Deputy Prime Minister. I am pleased to say that they all turned up. The Deputy Prime Minister was able to speak with each set of captains and I am sure they will treasure that. On the way out we saw the hospitality kitchens and spoke with the students there that were learning their craft. I certainly thank them for the hospitality they afforded us and our guests.

There were a couple of things I particularly wanted the Deputy Prime Minister to see. Loyola Senior High School is getting a $9 million trade training centre. There had been a successful application under the previous government which later on collapsed. This is a really exciting project for the diocese.

For the last five years, Loyola Senior High School has been running the Nicholas Owen project. This is for students who are likely to drop out at year 10. It is a board certified course just for year 11 students with the aim of giving these students the skills and motivation to enter the world of work, a traineeship, an apprenticeship or a job. It is highly successful. I have to report a number of students drop out of the course on the way and do not complete it but for a very good reason: they have got a job. I have tried to interest the state government in a similar approach but I must confess that I have not been successful. The success rate of the Nicholas Owen year 11 course is over 90 per cent. I think that is outstanding. I think we have something to learn from it.

Interestingly, when we were discussing the project with students, with Bishop Manning; Greg Whitby, the CEO of the Catholic Education Office; Rob Laidler, the principal; and Cathy Larkin, the deputy principal, they said they have learnt so much about the Nicholas Owen project. It has taught them so much. They do not segregate the students and they all wear the same uniform so they are an integral part and a valued part of the school. They have learnt so much that will assist them when we get the trade training centre up and running.

I particularly wanted to show the Deputy Prime Minister Plumpton High School and the Plumpton Educational Community. What is the Plumpton Educational Community? Certainly, in New South Wales—and I suspect Australia wide—we have all experienced great efforts in recent years to assist the transition from grade 6 in primary school to year 7 in high school. Early on when I was a member it is true that high schools did not talk to primary schools. There was no interaction whatsoever. I commend those initiatives. I think the community concept takes it a significant step further—to where the principals voluntarily meet. The high school principals and the primary school principals meet and develop joint approaches to things so that you can have from K to 12 a common approach to citizenship, bullying and a whole range of things. There is joint in-service training, so you have primary school teachers and high school teachers in the same room receiving the same training.

There are lots of benefits. I could go on. For example, they use primary school teachers to develop learning plans for the high school. The primary school teachers obviously know the students who are graduating to year 7, so they have a firm picture—it is not a mystery—and year 7 can be tailored to the needs and the educational attainment of the students at the time. I could go on and on. I know that the Plumpton Educational Community would like, for example, to be a centre of excellence for new teachers who are entering the profession so that they can be mentored into the profession.

Whilst we were there it was also an opportunity to again meet the school captains from Plumpton High School; the principal, Eric Jamieson, who I have enormous admiration for; and the school principals and captains from Plumpton House School, Plumpton Public School, William Dean Public School and Glendenning Public School. I congratulate these schools on the way they are so focused and are cooperating. I hope there are opportunities, either through the states or federally, to develop the concept. I am not sure whether this approach exists in other states—I am not sufficiently across it—but I do believe there is much to commend it.

In addition to the meeting on Friday I was able to visit 14 schools in my electorate, both primary schools and high schools. It was an absolute joy to see all the construction activity and how welcomed all that construction activity is by the schools. I saw the new science blocks. I remember what the old science blocks looked like. They were dark, dim, middle-aged rooms. Now you see bright science labs with segregation between the benches and the learning facility. There is even a huge change to the prep rooms. There is not one bit of graffiti on any of them. The students and the teachers very much appreciate it, and I am sure we are getting positive outcomes.

I have never before seen the size of some of the COLAs that are being constructed. They are just mammoth buildings. As the honourable member for Werriwa would know, in Western Sydney before Christmas we were getting temperatures up near 47 degrees, so having these areas of shade, where you can take students out from school classrooms into the shaded areas or play in shaded areas, is very critical.

I took the opportunity to talk to them about the My School website. As we all know, this is something that is here to stay and the parents and the community have voted with their feet. But it does not mean that there are not some issues surrounding it, and of course the website is a salami slice of school activity. The great thing about the next time it is uploaded is that we will be able to see the students as they progress through the different grades. We will be able to see five-year-olds as year 3s. We will be able to see how schools have added value, and I think that this is a very critical aspect of improving the website.

I have discovered some anomalies on my trip that can be addressed by directly approaching ACARA and seeking to have the demographics refined. But it is very clear that the old debate about whether we can trust the public or whether they are entitled to have information about school performance is a dead issue. I also believe that school principals and schools will be proactive next time the My School information is uplifted and tell parents exactly what the data means and what is being measured. It does give a slice of activity of what is happening in a school but it is not the total story.

So I welcome the fact that schools will be even more proactive than they have already been. I suppose I should say that I am very proud of the fact that currently I have $140 million being spent on the Building the Education Revolution and I have not found a dissenting voice amongst the principals, much less from the parents and the students. They are absolutely delighted.

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

Good afternoon, colleagues. I am very pleased to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010 before us because it gives us an opportunity to highlight some areas of expenditure. I would like to localise it for my particular electorate of Braddon, which takes in the north-west coast of Tassie, down now into the west coast, and also includes King Island. It is a fantastic slab of earth and paradise in Australia.

I am really pleased to be part of a government that has brought us through very difficult times, times that are often ignored by those opposite. There have been difficult financial demands on this nation and, in relative terms, we have come through much better than other parts of the world. During all this time of economic pressure the government made decisions to stimulate the economy to keep it working, to keep people in this economy working, and to keep communities working. These appropriation bills, in part, deal with how that stimulus came about and how it is continuing to come about.

In particular I would like to highlight two areas, if I may. The Building the Education Revolution is one aspect of the stimulus. It was designed of course not just as a jobs and community stimulus but also as an intellectual stimulus as well, and in terms of construction in my electorate the Building the Education Revolution has indeed been that. As so many members on all sides of the House have noted, there is construction, there is activity, there are jobs going on all around our local communities.

The Building the Education Revolution contains many aspects but, in particular, computers in schools, Primary Schools for the 21^st Century, the National School Pride Program, trades training centres, and science and language centres. I am very pleased to say that in my electorate there has been considerable activity in all of these areas. On the other side of the ledger, in terms of stimulating the economy and getting and keeping the place working, and adding to our community infrastructure, we have had the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program along with other local community infrastructure programs.

I would like to very briefly take the House through some of these as they affect my electorate. For instance, King Island and its local infrastructure—$635,000 and the BER $135,000; Circular Head $1.1 million in local community infrastructure and $9.4 million in the BER; Waratah-Wynyard Council $854,000 in local community infrastructure, $8.3 million in the BER. And so on it goes, even the west coast with $924,000 in local community infrastructure projects and $3 million in Building the Education Revolution. In all, in my electorate $22.2 million is provided in local infrastructure programs and $84.6 million for the Building the Education Revolution for a total of something like $106.8 million, which is a massive investment in infrastructure, a massive investment in jobs, and a massive investment into community capital in my region.

On top of that, there is something like $49 million worth of special projects that have been allocated to Braddon and some of these have taken on a much broader regional role as well as a state role. For example, on the weekend I was joined by the Minister for Resources and Energy and Minister for Tourism, the honourable Martin Ferguson, when we turned the sod for a $15 million investment in the renewable energy demonstration project on King Island. This project has pioneering prospects for renewable energy for the whole of remote and rural Australia. An autism centre has been launched, based in Burnie, to a value of $4.8 million. We have two GP superclinics allocated to our region—Burnie-Cooee at $2.75 million and Devonport at $5.5 million—the latter well and truly under way. The Sisters of Charity received counselling service funding for their excellent work to the value of $2 million. Enterprise Connect has been established at Burnie for manufacturing as a centre for the state and the wider region and that has a value of $12 million. The O Group training project, based in Devonport, has a value of $900,000. There is also improved and increased patient accommodation at the North West Regional Hospital with a value of $3.1 million; an integrated health-IT project to the value of $1.2 million; improved cancer services to the value of $1.4 million; and the tarmac upgrade which we recently opened at Queenstown airport to the value of $700,000. They are just some of the projects that make up the special projects to the value of nearly $50 million in my electorate. There is the other commitment by this government from the election of $180 million to the Mersey Community Hospital over three years. That gives an indication of the commitment of this government to growing jobs, growing the economy, to construction and to community infrastructure development in Braddon.

I know I share those commitments with many in this House, particularly on this side of the chamber. I hope to speak in more detail on a number of those activities as time goes on. I just wanted to highlight some of those because it gets lost in the day-to-day combat of what goes on in this place and, certainly, what goes on in the media.

If you believe some of the media, we do not do anything. Yet time and time again members come into this House to share how this government is helping to keep this nation working, to keep our communities working and to keep our schools growing and improving, yet little of this is dealt with in the media except stories which highlight any potential weaknesses. We do not claim to be the be-all and end-all in providing answers to a lot of our challenges, but what I can say is that we will not die wondering. I was really happy to enunciate some of the many activities going on in my electorate. I have not had one person tell me that they did not want any of the Building the Education Revolution constructions nor any of the community infrastructure programs which are at record levels in my electorate. So I am very pleased about that.

In the time remaining I would like to thank the Minister for Sport, Minister Ellis, for an excellent program which exists in many of our electorates—that is, the Active After-school Communities program. I have an excellent program in my electorate. Something like 12 government and two independent schools are involved. There are three out-of-school-hours care services, with 541 participants, averaging 28 participants per session per site and nearly 2.05 sessions per site. These are spread from Sheffield to Stanley to Strahan. There are something like 79 programs ranging from AFL to aquatics, badminton, basketball, circus skills, cricket, dance, golf, hockey, lawn bowls, multi-skilling, netball, orienteering, soccer, softball, surf lifesaving, tennis, touch football and volleyball, just to name some of the many activities. I would like to share the basis of the program because I regard it as one of the most excellent programs that this government is participating in and supporting. The Active After-school Communities program targets children—it is very important we note this—who are not traditionally active or involved in mainstream sport. That is at the heart of it.

The Australian Sports Commission initiative aims to inspire a love of physical activity which creates a pathway to local sporting clubs, a preparation ground, if you like, to get people who are generally inactive to be active and hopefully to send them on their way to a local sporting club. The free program is running at capacity with up to 150,000 children nationally taking part in each term in over 3,200 schools at out-of-school-hours care services. It reaches all corners of and populations in Australia and is a genuine national program.

In an environment where the prevalence of overweight and obesity in Australian children is increasing alarmingly, unfortunately, and is higher among lower socioeconomic groups, Indigenous people and some ethnic populations, the Active After-school Communities program has proven to be an efficient and effective vehicle to increase physical activity levels of primary schoolchildren. It has three direct focuses. It engages inactive children in sport. I have been really pleased to attend six to seven sites where the kids are involved in these activities and it is all go, go, go, which is terrific. It delivers a quality program which inspires children and their families and coaches to continue their involvement in sport outside the program. Each contributes to the growth of local sports clubs through facilitating the transition of children, their families and coaches to the local club environment. That is at the heart of the Active After-school Communities Program.

The Australian Sports Commission works collaboratively with sporting organisations at national, state and local levels to assist with the delivery of the Active After-school Communities Program. Over 44,600 local people, many of them sport affiliated, have been trained free of charge by the Active After-school Communities Program to become community coaches and deliver activities. For the government’s investment of around $350 per year per child, each child receives up to 80 free sports sessions, up to 80 free healthy afternoon snacks, a qualified coach, access to sports equipment and a supervisor. That sum also includes the supporting national framework that provides quality training, ongoing support, free resources for schools and continuing research and evaluation, all of which are facilitated by locally based regional coordinators. These regional coordinators really are the glue between the schools, the children and the sport. I cannot speak more highly of my regional coordinator, David Munns, and the program that he so enthusiastically and professionally oversees.

The Active After-school Communities Program is a unique example of a successful national initiative that is delivered locally by a federal agency, with established strategic partnerships with state and local government and non-government organisations to support implementation at the community level. This approach and this structure has proven to maximise impact and minimise duplication, enabling the delivery of a high-quality program which addresses the government’s priority areas. I understand there continues to be significant levels of unmet demand for the program, with more than 500 schools and out of school hours care services waiting to participate in the program. The program currently only reaches 25 per cent of primary schools nationwide, and approximately 50 per cent of childcare benefit approved out of school hours care services.

The government’s current funding commitment for the Active After-schools Communities Program ceases in December 2010 and I am very happy to lobby my minister and others to see that this program continues into the next funding round. I know that there are colleagues on this side of the House that have this program going on in their electorates and regions and are very supportive of it. I know the minister is also very proud of it, but I just want to put on the record the importance of this program, particularly in my electorate, where unfortunately we still have too many kids that are essentially inactive.

It is interesting looking at some of the evaluation and research that has been done on the efficacy and efficiency of the program. The role of the regional coordinator is a highly valued role and is seen as important to the delivery of the program in the schools, and the out of school hours care services and overall satisfaction with the performance is at its highest level ever. So I congratulate all of those coordinators. I believe there is evidence that the Active After-school Communities Program is decreasing sedentary behaviour after school. Nearly half of the parents of children registered in the program through a school say their child would be engaged in sedentary behaviour if they were not participating in the program. Children who would have been physically active if they were not attending the after school program would mainly have been physically active in an unstructured way.

Importantly, the program is not a replacement program for after-school sport or other organised sport, so it is not negating and it is not duplicating. I think some people have lost sight of that. Ninety-one per cent of children participating in the program through a school reported they would not otherwise be participating in after-school sport or other organised physical activity. Of significant importance is the impact the program has had on a growing community capacity in stimulating local community involvement in sport and structured physical activity. Over half of the schools evaluated agreed that the program leads to increased links between the schools and supporting clubs or other sporting organisations in the community.

Almost two-thirds of schools believe that the program leads to more people skilled to deliver sport or other structured physical activity programs to children in the local community. Something like 78 per cent of schools overwhelmingly agreed that the program has increased their organisation’s ability to provide sport or other structured physical activity to primary-age schoolchildren. Almost two-thirds of school representatives believe that the program leads to greater local community awareness of sporting clubs and other structured physical activity and organisations. Another interesting statistic is that over half of the school representatives—some 56 per cent—believe the program leads to more opportunities for children and families to join local sporting clubs and other structured physical activity. About half also agree that the program leads to more children joining local clubs.

In conclusion, I want to congratulate the minister for overseeing this excellent program, the Australian Sports Commission initiative for taking on this program and all those who deliver the Active After-school Communities program so very well, particularly David Munns and the Tasmanian organisation. (Time expired)

Sharryn Jackson (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) 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. As is the tradition, perhaps, with appropriations bills, with a fairly wide-ranging debate, I wanted to focus today on the issue of climate change. This is an extremely important issue to me and to many constituents in my electorate of Hasluck. I recall very well the 2007 election, where the majority of people in my electorate wanted action on climate change, particularly following what had been almost a decade of inaction on climate change. I note that the current opposition—the then government—actually changed its traditional policy position and went to the 2007 election with a climate change policy that included an emissions trading scheme.

I think the debate in 2010 has shifted but I am still convinced that the majority of Australians are concerned about our environment and the challenges of climate change and water. Weather related concerns are part of everyday conversation. Once upon a time we just used to ask about the weather as a way of starting a conversation; now people are very much concerned about the weather. From a Western Australian perspective, we have just experienced the hottest January on record—an average of 35 degrees—and 2009 was the second hottest year in Australia on record. Of course, the last decade was the hottest in Australia on record, hotter than the previous decade. In WA we have had no rainfall for December or January and in most of WA we are having less rainfall, more droughts and water shortages. Across the nation we are experiencing more extreme weather events—storms and bushfires. Australians do feel an obligation to future generations. They are concerned about the kind of country and the environment that we will leave for our kids and our grandkids. We certainly want to leave them with a better and a stronger world.

The stakes in this debate are high. As Rupert Murdoch simplistically described the challenge of climate change and where doubt existed about the science of global warming, he said, ‘Give the planet the benefit of the doubt.’ Taking the critically important step of starting the transformation of our whole economy to a low carbon emission economy is, I think, an absolute necessity for Australia. We need to become a less polluting nation. We need to acknowledge that there is a cost to polluting and we must learn to live greener. We need to invest in and expand on the use of renewable energy for industry and for households.

I am delighted to be part of a government that has increased the mandatory renewable energy target, or MRET, to 20 per cent of electricity from renewable sources by 2020, that has seen significant investment in large-scale solar powered generation and carbon capture and storage, and that has established a scientific framework for climate change research and better ways of investing in it. I am also pleased to be part of a government that sees significant support for energy efficiency, water conservation and living greener—a $3.2 billion investment. Of course, last but not least, there is the creation of a climate change adaptation fund to assist with the management of the impact of climate change. These are just some of the key achievements of the Rudd government so far.

The government has seen not only the ratification of the Kyoto protocol but also the implementation of a $12.9 billion national water strategy. We have seen a $200 million commitment to the Reef Rescue initiative to protect the Great Barrier Reef. We have seen the installation of a record number of solar panels onto Australian rooftops. We have seen the Solar Schools Program. We have seen the $100 million commitment to develop a new smart grid energy network, and we have recently signed the National Strategy on Energy Efficiency with all state and territory governments. The sad thing is, however, that these measures alone are not enough to cut Australia’s emissions, and that is what we must do. As the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change said in his second reading speech, when the CPRS bills were reintroduced to the House:

However, projections show that even with these measures Australia’s emissions will continue to rise, reaching 120 per cent of 2000 levels in 2020.

That is why we need the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme—an effective mechanism to reduce carbon pollution at the lowest possible cost. Cutting and reducing our emissions is the imperative.

The single, biggest flaw in the opposition’s latest alternative policy proposal is that it will not reduce carbon pollution. I am sure many of us in this chamber have seen the Department of Climate Change’s analysis of the opposition’s policy and the graph showing the level of carbon emissions increases if the opposition’s policy is implemented. They have abandoned a policy that previously acknowledged that an emissions trading scheme was and is the best mechanism for undertaking this major economic reform. The Howard government’s climate change report, the Shergold report, as well as the Garnaut review, came to the same conclusion that an emissions trading scheme was the most effective mechanism to reduce carbon pollution and to tackle climate change. The current Leader of the Opposition, in his book Battlelines, acknowledges what the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change and others have pointed out when he says:

The Howard government (in 2007) proposed an emissions trading scheme because this seemed the best way to obtain the highest emissions reduction at the lowest cost.

There is a global scientific consensus that the climate is warming and an increasing concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere—in other words, climate change is real and it will inflict severe costs on Australia.

I believe there is also a growing global economic consensus that the cost of inaction on climate change will be greater than the cost of acting now. The two extremes in this debate are represented by, firstly, those who are sceptics—unfortunately, perhaps, overrepresented in the current opposition—and those who claim that drastic change is necessary, even at the cost of jobs and/or of inflicting large cost increases on households budgets. Both views are evident in my own electorate.

To the sceptics, I say that, if you cannot accept the global scientific consensus or the Rupert Murdoch philosophy, surely you must acknowledge that it is desirable for many, many reasons that we reduce the level of pollution our society pumps into the atmosphere and that we conserve our water sources and our forests for the future wellbeing of our community and our country. These are honourable objectives and we should be able to agree to implement these objectives in a way that minimises the adverse impact on families, industry and jobs. I am convinced the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme that is before the parliament is the best way to do this.

At the other end of the debate, there are those who are angry that the majority of Australians are not prepared to take dramatic action. They are angry that pollution is not stopped immediately, despite the cost to industry and jobs, and they are angry that the government’s CPRS does not go far enough on targets or polluters. They say they would prefer no action to the CPRS currently before the parliament. Whilst I am sympathetic to their passionate desire to act now and to bring about rapid change to protect our planet, I reject entirely the notion that no action is better than the detailed policy that is proposed by the government. Given the lack of will to act demonstrated by the majority of opposition members, they may well get an outcome of no action. I cannot see the benefit for the nation in such an outcome.

I am fortunate to have within my electorate Peter Langlands and Jane Genevieve. Peter and Jane come to meet with me every six months or so. They are climate change activists who are campaigning for action with great heart, and they are passionate about the future and the environment. During their last visit they presented me with a piece of black coal because they were angry at the agreement that had been reached at that time by the government with the opposition to pass the CPRS. They were angry because they believed the CPRS did not go far enough quickly enough. I urged them to try and understand that the economic transition to a low carbon polluting economy that is needed must happen in a way that cushions Australian households, working families, industry and jobs. I have urged them to try and understand the diversity of views on climate change in our community and I have urged them to understand the reality of the political make-up of the parliament, particularly the Senate—perhaps the most difficult task of all. I think it is a shameful indictment of this parliament that we appear unable to deal with the challenge of climate change in a bipartisan way.

The misinformation that has crept into the public debate and the absurd need for 10-second grabs for modern media on this issue are also extremely unfortunate. I accept that the government’s scheme is detailed, comprehensive and complex, which I believe reflects the nature of the reforms required. To suggest the opposition’s alternative is simple or effective is to completely misrepresent it. I have to comment on the coalition’s recent focus on the so-called cost of the CPRS on households and their attempt to present it as nothing but a tax on households. These comments are hypocritical and opportunistic. It is dishonest to suggest that their own policy will have no cost impact on taxpayers. It is also hypocritical to feign concern for the costs and charges on Australian households when their own party and state government in Western Australia are slugging Western Australian families and households with increased fees and charges. Increased this financial year alone by the Western Australian government were electricity prices, car registration, public transport fees, high school fees, boat registration and boat mooring licences, gas prices, recreational fishing licences, third party insurance, city car parking fees and local government rates.

The infamous Western Australian Treasurer announced in the state budget last May that new household fees and charges would add approximately $334 to household budgets. However, the massive increases in electricity, water, gas, sewerage, landfill and transport prices on top of the loss of the $100 high school subsidy and the $200 It Pays to Learn allowance mean that families will need to find more than $1,000 to foot the bill. Seniors copped it in the state budget as well. On top of electricity, gas and public transport increases, the Liberal-National Party coalition cut pensioner concessions as well. It is almost unbelievable that they did this at the same time as the Rudd government was acting to increase pensions and assist seniors with the cost of living.

The Western Australian Council of Social Services, WACOSS, stated in its recent report entitled The rising cost of living in Western Australia that families on minimum wages have been $31 per week worse off over the last 12 months. That is over $1,600 per year taken out of the hip pockets of Western Australia’s most vulnerable families. The opposition’s word play on costs is opportunistic. Genuine concern would acknowledge the Western Australian government’s fees and charges hike and demand action to remedy it immediately. I ask: what actions are the opposition taking to rein in these cost attacks by their state counterparts in Western Australia on Western Australian households? None. And some of their members are probably already out there blaming the Rudd government and the CPRS.

In contrast, the Rudd government has been open and public about the cost impact of the CPRS and will compensate nine out of 10 households to meet these costs. The contrasts between the current opposition policy and the Rudd government’s plan are stark. As the Minister for Climate Change and Water, the Hon. Senator Penny Wong, said in her opening remarks at the Press Club a couple of weeks ago:

Firstly, our plan caps and reduces Australia’s carbon pollution for the first time ever.

The alternative put forward by the Opposition would see emissions rise by 13 per cent by 2020.

Secondly, our plan tackles the root of the problem by making polluters pay for their carbon pollution.

The alternative lets the biggest polluters off scot free and potentially ties Australian business up in yet-to-be announced red tape.

               …            …            …

And finally, our plan takes the money raised from polluters and provides cash assistance to 8.1 million working families—660 dollars a year on average.

Lower income households get more assistance, and higher income households get less.

The alternative doesn’t deliver a single dollar in assistance to working families. Instead working families bear the cost of new subsidies to polluters, through higher taxes or pared-back services.

In my electorate of Hasluck people are taking individual action all over the place, responding to the challenge of climate change in their own lives and doing their bit to tackle this significant problem. Over 4,300 households in my electorate have taken advantage of the insulation program. We have also seen both the federal and state government fund the Perth Solar City program. Constituents are accessing rebates for rainwater tanks or buying green power or, like some, installing solar panels or accessing green loans.

One example of people accessing green loans are Barry and Karry-leeanne, who lived in Gosnells in my electorate. I was pleased to be able to join them in January when their new solar panels were installed. Not only are Karry-leeanne and Barry now a carbon-neutral household, but in the 40 days since they installed their system some 743.4 kilowatts of power have been produced and they are looking forward to a future without electricity bills at all. As a Western Australian I can say that that is probably a good thing, given that the state government has another 22 per cent increase in electricity charges planned for this financial year. I would like to congratulate them for participating in the Green Loans Program and I am delighted that they are so pleased with their solar panels. I urge more of my constituents to take advantage of these programs and opportunities.

I also urge my constituents who have concerns about the CPRS or any aspect of the proposal to consider the very comprehensive information available on the website www.climatechange.gov.au. If you do not have access to the web or would like more information or want to talk through what the possible cost applications are for your household, please come and see me, and I or my staff would be delighted to assist you to access information about the scheme and its potential impacts on your household. I also urge all members in this place as well as in the Senate to weigh up the science, the bipartisan advice and reports regarding the best mechanism for reducing carbon emissions, the future of our planet and the wellbeing of future generations of Australians, and support the introduction of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme at the earliest opportunity.

In the couple of minutes that I have left in this speech on the appropriations bills there are other things that I would like to specifically refer to that my electorate has benefited from through increased government funding or government programs. I am delighted to see a significant job being done towards building a stronger community and a stronger Australia for the working families of Hasluck and indeed the rest of the country. I am particularly pleased about the support that we have had through the national stimulus package. Funding has been provided to the Shire of Kalamunda for the Kalamunda Community and Cultural Centre. There has been significant funding, some $2.4 million, for the Swan Riverside Regional Park development. Also, the long overdue upgrade to the interchange of the Great Eastern Highway and Roe Highway has begun. I am looking forward to that being concluded sometime during 2012.

I have already commented on how pleased I am that the federal government have decided to contribute $180.1 million towards the building of the new Midland Health Campus, the public hospital designed to replace the existing Swan District Hospital. The state government indicated that they had a $100 million shortfall. We have provided more than required, and I hope to see construction commence shortly on the new Midland Health Campus. In addition to that, I also congratulate the Minister for Health and Ageing on the terrific job she has done in bringing about the substantial increase in GP training places. This will certainly assist in my electorate and complement the newly funded Midland GP superclinic. I understand that construction of that is due to start in the second half of this year.

They are just some of the projects that I would like to draw the attention of the House to. I could go on, given the schools funding that we are enjoying in the electorate of Hasluck. This afternoon I have tried to cover the important issues to me and to the electors of Hasluck, as constituted by the challenge of taking action on climate change.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I take pleasure in having the opportunity to speak on a wide range of issues in this debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010. I would like to comment on some key issues facing our nation, particularly in the coming decades, and some of the plans that I have in the coming years for my role in representing my community.

Queensland, as everyone knows, is an absolutely fantastic state and a great place to live. It is as simple as that. It is the sunny state; it is the lucky state. It is the state that everyone moves to—for very good reason, because it is a beautiful place. I am as parochial as the next person. There is no question about it. But it does lead me to speak about some very serious issues. Population growth is a very well-known part of Queensland life, particularly in the south-east, where it puts enormous pressures on our infrastructure and our ability to provide services such as energy, roads, health care, education and so forth. We love the growth, we like people coming to Queensland, but they are very big issues for us to deal with and I want to make particular note of that here.

We are dealing with those issues. Not only is the state government dealing with those issues but so is the Commonwealth—really for the first time since Federation. It is almost that long. Over the past decade and a half it was the case that the Commonwealth decided that it was not its role to play a part in infrastructure development in local regions. I have certainly held the view for a very long time that that should not be the case. The Commonwealth ought to play a role. That is certainly what the Rudd government have been doing, and I am very proud of that. I am proud of the achievements we have made in my part of the world, through the western corridor of South-East Queensland, and the great things those achievements bring to the state.

The population growth has been reflected through the latest Australian Electoral Commission federal redistribution. We had one in Queensland. It has been the case for quite a number of years now that at every election Queensland gets a new seat. We take one off one of the other states, which is fine by us. Within the western corridor, which is still driving much of the growth in South-East Queensland, it is no surprise that the electorate of Oxley has condensed in geographic size because it is growing in population density. I have lost a number of suburbs to the east of Brisbane—places like Acacia Ridge, Parkinson and Algester.

17:34:54

I just want to put on the record my thanks to those people, whom I still represent—they are my constituents up to the next election—and thank them for the support they have given me. I really do appreciate and value the work that we did together in those regions. I will formally be the representative—should the voters have the grace to re-elect me!—of new areas I have picked up: the centenary suburbs of Jamboree Heights, Jindalee, Middle Park, Mount Ommaney, Riverhills, Sumner and Westlake. I will look forward to looking after them, as I have done from time to time for a number of years even when they were not my constituency, when they might not have been being looked after by someone else. I certainly eagerly await the opportunity to work much more closely with the constituents and the families in those suburbs within the new parts of Oxley. I know we will have a great relationship. I am very proud to represent all of my electorate, those who have been with me since 1988, and I welcome those new constituents I will have in the future.

I am committed to the western corridor because I think it is a place that we should all be very proud of. I am certainly very proud not only to represent the western corridor of South-East Queensland but also to live there—to live there and enjoy all the benefits that it has, like our beautiful beaches. Many people may not know that in the western corridor we have beautiful beaches: they are only an hour away, on the Gold Coast! We have got some great motorways that take you straight there. We have got beautiful countryside. We have really got a great environment. I want to keep pushing home the idea that the western corridor is a great place to live, and it is proven day in, day out by the number of families that move to the region. They make a conscious decision to live there. It is a place that thrives on community spirit and it has real soul. It is a wonderful place to represent.

Of course, there are challenges for us, and nothing could better articulate that than the recent release of the latest Intergenerational report, looking at Australia over the next 40 years. I do not think there is a single more important document than this report. It probably has not got the attention it deserves in the media, but I will do my best to promote this report because of its significance to our economy and the things we ought to be doing in relation to it. I also want to congratulate the Treasurer on his work and his efforts in this area and on the great speech that he made upon the release of the report—about the importance he in his role places on that report and the challenges we will face in the future, and what we as a government will be doing to ensure that we look way beyond the electoral cycle to the next 40 years. Governments are often criticised, parliaments perhaps as well, for looking just at the next two years in the electoral cycle. Sometimes that may be a valid criticism, but I am very proud of the fact that we are paying serious attention to and doing things about the next 40 years as well.

As we all understand and as reflected in the Intergenerational report, the major challenges are the ageing population, employment participation and balance in the economy—three core factors determining where we might be in the future. If we want to maintain the standard of living we expect as people living in a wealthy country like Australia, we actually have to take action; we have to do something. We cannot just get the report and look at it. If we want to maintain our health services, including private health insurance schemes, and educational standards, we need to do things about them now. We heard the Treasurer speaking about the small changes you make today having large impacts in the future. Most people understand compound interest; this is a compound policy approach—small changes today, very large consequences in the future.

In particular, we need to understand just how significant the issue of an ageing population is. Between now and 2050, the number of people aged between 65- and 84-years-old will double. Even more startling is the revelation that the number of people aged 85 and over will quadruple. You can imagine, Deputy Speaker Georganas, the sort of pressure that will put on our health system and our aged-care system, on private health insurance schemes and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. We have to make sure that we manage those schemes well or we face the prospect of not being able to afford them in the future, as has happened in other countries. I am very focused on the need for us to do that properly.

This will mean that by 2050, there will be nearly 1.4 working Australians for each person over 65 years old compared to 2.7 people working today for those compared to five people who are currently working to support people who are over that age today. What that means is there will be significantly less people working, contributing revenue and taxation, to provide for those who are no longer working. In the future the population will be going from 22 million people to over 36 million people in 2050. These are significant numbers. People will understand very quickly the importance of those.

That means that our standard of living rather than falling will grow at a lower, slower rate. That will mean we will have less and less opportunity to maintain the standard of living we enjoy today. If you do not grow, you literally go backwards. So we need to make sure that we do everything we can. There are only a couple of ways you can do this: you can either tax people more or become more efficient and productive. I know what I would rather choose and I know what this government is about: it is about being more efficient and more productive. It is about employment participation and all of those things. We need to encourage more people in the community to work where they can for longer, to better manage retirement savings and to better manage our health system to make sure we can maintain the standards we are used to in this country. We have done that through a number of areas today, through our tax reforms, through our child-care rebates to ensure that Australian families have more opportunity to participate in work and to ensure older Australians have tax incentives and other incentives to continue to work if they choose to. The way that retirement and superannuation systems are structured best reflects the way that people want to participate in work as well.

I do not want to get in to the debate of climate change in terms of who is in favour and who is against. I think there is a much more critical debate at hand and that is that climate change is real. People are doing something about it globally, people are acting and they are doing things. The most critical thing for Australia is that if we do not act, we will be one of the ones most affected. It is a dry country. Even if you leave the climate change debate to the side, we need to act in terms of our climate, our crop development and the way that this country can manage itself into the future and manage the huge challenges that will face us. I have talked about these issues in other forums as well.

What the Intergenerational report does show us is that over the next few years we need to make some critical economic decisions to maintain where we want to be in the future. The bottom line of that is sustainability in everything we do: the pharmaceutical benefits scheme, health and the aged care sector and also in terms of budgets. We need to make sure that we manage risk whether it is climate, food security or our health care system. We need to make sure that we are part of any global solutions that are out there. People when they talk about climate change say it is complex. People just do not understand it. Some people would like to make it complex but it is really quite simple.

There are really just three things that people ought to know about climate change. The three Cs of climate change: putting a cap in place, charging the right people—the polluters—and it is about compensating people. That is all it is: it is as simple as that. It is a market based solution. It is something you would expect that the Liberals on the other side would be the first to support. Not so long ago they did support it and it was their policy. The reality is if you are going to have any system in place, it ought to be market based. Let’s have the market decide just how this will work because we know that will give it its best opportunity to work and work efficiently.

You put a cap in place, you set a benchmark and you go about setting a standard. We have put in a modest but a reasonable and achievable standard. We are working through that. The other one is to charge the right people. We should not be charging the average punter or taxpayer in the street. We should be charging the big polluters. Let them get charged through the market system. Where people need compensation, and that is the third C, the government can play its role. It is a fair market based system and one that can work. It is simple and is in fact what the rest of the world is currently doing, investigating or will be doing very shortly. We are ready know there are over 32 countries in the world that have an ETS and US, China in development. Whether they agree, do not agree or whether Copenhagen was a success or a failure, the reality is everyone is moving forward.

As I said before large-scale change that will come in the next 40 years is significant but it is the small adjustments that we make today that will make the big difference for our children into the future. Regarding the future, what we have done today and how we have gone about it in the last couple of years, there is no question that the Rudd government, coming in to government, faced a number of challenges such as a global financial crisis of almost unseen proportions for some 75 years.

I am very proud of our record and the things we did in terms of bank guarantees, stabilising the economy, the stimulus package, and dealing with the critical issues of infrastructure, housing and a whole range of other areas. The critically important thing that really sticks with me is the 200,000 jobs that we faced losing across our economy. We say ‘jobs’ and ‘economy’, but we are talking about people, their livelihoods and their ability to repay their mortgages. We saved those jobs through our stimulus packages. Through our efforts we not only maintained people in employment but also did something very important—we left a legacy through infrastructure, and I am very proud of that.

This is about investing in productivity, employment participation and maintaining spending discipline, which we have done through our budgets. Fiscal sustainability will be the key to the future. Every country must manage debt—there is no question about that. Australia is one of the best placed, if not the best placed, economy in the world not only to manage it but to sustain it. We are at the lower end of debt ratios, GDP and debt liabilities. We are at the good, sustainable end of that. If you were to compare the percentages—we are at 15 per cent; the United States is now approaching 90 per cent; Japan is quickly approaching 200 per cent, which is almost the critical fall-over point; and Greece is at the same sort of number—you can see that we are placed at the very low end. It is what you would call a normal leveraged position. It is manageable, sustainable and something we can deal with in coming budgets.

I want to congratulate again the Treasurer for his very good work in making sure that we can sustain all the services that are critical for people’s livelihoods and their wellbeing, such as our healthcare system, the aged-care system that deals with pensions and the aged, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and other things we have to maintain. There is always growing pressure on budgets and fiscal policy. Every year you want to do more. Every year you lift the bar, you lift the standards. That is what we are attempting to do. But at the same time we are making sure it is sustainable into the future.

I want to also talk briefly about Australia as a financial services hub. We can be a real driving force in the future in the Asia-Pacific region. Australia has obviously done very well compared to just about all of our neighbours and globally after the financial crisis, and that was not by accident. Australia has a very strong, robust regulatory system. We have good governance and a range of other mechanisms—prudential regulation and so forth—that place us well ahead of our competitors. We need to capitalise on that. We need to make best use of that. It is a growth sector and a growth industry. It is where a whole range of new, innovative jobs for the future can be created, and we can do that through a structured process.

I want to congratulate the Australian Financial Centre Forum on the 10 major recommendations it put forward in the Australia as a financial centre report, the Johnson report. It looked at what we can do to make that happen. I will not go through all of them, because I do not have time. We can do it through: investment manager regimes; offshore banking units; regulatory stability and certainty; funds management vehicles; liquidity; the Islamic finance products market, which is an emerging market in Australia; removing state taxes and levies on insurance, which I think is a critical issue on its own, but we can deal with it here as well; and avoiding unnecessary repetition of regulation. We need to lower costs and compliance burdens. We need to make sure we do it well.

I think there is a real opportunity for government to play a very strong role in this area, to lead the charge, to bring it together as one sector and to say to our neighbours: ‘Look at our expertise. Look at the funds under management here. Look at how well we have managed. We have that managerial skill and that expertise.’ That is something I think we should sell to the rest of the world. We can do that through export markets. I congratulate Minister Bowen as well for his ongoing good work in this area.

There are plenty of reforms underway. This is a reform government. It is a government that has been very focused on doing a range of things. There has been some work done through some committees and we have looked at the financial services sector as a whole. I look forward to the changes that will come about from the Henry, Cooper and other reviews—the reports of which are currently with the ministers.

In the couple of minutes I have left I want to finish off by saying that I think we have a real opportunity for strong sustainable budgets into the future with some really good ministers, Minister Tanner, the Treasurer and others working on a strong plan for the future for all Australians so we can all share the benefits that this country has to offer.

There is another issue, a global issue. I have spoken many times about global food security, but I want to divert slightly to something that is very close to Australia. I read recently a report of a study that was carried out throughout Greater Melbourne on type 2 diabetes, now the fastest-growing and most common disease killing people in Australia. It has enormous impact on ordinary people. In some parts of Melbourne, as this survey showed, as many as one in three adults actually has type 2 diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes, and the crisis with obesity and all those other related issues, actually had a starting point about 30 years ago with the development of high human-intervention foods, processed foods, fructose concentration and the changing of the food we eat, so much so that in the last 30 years you can really track this and see what a massive impact it has had on our lives. Type 2 diabetes is a reasonably new occurrence. It is really just 30 years old, in a sense.

I think that there is a lot more we can do. I think that people need to refocus their efforts on whole foods, on real food. Food generally does not come in a cellophane packet that you can jingle. This kind of food is full of three things basically—fat, sugar and salt—and has literally no food value whatsoever. It is no longer real food.

I will be campaigning on this issue for the rest of this year in my local community, building up to a challenge that I want to do to get people to focus back on the things that their parents and their grandparents used to eat. I am sure that, if you asked your grandparents if they recognised some of the foods today compared with when they were children, they would not. Everything that comes in cellophane packets today does not have the same sort of value. It is processed. I think that if we can educate people about those small changes and show them that there is a better way and that it is affordable, we can make a big difference in this really critical health area.

It links back to the things I talked earlier before about sustainability in our budgets. The big challenges of the future will be health care and issues such as type 2 diabetes. I think that there is something we can do about it and that we all ought to play a role. That is certainly one of the ways I think I can contribute, and I look forward to the opportunity I will have to work with my community and with others in trying to encourage people to get back to a wholesome lifestyle. (Time expired)

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

I am pleased to rise to speak in support of the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010 because it gives me an opportunity to talk about the delivery of the Rudd government’s economic stimulus plan in my electorate of Parramatta. I am pleased to report to my fellow Parramattans that the Rudd government’s Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan is on track to be delivered in Parramatta.

The Rudd government is investing more than $200 million in the Greater Parramatta region, including $158 million in the Parramatta electorate, for more than 1,500 Parramatta projects that support jobs and small business and keep the west working. Parramatta is the beating heart of Western Sydney’s economy, the regional capital of small retail and manufacturing, and in Parramatta we understand the stimulus—we actually get it. I would say that I have not seen business as engaged with government as it is at the moment. Business understands the damage that the global financial crisis could have inflicted on it and on the community and it understands the work that the government has done on its behalf in acting so quickly to deliver stimulus.

They also know that the world crisis is not over yet and that the economy needs a steady hand to see us through along the recovery path. They tell me on a regular basis now how they are going, and I am very grateful for that feedback. Families in my community understand that our region has weathered the global financial storm relatively well without the dramatic increases in unemployment that usually plague Western Sydney when the economy slows and they see the evidence of the stimulus working in the mushrooming of small construction sites in our schools and suburbs.

You need to understand two things about Parramatta to really get it. Firstly, we always do it tougher than the averages for large cities. The choices that governments make to support and stimulate the private economy in tough times have starker results in Western Sydney then in the rest of Sydney or Melbourne, for example. In areas like ours people are the first onto the dole queue when things go bad and they are the last ones off. In Parramatta we understand that reasonable, affordable debt is better than massive unemployment, that action is far better than inaction or delay.

Secondly, we do not have the inherited personal wealth of other places. Parramatta is a city of firsts where families get their first university degree, migrants come to live for the first time, they buy their first home or they open their first business. We simply do not have the buffer in Parramatta that you might see in other areas. We are vulnerable. People in Parramatta take risks and calculated chances to advance their prosperity. Unemployment devastates families in this condition.

The $42 billion Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan represents the largest Commonwealth infrastructure project in our nation’s history. It is not just good for Parramatta, it is essential. The government’s decisive action through our infrastructure stimulus plan is protecting jobs through over 28,000 individual projects nationwide. We are keeping the economy strong and we are supporting working families in the here and now. The government introduced the plan with two key goals. We knew when we were elected that we had to build for the future. We inherited an infrastructure deficit and a skills deficit that would delay future growth in Australia. We knew we had to act. Through the stimulus package, we have protected Australia from the worst global recession in 75 years, but we have also built Australia’s future with investment in long-term infrastructure.

One year on, these objectives are being met in Parramatta. During the past 12 months the Australian economy has received relief from the Reserve Bank’s emergency low interest rates and from ongoing growth in the Chinese economy. But let us be absolutely clear: the difference between the strengthening growth in the Australian economy and being engulfed by the global recession, like eight out of our top 10 trading partners, is the government’s economic stimulus strategy. The difference between having generated 112,000 new jobs in the past year here and the hundreds of thousands of job losses overseas is the government’s economic stimulus plan. The difference between the increasingly confident business outlook and small business going to the wall in communities across the nation is the government’s economic stimulus plan. The Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan is delivering on what it promised—jobs for today and infrastructure for tomorrow.

Half of the $42 billion stimulus has now been injected into the economy through businesses, households, state and local government allocations and construction projects. Almost three-quarters—71 per cent—of almost 50,000 infrastructure projects have been completed or are under way. The Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan is transforming schools, community facilities and neighbourhoods across the nation and is building lasting foundations for Australia’s future growth and productivity.

One year ago, Australia was facing the most hostile global economic conditions in three-quarters of a century. The collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 and subsequent events on Wall Street had reshaped the landscape of American finance and what had begun as a seemingly small tremor in American financial markets gathered force as the inter-bank lending markets turning the wheels of the global financial system effectively shut down. By the beginning of 2009, an earthquake was rocking the entire global economy. World trade collapsed by nearly 45 per cent on an annual basis in the last three months of 2008. Entire banking systems needed to be rescued around the world, recapitalised, and, in the case of individual banks in many countries, nationalised. Stock markets slumped, many losing more than half their value. Financial institutions that had survived a combination of world wars and world recessions were swept aside and even the finances of nations themselves were threatened, with one nation state declaring itself to be officially bankrupt.

We were truly looking at the prospect of the total failure of the global financial system, the collapse of global economic growth and the real possibility of a global depression of indefinite severity and duration. The jobs of hundreds of thousands of Australians were at risk and the Australian government faced a stark choice. We could simply fold our arms and allow businesses to fold and unemployment to rise, or we could act decisively by providing a major stimulus to the economy that would cushion Australia from the full force of the global economic recession.

We had a very small window of opportunity within which to make that decision. The government weighed the arguments and the evidence of past global crises and we concluded that we must do everything that we reasonably could to cushion Australia from the impact of recession, to project jobs, apprentices and businesses and to protect our economy from the full impact of the economic cyclone. The government’s first urgent step was to guarantee deposits and to guarantee wholesale funding for APRA-regulated banks, building societies and credit unions. This was an essential move for without it credit for major projects would have largely seized up and construction projects across the nation would have stopped in their tracks.

In the months that followed, the government rolled out $77 billion in stimulus and investment packages to support the economy in the immediate, medium and long term. The centrepiece of this $77 billion stimulus and investment is the $42 billion Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan. The government’s strategy began with immediate stimulus through cash payments, support for first home owners and tax breaks to encourage investment by small business. But it had to be fast. Our rationale was that these measures would trigger key drivers of growth in the Australian economy—in particular, household consumption—at a time when we faced the risk of a free fall in retail spending due to a collapse in consumer confidence. We in this place all know the concentration of Australian jobs which lies in the retail sector—some 15 per cent of the entire Australian workforce and a major part of the economy of Western Sydney.

I have received enormously positive feedback from retail business in Parramatta on the effect of that early cash stimulus. Business generally has commented positively on the tax incentives for small business capital equipment, which was introduced shortly after, designed to bring forward business expense on capital equipment. The tax incentives and cash stimulus had a huge positive impact on Auto Alley in Church Street, Parramatta. Michael Wentworth of the Motor Traders’ Association spoke of this impact while I was visiting Holden heartland in Parramatta to speak to apprentices in the Group Training in the Trades Program. Mr Wentworth said that the car industry in Parramatta was thriving because of three forms of government stimulus: the cash handouts, the tax breaks and the direct apprentice training support. Mr Wentworth said that without these three forms of government stimulus Auto Alley in Parramatta would have been shutting down hoists and laying off workers. Instead, they were booming throughout 2009.

The next stage of the strategy was to provide medium-term support for the economy by investing in school modernisation, energy efficiency and social housing. The third stage which follows is investment in major long-term infrastructure projects in rail, roads, ports, education, research, clean energy and broadband.

From the beginning the government recognised that, if a plan were to be effective, timing was critical. It was essential that funds flowed quickly. For this reason, in February 2009 the Council of Australian Governments agreed to ambitious delivery time frames. This has been a herculean task, with Commonwealth, state and territory coordinators-general overseeing the development, approval, construction and completion of around 50,000 major construction projects across Australia. This is virtually unprecedented in our country’s history. Now, one year on from the announcement of the plan, we are well into the delivery phase. Of the major building construction projects being rolled out, 49,179 projects have been approved, 34,800 projects have commenced and over 8,300 have been completed.

In Parramatta I set up a ‘Keep the west working’ campaign which has organised regular roundtables of Parramatta’s key economic leaders, forums for small business and forums for school principals. This was all to ensure that we stayed on track to meet our targets and to feed in feedback on the delivery to government as swiftly as possible. I was pleased last month to welcome Treasurer Wayne Swan to Parramatta for the most recent ‘Keep the west working’ roundtable at the headquarters of Rheem Australia in Rydalmere. The rapid delivery of the plan has been critical to its effectiveness.

By comparison with other nations Australia acted early and decisively in implementing stimulus measures. For example, the United States government currently estimates that only 34 per cent of its stimulus package announced last year has been paid out. That is $269 billion out of $787 billion. The Australian government was acutely aware of the need to bring forward stimulus at a time when economic growth was under acute stress. Unlike other nations, Australia’s speed in acting before our economy plunged into a deep downward spiral and before a surge in unemployment had a significant impact prevented the loss of skill and capital that comes with deep recessions and therefore the need for a long, painful rebuilding. Early and decisive action was critical and that is why the impact of the stimulus peaked in mid-2009 and continues to phase down as the economy recovers.

The Building the Education Revolution program is the most visible part of the stimulus package in my area and represents the single largest school modernisation project in Australian history. There are 12,467 National School Pride projects underway and 4,434 have been completed. Five hundred and three science and language centres are underway and the first three are finished. Of the 10,087 Primary Schools for the 21st Century projects, 5,334 are now at the on-site construction phase and many have been completed.

In Parramatta, $110 million has been invested in 145 projects at more than 50 Parramatta schools, including 14 new school halls, 16 new covered outdoor learning areas, 11 new libraries, four science and language centres and 22 new classroom facilities. These projects are making a significant difference in classrooms across the country. In schools such as St Monica’s, North Parramatta, it is making a very real difference.

St Monica’s received $3.5 million for a new multipurpose hall; however, the advanced planning and the commitment of their broader school community have seen St Monica’s add enormous value on top of the Rudd government’s contribution. They had been planning major development work for a long time in anticipation of funds and the opportunity. The Building the Education Revolution provided that opportunity and allowed St Monica’s to incorporate their new stimulus hall at the heart of an entirely rebuilt school. St Monica’s were first off the mark in Parramatta with construction and had the first ribbon-cutting ceremony performed under the package. I would have to say that when I went there not much of the school was left; it was a very large construction site, but it looks really wonderful now. St Monica’s is a classic example of the Rudd government’s education revolution working to achieve outstanding results and an example of communities working together to multiply the value of government investment to deliver truly 21st century learning environments for Parramatta students.

I have visited an enormous number of smaller schools in Parramatta who simply would not have qualified for infrastructure investment in school halls without the Building the Education Revolution. It is these smaller schools that I am particularly pleased for, generally small primary schools, where an enormous legacy is being created by the nation-building economic stimulus in Parramatta.

In my area 20 schools have been completed or are nearing completion and 150 projects are under construction. Of the 283 projects approved in central Western Sydney, 90 per cent are on track to be delivered by the end of this year. The Building the Education Revolution in central Western Sydney is currently employing more than 1,800 people working for more than 220 businesses. Laurie Foy, Director of Brookfield Multiplex, recently spoke at my Keep the West Working summit with Treasurer Swan and reinforced the outstanding impact of the Building the Education Revolution on Parramatta jobs. Laurie commented that Brookfield Multiplex currently has 140 employees directly engaged on the Building the Education Revolution program in central Western Sydney, with approximately half this number being employed as a direct result of the BER program. He commented that without the Rudd stimulus Brookfield Multiplex would have been looking down the barrel of substantial job losses.

It is not just schools that the Rudd government is stimulating with construction work. Laurie Ferguson and I had the pleasure of announcing a $4 million investment at the North Parramatta campus of the University of Western Sydney late last year. The $4 million investment is targeted to assist UWS begin the construction of a world-leading innovative science and technology precinct on the North Parramatta campus. Also, the Sydney Institute of TAFE has been the beneficiary of the stimulus, with a $2.1 million refurbishment at the Granville TAFE campus.

Social housing is also benefiting, with the Rudd government investing $32 million in the construction of more than 130 new Parramatta family homes. Furthermore, the government is investing approximately $4 million in the refurbishment and maintenance of 1,000 existing homes. Nationwide, work has been completed on 42,000 of the 70,000 dwellings approved for repairs, and some 19,000 dwellings have been approved for construction, with 6½ thousand underway. We expect to have 75 per cent of these houses completed by the end of this year. Our investment in social housing is critical to supporting businesses right across Australia. It is providing jobs for the hundreds and thousands of workers involved—the builders, plumbers, carpenters, electricians, brickies and carpet layers, and many more in the building and construction industry.

The importance of the investment in jobs was reinforced for me by local tradie John Bini, whom I spoke to while visiting a stimulus housing project in Isabella Street, Parramatta. That particular project is building 24 apartment dwellings specifically designed for people with physical and intellectual disabilities. Mr Bini said that prior to the stimulus he and his friends in the construction industry had real concerns about how they were going to put food on the table because they had seen construction virtually grind to a halt, but with the stimulus there has been more than enough work available. In fact, John said that the stimulus had put him and his fellow tradies in a position to work as often and as much as they needed to support their families.

The stimulus has also included significant funds through local councils. Under the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program we are providing new and upgraded facilities to address different needs of communities across the nation. In all, 3,220 approved projects are underway, with an impressive 2,654 projects having been completed. Of the larger strategic projects, 102 of the 137 are underway.

18:09:54

In Parramatta the Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan has invested more than $5 million in 16 community infrastructure projects. The centrepiece of this investment is the $5 million revitalisation of Granville town centre with a $2.1 million contribution from the Rudd government. Just last weekend I had the opportunity to inspect construction work while holding one of my regular mobile offices at the Granville shopping centre. I can inform my community that construction is well underway and well past the halfway point. In speaking to local small business people the feedback was that this local infrastructure investment will be a fantastic boost for local business and is well and truly overdue.

Taken as a whole, all of these measures constitute the most ambitious nation-building plan in Australian history. Without the stimulus package there is no doubt that Australia would have plunged into a technical recession. Australia’s growth may have been as low as minus two per cent over the year to the September quarter. Instead Australia has a stronger rate of economic growth than any of the major advanced economies, growing by 0.6 per cent over last year to September 2009. The International Monetary Fund is now forecasting that the Australian economy will grow faster than initially expected this year, predicting that the Australian economy will grow by 2.5 per cent this year, up from the two per cent the IMF forecast in October last year. The IMF says Australia’s economic growth is likely to reach three per cent next year. The latest official forecast suggests a peak in the unemployment rate of 6.75 per cent in the June quarter 2010, which is around 1.5 percentage points lower than the projected unemployment in the absence of the stimulus. In fact Australia’s unemployment rate of 5.3 per cent is lower than any of the major advanced economies except that of Japan. Industry groups such as the Master Builders Association of Australia have acknowledged the key role that the stimulus package has played in turning around the economic outlook. Specifically the MBA has estimated that the stimulus measures are helping to maintain up to 50,000 jobs in nonresidential building that would otherwise have been lost.

The economy is still in need of support as we move into economic recovery and as the focus of the stimulus plan shifts to the long-term infrastructure projects. Those projects are critical to lifting productivity growth and tackling the long-term economic challenge of an ageing population as outlined in the third Intergenerational report. The Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan has laid a strong foundation for tackling those long-term challenges and it has cushioned Australia from the greatest economic threat we have faced in our lifetime. I know that my community knows that many of our neighbours are still working and supporting their families because the stimulus package was delivered fast and effectively. My commitment is to keep the focus on jobs. (Time expired)

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

The Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010 form another part of the impressive Rudd Labor government’s commitment to building a strong economy for Australian families. They build on previous financial initiatives in budgets and economic statements and, of course, most notably the efforts of this government in seeing Australia through the greatest financial global crisis we have witnessed in more than 70 years. The government has done that in a manner that now sees Australia as the economic envy of the world, the only advanced economy not to go into recession.

As I commented here a day or so ago, it is a performance that those on the opposition benches and the leadership of the opposition have simply failed to comprehend. It is difficult to believe that a little over a week ago the Leader of the Opposition, the person who would be the Prime Minister of Australia, asserted that, instead of adopting the approach this government has taken, which has seen Australia perform so well, we should have adopted the approach of the New Zealand government. The approach in New Zealand resulted in the New Zealand economy going into recession for five quarters. It is an approach that sees the New Zealand economy today still some 2½ to three per cent smaller than it was before the global financial crisis; an approach that has seen the Prime Minister of New Zealand acknowledge Australia’s wonderful performance and assert that he would like New Zealand to be in a position to catch up to Australia’s economic performance by the year 2025. Yet the alternative Prime Minister in Australia, the Leader of the Liberal Party, seems attracted to that model. I am not sure that many constituents or many voters in Australia, and certainly not the millions of ordinary working men and women of Australia, would see that as a more attractive option.

I want to refer to a number of the initiatives that this government has taken, many of them fulfilling election commitments in 2007. At the outset, I want to refer to the impressive record of this government in looking after, in particular, pensioners and those who are less well off in our community. On 20 September 2009, single pensioners on the maximum rate of pension received an increase totalling $70.83 a fortnight. That brings their total pension to $671.90. In the Brisbane electorate, in excess of 12,000 pensioners benefit from this very significant improvement. Pensioner couples combined on the maximum rate received an increase of $29.93 a fortnight, taking their payments up to $1,013. Importantly, these increases include indexation under the new Pensioner and Beneficiary Living Cost Index. For as long as I can remember, whenever matters involving pensioner payments occurred, pensioners have argued that the general CPI, consumer price index, that we tended to apply in the past did not accurately reflect the actual items and costs of living as they affect pensioners in their normal weekly purchases. We have remedied that. We have put in place a special pensioner cost index. That index does take into account the basket of goods that pensioners buy, which on this occasion was actually higher than the consumer price index. This is one of the great achievements over the last two years.

These changes will lift the single pensioner base rate from 25 per cent of male total average weekly earnings to 27.7 per cent by March 2010. That is a very significant increase. If memory serves me correctly, it was the Whitlam government that first established the 25 per cent benchmark as a policy of government. It was subsequently legislated for by other governments, but it has taken a further Labor government to increase that benchmark. I know that there are thousands of constituents in Brisbane who are appreciative of this initiative and of the Rudd government for delivering on that commitment.

I have long had a keen interest in and a concern for those people who suffer from type 1 diabetes, particularly children. I think all of us in this place have been involved in meetings with representatives from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. I have had the great pleasure of keeping in contact with a number of constituents in my electorate of Brisbane who have type 1 diabetes. I am very pleased that the Rudd government has taken further initiatives recently to provide support for them. Families with children who have type 1 diabetes are going to benefit from the government’s decision to increase the subsidy for the purchase of the insulin pump for children who are under 18.

The Type 1 Diabetes Insulin Pump Program is an innovative initiative, and it is a good initiative. It was started under the Rudd government, and it delivers relief for families trying to manage the complexities that are part and parcel of living with someone who has juvenile, or type 1, diabetes. The maximum subsidy under the Type 1 Diabetes Insulin Pump Program has been raised from $2,500 to $6,400. That is 80 per cent of the price of a pump. It is available to successful applicants who have an annual family income of up to $64,240. The level of the subsidy operates on a sliding scale, gradually reducing to $500 or 10 per cent of the pump cost, whichever is the greater, for families who have an income of $101,045.

I have also had the great pleasure of visiting Medtronic, one of the global leaders in the production of insulin pumps and, I should say, a range of other extremely advanced medical devices. I had the honour of opening their new premises in Brisbane just recently. They are a very professional organisation that works very closely with the hospitals, the surgeons and those involved in diabetes—as they do in other areas. It is very pleasing to see the government’s commitment to assisting the families of those who have type 1 diabetes. For children who suffer from type 1 diabetes the opportunity to have an insulin pump greatly improves their quality of life and enables them to participate more fully, whether it is in the playground or the classroom, and certainly reduces the trauma of regular testing and injections.

I am also very pleased to see the commitment of the Rudd Labor government to assist families with childcare assistance. The government has honoured its election promise to increase the childcare tax rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent of out-of-pocket expenses. The annual cap has also been increased from $4,354 to $7,500 per child. The rebate is now paid quarterly, to give parents assistance closer to when they incur the actual out-of-pocket expenses. The Child Care Rebate is not means tested, as it is also designed to make it easier for people to re-enter the workforce. In that respect, it is unique amongst the payments that governments typically make. The support that Labor has given in that increase in the tax rebate is very substantial and will make a significant difference to families meeting their weekly budget requirements.

I want to mention the enormous investment this government is making in education. As a former teacher, as a parent and as a legislator, I have long had a commitment to the importance of education in our society. Before I do, I want to anticipate and respond to some of the arguments those in the opposition might make and have made whenever these programs are mentioned. Typically, they say, ‘That’s all good and well but you’re creating this massive debt.’ If you walk around this building, you will see on Liberal Party and National Party offices posters talking about the terrible debt that Australia faces and the ruin we are all going to confront. My attention was drawn on 8 August last year, when the opposition endeavoured to run that argument, to an article in the Age written by Ross Gittins. At that time, Malcolm Turnbull was the Leader of the Opposition, so he is mentioned in the article. It read:

So, how worried should we be about that debt? Much less than Turnbull wants us to be. He is exaggerating the size of the debt, misrepresenting the cause of the debt, exaggerating the difficulty we’ll have repaying it, misrepresenting its effect on our prospects and pretending we’ll end up with little to show for it.

This was the commentary about the former Leader of the Opposition, who was actually the responsible one. This was before Tony Abbott was elected as leader. This was before Senator Barnaby Joyce became the finance spokesperson. This was a commentary on a Leader of the Opposition who, it could be said, had some degree of credibility, particularly in financial circles. Against that commentary, consider the sorts of things presented by the current Liberal frontbench and the alternative ministry in this parliament. In fact, Ross Gittins in that article of August last year went on to say:

Nor is the debt “massive” or “mountainous”. The typical home buyer borrows two or three times their annual income and manages the repayments without great stress. At the projected peak in the net debt of $203 billion in June 2014, it will be equivalent to just 14 per cent of the nation’s annual income …

Ross Gittins is not the only person who has belled the cat on this issue. He is not the only one who has come out to say that the Liberal opposition argument about debt is simply fallacious and untrue. That is not even going to the comments of Senator Barnaby Joyce, who talked about the United States going bankrupt and Australia going bankrupt. We saw that only a couple of weeks ago. That was from a person who would be the finance minister. He is clearly challenged to comprehend the difference between ‘millions’ and ‘billions’. It really does cause concern.

More recently, in the Financial Review on Tuesday, 9 February there was an article written by Tony Harris, the former New South Wales Auditor-General. He also commented on the arguments of those opposite on economic management. I quote from his article:

The real expert in misleading the electorate is the shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey. For many months Hockey has been waging war against the government by claiming that its spending forces the Reserve Bank of Australia to lift interest rates.

Hockey knows—or should know—that the central bank’s present target rate of 3.75 per cent is half a percentage point lower than the lowest rate seen in the 11 years of the Howard government. It is also 3.25 percentage points below the highest rate in the period of that government. If Hockey wants us to believe that very low interest rates are the mark of a good ministry, the Howard government failed.

They are the comments of a former New South Wales Auditor-General published in the Financial Review earlier this month. I will not go further, to Senator Barnaby Joyce and his comments or to some of the comments that the Leader of the Opposition has made. It is important, when we talk about the programs that I have mentioned and the funding programs for schools that I am about to move to, that the only criticism that those opposite are able to muster is that it creates a debt and a burden which is a problem for the future. It is an untrue, hollow argument and there is ample evidence from economic commentators to demonstrate that.

I mentioned before that as a former teacher, a parent and a legislator I am really excited about the investment this government is making in education. It is across the board, but I am very pleased to see the investment going into primary education. There is no shortage of reports, including parliamentary reports, but also in the literature within the education fraternity, talking about the importance of early intervention and of resourcing early schooling as an important way of dramatically improving the outcomes at the end of schooling. Yet government after government has failed to act on it. This is the first government that has actually invested in our primary schools in a way that is enabling every primary school in the country to ensure that its capital infrastructure is first class. It is not just primary schools; a large range of secondary schools have also benefited.

I want to place on record my thanks to the government for the change this is making to the educational opportunities for students in Brisbane, because across the electorate there are very worthwhile programs. I will mention just some of them. The list is reasonably long but I am touching on only a very small percentage of them. All Hallows’ School in Brisbane received $2 million for a new music room conversion. Ascot State School, which I visited at the end of last year, has a new $3 million classroom block going in. At Ashgrove State School, I had the pleasure of announcing at their fete last year that they would receive $3 million for a multipurpose hall and a resource centre. Brisbane Central State School, a small inner-urban school, is receiving $2 million for a resource centre and a multipurpose hall. Brisbane Grammar School will have a new $2 million multipurpose centre. Clayfield College will get a $3 million junior school building. Eagle Junction State School—I am going out there next week and I was there at the end of last year—is getting a $3 million resource centre. Enoggera State School will have a $2 million resource centre. Fortitude Valley State School will receive $250,000 for new library facilities. Hamilton State School will receive $850,000 for a new library. Hendra State School is getting $850,000 for a new resource centre. Holy Cross School at Wooloowin is getting $2 million for new classrooms. Holy Spirit School down at New Farm, a school I visited a number of times last year, including to talk about this very program, is receiving $2 million for a new hall and a new library. Ithaca Creek State School, my old primary school that I attended, is receiving $2½ million for a new multipurpose hall and a resource centre. I was at that school only last week and they are keenly looking forward to the opportunity to use that facility. I might say that the community is keenly looking forward to it as well because it will be a resource not just for the school but for the wider community.

Bob Debus (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So much for the sneering about it being a mere program of school halls.

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

Indeed! The program has delivered meaningful outcomes for school communities. At Kedron State High School, a school I visited at the end of last year, they are constructing a new languages centre for about $2 million. Kelvin Grove State College are getting $2.7 million for a multipurpose hall. Marist Brothers, Ashgrove are actually conducting a number of programs, the major one being $2 million for new classrooms. Milton State School are getting a new library, and how central is that to the education of our children—a $3 million new library? Newmarket State School are getting $2 million for classrooms and a resource centre. Oakleigh State School, which I visited a number of times last year, are very excited and are getting $2.5 million for a resource centre and a multipurpose hall. That is one of the schools where they have been able to tailor-design the building to fit the site, and it is going to be a fantastic facility for all who are involved.

St Agatha’s Primary School at Clayfield are building a new hall for $2.5 million. I was at St James’s College on two occasions last week and they are putting in new general learning areas, walkways and a shaded roof for $2 million in a very restricted, urban building site. That is a college that actually caters for a wide range of families including, I have to say to their credit, people who come here from other shores as refugees. That money will be very well received and appreciated by all of the students there. Stafford State School are also getting a new resource centre and other buildings totalling $2 million.

Time does not actually allow me to even go through the limited list I had with me today, but there is one thing that needs to be placed on the record and said again and again and again. With respect to every single one of those projects, every single member of the Labor Party supported it, every single member of the Labor Party voted for it. It is equally true that in respect of every single one of those projects, every member of the Liberal Party voted against it—every single program, every single building. That is not going to be lost on the people of Brisbane and later this year it will not be lost on the people of Australia. I commend the government for its good work in building a strong economy for working Australians.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Indigenous Health, Rural and Regional Health and Regional Service Delivery) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I endorse the remarks made by my colleague, the member for Brisbane, for his contribution and particularly for the last points he made about Building the Education Revolution and the capital infrastructure expenditure. It is a matter of some moment to me because my own electorate—which of course as you know, Mr Deputy Speaker Secker, is all of the Northern Territory except Darwin—has some of the most impoverished people in Australia who have educational facilities that are really wanting. As a result of the Building the Education Revolution every school in my electorate will be substantially improved as a result. Of course, a substantial number of these projects, in fact the majority of them, are servicing Aboriginal communities.

Who have the poorest educational outcomes in Australia? Aboriginal people do and, indeed, Aboriginal people living in rural and remote parts of the Northern Territory. So it seems passing strange to me that the shadow spokesman on Indigenous affairs, a senator from the Northern Territory, chose to vote against improving educational outcomes for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory, let alone for the broader population, as my colleague has said in terms of the opposition voting against every one of these initiatives.

So I want to endorse the remarks made by the member for Brisbane and say that they reflect broadly what the community thinks: how appalling it is to have this massive infrastructure investment going ahead, providing employment and business opportunities for Australians across the country and, most significantly, improving the educational infrastructure of the nation now and for future generations! Despite what the opposition have said about school halls, they will come to rue the day that they described this investment as investing in school halls. You only have to travel in your own electorate—and Mr Deputy Speaker Secker, I know you do because I spotted you there fairly recently—to see the impact of the investment on your own communities.

I am aware that this is a broad-ranging debate. It is one of the few occasions I get the opportunity to participate in this sort of debate. Prior to getting onto the details of the legislation before us, I want to talk about a number of people in the Northern Territory. I want to do this for a very particular reason: these are people who were friends of mine, and a very close friend in one case, and they have all passed away over the last three or four months. I want to mention them in this place.

The first is a woman, Carol Burke, who until she passed away in December worked with me every day I have been in this parliament, which is 20 years. She was here the first day I got elected, 23 years ago. Prior to that, she had worked for a Northern Territory government senator for nine years. So she worked for me for two decades, spending three decades in total of her adult life working for the Labor Party and Labor members of parliament. Unfortunately, she has passed away. Every member of this place knows how important their staff is. They watch your back. They look after your interests. When you are not at home, they are tilling the soil. I have to say that Carol was the epitome of loyalty and trustworthiness. She loved a good yarn and she had a great sense of humour. She was indeed a great friend of mine.

She was not a native of this place. She was actually born in England and brought up in New Zealand, where her father moved when he was in the Air Force. She had a very interesting adult life prior to working in the parliamentary sphere. She trained in office skills and management after she left school and then returned to England before securing a job with Schweppes in the then newly independent Zambia. It was in Zambia that she met her husband to be. Whilst there, she worked with the Zambian government, including as a personal assistant to two Zambian cabinet ministers, both of whom, interestingly, ended up in jail. I know her record in Australia was a lot better than that. Neither of the members she worked with in the Northern Territory has ended up in jail!

When she left Zambia she went to live in New Zealand for a short while and worked with her husband, Jim, who had secured work with the department of native affairs. When they came back from New Zealand they lived at Bamaga and Kowanyama in Queensland. Then they moved to the Northern Territory in 1976 and Carol took up work with Ted Robertson. She was, as I said, truly the heart of my office. Without her, I would not be here; it is as simple as that. She was a Catholic, so she may well be listening, and I do want to say how much we loved her and how much we miss her. She had an unprecedented knowledge of politics, bureaucracy and government processes. She cared for everyone regardless of their background and of who they were. In the Northern Territory we have people who are called long-grassers. They are not always, though generally, Aboriginal people who live it rough and who are sometimes on the grog. On more than one occasion she would jump to their defence when she saw a member of the constabulary approaching. She was a very, very fine woman. Carol died at the young age of 61 from liver failure. She was survived by her husband, Jim Burke. Unfortunately, they had no children.

The second person I want to refer to is another very, very fine woman: Margaret ‘Peg’ Nelson. Peg’s husband was a former member for the Northern Territory in this place, and his father was the first member for the Northern Territory in this place. Both were Labor members of parliament. Peg died recently, on 2 February, at the age of 96. She lived a very full life. Thinking about her life, I find it difficult to explain to someone who lives in Sydney or Melbourne what it is like to live in the bush. But just think about this. Peg’s father, Louis Bloomfield, was a ‘horseman’—a term from the last century—who lived in the Finke area of the Northern Territory at the turn of the 20th century. Her mother was a woman by the name of Lillian Kunoff. When they married they bought Love’s Creek Station, at Ross River, east of Alice Springs, and bred horses for the Indian army. Think about it.

Peg was born in September 1913 at Oodnadatta, in northern South Australia, which was three weeks by horseback from Alice Springs—a long way. Lou and Lil had three children: Peg, Jean and Harry. Peg grew up with many of the pastoral families whose names are prominent in Central Australia. Think about this place, think about us, think about what we do, think about our communication systems—and think about Peg as a small girl growing up in Central Australia. They had no air-conditioning and she was living reasonably rough. She was a very accomplished horse rider herself. In fact, she was a jockey at many picnic races, which are still popular.

Peg traversed a century of Territory life. She was born two years after South Australia gave the Territory back to the Commonwealth to look after. It was back then—and think about this—that there was a promise of completing the Alice Springs to Darwin railway, which, as we know, was only finished in the last decade. During her life, Peg saw the first plane land in the township of Stuart, as Alice Springs was then known. She married Jock Nelson in 1934. The couple moved to Tennant Creek, where Jock operated the butcher’s shop. He later worked sinking bores, before joining the Army during the Second World War and serving in the Top End. During that time, Peg worked for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. After the war, Peg and Jock started Stuart and Lloyds and the Dalgety agency in Alice Springs.

Peg was integrally involved in public life in the Northern Territory in part because of her partner. Jock was a member of the Legislative Council for the seat of Stuart from 1947, before being a member of the House of Representatives between 1949 and 1966. He was the first Mayor of Alice Springs in 1971 and was Administrator of the Northern Territory in 1973. Peg was involved in many organisations: the CWA, the Alice Springs Memorial Club, the Alice Springs Netball Association and the Red Cross. She was a very proud member of the Labor Party. For me, she was a person who really counted. If you tweaked her ear—and she was a bit deaf—she would say, ‘Listen, my son, what’re you up to?’ She would make sure that she passed her point of view on to me. She was a great woman, a gentle woman, who touched many lives. She was survived by her daughters, Pat and Lowan, both of whom live in South Australia.

The third person I want to refer to is someone of more recent vintage, someone I knew extremely well, someone who made a great contribution to the education scene in the Northern Territory and someone who I know would have been appalled at the lack of support by the opposition for the government’s education reform initiatives. This person is Greg Jarvis. He was born in Bowral and educated at Bowral primary and high schools. He got his diploma of education here in Canberra. He began teaching in the Northern Territory in 1979 on Groote Eylandt. He subsequently taught at Gapuwiyak, Milingimbi and Maningrida—names which may be unfamiliar to many people, but Gapuwiyak, Milingimbi and Maningrida, where he was principal, are in Arnhem Land. He had a very strong personality but he was a very fair man, who thought very deeply about his job and was greatly committed to it. He later moved to Darwin, where he was principal of Malak Primary School and then Moulden Primary School. He was a long-time member of the ALP and the Australian Education Union. It was in that context that I met him. I was a very active union member in the Australian Education Union, then the Northern Territory Teachers Federation. In his later years he became a member of Darwin City Council and was alderman for the Chan ward—for the Greens, as it happens. This man made an extraordinary contribution to education in the Northern Territory and to community life. He is survived by his wife, Trish Joy, and their daughter, Thea. My condolences go to them. He was buried only a week or so ago.

I mention those people because we do not often get an opportunity to talk in this place about people who matter to us. These people mattered to me for a range of reasons. They were outstanding citizens of this country. When we think about public policy and the contributions we each make in this place in public policy debates, we are in a sense, as we all know, talking on behalf of all our constituents and representing their interests. When we participate in debates about appropriation bills, we can get carried away with the minutiae of the bill. Let’s be clear about it, most of our constituents do not read the minutiae of bills, but they are concerned about the direction of our policies and about the outcomes that will be achieved as a result of what we do in this place.

I want to finish by referring to one element of the legislation. Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 includes funding for small-scale renewable energy systems. There are many innovative and important projects in my electorate, including one at Gawa, which is a small outstation community of Galiwinku, Elcho Island. It was started in 1986, by Ngulpurray and his daughter Kathy Guthadjaka. A number of people—26 men, women and children—cut a 10-kilometre road, using axes, shovels and fire. It took six months. This is the bush. This is not Tuggeranong, where you get your bitumen laid. This is the bush. Kathy began a school in this community in the 1990s under a tarp. Sometimes, from what you hear in this place, you would think Aboriginal people do not have an interest in education. This is a very fine example of the desire of Aboriginal people who live on outstations in the Northern Territory to have their kids educated.

They had a problem with the diesel generator in the community because it cost them a lot of dough, for a start, and it was too expensive to run at night. It cost them 80 grand per year in fuel. Ultimately, after many trials and tribulations, and working with the NT Christian Schools Association, they designed a 24-metre wind tower and turbine. With the help of a Danish company, the Wind Factory, the project was developed to its completion and commissioned on 27 November 2009. What was the result of this? Cheap, efficient, sustainable energy, 24 hours a day. This is a small Aboriginal community in the Top End of the Northern Territory, a very isolated bush community, but people saw the opportunity and with the assistance of outside help were able to build this generating system. And what the outcome has meant, of course, is that the community is thriving. In a very small school, over 60 kids are now enrolled and they have attendance rates of 80 per cent. Six students have completed their HSC and one is working as a police officer at Galiwinku.

When asked what the turbine and the 24-hour power means to her community, Kathy says that the main thing is the school will have extra money to spend in the classroom instead of on diesel and everyone now sleeps well—as you can imagine. I can. It is a very, very tough life, but here we have a small community that we need to congratulate. We need to recognise the work of Kathy and the Gawa community, the NT Christian Schools Association and its principal, Geoff Bateman, because what they have shown is true leadership. When we talk who will benefit from the government investments announced in the budget and then recently through the process of the Building the Education Revolution, it is these people. Yet the opposition opposed it. As I said at the outset, what a shame it is that the opposition spokesman on Indigenous affairs, who is a senator from the Northern Territory, would oppose an investment in a school like this.

Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to rise in support of Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010. In considering what I would say in speaking to these bills, I had the opportunity to look at the speeches made by those opposition members who chose to speak on these bills. There certainly seemed to be a clear theme in their statements. What the opposition members concentrated on was the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme policy and the bill put forward in this House. The problem with the speeches made by the opposition members was, of course, that they concentrated their entire time on the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and failed to address in any way what the opposition themselves are putting forward to deal with climate change. In fact, if anyone reading Hansard were to go back and read those statements what they would see is that in some cases those opposition members were disputing the science completely, which is incongruous with what the Leader of the Opposition is saying. He is saying, ‘Here’s our policy to deal with climate change,’ but at the same time he has members of his own party saying that the science is not in and that in fact there is no justification as yet to do anything about climate change.

The problem with the opposition’s policy in relation to dealing with climate change is that it lacks any real substance. It does not work. It does not require anything of polluters. There is no cap on pollution. It slugs taxpayers instead of big polluters. It is unfunded, which would mean higher taxes or cuts to services like schools or hospitals. The opposition will not come forward and say exactly where those funds will come from—what they are going to cut and what they are going to increase. The challenge for Tony Abbott and Barnaby Joyce is to explain how they are going to pay for the climate change con job they are putting forward to the Australian people. Of course, there is a bit of a pattern forming here. We have seen it with the recent announcement of their health policy. We have seen it with the paid parental leave policy. We have seen it with the opposition’s response to the global financial crisis. Policies are being thrown out with no substance to them and, quite often, no actual policy document. The paid parental leave policy was just a couple of lines fed to the local media. In fact, it seemed to be an announcement that they would go off and create a policy document. But they were happy to go out and champion this policy.

Despite the policies the opposition are throwing out to get attention, they are not talking about how they are going to increase employment, training opportunities and skills. The only reference we are hearing to jobs is about how they are going to make workplaces more flexible again—and we have certainly heard this before. They say they are going to create individual contracts again and more flexibility. There has already been reference to scrapping penalties on weekends. That is what the Australian people have to look forward to with Tony Abbott and his band of merry men in charge of our economy and our future.

There has been no mention of education at all. We have heard much criticism from the opposition of the Rudd government’s Building the Education Revolution policy. The spending at schools has been widely criticised. They have opposed just about every initiative this government has put forward. They have opposed all the spending in schools. Yet we have heard nothing at all about what the opposition would do in relation to an education policy into the future.

In contrast to this, the Rudd government has put forward a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme that makes polluters pay for their pollution and thereby encourages them to invest in cleaner technologies like wind and solar power. The Rudd government has proposed a market based scheme, which is widely recognised as the best way to reduce carbon pollution. John Howard, Malcolm Turnbull, Joe Hockey and most of the mainstream members of the Liberal Party actually support the CPRS despite what their leaders are now saying. More than 30 countries—including all of the European countries, Japan and New Zealand—have either introduced or are introducing a CPRS. The government’s market based scheme is the lowest-cost way of reducing emissions. The Rudd government’s scheme ensures that the impact on household costs would be just above one per cent, and our compensation plan means that 92 per cent of all households would receive assistance, with low-income households and 90 per cent of families receiving FTB(A) being fully compensated. But those on the other side are saying there are not going to be any costs on polluters and consequently there will be no flow-on costs so they do not have to talk about compensation or assistance for households. Various sectors, including the electricity sector, are saying they are not sure that there will not be a cost but, if there is, they will pass it on to consumers and householders will pay. But there is no talk of assistance to households from those on the other side.

Over the last couple of days in this House I have also been listening to other debates from members of the opposition. They complain about roads they want fixed and rail projects they want done. We have even heard from the Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion that opposition members have approached her about students in regional towns who need income support. The opposition are concerned that these students will not go to university because they cannot get the scholarships the government is seeking to provide to them. I find it amazing that members of the opposition from both chambers are saying to the government that they are concerned about their students not getting scholarships. Opposition members seem to be completely ignorant of their own actions and of what they are blocking. It is within their hands to ensure that important bills like the income support for students bill are passed in the Senate.

Let us compare that which the Rudd government has achieved in its first term with these claims about what has been done and what the opposition has not been doing. The government is funding 1,000 new nurse training places to ensure patients get the care that they deserve. It is supporting record investment in solar and wind power to protect our environment for future generations. The Rudd government is helping to secure our water supplies by providing funding to help build recycling, desalination and stormwater harvesting projects; helping the health of the Murray-Darling by implementing the first ever purchase of water entitlements by the federal government; investing in new cancer research and treatment centres; funding a 30 per cent increase in GP training places to help address shortages, especially in regional and rural areas; creating 130,000 new training places and granting 290,000 new computers for schools; establishing a single national curriculum focusing on the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic, and the Minister for Education has recently announced a national literacy and numeracy program. The government is funding new trade training centres for high schools to give kids practical skills for work, providing tax cuts for working families and making record infrastructure investments in roads, highways, hospitals and schools—there are currently more than 28,000 infrastructure projects underway and the largest schools building program ever, to ensure our children have a better place to learn.

I ask the opposition: which of these projects do you consider not worthy of funding? We keep hearing accusations from the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Treasurer and the shadow finance minister that the government is misspending revenue—it is throwing money around. My question to the opposition is: which of these projects are not worthy of funding? Maybe I can assist by refining that list a little bit more, to the electorate of Petrie, in which there are 120 projects, 33 schools, and about $85 million in funding under the National School Pride, Primary Schools for the 21st Century, and Science and Language Centres programs. There is additional funding for VET for my local TAFEs of over $683,000. In my electorate of Petrie alone there are 374 properties and over $1.5 million refurbishment money for existing social housing. Forty-three new units of social housing worth over $15 million and 32 new defence housing units worth $12 million have been constructed in the electorate of Petrie alone. We could also look at the funding that is provided to Brisbane City Council and Moreton Bay Regional Council to build community infrastructure and at the money from the Jobs Fund which is helping the Urban Land Development Authority with Fitzgibbon and Guide Dogs Queensland with new guide dog trainer cadetships. I ask the opposition: having refined that list, which one of the Petrie projects do you consider not worthy of funding? Which one of these, if you were in government, would you scrap? Many of our halls and resource centres are almost complete—some are complete but some are still in progress. Some of our social housing is still underway. Which of these would the opposition put an end to? Our GP super clinic? I want to know so they can be honest and go forward to the people of Petrie and tell them what they would lose under a government led by Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey and Barnaby Joyce. These are the questions I believe need to be answered.

The government continues to stand by its commitment to build a strong economy—through its budgets in 2008 and 2009, through its stimulus package released in late 2008 to help pensioners and low-income families, through its stimulus package to help build infrastructure for the future and to help create and support jobs with the 2009 stimulus package and the nation building package. These are the things that the Rudd government is getting on with. This is what the appropriation bills are about—stepping up and taking action to ensure that not only is our economy strong but there is an equal share across our economy.

While we talk about equal share, I cannot help but make reference to the private health insurance legislation which the opposition continue to oppose. When we talk about equal share, the opposition’s approach is that everyone should get a 30 per cent rebate on their private health insurance—‘Even if you are the highest paid CEO in a large multinational company in Australia you should receive a 30 per cent government subsidised rebate on your private health insurance. So let’s not worry about the lower and middle-income earners who really need that support. Let’s not worry about making sure there are sufficient funds to go back into the public health system. Let’s just make sure that we are looking after those at the higher end of our society.’ The reality is that those approaches are not sustainable in the long term.

We cannot continue to subsidise such high-income earners. We need to ensure that we are being accountable to the people of Australia by means testing entitlements. It is fair and reasonable to means test the private health insurance rebate. That is what we should be doing. That is what I am talking about with people in my local community. A sensible government would ensure that money is going to where it is most needed. That is the case the government have put forward with income support for students and with private health insurance. Our Carbon Pollution Production Scheme is about making sure the big polluters pay and that we assist households. That is what schemes should do. We should make sure we are capping our emissions.

These are decisions a government which is serious about the long term—not just a one-term government—makes; this is about sustainability. We have heard about the Intergenerational report. We have heard about the need for the government to look over a range of policies, ensuring we provide a skilled workforce for the future and that we are managing funds in a way which strengthens our economy through infrastructure, health and good education. Funding and commitment to education are absolutely paramount. This is an area in which this government, unlike the previous government, has stepped up and taken the reins to ensure that our education system is the best.

We are looking not just at halls and libraries. We are looking not just at facilities to get skills. We are looking across the whole gamut—with the national curriculum, with the MySchool website. Everything the Minister for Education is doing is about a holistic approach to ensure that our children, from early childhood education right through secondary school and beyond—those who go off to TAFE, to apprenticeships or to university—have the best opportunities available to them. That requires a government which is responsible in the way it spends and allocates funds, ensuring that those who are most in need and the areas which need strengthening are where funds are going. That is what these appropriation bills are about and it is my pleasure to support them today.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise in support of Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010, which seek to appropriate funding for decisions in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook and for decisions taken since it was released. There was a community cabinet in Ballarat last week and it was a good opportunity to reflect on the strong work this government has done to set Ballarat up for the future. Prior to the community cabinet, a number of my parliamentary colleagues, including the honourable member for Hinkler from the National Party, who has unfortunately been absent for some time from this place, told me about how great these events have been for their local communities. I would have to say they were not wrong. Following the visit from the federal cabinet, local residents have emailed and called my office with very positive feedback. Comments such as ‘it was great to be able to have my say’ and ‘I enjoyed being involved in the conversation with government’ are just two examples of the feedback I have received.

The community cabinet started with a terrific performance from Ballarat High School, and I want to congratulate the students and the school for highlighting the talents at that school and for really doing Ballarat proud by hosting the Prime Minister and the cabinet at their school. I spoke about the long history of democracy across the Ballarat region and the importance of the community cabinet to local residents. The Prime Minister spoke about the important role the federal government has played in supporting jobs across the Ballarat electorate through investment in infrastructure. He also spoke of the government’s commitment to making sure that members of parliament were accessible through processes such as the community cabinet.

The 500-strong crowd raised questions with the Prime Minister on when the election is going to be, with Anthony Albanese on rail infrastructure, Peter Garrett on renewable energies and Wayne Swan on job security and taxation, just to name a few. I spoke to the Prime Minister afterwards and he enjoyed his discussions with local groups, such as the Ballarat East Community Men’s Shed, the Committee for Ballarat and Hepburn Wind. A local small business owner told me how great it was to have a face-to-face meeting with Minister Conroy to talk to him directly about the rollout of the National Broadband Network. Local councils talked to Minister Albanese about their plans for moving into the future. Minister Wong discussed the government’s approach to climate change with an active group of locals who are committed to reducing greenhouse emissions around the Ballarat region. It was a fantastic opportunity.

The access to cabinet ministers proved to be extremely successful with local residents, and holding a community cabinet in regional Australia in a city like Ballarat is really a great reflection of Australian democracy. Ballarat holds a special place in Australian history and, since the Eureka rebellion, the Eureka flag has been used as a symbol of protest by organisations and individuals at both ends of the political spectrum. It is a healthy sign of our democratic tradition that people continue to demonstrate on issues that they are passionate about today. It was wonderful to experience firsthand the interest and enthusiasm of the Prime Minister and the cabinet ministers for our region and its residents, and their curiosity and willingness to engage with us.

What was clear from the community cabinet, from the meeting that the Prime Minister had with the four local government mayors and CEOs and the visit across the electorate itself, is that the investments we have made have not only put our nation in a better position than others in the developed world; they have also meant a number of things locally. Throughout my electorate we have been supporting families by creating opportunities for employment. We have also supported communities by investing in infrastructure. But, more importantly, the Rudd government have worked to set our region up for the longer term. We have only been in government for two years and we have achieved in our region more than the Howard government did in its 11 years in office. There has been more investment in my region in the last two years than there was in the 11 years the Howard government was in office. As a local member my focus and that of my team has always been to try and set up Ballarat for not just the next election but the next 10, 20 or 30 years, when people such as me are long gone from this place, and to put in place the infrastructure to develop our educational skills base and build tomorrow’s jobs in the electorate of Ballarat.

The first thing we needed to do on coming to office was to secure Ballarat’s water supply. That was one of the core promises I made in the lead-up to the 2007 election because without water Ballarat was absolutely in dire trouble. Businesses could not operate, let alone expand. Households could not function properly with day-to-day activities, let alone the recreational opportunities we were being denied because of our lack of access to water. In 2008, the water supply in Ballarat, which is a major regional city of some 95,000 people, got down to 7.7 per cent, which is just extraordinary. Securing Ballarat’s water supply for the longer term was my top priority and the then Leader of the Opposition and now Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the then shadow minister for water, Penny Wong, absolutely understood the dire situation we were in.

During the election campaign, we made a commitment to fund the $90 million Goldfields Superpipe. We proposed that in opposition, and the funding was delivered in our first year in government. The Goldfields Superpipe was built, and it became fully operational in May 2008. Since that time, the superpipe has provided 24 billion litres of water into the region. Thanks to the Rudd government’s investment in the Goldfields Superpipe, the White Swan Reservoir is now at 84 per cent capacity. This is the highest level it has been since 2004. The Ballarat region now has 2.4 years of water supply secured. We now have the infrastructure in place to allow water to be piped within the available grid within Victoria to make sure that the dire situation that we faced with seven per cent capacity in Ballarat’s reservoir never happens again and that we never have to face the situation where businesses say that they are worried about having to pull out of Ballarat because we could not guarantee a secure water supply. That was just one promise and one investment that we made in the lead-up to the last election. We have also tried to look at ways to assist communities in recycling and reusing water. Unfortunately, that was never going to be enough to quickly rectify the situation in Ballarat, and that is why the Goldfields Superpipe was absolutely necessary.

We have also recently announced $2.37 million of funding to capture stormwater in Ballarat. The Ballarat project was one of 13 around Australia to receive funding under the first round of the stormwater harvesting and reuse project. It is a great example of how the government is trying to support local communities to tackle an era of extended drought and the effects of climate change. The project will make better use of water currently available in the region. With projects like the Goldfields Superpipe and stormwater harvesting, we are working to secure our most important asset, certainly in a regional community—water. We have done more in the last two years in government for water in the Ballarat region than the former government did. Obviously, we have not done this by ourselves. The local community has made an enormous effort to reduce its water consumption. I do not think we will ever face a situation in Ballarat where people view water and use it as though there is an endless supply of it. After the recent drought, we will certainly always treat water as something that is very precious.

Last Thursday, the Prime Minister and I visited the site of the realignment of the Western Highway at Anthony’s Cutting to turn the symbolic first sod of the works. The project, which has received some $160 million from this government, provides vital infrastructure for the Western Highway. It is certainly a vital infrastructure project for western Victoria in terms of safety, jobs and removing infrastructure bottlenecks. On the other side of Ballarat, there is the duplication of the Western Highway from Ballarat to Stawell. The Rudd government has contributed some $404 million to improve road safety and freight efficiency in this area. The Western Highway is an incredibly important corridor. It is the main corridor between Melbourne and Adelaide, and thousands and thousands of trucks and people travel on it every single day. I am sure the member for Mallee has driven on the road from Ballarat to Stawell, and at night it is not a great road to be on.

The two projects—for Ballarat and western Victoria—show that over half a billion dollars of investment is being put into road infrastructure in Victoria. This is a huge investment, with half a billion dollars being put into the Western Highway alone. We are trying to set up Ballarat as a major regional infrastructure hub for western Victoria. The region will be better connected to our regional counterparts through the implementation of these road projects. It is good news for Ballarat businesses, who will have better access to industry and trade from Melbourne right through to the South Australian border. It is also good news for consumers, with the improvement in freight efficiency. This is good for jobs and good for our local economy.

While I am talking about road infrastructure, on the local road front the government’s black spots program has proven to be pretty successful in my electorate, with some 18 projects at a cost of $5.4 million. Many of these projects have now been completed and the others are well underway. We have boosted this funding to ensure that local roads are safer and that we have the connectivity through our city and also to some of the major infrastructure arteries. Since I announced the funding, we have seen roundabouts and traffic signals being rolled out across the region, and that is positive to see.

On top of this money for roads, we have also seen improvements at six important level crossings across my electorate, in Wallace, Elaine, Sulky, Cardigan, Windemere and Burrumbeet. Residents in these areas know all too well the importance of improved road and level crossing safety. Initiatives like the Black Spot Program and the boom gates funding are examples of the range of initiatives the government is undertaking to improve road safety locally.

A main contributor to Australia’s vision for our future has also been investing in education. Since elected in 2007, the government has provided an unprecedented injection of funding into education. The government has been determined to support education investment because we know the importance of investing in local skills. It is absolutely vital if we are going to set our communities up for future jobs growth—jobs many of us cannot even imagine yet—that we actually ensure that our population has access to the best possible education it can.

I am certainly working with the community to skill-up our region and to set us up for the future. By investing in skills and education today, we are investing to improve our productivity into the future and to set our local economy up for the longer term. Our education revolution has seen an injection of $9.5 million as part of the National School Pride program in my electorate and $104 million for the Primary Schools for the 21st Century program, as well as $1.19 million for a science and language centre. That is a total of $116 million for 168 projects across 85 local schools. Many of these projects are now coming to fruition, and I am looking forward to visiting these schools over the coming months to see first-hand how this is making a difference in local communities.

We have also seen investment in the Ballarat electorate across other levels of education. Six projects are being funded locally as part of the Teaching and Learning Capital Fund for Vocational Education and Training. Four of them are: BRACE Education Training and Employment, $1.5 million; Bacchus Marsh Community College, also $1.5 million; Daylesford Neighbourhood Centre, $239,000—and I have been told that the local community has recently advertised for tenders for the building of that project; and Finding Futures, $145,000 to provide improved access for people with disabilities to employment and training services. These organisations would not have imagined they would have access to that level of capital funding to improve their facilities.

The other two projects have been driven by the TAFE division of the University of Ballarat: $2.98 million for the refurbishment and extension of the primary industries training facility at Wendouree and $2.3 million for the construction of an equine centre at Mount Rowan, which is being done in partnership with Riding for the Disabled and so providing not only a great educational facility but also a great community facility at the same time. Not only has University of Ballarat received funding for these two important projects but also, as part of the Teaching and Learning Capital Fund, the Rudd government has announced $18.1 million for the new Manufacturing Technology Training Centre and $39.97 million for the Science and Engineering Precinct at the university. Again, we are trying to set Ballarat up as a regional educational hub, which is something that the University of Ballarat is well equipped to do for the whole of western Victoria, in my view. The construction of these facilities will stimulate economic activity in the Ballarat region and, once completed, will help the region’s industry to skill up for the future. That is what the government is about—building our region for the future and setting up regional Australia so that places like Ballarat will be sustainable for the longer term.

In our two years in government we have been investing in positive education projects. A further $2.1 million has been invested into secondary schools across my electorate as part of our Digital Education Revolution to provide computers in schools. The National Secondary School Computer Fund has seen Ballarat Secondary College receive $140,000 for new computers and Sebastopol Secondary College $195,000 for new computers, as well as other schools that have been finding it quite tough to fund their computer programs. Sebastopol college was also successful in their bid for a Local Schools Working Together pilot program and has received $2.4 million to build a community hub in that part of my electorate.

On education and skills, the Ballarat based businesses have well and truly embraced the government’s Apprentice Kickstart bonus. I understand that some 14,000 apprentices have been signed up since the bonus started, and it is due to expire on 28 February. In the Ballarat electorate alone there have been 100 apprentices signed up during that period. That is 100 kids who potentially would have missed out on getting apprenticeships because businesses were concerned about the global financial crisis. It was really important for that group of kids leaving school at the end of last year that businesses were provided with an incentive to ensure that they did not miss out. But, more importantly for regional economies, we know that after things such as a global financial crisis it takes a long time for the number of apprentices to build up again. It was really important that we acted in order to make sure that did not happen so that we do not have another skills crisis some four or five years down the track. I would certainly encourage any local businesses listening in to this debate—I am sure there are hundreds of them!—not to miss out and to make sure that they sign up if they are thinking of getting an apprentice. The bonus is available until 28 February, so it is important that they do so quickly.

I will turn briefly to a few other matters in my electorate. Social housing is something that I feel very passionately about. As someone who worked in the welfare sector—a long time ago now—I have seen firsthand the terrible, terrible circumstances that occur to people when they find themselves without a home. I am really proud to be part of a government that has made an investment in public housing. I know we call it social housing—I am still a bit old school; I still think of it as public housing. But I certainly think it is something that this government can be enormously proud of, that we are actually expanding the amount of social housing stock that is available in local communities, as well as investing in affordable rental accommodation and putting more money into the maintenance of some of the existing social housing so that that is also online. I know it is a small amount to tackle the huge problem we have in homelessness here in this country, but at least we are doing something, at least we are actually trying to tackle the problem and at least it is a start.

Since being elected, the federal government has also been committed to improving outcomes across the health sector. In my own electorate there has been a really strong investment in health. Ballan has seen the successful rollout of a GP superclinic, with $1.4 million provided to Ballan District Health and Care. That superclinic is fully operational and built and it has made an enormous difference to the people of Ballan. They now have access to a female GP for the first time. They have two more GPs who are now in that community. They have dental care for the first time ever in that local community. They also have a psychologist, which they did not have previously, and a multidisciplinary service which has really made a huge difference to the people of Ballan and surrounding districts. We have also provided $2 million to the Djerriwarrh Health Services, the Bacchus Marsh and Melton Regional Hospital, as well as $500,000 to the Hepburn Health Service. We have also provided money to the Bacchus Marsh Medical Centre and the Creswick Medical Centre to expand their services—really vital health services in local communities.

I have said this before in this place, but I am now working with the local community to try and deliver funding for the Ballarat regional integrated cancer centre. The government committed some $560 million to building 10 regional cancer centres and establishing a network of those around the country. It is incredibly important for regional health. As we know, there is a discord between the health outcomes of cancer patients in regional and metro areas, and it is really important that we improve regional cancer services. We are certainly in with a good show, but obviously it is an incredibly competitive process.

The government has also committed through local councils to improving local community infrastructure. We know that local communities are more than roads, rail and ports and we know that social and community infrastructure is incredibly important. So the money that has gone into the projects across my electorate has been really important. Some of it is small amounts and some of it is large amounts, but it is all going into recreation and community facilities that otherwise would not have had that opportunity for funding.

These appropriations bills really do show that the Rudd Labor government is acting. It is investing to ensure the long-term sustainability of our nation and I am very proud to be part of a government that has invested such a large amount of money in such worthy projects in regional Australia. I certainly hope that members opposite are going to support these bills and I commend them to the House. (Time expired)

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Innovation and Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to bring the debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010 to a close. I start by thanking those members who have made a contribution to this debate on the way in which these bills are having an impact on their electorates. We have heard a fantastic example of that from my neighbour the member for Ballarat.

The additional estimates bills seek appropriation authority from parliament for the additional expenditure of money from the consolidated revenue fund in order to meet requirements that have arisen since the last budget. The total additional appropriation being sought through additional estimates bills 3 and 4 this year is a little over $2 billion. It is worth taking a little time to remind the House of some of the more important measures.

The government will provide the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts with the following amounts: an additional $510.8 million to meet commitments under the Solar Homes and Communities Plan and $290 million which will be brought forward from 2011-2012 to meet an increase in demand for household energy efficiency initiatives. The Department of Health and Ageing will be provided with a total of $71.2 million for the government’s response to the H1N1 influenza virus. This amount will replenish an appropriation that was diverted to manage the response and will enhance our preparedness for any future pandemics. The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations will be provided with the following additional amounts: $40 million to meet an increase in demand for assistance from the General Employee Entitlements and Redundancy Scheme due to a rise in bankruptcies and insolvencies; $20.3 million to establish environmental and heritage trading and work experience placements lasting 26 weeks for young people aged between 17 and 24; and $10 million as a one-off grant to the Trade Union Education Foundation for the development and delivery of national workplace education programs.

Additional appropriation is proposed for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship as follows: $63 million will be provided to meet the costs of increased irregular maritime arrivals and a further $11.2 million to expand accommodation capacity on Christmas Island in response to increased irregular maritime arrivals. The government will streamline arrangements and introduce efficiencies in Centrelink operations to deliver substantial savings over the next four years, as follows. An amount of $12.4 million is proposed to scan paper forms to reduce the cost of transferring documents and also the cost of storage. This initiative is expected to deliver net savings of $131.3 million over four years. And $14.5 million is included to implement electronic lodgement of fortnightly income reporting requirements, which is expected to deliver net savings of $95.2 million over four years. The government also proposes an additional appropriation of $167 million for the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. This includes funding for the establishment of the Local Government Reform Fund to help councils manage their infrastructure and to plan for their future needs, and funding under the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program to support investment in community infrastructure such as libraries, community centres, sports grounds and environmental infrastructure.

In conclusion, I note that the Australian economy has performed better than expected since the 2009-10 budget, with growth now expected to be stronger and unemployment lower than forecast. The improved outlook reflects the monetary and fiscal stimulus that has been put in place by the government in response to the downturn. It also reflects a stronger than expected recovery in the world economy underpinned by stimulus efforts globally. Australia has the strongest growing economy in the developed world and this is expected to continue. These bills are important pieces of legislation which support the government’s budget initiatives and deserve widespread support.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

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