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

When this debate on the appropriation bills was interrupted last evening I had been talking about some issues relating to the Home Insulation Program. There are a few more things that I would like to say about that program, and the funding in this budget gives me the opportunity to do that.

Firstly, let me make it very, very clear that the lives lost in this program are a tragedy. Lives lost in any industrial accident are a tragedy, and members of the Labor Party and our colleagues in the labour movement are hit particularly hard by those losses. Workers ought to be able to go to work in the morning confident that they will return home that night. That is why companies registering to participate in the Home Insulation Program were required to give undertakings that, for the first time in this industry, they would comply with Australian and New Zealand standards and they would provide employees with training.

In the course of retrofitting more than 1,100,000 ceilings with insulation four people lost their lives and, as I said earlier, that is a tragedy. I do not want to diminish that tragedy in any way, but it would be as well for people to reflect on the incidence of industrial accidents causing death in this industry prior to the introduction of this program. I understand that in the previous 10 years four people also lost their lives in industrial accidents in the ceiling insulation retrofitting industry when the number of installations was roughly half those achieved under the government’s program. To put it another way, the incidence of industrial accidents causing deaths in this industry halved. Again, I do not diminish the tragedy of the lives lost, but this is a noteworthy improvement and it is clearly a consequence of the requirements put in place for those companies seeking registration.

Ceiling fires are cited as a second measure of the program and one which has also caused grief amongst those affected. If my information is correct, there have been around 120 ceiling fires in homes that have had insulation installed under the program. However, what is never published is the fact that in 2008 there were 84 ceiling fires in homes retrofitted with insulation that year. You do not have to be Einstein to recognise that 120 fires in 1.1 million installations is a massive improvement over 84 fires in the 67,500 installations fitted in 2008. From roughly one fire in every 800 installations before the introduction of the program to one fire in every 9,000 installations after the introduction of the program is an elevenfold improvement. I know that is not a comfort to those affected, but it too is a notable improvement over the industry’s performance prior to the introduction of the program and an improvement that ought to be recognised.

Clearly, the opportunity to participate in this program was irresistible to some with bad intentions, whether their gain was through claiming for installations not made, delivering shoddy work or ignoring their responsibilities. But processes were in place for finding those people out and dealing with them. Through the work of government inspectors, the Leader of the Opposition was able to rise in this place and declare that there were some 240,000 roofs insulated under the program that had potential problems. Note the use of the word ‘potential’. These are roofs that only may have a problem, not roofs that actually do have a problem. I do not know if the Leader of the Opposition included in his figures the 50,000 ceilings that have been insulated by means of foil rolls, which are of concern particularly in Queensland. But, as I am in an expansive mood, I will add those to his 240,000. Because I am in a really good mood, let us round it out to 300,000 roofs. That is 300,000 of 1.1 million roofs that may have a problem—not ‘do have’ a problem but ‘may have’ a problem. The other side of that calculation is 800,000 roofs that do not have a problem. That is 800,000 families saving $200 a year on their energy bills. That is $160 million a year of energy that does not need to be generated. That is also a great achievement.

We have acknowledged the shortcomings in the delivery of the Home Insulation Program, all of which manifested themselves in the actions of those dishonourable people who participated in that delivery. The government’s main miscalculation was in thinking that we could trust all participants to deliver our program honestly. This was the ultimate red-tape-free program. Give the government an undertaking that you will abide by the conditions and deliver training to your staff and the government gives you the opportunity to build a business for yourself and provide honest employment for others. I believe that those in the industry prior to the introduction of this program welcomed these enhancements and followed them implicitly. Unfortunately, some of the new entrants did not.

Yesterday in this place the opposition environment spokesman criticised the government for heeding expert advice and discontinuing the program, thus causing difficulty, if not insolvency, for many in the industry. If I recall correctly, the opposition’s constant braying last year and earlier this year was that the government did not heed expert advice. They were wrong, of course, but that matters little to them. In the eyes of the opposition, it would seem, you are damned if you do and dammed if you don’t. What is clear is that the opposition wanted the program scrapped, wanted a ministerial scalp and wanted to damage the government, and in all of those endeavours they found fellow travellers in the majority of the mainstream media. They might reflect on their role in the plight of the insulation industry today.

This budget also provides for increases in alternative energy targets, as a consequence of the Senate’s refusal, three times, to pass the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme suite of bills. Both the then Labor opposition and the Howard government went to the 2007 federal election promising emissions trading schemes—schemes that were fairly similar. The Labor government that was formed after that election proceeded towards that goal, ultimately negotiating an agreement with the opposition that would see the legislation put in place. However, the leadership of the opposition changed and the new leadership repudiated that agreement.

It is a great irony that, had the legislation even then been supported by the Greens, it would have passed the Senate and we would have an ETS ready to be implemented. The maths of the Senate is such that without the support of all the Greens plus Senator Xenophon and Senator Fielding the government is not able to pass this legislation and has acted accordingly. Rather than waste time and effort trying again and again to convince Mr Abbott and his colleagues to support the legislation, it is important to note that Senators Fielding and Xenophon will not support the government’s legislation as they think it goes too far and the Greens will not support it because they do not believe it goes far enough.

The make-up of the Senate will change on 1 July next year, reflecting the result of an election due to be held between now and then. Most observers and commentators believe that the ALP and Greens combined will have a majority in the Senate chamber and the coalition will be irrelevant when those parties are in agreement. The Leader of the Opposition’s high-risk strategy may well deliver Australia an ETS that he likes even less than the one previously agreed between the government and the coalition. What the Leader of the Opposition can take as a given is that the government remain totally committed to the introduction of an ETS. He can also take it as read that we are not so daft as to continue to hit our heads against the brick wall of an obstructionist Senate, no matter how many times he might taunt us with the oft stated view that carbon pollution reduction is the greatest moral challenge of our time. We still believe that. They once believed it too. They no longer believe it. They are blocking it in the Senate and they think it clever to criticise us for a broken promise. The promise stands. The government are acting pragmatically. The opposition might like to reflect on the consequences for those polluters they are protecting, should they fail in their high-risk political game.

The resource superprofits tax has excited the multinational mining giants and some of our home-grown companies as well. This will, they say, kill the mining industry. I found a lovely passage online, and I would like to read it into the record today. It reads:

… here’s my big tip—the only thing that will kill the mining industry will be when they run out of things in the ground to dig up and sell.

Isn’t that the truth? That sounds remarkably like the opinion expressed in January by Queensland mining magnate Clive Palmer. It is remarkably unlike the opinion he expresses today.

The Treasurer made a lengthy statement on this taxation measure in the parliament yesterday, and I recommend to readers of this speech that they read that statement also. However, there are some things that I want to reiterate. Ten years ago the mining industry contributed to Australia and its people one dollar in every three of profit and today it contributes only one in every seven—from around 33 per cent 10 years ago to around 15 per cent today. The current royalty and company tax regime means that as profits rise, taxes fall. That is why it is the megamines that are developed: they return less to the people of Australia who own the minerals and they return more to the people of the world who own the shares in the multinationals. Admittedly, some of those shares are held by Australians, but not the majority. The proposed new regime will make smaller mining operations viable, and they will most likely be undertaken by Australian companies, not multinationals. In fact, under this tax regime, mining companies earning less than 10 per cent return on investment will pay less in taxes than they do now, according to a table that I have seen.

I want to make a brief mention of the GP Super Clinics Program that is extended in this budget. The opposition has been loud in its criticism of this program, contending that only two GP superclinics are operational. Yesterday in the chamber we saw the pleased-as-Punch photographs of the member for Paterson taken at the recent opening in his electorate of the third clinic. This program was introduced as a five-year program, and those opposite know it. So let us have a look at progress to date, two years into a five-year program. Three GP superclinics, including the very successful Strathpine clinic in the electorate of the shadow health minister—and, incidentally, opposed by him—are open and operational. Seventeen GP superclinics are now under construction. Logically they will be operational within the third year of the five-year program. A further 15 GP superclinics are now under contract. Construction will no doubt start as soon as practical on those. One—only one—of the 36 original GP superclinics is yet to be put under contract.

This five-year program is well underway, and the extension of the program in this budget is a recognition of the popularity of the concept. In my own electorate of Longman I have already had some preliminary discussions in relation to accessing this extended program to overcome some of the health service gaps that are evident. I note that the opposition have indicated that, should they win government, they will cut this program. It is interesting that the coalition candidate contesting Longman supports that cut, despite having already made a commitment to a similar facility on Bribie Island which he says will not be affected because it is ‘fundamentally different’ to the GP Super Clinics Program—although exactly how it is fundamentally different seems to be a mystery. The bad news for him is in shadow finance minister Mr Robb’s fine print—that commitment, it would appear, has been discontinued.

This is an excellent budget. It is a budget for its time. It is a budget that honours the commitments made by the government 12 months ago—commitments that the opposition said we could not meet. The response from the opposition to this budget is as predictable as it is wrong. I commend the budget to the House.

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The 2010-11 Labor budget is a typical big-spending budget, to counter a recession Australia never had. This budget is an even bigger spending budget fuelled by new taxes on cigarettes and mining. It is a simple demonstration that you cannot trust this government to even identify a surplus, let alone look at delivering one. Labor has categorically failed to control its reckless spending after the global financial crisis. This budget sees $26 billion in new spending since the last budget—hardly an austerity measure to be proud of. This budget is built on the twin towers of two new taxes: mining, $12 billion, and cigarettes, $5.5 billion. This budget does not even have the capacity to sort out its spending on its own right: vast and expansive new taxes had to be added so that this budget would even come together, let alone look credible. This budget will continue to put enormous pressure on interest rates as cash floods through the economy—all borrowed, and that borrowing crowds out the borrowing of small to medium business, forcing interest rates up once again.

It is ironic that Labor’s figures in this budget are vastly different to what they predicted in the last budget. Economic growth this year was supposed to fall by 0.5 per cent, but now we are told it will actually grow by two per cent. Yet our ability to repay the mounting and vast debt—an extra $40 billion alone in net debt in this budget—is all based on the Treasurer’s guesswork. The Treasurer is putting the country at risk with massive higher taxes, massive higher spending, higher interest rates from inflationary pressure and higher investment premiums, and a crowding out of private sector investors who are also looking for debt to expand their programs. Logically it has to result in lower growth due to the fiscal drag that debt always puts on an economy.

Peak public debt will now be $93.7 billion by 2013. The last Labor government took 12 to 13 years to reach this figure. This government is taking a fraction of that time. In fact, this government is borrowing $100 million a day. That is $4 million an hour. By the time I finish speaking, this government will have borrowed a million bucks to fuel its spending spree that it refuses to get under control. This government cannot spell austerity, let alone meet it. The average Australian family will be paying over $1,000 a year just to pay the interest on Labor’s debt. It is remarkable that all the Labor governments in the history of our Federation have left the nation in debt—all of them. Labor is addicted to spending. We now have another four years of deficit, all because of one quarter of negative growth in 2008.

It would appear that any improvement on the bottom line is going to be through good luck and the grace of God, because it certainly cannot be put down to sound management. If we look at Labor’s programs budget line by budget line we see blow out by blow out. We see a home insulation program with a billion dollar repair job. The member for Longman had the temerity to say, ‘Yes, there was a tragic loss of four lives in the insulation debacle, but in the previous 10 years there was the loss of five lives; therefore, under this program there has been half as many and that’s a good thing.’ May I remind the member for Longman that any needless death of a young Australian is a dreadful thing, especially at the hands of an incompetent government and an incompetent program. He said, ‘Sure, there are 300,000 houses whose insulation must be checked, but that is all right as there are 800,000 that are fine, and those 800,000 will be enjoying lower electricity bills.’ My heart goes out to the 300,000 families whose mums and dads each night tuck their kids in and look at their ceiling and wonder what is up there. I guess that did not cross the member for Longman’s mind.

We have the Julia Gillard memorial halls—a proper noun. The Building the Education Revolution has a $1.7 billion program blow-out and a waste which could be as high as $8 billion. This could be the most wasteful program in the history of the nation. The computers in schools program has a billion-dollar blow-out. The National Broadband Network, which needed $4.7 billion to give broadband to 98 per cent of Australian homes, now needs $43 billion to give broadband to 90 per cent of Australia homes—a $38.3 billion blow-out. The consultancy contracts this government said it would halve are now $605 million plus.

It is instructive to look line by line at the achievements of this government. Those in the nation who would like to see Labor’s election promises will find it difficult because the 2007 election promises have been removed from the ALP website. Clearly, you are so proud of the promises you took to the nation when you looked them in the eye and said, ‘This is what Labor stands for.’ Clearly, you were so proud of what you stood for that you have taken them down from your website. You organised the best and the brightest summit, yet I cannot think of a single thing out of it that you have used—not one. You brought together 1,000 people and thought you would open up government to scrutiny.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Fadden, as you should be speaking through the chair, it is not me you are referring to but the other side of the House.

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mea culpa, Mr Deputy Speaker. Labor organised the best and the brightest summit. Labor said that they were throwing open the doors of government to allow the nation to decide priorities and to go in set directions. Not a single thing has come out of it—not one. Fuelwatch was one of the greatest and most costly fiascos abandoned. GroceryWatch followed in its damned footsteps. The Building the Education Revolution has a $16.7 billion blow-out. Building contractors, states and bureaucrats are billing them a feast in return for libraries and gyms. We have seen buildings costing $5,000 per square metre when they should have cost $1,000 per square metre. It is highly conceivable that at least half of this money is being absolutely and utterly rorted and wasted, perhaps even corruptly so. The Deputy Prime Minister organised an investigation and—surprise, surprise!—it will return and report after the election.

We move on to the Home Insulation Program, which was an absolute unmitigated disaster. Thousands and thousands of businesses are now destroyed, young Australians dead, houses burnt down and billions of dollars wasted. We move onto every child in every school in Australia getting a computer. This program is moving with the speed of an asthmatic ant with a heavy load of shopping. By the time these students will be eligible to receive their computer, they will have finished high school. There was no allocation for software, for maintenance, for support or for ancillary services like air conditioning, three-phase power, hubs, switches and routers to go with it. Any industry professional will tell you that for every $1 in computing hardware spent upfront it may cost as much as $3 to manage it, to run it, to keep it going and to support it. None of that was included. This was all about an election highlight, about the Prime Minister standing there with a laptop above his head saying, ‘This is the toolbox of the 21st century.’

We saw the home solar water initiative abruptly ended three weeks early with eight hours notice, causing chaos in the industry. Many people who were intending to lodge applications in good faith missed out. The Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts, Mr Garrett, blamed a cost blow-out, with the original estimate of $150 million blowing out to over $750 million. We saw the Green Loans Program with thousands of people quitting their jobs, paying $3,000 for qualifications and insurance to be trained as assessors only to find the demand grossly exaggerated. The Courier Mail reported on 2 February:

… the Federal Government predicted up to 200,000 homeowners would take up the loans and only 1000 have done so.

          …            …            …

Instead of training 1500 to 2000 well-qualified assessors, the Government permitted a blowout. It is now estimated there will be up to 11,500 assessors.

Instead of getting the $50 bonus for getting the home insulation assessment done, none of those has been sent out. The interesting thing is that the Green Loans Program, the solar hot water initiative and the absolute nightmare of the Home Insulation Program were all the result of one incompetent minister. You would think that the minister would be summarily sacked but, no, he stays where he is, a few responsibilities are taken off him and he stays in cabinet. Thousands and thousands of Australians are suffering without work and without jobs. This government keeps him. It is symptomatic of a government more concerned about itself than it is about the nation.

This government, in August 2008, dismantled the Howard government’s immigration and border protection laws that had reduced the inflow of illegal vessels to one. Now we have had over 125 illegal vessels and over 4,000 illegal immigrants, and the flow continues because this government does not have the courage of its convictions to stop it. Let me reiterate that an elected coalition government will reinstate a form of temporary protection visa. We will, with the help of our friends, neighbours and allies, turn boats around. We will get the flow of illegal immigrants and illegal boats back down to where it was in the Howard years.

Under this government, climate change was ‘the greatest moral challenge of our generation’. Few stronger words have been uttered in these hallowed halls by a Prime Minister: ‘the greatest moral challenge of our generation’. They are words normally reserved for when a nation finds itself in conflict or at war. Those words were backed up by Mr Rudd, the Prime Minister, when he said last November that it would be an act of ‘absolute political cowardice, an absolute failure of leadership’ not to act on climate change until other nations had done so. And then, in the space of a few short weeks, may I suggest that he embodied those words when, in an act of absolute political cowardice, he shelved the ETS because the polling was not going his way. So much for ‘the greatest moral challenge of our generation’.

How many of the 2,650 promised trade training centres are open—one, two, surely no more than 10. How many of the 260 promised childcare centres have opened? Oops, that’s right; the most junior minister was sent out to scrap it. How many of the promised GP superclinics are there? Two are fully functional out of 31—an absolute and utter disaster. If these ministers were in private business they would be broke. But that is right: across all of the cabinet ministers, the number of years they have spent in small to medium businesses or running their own business can be counted on two hands.

It is interesting that the government also established the Australian Social Inclusion Board. This rarely heard of bureaucracy was set up because every Australian should have the opportunity to be a full participant in the life of the nation. But who has ever heard of the board? What has the board done? What policy has the board put into? How is the board instructed about what the government is doing? Or is it one more of the over 150 commissions, inquiries, reports and boards that have been set up?

That takes me to the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program, the SIHIP. Initially set up by a memorandum of understanding in September 2007, in July 2009 Lateline reported that it had not yet built a single house. In two years it had not built a single house, yet it had spent $45 million of its $672 million budget—but not a single house. A government report dated August 2009 said the program was being criticised because it was too slow to deliver, its governance was overly bureaucratic and the program was too costly in terms of the unit cost of housing and administration. It makes a good segue, as it sounds like a perfect phrase to describe the Rudd government writ large. The houses are expected to cost between $450,000 and $529,000, factoring in administration costs and contingencies. For a program that began in September 2007, as at 1 February this year, two houses had been built—just two—but $672 million had been spent. There is nothing like a federal Labor government working with a territory Labor government!

The massive splurge under the global financial crisis sent money directly to taxpayers and, indeed, over $100 million to nontaxpayers. Some pets even received the $900 because of the establishment of wills and the reporting of money through them. People bought large-screen, imported TVs to stimulate the economy and to avoid the effects of what the Prime Minister and the Treasurer said was the worst financial crisis since the Depression in the 1930s. In fact, unemployment was 11 per cent in 1991; in 2009, it did not get to six per cent. There was a surplus in 2007-08, when the Howard government lost the election, and that surplus quickly turned into a $57 billion deficit. Clearly, the global financial crisis was to blame! No credit was given to the Howard and Costello years for leaving the Labor Party in an outstanding budgetary position. No credit was given to the insatiable demand from China for resources. No credit was given to the fact that we were debt free, with money in the bank. No credit was given to the stability of our economy and our flexible workplace laws. No credit was given at all to the fact that there was room for the Reserve Bank to lower interest rates. No, it was all the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister saved the day! I suggest that all this Prime Minister has done is spend us into a dreadful hole.

In terms of the stimulus packages the Prime Minister rolled out, they contained very little major infrastructure. School halls and gyms—that was the way forward! This government was looking at attracting a whole range of retired nurses back into the profession using a return to work bonus. When they announced the scheme, they talked about 7,750 take-ups, but less than 1,000 have been taken up. This government promised to take Japan to the international court for its whaling; I wonder what incompetent minister that was? Once again, it was Minister Garrett. Now he says it will not be until November that the issue will be settled and—surprise, surprise—that will be after the next election.

Then of course the government announced they would keep 30 per cent of the states’ GST to fund 60 per cent of hospital costs in the states and territories. There are massive strings attached. The states had not been given any details, only an executive summary, before the Commonwealth backed down. The states will maintain control of their hospitals. All this health reform is going to do is create three new statutory bureaucracies to manage this massive structure.

When we read the contents of the budget, we see that there will be 1½ thousand new public servants in the Department of Defence and 500 fewer uniformed personnel. We saw a government that said they would take a meataxe to the Public Service, and all we have seen is 20,000 new public servants. We saw a government that said that, for every regulation put in, they would take one out. Well, over 9,000 new or amended regulations have gone in and less than 100 have been taken out. This government has only contributed a new definition to ‘spin’. It has only left us in a massive hole of debt. It has only thrown our public accounts into disarray and put upward pressure on interest rates, because it is crowding out the debt market and fuelling the economy with cash.

This government will go down as the worst government in the history of our land. It will go down as being worse than the Whitlam government in terms of its profligate spending, what it has not achieved and the damage it has done. This is one of the worst budgets our nation has seen—$40 billion. In the 20 minutes I have spoken, this government has borrowed over $1 million to fuel its debt binge that does not look like it will ever end.

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

Managing the Australian economy, which is one of the largest economies in the world, is a challenge for any government of any persuasion at the best of times. When faced with the challenge of a global recession the Rudd government acted quickly, decisively and with definition to support the Australian economy by making it more resilient, by preparing it for the future and by making it stronger. As well the government were all the time helping Australian families, our young people and our seniors. We have acted immediately to stimulate the economy in a Keynesian way when those opposite would do nothing. They would disinvest in the economy.

We supported 200,000 Australian jobs through investing in people in retail, in the construction industry and in the service industry, and they have jobs now. If those opposite sat on this side of the chamber, those people would be out of a job. That would be the consequence of the inaction, inactivity and negligence of those opposite disinvesting in infrastructure and of the policies or nonpolicies they would undertake if they sat on the Treasury benches. We have invested in the economy and in vital infrastructure to build capacity to improve productivity. We have invested in skills and training, in health and hospitals and in roads, rail and renewables.

We are protecting the jobs of Australians. Our Nation Building and Jobs Plan is the envy of the world. The truth is that we have faster growth, the lowest debt to GDP ratio and the second lowest unemployment rate in the OECD world. We delivered, for a third year in a row, tax cuts to working families with increased pensions. We looked after carers, supported those on disability support pensions and cared for the poor, the weak and the oppressed. Those opposite, during nearly 12 years on the Treasury benches, engaged in class warfare against those people.

We supported small businesses. We helped out in the community in terms of infrastructure in local government, which is a vital player in the Australian economy. We have reduced red tape and we have given small business advice, assistance and mentoring through business enterprise centres across the country. We are spending $37 billion in land transport and infrastructure across the years until 2013-14. The Nation Building Program is a success. The Roads to Recovery has supplied record amounts of money, as has the Black Spot Program. We can see that in my community. If those opposite were on this side they would not be doing it.

We heard from the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy in question time today in answer to a question that I put to him in relation to candidates. There are candidates for the coalition under the title ‘the LNP’ in Queensland. The LNP is considering a council candidate in Ryan and I am about to face a councillor in Blair. The LNP has endorsed councillors in Wright and Dawson. They all voted for the nation-building and stimulus package in their councils and in their communities. Now it seems that they are coming to this chamber with aspiration in their hearts to support a party that opposes the nation-building and stimulus package in communities across the country. These are the very communities they purport to represent in the federal electorates they are standing for under the LNP in Queensland. They come here and say, ‘Oh, I must have forgotten. Political amnesia. I didn’t vote for that and didn’t support that in my council.’ They are purporting to represent a party, the LNP, that opposes the very projects which they voted for, which they managed and in which they cooperated with the Rudd government to deliver in their communities.

There are many of these councillors across Queensland, across South-East Queensland where I live and across the country. The Rudd government’s initiatives in South-East Queensland, where one in seven Australians live, are vital for the fastest growing region in the country. The coalition has a record of neglect when it comes to South-East Queensland. Look at the most vital community infrastructure that we have had in South-East Queensland—roads. Inexplicably the coalition opposed the upgrade of the Ipswich Motorway, which is so important to the people in Toowoomba, Brisbane, the Lockyer Valley, the Somerset region and the Scenic Rim. They opposed it and we are delivering it. It is vital community infrastructure and part of the $37 billion that we are delivering in this budget in relation to roads.

We had record amounts of money put into Roads to Recovery across the region. In this budget there was $1.3 million funding for the Ipswich City Council in Roads to Recovery. The Lockyer Valley had $646,000, the Scenic Rim Regional Council had $791,000 and the Somerset Regional Council had $653,000. There were record amounts of money for local roads in Ipswich and the West Morton region. The coalition gave nothing like that sort of assistance to local councils. And there were vital community infrastructure projects. The Black Spot funding is a record amount of money. The financial assistance grants to those councils was a massive increase in funding to them. All of the money goes towards supporting local jobs. In fact in the financial assistance grants that we have seen here there was a record $2 billion for 2010-11 to local councils in the Ipswich and West Morton area and across the country for basic services, parks and for upgrading local amenities and facilities. It was $578 million more than last year. We are cooperating with local councils to deliver these projects, support jobs and improve amenities and infrastructure. That is really important. In my region under the better regions plan committed to in the last election there was $575,000 for the George Alder Tennis Centre and $600,000 for the Ipswich basketball stadium upgrade. These are premier sporting facilities in South-East Queensland. There was also $2 million for the Ipswich CBD redevelopment.

The coalition could not give a stuff about Ipswich. For all the time that they were in government, they could not have cared less about Ipswich. We never got the money. They neglected Ipswich. They failed to upgrade the Ipswich Motorway. In fact, my predecessor was inexplicably opposed to the upgrade of the Ipswich Motorway. On 27 October 2009, we saw the leader of the most irrelevant party in this place, the National Party, come out and say that he would stop the construction of the Ipswich Motorway. It is inexplicable when the project will support 10,000 jobs in South-East Queensland, in places like Dinmore and Goodna. The project will generate 10,000 jobs, and the coalition oppose it. They shed crocodile tears when it comes to jobs, infrastructure and assistance to working families. That is what it is about: crocodile tears. They vote one way here and then go back to their electorates and vote another way. The coalition get their candidates to vote one way in their electorates, but when they come here they support a party with another view. That is rank political inconsistency from those opposite.

We are used to it in Queensland because we had to endure ‘the blessings’ of the National Party for so many years. They are absolute experts when it comes to regional rorts, as we have seen. But when it comes to vital community infrastructure, they forget about it. What about the black spot funding? We have seen the state LNP member for Lockyer shed crocodile tears over the Warrego Highway. The previous government reduced the funding for the Warrego Highway; we increased it. It is very important to note that the $3 million black spot funding in the appropriation bills will go towards improving the Warrego Highway. We have put $1.9 million towards the upgrade of the Haigslea-Amberley Road Intersection. The previous government did nothing like that. We have put in $10 million to resurface the road from Tivoli to Blacksoil. What did the coalition do when they were in government for 12 years? We saw none of that money put into the Ipswich and West Moreton corridor.

The coalition purported to represent the farmers in the Lockyer Valley, the Scenic Rim and Somerset regions, yet they did nothing to the Warrego Highway—except cut back its funding. The black spot funding for the Cunningham Highway went to fixing up roads for places like Kalbar and Boonah. The sides of the roads were breaking; there were no barriers on the side of the road. For years the coalition neglected that situation; they did nothing about it. The farmers in the Scenic Rim constantly complained about the Cunningham Highway, and so we have money in this budget for black spot funding to help the farmers in regional and rural areas. There is of course no federal member yet for the new seat of Wright. I hope that Andrew Ramsay will come to this place as the Labor candidate for that electorate. If he comes here, he will vote for vital community infrastructure in that area, whereas his opponent will not. That is the reality.

The member for Fadden talked about GP superclinics. I have one opening in my electorate, at the University of Queensland, in Ipswich, in August and the member for Fadden is welcome to attend. The editorial of the Queensland Timesthe only daily newspaper in my electorate—told the coalition to get its hands off the GP superclinics. The coalition want to get rid of GP superclinics. Recently I was up in the Somerset region doing a mobile office—I have done 140 of them since the last election—and at the Esk Show I talked to people about the possibility of them applying for funding. We cannot guarantee that they will get a GP superclinic, but people want more medical facilities up in the Somerset region. I can tell you that the coalition will not give them a GP superclinic. They will not get one at Springfield or anywhere else because the coalition will close them down. I will tell you another thing, Madam Deputy Speaker, it is likely that they will starve the GP superclinics of funds because they are opposed to them.

While I was at Esk recently, I also attended the council chambers for Somerset Region Business Alliance. Bob Whalley, a prominent LNP member, is the president of the alliance. He talked about how the Somerset Regional Council is going to cooperate with the Rudd government, how important the National Broadband Network is for the Somerset region and how vital it is for the dozens and dozens of small business operators there. Guess who will be the candidate opposing me at the next election? The deputy mayor of the Somerset region, a bloke who voted for the Fernvale Sports Centre but will come here to represent a party that will oppose the $2.1 million that the government is putting into the Fernvale Sports Centre and the Esk rail trail and Esk skate park. These projects are being funded by the Rudd government under the Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan. The candidate was not there at that meeting. But I said to Bob, ‘Listen, mate, your side is blocking this stuff.’ That was before the catastrophe last week when we saw the three stooges giving their budget in-reply speech and their Press Club fiasco. I said to Bob Whalley and other people at the Somerset Regional Business Alliance: ‘If you vote for the coalition, you won’t get a national broadband up here at Somerset or other regional rural areas. But if you vote for Labor, you’ll get it.’ The situation is that the coalition will oppose it and gut it.

The coalition say that they are for regional and rural Australia but they voted against the road funding. They say that they are in favour of regional and rural Australia but they voted against the education funding under the BER. Under the BER, we are putting $21 million into vital community infrastructure for 18 schools in the Somerset region. This will include trade training centres, schools libraries and community halls. The schools love the BER. I have been to all the schools in the area, and they love it. The coalition oppose the BER. I wonder which one of those projects they will cut back. It is the same situation with the trade training centres in Ipswich. We have another one opening soon at St Edmund’s Boys College and the two grammar schools—Ipswich Grammar School and Ipswich Girls’ Grammar School. This is $3 million for the trade training centre. They are getting one in the Lockyer Valley, at the Lockyer District High. However, no other schools will get a training centre if the coalition gets in. We will have to see what happens then.

That is it what the coalition are all about. They are about opposing education. I went to a lot of these schools. The computer in schools program is being rolled out to high schools across the region. The schools really like what we are doing there—but the coalition will get rid of that policy. It will get rid of that funding. The schools will not get computers. How does the coalition think that schools will communicate with the world? Don’t they want IT? Don’t they want the latest computers in places like Boonah, Kalbar, Ipswich, Esk and Fernvale? They do not want that. However, we will deliver those things to those areas—and we are delivering them. I can see it happening across my electorate—that is the truth. The coalition oppose all of that. They are opposed to the national secondary schools computer program—$2.1 billion over six years. They are opposed to the BER funding. They are against those programs.

But that is not the experience on the ground when you talk to school principals in my area—not just those in the state school system but in the other school systems. I was recently speaking at the Lutheran state convention, which was held in Ipswich. Neil Schiller, who is the principal of Bethany Lutheran School, talked to me about how wonderful the BER funding was for their particular school. It brought forward the timeframe for their school redevelopment project from 10 years to five years. It is a lovely private primary school in Ipswich with a great reputation. That is the situation locally. Sitting in the audience at the Lutheran convention was my putative opponent. But I will tell you what, if he gets in here, he will vote against that funding for the school which he was visiting during that convention. That is the reality of political life, the inconsistency.

I believe that whether you live in Ipswich, Melbourne, Sydney or Canberra, as a kid you should have the same opportunities in life. Education is the key to development. It is about not just financial security but opportunity for our young people. Those opposite do not seem to really believe that education is important. They think that it is something that you should be allowed to do if you can afford to. We support parents choosing whichever school they want, so we will support the wonderful private schools in my electorate as well as the state schools in my electorate.

There is one thing in this budget that I think is very important. The Howard government had this stupid idea of only allowing legal aid for Commonwealth matters. We have in large part addressed the inequities in legal aid. When I was practicing as a litigation lawyer in Brisbane and across Ipswich and various other areas, people who could not get legal aid were disadvantaged in court. This budget provides an additional $154 million for legal assistance services. I am pleased to say that I lobbied very hard for that. I thank the Attorney-General and the Treasurer for that funding. There were a number of people in our caucus—people like the member for Isaacs and the member for Fremantle—who have been advocating for this for quite some time. That is an important change.

I have spoken to a number of lawyers, barristers and solicitors, in Brisbane recently about that funding. They are thrilled that the Rudd government has taken steps to redress the injustice and inequity that was perpetrated and perpetuated by the Howard government on litigants. If you were poor, disadvantaged, had troubles with the English language or were Indigenous, you were at the mercy of the Howard government’s pernicious policies on legal aid. That was the case, but we have redressed that issue in this budget, and I am very pleased that we have done so.

We have also made a big impact when it comes to defence housing in this budget. Soon I will open another 20 houses in Raceview. We have opened dozens and dozens up in Flinders View where I live. There is nation-building stimulus funding in this budget for those things. We want to help our defence personnel. It is extremely important to do so. What we have done in that regard is vital, because supporting our defence personnel, their families and their children is crucial for retention and recruitment. They play an important role in the Ipswich community. The RAAF base at Amberley is a superbase. It is getting bigger. It is worth billions of dollars to the Ipswich community every year. We honour our defence personnel. They are valued members of our community and their families are as well.

There are two other aspects to this budget which I want to mention very briefly and applaud the government on. The first is the $55 million package for former F111 fuel tank maintenance workers. I thank the member for Brisbane for his inquiry and I thank the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, who has worked with the people affected. The previous government’s performance in this regard was atrocious; absolutely woeful. We have committed $55 million to bring some degree of justice to these people and to improve their care. The change we have made will mean that 2,400 extra personnel, including the pick-and-patch workers, will receive assistance. Over 3,000 more personnel will be covered for any of the 31 conditions identified by the study of health outcomes in aircraft maintenance personnel.

I also thank the government for in large part adopting the recommendations of the Clarke review of veterans’ entitlements, particular those in relation to people who suffered terribly due to the British nuclear testing. I thank the government for the $24.2 million over five years to provide disability pensions and assistance for those people who suffered due to the nuclear tests. I thank the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs for changing the designation of those people. I thank him for the compassion and the empathy he has shown to those people, who suffered badly. I commend these appropriation bills to the House, because they will make a big difference in my electorate of Blair.

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

I rise to speak on the Rudd government’s third budget, Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2010-2011 and related bills. As the shadow minister for education, apprenticeships and training, I want to particularly talk about education. There is no doubt that this budget has been a great disappointment in the area of education for people across Australia—teachers, parents, principals, people in higher education, people in trades and apprenticeships—who had hoped to see a budget with some vision on education. But unfortunately this budget was almost silent on the issue of education. There was virtually no mention at all of higher education in the budget. The only times that it was mentioned in the budget was in an announcement of a further delay or further blow-out in programs that had been announced previously.

In this government and in this minister for education, we have seen masters of the disappearing program. The first promise that the government made before the last election was that they would deliver 2,650 trade training centres, one to every secondary college across Australia. It will never happen. So far they have managed to deliver 12. Only 12 out of 2,650 trade training centres are operational in Australia. The program has been delayed, the program has blown out in cost and they are now saying that they will deliver one in 10 trade training centres. So they will deliver—maybe—265 trade training centres rather than the 2,650 that they promised. That is just one of their programs.

We have the now infamous computers in schools program. Everybody would remember the then opposition leader with Julia Gillard, the then shadow minister for education, waving a laptop around before the last federal election and declaring it to be the toolbox of the 21st century. He cannot have just a normal-sounding program. This was 970,000 laptop computers to be placed in the hands of every student from year 9 to year 12. They have so far delivered 220,000 out of 970,00 and the program will now be delivered over seven years, longer than it took to complete the Second World War, and at great expense. That is another blow-out of at least $1 billion that we can absolutely verify—another failure by the master of the disappearing program.

It gets worse. Under the Primary Schools for the 21st Century program—which has also been described as the school hall rip-off program and the Julia Gillard memorial school hall program—we know from hearings last week of the Senate inquiry into the waste and mismanagement of the Building the Education Revolution that there has been at least $5 billion wasted or siphoned off or gouged or mismanaged under this $16.2 billion program. That is on top of the $1.7 billion blow-out that the government already admitted to earlier this year. That is a $1.7 blow-out, a $1 billion blow-out in computers in schools and a $5 billion blow-out in the school hall rip-off program, making this minister the $7.7 billion blow-out woman. I know that the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services, Mr Shorten, finds this all very amusing, because of course he has no love at all for the Minister for Education and in fact would probably prefer to take her job rather than have the one he has now.

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

Madam Deputy Speaker, a point of order—

Danna Vale (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! No point of order.

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

There is no point of order, so sit down.

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

My point of order is that—

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

No point of order, Parliamentary Secretary.

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

If only you could read the standing orders, Bill, you might be a bit better off. Can I turn to the $1.7 billion blow-out in the Primary Schools for the 21st Century program. There is real scandal involved in this blow-out because the Deputy Prime Minister told this House that the reason there had been a $1.7 billion blow-out was the enormous take-up of the program by schools. She led this House to believe that the reason for the blow-out was a much greater take-up of the program by schools than had been expected. She said in this parliament on 10 September:

They—

being the opposition—

have tried to create the imagery that somehow builders are inflating prices and the government has had to tip in more money. That is simply not true. More money is going into this program because it is going gangbusters, because more schools want to be in this program.

That, unfortunately, was a bare-faced lie and she misled the parliament. The Auditor-General, reporting in the last month into the BER concerns on page 24, said

Ultimately, the need for the additional funding provided by the Government in August 2009 arose from most schools having sought the maximum payments available. It did not flow from any deficiencies identified in the procurement processes or other activities of Educational Authorities in delivering the program, nor was it the result of more schools seeking to participate than had originally been forecast.

The Auditor-General directly, specifically and with intent clearly rebuked the Deputy Prime Minister and made it absolutely clear that what she had told the House was utterly untrue.

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

Madam Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: the shadow minister at the dispatch box cannot say of the Deputy Prime Minister that she misled the parliament. If he wants to sustain that argument, there are forms of the House that he, as Manager of Opposition Business, well knows that he must pursue. Unless he pursues a substantive motion, I would ask him to withdraw those remarks as they are unparliamentary.

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

I am happy to withdraw the remarks, and if I return to that subject I will move a substantive motion. It is disappointing that the member for Chifley has to come into the House and take an appropriate point of order when the parliamentary secretary, who fancies himself as Prime Minister embarrassingly, sat here for five minutes and took no point of order at all. No doubt the Leader of the House will take that up with the parliamentary secretary, because his job in the House is to monitor what the opposition is saying and doing, but he was doing no such thing.

I return to the budget and the disappearing programs that are the hallmark of the education aspect of this budget. The other one that is an embarrassment to the government is the School Chaplaincy Program. The School Chaplaincy Program is set to end in 2011. This was a program which the Howard government initiated. It is extremely popular in both government and non-government schools, but particularly in government schools. We committed to this program in the forward estimates, and the opposition has committed $165 million in the future, to ensure that this program becomes a permanent fixture of our government and non-government schools. It is a very popular program, because there are many young people who, for whatever reason, may not speak to their parents or their uncles or aunts or best friends about problems they might be having but are more inclined to speak to somebody whom they regard as somewhat of a stranger or as someone who is becoming a friend. That is one of the reasons the School Chaplaincy Program has worked so successfully.

This government has not committed to it in this budget in an ongoing way. The funding is due to finish at the end of 2011. It has put no extra money into making sure it will continue into the future. It is not a program that has been earmarked for growth. Yet again, the government has announced a review of the chaplaincy program, which amazingly is due to report after the election. Of course, if the Labor Party is unfortunately returned to government in this country, I think there will be a lot of very nasty surprises for a lot of people after the next election.

We have talked about trade training centres and we could talk about the school hall rip-off program until the cows come home. I also want to cover an issue that my honourable friend at the table, the shadow minister for early childhood education and childcare, the status of women and other issues, will be interested in—that is, the disappearing childcare centre program. In yet another one of the Ruddisms that we have to tolerate all the time from this Prime Minister, he was going to end the dreaded double drop-off. In other words, you would have a childcare centre at the school and you would therefore be able to drop all your children at the same place. Of course, it was just another promise designed to get them elected in the 2007 election. They never had any intention of delivering that program. They quietly and embarrassingly tried to sneak it through in the last paragraph of a Kate Ellis press release a few weeks ago that they would not be continuing with the childcare centre program.

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

Madam Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: the honourable member should refer to people by their title.

Danna Vale (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Parliamentary Secretary. The member for Sturt will refer to members by their correct titles.

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

He has been wounded by my criticism. The childcare centre program was to include 260 childcare centres. It is now going to be 38. None of the others apparently need to be built. 222 will go the way of the dodo and never see the light of day—another one of this government’s broken promises in the education area, along with computers in schools, the Primary Schools for the 21st Century program, which has been a well-documented fiasco, the trade training centres and the School Chaplaincy Program.

I turn now to one of the issues that specifically relate to South Australia—that is, the great big new mining tax, which will do tremendous damage to the resources sector in my state of South Australia. You do not need to take my word for it. Marius Kloppers from BHP has already warned that dividend payments to their 540,000 shareholders will be hit by the federal government’s great big new tax on mining. BHP Billiton has made it clear that all of their projects in Australia are on the table, including the Olympic Dam expansion in South Australia at Roxby Downs, which is the largest mining project in South Australia and one of the largest in Australia and the world. If properly expanded, it would be the largest copper mine in the world. That is at risk as a consequence of the government’s great big new tax on mining.

What have we heard from the South Australian Labor MPs and senators on that subject? Nothing but a full throated endorsement of the great big new tax on mining that will put at risk the Olympic Dam expansion in my state. Another great mining project in my state that is at risk as a consequence of the great big new tax on mining is the Prominent Hill copper and gold mine in South Australia. Neil Hamilton, the Chairman of OZ Minerals, said that his company would not be able to finish a feasibility study for a potential $300 million project at its Prominent Hill copper and gold mine in South Australia until more detail of the new tax is known. We know that Prominent Hill and Olympic Dam are just two of the mining projects that are at risk in South Australia as a consequence of this government’s fatally flawed great big new tax on mining, which is a dagger pointed at the heart of the Australian economy and, in this case, of the South Australian economy.

I would also like to talk a little bit about some projects in my own electorate. I can tell you that, if the coalition gets elected at the coming election—and we hope that will be sooner rather than later so that we can put this country out of the misery it is enduring under this Rudd Labor government—then I will be fighting in my electorate of Sturt for funding for a number of the black spot projects that need to be done. I will doing so from a position where we will have a Treasurer and a Prime Minister who can actually manage the books of the country, a Prime Minister and a Treasurer in Tony Abbot and Joe Hockey, who will be capable of ensuring that we get back into surplus again and we pay down the Labor Party’s $93 billion debt, which does not even include the $18 billion for the National Broadband Network and other projects, so that we will be in a position to fund the important black spot projects in my electorate that this budget is silent on.

I am talking about projects like the improvement of Gorge Road between the Newton shops and the Athelstone shops and of Fosters Road at Oakden. The state Labor government has put very significant housing developments at Oakden and around that part of my electorate, and on the other side of the road in the federal member for Adelaide’s electorate. This has brought thousands of new residents to the area without any consequent thought for the improvement of Fosters Road, which is now a very dangerous road in the north of my electorate. Sudholz Road in Gilles Plains is used by hundreds of thousands of vehicles every year. There have been fatalities there over the years and there was a very nasty accident only last week. These are the projects that need to be attended to in my electorate.

18:21:49

St Bernards Road runs from Magill right through to Newton. St Bernards Road is one of the more dangerous roads in my electorate. There was recently a very sad fatality on St Bernards Road which needs to be raised in the House. Sarah Bridge lived in St Bernards Road in Magill. Unfortunately, Sarah Bridge’s partner, John Swindell, and his 10-year-old Bichon Frise dog, Tilly, were killed crossing the road at St Bernards Road and Shakespeare Avenue. That is not the only tragic loss that has occurred on St Bernards Road over the years, but it is the most recent one. Action needs to be taken to ensure that those kinds of fatalities do not occur again.

There has been a longstanding campaign to try and get traffic lights at the corner of Graves Street and St Bernards Road for similar reasons. The demands, the calls and the pleas for this to occur have fallen on deaf ears in the state government and in the federal government. We have been campaigning for traffic lights on Lower North East Road, Dernancourt, where there is a significant shopping centre and where, in the last few years, an infant child was killed trying to cross the road. We have been asking the state government to do the necessary studies for traffic lights at Graves Street at St Bernards Road in Newton, at Shakespeare Avenue and St Bernards Road in Magill and at Lower North East Road in Dernancourt. The state government’s action has been slow and paltry. If the coalition gets elected at the coming election, I will be fighting for this kind of sensible spending on important projects in my electorate of Sturt. I will be doing that from a foundation of good economic and budgetary management—from a foundation of real fiscal conservatism. I will be fighting for the improvement of roads like Fosters Road at Oakden, Gorge Road at Newton and Sudholz Road at Gilles Plains. I have already mentioned St Bernards Road.

There is one other subject I would like to touch on and it is a subject that has been close to my heart. When I was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing, I initiated, for people suffering from a mental illness, the Medicare items for social workers, occupational therapists and psychologists. In this budget, the government abolished the Medicare items for social workers and occupational therapists. After a short campaign, they announced a delay until April next year. I assume that is so that the social workers and occupational therapists can get their affairs in order before their businesses are ruined. The most important reason people with a mental health problem were given access to these Medicare schedule items was so that they would get the treatment they needed, treatment they could not otherwise get because there are not enough psychiatrists and because they could not afford to pay for the services themselves. This government has ripped those Medicare items away from the most vulnerable people in the community—people who are usually homeless, who are almost always of low socioeconomic status and who have a mental illness. The government should hang their heads in shame for not being able to find it in their hearts to support those people. (Time expired)

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

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2010-2011 and related bills. I am proud to speak to this year’s budget, the third budget of the Rudd Labor government. They have been three extremely different budgets for different times, each responding to the circumstances we faced as a nation at the time. The first budget, still in the boom time before the global financial crisis really bit, began to tackle the barriers that faced the nation: a lack of investment in infrastructure over the decade of the previous government, investment in education which was falling behind the rest of the world and rising pressure on working families and individuals—all issues which impacted on the ability of businesses to get on and do what they do and on the capacity of families to do what they need to do.

In this place we must sometimes remember that, while the media tends to focus on us when we are here, people—individuals, families, businesses and community organisations—actually do the work. They build, they improve, they rescue, they support and sometimes they struggle. Governments are important, but we are not all-important. The global financial crisis has demonstrated to governments around the world just how much we can be affected by the actions of others. In this country, floods and fire have, in recent years, demonstrated how easily the best of plans—and sometimes our very lives—can be swept aside.

Nevertheless, governments are judged by whether their work generally improves the environment in which the community goes about its task. We are assessed on this in both the short and the long term. On coming to government after the biggest boom—there had been 20 years of it—and after 12 years of a conservative government, we faced some very significant structural issues. There had been a lack of investment in virtually everything: infrastructure and education, health, innovation, the skilling of our workforce, community infrastructure and the infrastructure needed to support developing businesses. We had lagging productivity growth. There was also significant strain on the volunteers and workers in our schools, hospitals and community clubs, who were putting more and more effort into holding things together to compensate for a lack of resources. Pensioners’ incomes had been whittled away over years. We faced extraordinary complexity in the way that the states and the Commonwealth interacted, with multiple sets of rules and regulations and a mismatch between who had the responsibility and who had the money. We had the blame game—something that there was a great deal of under the last government.

We had the problem of an ageing population, with rising health costs and all the associated cross-generational issues. We had a two-tiered economy—a booming mining sector which contributed significantly to those who worked in and around it and was great for the government’s bottom line, but which was impacting through the rest of the economy as inflation kicked in and interest rates rose, putting extraordinary pressure on homeowners around the country.

There was also pressure on working families, with strain in the family budget and increasing levels of personal debt. For me, however, the most surprising thing that we inherited was a lack of plans. The Howard government, after 12 years in office and 20 years of boom, did not actually have plans. The nation did not know where it needed to focus its attention. The government had no plan for infrastructure; no plan for capital investment in our teaching institutions; no plan to address rising health costs; no collective information on childcare needs, on skills or on housing; and no plan to tackle climate change. We were a nation with rivers of gold and the government left us with no plans. We were a nation of people, community groups and businesses working like crazy to keep our heads above water. Essentially we took over from a lazy government, a government with rivers of gold but no plans to set the nation up for the future, except one—a plan to drive down wages through Work Choices.

In our first budget just two years ago, we began investing in the nation’s future. We continued to invest through the global financial crisis and continue to invest through this budget in the foundations for a stronger, fairer economy and a stronger, fairer future for Australia. Budgets can only be assessed in the contexts in which they are delivered. The budget we have delivered this year would have been the wrong budget for the boom times of the past and it would have been insufficient to cope with the full-blown financial crisis of a year ago, but it is the right budget for this year. It is a budget for steady recovery from a global financial crisis not of our making and for a return to surplus. It is a budget that continues to prepare the economy for challenges ahead.

A quick look around the world at the condition of most developed nations shows them with substantial levels of debt—90 per cent of GDP or more; unemployment between eight per cent and 10 per cent; recessions; high levels of insolvencies in the business world; and repossessions of homes. Many countries around the world have faced significant loss of capital and skill base, and we could have suffered the same. We have not. In fact, our economic performance over the last two years is the envy of the developed world. The stimulus we put in place and the speed with which it was implemented was—despite the downside of the speed—the significant factor in keeping our people in work and our businesses afloat. That means that we are not now digging ourselves out of a deep hole. Our businesses have survived, our people have stayed in work, our assets are in place and we are in a better position to recover than most.

However, it is worth remembering that the economy is still recovering. We are in positive growth, but it is nowhere near back to where it was three years ago. At the time of the last budget just a year ago, it appeared that the global financial crisis would rip $210 billion off the forward estimates, and we are still down significantly on where we would have been without the global financial crisis. This is a responsible budget that will get us back in the black three years ahead of schedule and ahead of every major advanced economy.

I am particularly proud of the way that our community in Parramatta pulled together to keep people in jobs and help Australia avoid recession when the rest of the world was tumbling off a cliff. We saw people accept reduced hours, which was a wonderful thing, but they stayed in work, and we are in a very strong position to recover now. This budget builds on that strength to deliver for the people in my community in Parramatta while getting the budget back into surplus three years early, which is an extraordinary achievement. This budget converts Australia’s successes during the global recession into even lower unemployment for working people and families in my electorate.

I am particularly proud that this budget delivers on parental leave. It has been a long time coming. People in my electorate have lobbied long and hard for this, and Australia has lagged behind the world for a long time on it. Eighteen weeks at the minimum wage is particularly good for low-income workers, who are in the weakest bargaining position, and I will be very, very pleased to see it start at the beginning of next year.

I am also incredibly pleased to see the announcement of the increase in compulsory superannuation from nine per cent to 12 per cent. I remember when the last Labor government introduced compulsory super and how proud I was of that action. It was one of the great reforms of a Labor government. Many of us thought it would be difficult for it to rise from nine per cent, and, of course, it has been on pause there now for more than a decade. This is a significant reform. I know we will look back with great pride on the raising, albeit over several years, of superannuation from nine per cent to 12 per cent.

It is particularly good to see such a substantial increase in investment in health in this budget. I am particularly proud of the fact that the government has managed to make such substantial increases in times that are not what you could describe as being filled with manna from heaven. The global financial crisis has been a tough time for us all, even in this country, and I am particularly proud of the work that the government has done in health and what it has delivered in this budget.

The budget fully funds over the forward estimates the recently announced historic health and hospital reforms. The budget includes an additional $2.2 billion investment in the health system, which takes the government’s new investment in health reform to $7.3 billion over five years and $23 billion over the rest of the decade. The budget’s new health announcements include investments that will improve access to general practitioners and primary health care, including better after-hours services, 23 new GP superclinics and upgrades to around 425 GP and primary healthcare clinics across the nation.

This budget includes $523 million in additional support and training for our nurses, including aged-care nurses, who, as we know, are the backbone of our health system and have been underresourced for many, many years. Also included in the budget is a $467 million investment to modernise our health and hospital system through a new e-health initiative, which even the last government thought was well worth doing at the time. However, as we know, the opposition will now oppose this measure. It is, of course, a great measure. The ability to access and keep track of records is incredibly important, particularly for people in rural areas and people with chronic diseases, and it will contribute to better health outcomes for people around the country.

The introduction of personally controlled electronic health will mean less paperwork and better services no matter where you move in your life. The government is taking responsibility also for the majority share of hospital costs and full policy and funding responsibility for GP and primary care services and aged-care services. This will provide an increasing benefit to the states over time, starting with a guaranteed minimum of $15.6 billion in additional growth costs absorbed by the Commonwealth from 2014-15 to 2019-20.

I am puzzled by the opposition’s obstruction of many of these measures. They have already blocked improvements to dental health care and preventative health and they fought for months over the alcopops tax. They have vowed to withdraw funding for GP superclinics and e-health and they do not support the federal takeover. What they do support is anybody’s guess. We know that in government they ripped $1 billion out of public hospitals and they seem to believe that things are okay now. They are not. The health system, as we know it, needs substantial reform and this government is delivering it through this budget.

We have also continued our work on climate change in this budget, unable as we are to get the Senate to pass the emissions trading legislation. That is in spite of considerable work on and bipartisan support for an ETS at the last election and negotiations leading up to the second vote in the Senate. We have increased our funding in renewable energy with a new $652 million fund to support renewable energy and energy efficiency that will help households save on power bills. The government is committed to reducing our carbon pollution and tackling climate change. We can only wish that the opposition and the Greens had supported us in our intentions to introduce a carbon trading scheme for this nation.

The fund forms part of the government’s expanded $5.1 billion Clean Energy Initiative, which will provide additional support for the development and deployment of large- and small-scale renewable energy projects and the enhanced take-up of industrial, commercial and residential energy efficiency, helping Australian businesses and households reduce their energy consumption. The Renewable Energy Future Fund brings the government’s total investment in renewable and clean energy and energy efficiency to over $10 billion.

We have dramatically expanded the renewable energy target by four times to 20 per cent, so that by 2020 the equivalent of all household electricity will come from clean, renewable sources like wind and solar. We have made the largest ever investment in renewable energy technology development with over $2 billion committed to the development of wind, solar, geothermal and other clean energy sources. We have made the largest ever investment in clean coal with $2.5 billion committed to develop world-leading carbon capture and storage technology and we have short-listed four projects to move to the next stage of assessment under the carbon capture and storage program. We have committed over $5 billion in support for energy efficiency measures to help households and businesses cut their energy bills and reduce their emissions.

Of course this is not enough. The nation needs an emissions trading scheme to drive market innovation and investment. Without it, Australia will be frozen in the carbon age while the world moves forward. Australia thinks of itself as a country whose wealth is in the ground. We have done very well out of our soil and minerals, but I believe that our greatest wealth is that of our minds. We are an innately creative nation and should be leading the world in renewable technology as we once led the world in solar technology. The main purposes of an emissions trading scheme is to reward innovation that reduces our reliance on carbon based fuels and to put our greatest thinkers to work on developing solutions to tackle climate change.

Climate change is one of the great moral challenges of our time. The Liberals and the Greens opposition in the Senate, in spite of negotiations, has stalled some of the most important action that this government could take. For me, it will be one of the great disappointments of our first term in government that the opposition and the Greens chose to destroy our opportunity to act in a timely way on climate change. We now need to rebuild consensus, and there is a delay involved in that. But we must remember that we had consensus until the day that the leadership of the opposition changed, until the day that the vote took place in the Senate and the Greens and the opposition voted against the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

The nature of Australian politics over decades has required consensus from governments and oppositions. With people choosing to moderate power by selecting different governments at state and federal levels and having a bit of a bet each way in the Senate, governments for decades have accepted that consensus is a reality in Australian politics. In some of the short periods of time—and we saw one under the Howard government—when governments act without that consensus, we find that a nation swings backwards and forwards between two opposing positions, as we have, for example, on Work Choices. The need for consensus has served our nation well and has kept us on a rather stable path over many decades. Consensus is important on something as important as climate change if major reform is going to stick through subsequent elections and changes in government. It is unfortunate that we now have an opposition that has taken us back to the Howard era, before the Liberals decided that climate change was real. We hear members of the opposition, including the leader, talking about climate change as ‘absolute crap’. It is really a tragedy that the Greens as well have refused to support the bill in the Senate.

This budget continues to make an unprecedented investment in the nation’s transport infrastructure as part of our broader efforts to build a more productive economy and a more prosperous society. Though our first two budgets and the economic stimulus plan, the government has put in place a nation-building agenda which has already delivered both immediate and enduring gains. The government’s quick and decisive response to the global financial crisis helped keep some 200,000 Australians in jobs and Australia out of recession. The focus has now shifted from supporting the economy to productive economic capacity so that we can grow sustainably with lower inflation into the future.

This budget expands upon this nation-building agenda in a number of really important areas. It boosts rail productivity, supports the growth of aviation, improves safety standards within Western Sydney and continues the overhaul of transport regulations. All these measures will help create a seamless national economy and boost long-term productivity. The Rudd government’s massive investments mean Australia is only now emerging from a decade of neglect of vital infrastructure, and we are making this investment in an economic climate that has seen substantial hits to the bottom line.

We have doubled investment in roads, quadrupled investment in rail and made the first significant federal investment in urban passenger rail. Nearly $1 billion will be invested to further accelerate the modernisation of the interstate rail network. This new money brings the government’s total investment in this vital piece of infrastructure to $8.9 billion. In addition, the government has allocated $70 million to complete planning on the Moorebank intermodal terminal project, a facility with the potential to create thousands of jobs in Western Sydney, take one million trucks off Sydney’s roads each year and transform the movement of freight across the Sydney Basin.

I am particularly pleased to see low-income workers and seniors in Parramatta receive the third round of tax cuts in three years in this budget. This third round of tax cuts will put money in the pay packets of working families in Parramatta every week, helping hardworking individuals and families to balance their budgets. For three years in a row the Rudd government has helped working families in Parramatta balance their budgets by delivering tax cuts. These cuts are delivered despite the pressures placed on the budget by the global recession. I am also pleased to see the increase in the amount of income a senior Australian eligible for the senior Australian tax offset can earn before they pay income tax or the Medicare levy. (Time expired)

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

To the member for Parramatta, the stimulus did not save our economy from the North Atlantic financial crisis. Every single OECD country took out stimulus and yet they went into recession regardless. It was the mining industry that you are intending to punish that in fact saved the economy.

In his inaugural address as the newly elected third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson outlined what he felt were the constraints on government necessary in order that a free people would continue to prosper and remain happy. His message was a simple one—only one paragraph:

… a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government …

It took only one paragraph of his speech for Jefferson to outline what he felt the correct role of government is—and it is still as true now as it was then.

This government has strayed far from this simple message of restraint and freedom. Jefferson’s message is particularly pertinent as Australia finds itself in the grip of a nanny state government that feels it can encroach on the freedoms of all Australians through oppressive tax rates and socialist overtures. The government feels it is okay to use a word like ‘superprofit’, the language of the failed socialist ideologue Karl Marx, as an excuse for interfering in the economic affairs of free industry and a free country. Too much government and too much taxation—my constituents are sick of it. Bracket creep is one of the most insidious attacks on economic freedom. This government decided to ignore the ‘creep’ part and simply steal from one industry to pay for its reckless spending and lack of frugality.

There is a thief living amongst us. Under the veil of working families and the national good, the government has announced a great big new tax to redistribute the wealth and implement its socialist agenda. Thieving from the real economic heroes of the North Atlantic crisis, the government is falsely claiming credit for the recovery it had nothing to do with from the recession we never had. We should all be concerned about this thievery because history has all too many examples of people acting in an oppressive manner on behalf of the national need yet delivering nothing but oppression. And really is there anything more insidious than taxing hardworking people to engage in social engineering and electioneering.

Our great country was built on equal opportunity, but this does not always lead to equal outcomes. The government that tries to socially engineer outcomes ignores our national culture of hard work and self-reliance. This country was built not on big government but by hardworking Australians. Look at the resource industry; it has not always been as profitable as it is today. It took trailblazing pioneers and entrepreneurs to set up the industry we see today. Under their own direction these early miners built their small companies into thriving, vibrant contributors to Australia’s economic development. What do these companies get in return for all the jobs they have created, all the wealth they have given to this country, all the companies that have been set up to support their needs and all the Australians who have a bright future because of the risks they took? They get slugged with a profits tax of 40 per cent. Would these same pioneers and entrepreneurs have taken the initial risk if they new the government would tax 40 per cent of their profits? It is doubtful.

Exorbitant taxation is still a major consideration for companies making future investment decisions. The final slap for miners is the name of the tax—superprofits. I cannot even bring myself to say the word ‘super’ when discussing the tax. It is the free man’s oratorical equivalent of swearing in front of the pope. The term superprofit is nasty, filthy, hammer-and-sickle language that should be confined to the annals of socialist history.

Western Australians in particular are angry at the new resource tax, which will hit not only resources companies but the state more generally. Recent consumer sentiment indices have shown falls in confidence, with the lacklustre budget unlikely to improve the mood of investors. Much of this drop in confidence is a direct result of the uncertainty caused by the mining tax. This pessimism created by the government’s new tax is contagious, with market conditions and confidence in the economy dropping. Western Australian companies seem to be those most under pressure. The benchmark ASX200 saw a fall of 10 per cent, while in the same period 30 listed WA companies saw falls of 17 per cent. The new tax demonstrates the distortion created in markets when the government interferes unnecessarily. It also demonstrates the disproportionate effect of the tax on my state of Western Australia.

There are now daily reports of major mining projects being shelved or reviewed, and these are not isolated incidents or small-time projects. Oz Minerals have announced that their Prominent Hill mine expansion is on hold. Chief executive of BHP Billiton, Marius Kloppers, has been reported as confirming that any expansion of the Olympic Dam project would be frozen. Gas producer Santos has said it is holding off on the final investment decision on an LNG project in Queensland because of the tax. This project alone had the potential to create 5,000 jobs. Fortescue Metals have announced it will halt Pilbara projects worth $15 billion dollars, which could have created more than 30,000 jobs. Many of those jobs would have gone to Western Australians. Fortescue executive director Andrew Forrest said he tried getting hold of Wayne Swan and Kevin Rudd, but they did not return his calls.

Why should the mining industry have to bail out Labor’s $94 billion debt and $57.1 billion deficit? It is because certain people live in parliament house land and did not pick up the phone when the mining industry called looking for answers or consultation. Potentially 30,000 people have missed out on work, many of them Western Australians. I am sure my state will let the government know what they think of their new tax at the next election. This tax is not an academic adventure into theoretical outcomes of heavy taxation. These are real businesses that need to make decisions on the viability of projects, and a 40 per cent reduction in revenue may make some projects unviable or unprofitable.

Under a coalition government we would save a combined $46.7 billion in total cuts and eliminate bureaucratic wastage. Included in those measures would of course be the abolition of the mining tax. A coalition government would save Australians more of their tax dollars as well as saving the future of our mining industry. The government needs to think beyond the here and now of its political necessity. This is about the future of governance in our country. What kind of precedence does this tax set? What is this government going to do whenever it needs to raise some money to offset its profligate spending? Will it just introduce a new tax on now vulnerable profitable industries? How is this responsible governance? How does this provide certainty for business?

In no uncertain terms this resource tax represents the single greatest threat to profitable industry and wider political and economic freedom in this country. The government should ask itself when it became okay for it to wake up one day and decide that this was the correct role of government. The key theme of the story of Robin Hood was not robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, but the oppressive tax rates that made the poor so desperate that they had to steal. Even if the government gets its new tax, is there any certainty that big business will not just move to reduce its liabilities? Maybe the government’s indignation about the mining industry’s opposition to its tax would be a little easier to bear if it were not for the millions allocated in the budget to the government’s propaganda advertising campaign and union trust funds. This Labor government is robbing the miners to pay for their taxpayer funded re-election campaign.

How does the government justify its tax? They use public opinion polls and claim a moral mandate. The most absurd public opinion polls are always those on tax. If there is one thing we know about taxes, it is that people do not want to pay them. If they did, there would be no need for taxes. People would gladly figure out how much of their money the government deserved and mail it in. Yet we routinely hear from the government and their union mates about how opinion polls reveal that the public likes their tax rates and might even like them higher. Worse still is the argument that higher tax will be good for industry. Next the government will tell us the public thinks the crime rate is too low or that people would really like to be in more car accidents. If this was such a good thing for the mining industry, why not let them set their own tax rates—I am sure they would do what is right.

It is amusing to see who Labor has rolled out of the woodwork to stand up for its tax. The now climatically irrelevant Ross Garnaut has given his two cents worth. Dr Garnaut is the chairman of gold mining company Lihir, so he has scope to comment. It is strange, though, that Dr Garnaut came out in favour of the tax, considering his fellow mining executives have all been ardently opposed to it. Maybe it is not so strange when you consider Lihir has most of its mining operations in West Africa and Papua New Guinea. I am also assuming Dr Garnaut wrote his book Taxation of mineral rents before his current position with Lihir. He probably regrets writing this academic adventure into socialist thought now he lives in the real world as the head of a real company. Dr Garnaut also has much to say about what he feels is a scare campaign being run by the mining industry. Yet he has nothing to say about trade union leaders running their own campaigns against the tax. It is odd, because it really has nothing to do with them at all. Maybe Dr Garnaut could encourage union leaders to butt out of public debates that do not concern them.

Please do not get me wrong or twist my words here—nobody is suggesting government does not have a role to play in regulating markets or the wider economy. This is about government knowing its place as a facilitator and not as the key driver of economic growth. Government is a zero sum gain, and even if some net social gain is achieved, money in does not equal money out.

I would also like to address the arguments about government debt. While we hear these arguments about having the lowest debt of all developed nations, I am far from impressed. There is a myth that government deficits do not have a crowding-out effect on private investment, yet logic tells you that if savings and investment go into government bonds there is less productive investment and savings in the market than there would have been. As well as deficits, excessive government spending also crowds out private investment and saving. The government must judiciously keep tax rates low to avoid economic stagnation and allow maximum economic freedom.

In 1901-02, the first full year of Commonwealth government, Commonwealth spending represented five per cent of GDP. This year government expenditure will reach close to $340 billion or 26 per cent of GDP. This is a lot of government, and it is run by a lot of bureaucrats. When he was in opposition, Kevin Rudd said that the public service needed a ‘meat axe’ taken to it. Since he took office the federal public service has swollen by 10,000 people. A meat axe administered by a vegetarian perhaps! Staff positions in the Prime Minister’s own department, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, will grow to more than 700, a 32 per cent increase compared with last year. Staff numbers will continue to grow in those federal departments that deal chiefly with policy, yet so-called operational divisions, like Fisheries, the Family Court and even Centrelink, are all expected to lose staff. Somehow the Department of Climate Change received funding for new offices to prepare for a higher intake of staff. What these people will be doing, as the government has no policy on climate change, I have no idea. Positions at the senior executive level on salaries which start at $130,000 a year have hit 2,900. The Prime Minister has no razor and no gang. He is expanding the size of government and at the same time reducing the productive capacity of the private sector. Worse still, as reported in the budget papers, the government’s Career Transition and Support Centre in the Australian Public Service Commission will assist staff and agencies affected by downsizing. This commission itself is expecting a 20 per cent growth in its staff levels over the coming year. This is bureaucracy on steroids and Jefferson’s words are ringing in my ears: ‘a wise and frugal government’.

I read recently that the trade minister was approached by Chinese officials worried that the new 40 per cent tax will push commodity prices even higher. You would expect him to respond with, ‘This tax will be good for our industry and wider economy.’ He did not. Simon Crean asked the Chinese to have a say in how the tax should be implemented. If not for the seriousness of a government cabinet minister asking a foreign country how to run our taxation system and almost committing treason, his comments demonstrate the problems internally that this tax is creating for the government.

The Australian tax office reported statistics recently showing that profitability across the mining sector was lower than for various other industries, including health care, real estate and agricultural companies. Are Australians really better off when taxation is increased? This tax will not only affect the mining industry but will affect all related industries, including the finance sector, which has investments in mining equities. Australia does not have a monopoly on minerals and must compete for funds internationally to develop its mineral projects. Foreign investment will find the projects of best value. Unlike petroleum, where the demand on our resources is relatively inelastic due to relatively limited supply, for other resources the situation is vastly different. This new tax will weaken the ability of mining and resource companies to compete for investment in future projects.

Yes, big mining has much to lose from this tax but it is because of this potential loss that all of Australia, especially Western Australia and my electorate of Tangney, have much to lose if this tax is approved. This tax challenges fundamentally the correct role of government in a free society. This government has overstepped its role as the facilitator of growth and in doing so puts in jeopardy our free market system. This tax puts in danger the future of our industry and of our nation. It is already damaging us. For Julia Gillard to say that the precipitous fall of our dollar is due to the weakening European economic situation and other nations going to the greenback is both misleading and shows a scary misunderstanding of the actual situation. Perhaps she should explain why our dollar has fallen against the pound and the euro in addition to the US dollar? I urge the government to rethink its great big new tax and its approach to sensible governance in what should be a free country.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not normally have much to say about the member for Tangney’s contributions to debate; anyway, on with my speech. I rise to speak in support of Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2010-2011 and the related bills before the House. I commend the efforts of the Treasurer and of the Minister for Finance and Deregulation in delivering a responsible budget to guard Australia in uncertain economic times. I know the people of Moreton are relieved to have a safe and responsible hand on our nation’s rudder that will return the good ship, Australia’s budget, to surplus nearly three years early. Our economy truly is the envy of the world. While many nations, particularly in Europe, are still feeling the effects of the crisis, Australia’s economy is growing, our industries are surging and our unemployment levels are steadily improving. The Rudd Labor government provided the leadership, direction and stimulus to keep our economy from short-circuiting but it was all Australians—especially our businesses, small and large; our construction companies; our manufacturers and other industries like hospitality—that kept Australians employed throughout the crisis.

None of us want to see a repeat of the crisis that unfolded in the latter part of 2008. Once every 75 years is enough for me. But there are some worrying signs in the global marketplace still. The Greeks might not be bearing gifts for quite a while, and you never know what challenges may lie ahead. Thankfully, Australians know that they can trust the Rudd Labor government to manage the economy responsibly and calmly both in good times and in bad. Australians know they can trust a Rudd Labor government to govern in the national interest and for the nation’s future. We do not make short-term, risky decisions that are more motivated by political shenanigans than good policy or economic responsibility.

I am very proud of the achievements of the Rudd Labor government since November 2007. Australia, thankfully, is not the same country it was during the Howard years. In opposition Labor promised a more compassionate Australia, and that is what we have delivered in government. The former Liberal-National coalition government was the government of Rottweilers on the waterfront, of Work Choices, the government of climate change denial, the government of wheat for weapons, the government of ‘children overboard’ and kids behind razor wire, and the government that refused to apologise to the stolen generations. It was a lazy government that found good times when they received the keys to the Lodge, but still the coalition government had a miserable heart.

I am proud to say Australia is a different country nowadays. The apologies delivered to the stolen generations on 13 February 2008 and to the forgotten Australians on 16 November 2009 are the highlights from my time in this Australian parliament. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s address is a close third. I will well remember the first two events as holy moments, when both sides of politics put aside the usual bravado and let the parliament of the people simply say sorry for the past wrongs of past governments. Wrongs can be carried by families for generations—like curly hair or green eyes, the past is forever with us. The true significance of these apologies will only be known to those families and those groups most affected by the wrongs of the past. They know the healing. I saw the tears, but they really know. Even then the outcomes are not necessarily readily tangible, but sorry is the start of moving on and restoring people who have been broken or damaged or hurt by governments, irrespective of how well intentioned the politicians and public servants of the day were.

There is another significant group of Australians who have been wronged by a previous government’s policies that emanated from a chamber located under the same coat of arms we now sit under. I refer to those Australians affected by the racist and discriminatory White Australia policy—a policy that particularly targeted Pacific islanders and the Chinese diaspora. This policy was introduced by Prime Minister Edmund Barton on 7 August 1901 as one of the first acts of the Australian parliament after Federation. It received royal assent on 23 December 1901. That was some early Christmas present to those who came across the sea after hearing we had boundless plains to share! That was a Christmas present delivered by the government of the day. Our first Prime Minister, Edmund Barton, led the Protectionist Party, and he argued:

The doctrine of the equality of man was never intended to apply to the equality of the Englishman and the Chinaman.

Not the ‘Englishwoman’ or the ‘Chinawoman’, obviously. That was the language of the day. But Alfred Deakin, the Attorney-General and first member for Ballarat, gave the game away when he argued:

It is not the bad qualities, but the good qualities of these alien races that make them so dangerous to us. It is their inexhaustible energy, their power of applying themselves to new tasks, their endurance and low standard of living that make them such competitors.

This was the crux of the ‘yellow peril’ cry which believed Asian immigration would threaten ‘white wages’ and ‘white standards of living’. Maybe I could use the terms ‘English wages’ and ‘English standards of living’. Irrespective of the various political arguments aired at the time of its introduction to the parliament, the White Australia policy restricted non-white immigration to Australia. It did so on the basis of language skills rather than a blatant banning of non-whites or non-English. Any controversy regarding the bill was about how to implement a white immigration policy rather than the virtue of so doing.

The Immigration Restriction Bill 1901 received virtually unanimous support. The names are not recorded in the parliamentary debates of the time. The first member for the Federation seat of Moreton, James Wilkinson, voted for it. As only the ninth member to represent the seat of Moreton, I feel the weight of responsibility to try to make right the vote of my predecessor. It was a discriminatory policy. It was a racist policy. It was wrong. It was un-Christian, unfair, unfounded and in the honest light of today almost unforgivable. The policy has hurt, or harmed, or disturbed or insulted many thousands of people since 1901. It is a stain on the fabric of this great democratic nation. Perhaps now it is time for parliament to contemplate some gesture of reconciliation. I want to place before this House a measure of ‘definite and high policy’, which are Edmund Barton’s words from his second reading speech, quoting from the parliamentary debates from the first session of the first parliament.

I acknowledge this policy was formulated in very different times and by largely well-meaning politicians, but we modern day Australians now should consider taking responsibility for the mistakes of then. Maybe we should do so as a nation so that we can truly move on. Maybe we should do so because it is truly the right thing to do. If not us, then who? If not in our time, then when? Will the 10th member for Moreton say sorry, will the 20th member for Moreton say sorry, or will it be the 50th member? An apology would help us tell and explore and learn from the untold stories of then and since 1901. For example, our modern, progressive history books tell us, albeit briefly, that there was a strong anti-Chinese sentiment in Australia in the 19th century that carried right through until the beginning of last century. There was the Palmer River goldfield massacre in Queensland, where Chinese people were slaughtered by miners. During one anti-Chinese rally in the 1890s, every window of the many Chinese businesses in Brisbane were smashed—not in Berlin, but in Brisbane.

These shameful racist actions and sentiments, I must admit and I am sorry to say, were also present in the formation of the Australian Labor Party. The early unionists organised unashamedly against the endeavours of Chinese workers. Thankfully, the White Australia policy was gradually dismantled after World War II and formally abolished by the Whitlam government in 1973. I was only in grade 3, so it is not that long ago at all. Thank you to Gough Whitlam and I hope he gets well soon.

The Racial Discrimination Act 1975 set the nation on a more steady course to a more harmonious future. Parliament back in 1975 was prepared to show courage to let us all combine to advance Australia. Nevertheless, the hurt and shame the immigration restriction legislation and subsequent acts caused many thousands of people remains. There are traces of it in many communities. You do not have to travel far at all. Of course, there are still some from time to time, like a certain former member for Oxley and her failed One Nation party, who still argue for a return to those dark, troubled days of old. Even in this chamber we still hear the occasional dog whistle, but for the most part Australia has matured into a thriving, compassionate, harmonious and understanding multicultural society. Nowhere can you experience this any better than on Brisbane’s south side, where we enjoy a strong, vibrant and interconnected society, with tangled roots stretching all around the globe—Australian taproots but runners going off everywhere.

I myself have a whitebread past, but I proudly represent an electorate where one in three residents was born overseas. We are a truly diverse community—red, yellow, black and white—but we are also a welcoming, tolerant and forgiving community. The Moreton electorate is experiencing rapid population growth, at around 16 per cent, and in recent years we have seen many new arrivals settle from Sudan, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Iraq, South Africa and Afghanistan, to name but a few. The Moreton electorate is also home to a thriving Chinese diaspora, hailing from Taiwan, from mainland China, from Malaysia, from Hong Kong, from Fiji, from Papua New Guinea and from other parts of the globe. There is an Islamic community from Africa, Europe and Asia. There is an African community also. There are Indians from Fiji and elsewhere, lots of British, Koreans, Vietnamese and many others, and I am sorry if I have left them off the list. I am proud of my multicultural society and the efforts of everyone to share our space and to get along, but we have to work hard at it.

We all know the greatest challenge to harmony is ignorance, as demonstrated by the words I quoted from our first Prime Minister back in 1901, from the parliamentary debates. Ignorance fuels misunderstanding, and misunderstanding intolerance. We must not let this happen. That is why I started a Moreton multicultural reference group, uniting community leaders from many different backgrounds at the one table. We get together regularly to thrash out the issues and challenges that face us all. It is also why I have held a Muslim roundtable with our Islamic leaders, to help drive greater understanding and head off misunderstandings early. That is why I support United Nations style soccer tournaments in my electorate. It is why I am working with the African community in Moorooka to support local traders and to hopefully secure funds for a community centre with a library attached. It is why I have joined a committee that is dedicated to constructing a war memorial at the Sunnybank RSL to honour the service and sacrifice of Australian armed service personnel of Chinese descent.

The Chinese diaspora made significant contributions, even as far back as the Boer War, but particularly in the First World War and the Second World War, even the conflict in Malaya, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and in other conflicts around the globe—even though in some of these conflicts overseas they were not even classed as citizens at home. There are no records of exactly how many Chinese-Australians have served in our armed forces, because many lied about their ethnicity to join up. But we do know that many Australian-Chinese have a proud history with our armed forces. Billy Sing is one I could mention—there is even a movie coming out about his history and his achievements.

At the very same time that Chinese-Australians were prepared to fight and die at war for this country, Australia held onto the racist White Australia policy and actively called for the deportation of Chinese and other Asians who had put down their roots in this wide brown land. The local Sunnybank RSL, the Chinese community and other community members are working together on this memorial project because we believe that the stories of Australian-Chinese service personnel need to be told, need to be honoured and need to be commemorated.

I was pleased to have the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, the Hon. Alan Griffin, attend a fundraising dinner for this memorial last Saturday night at Sunnybank’s famous yum cha restaurant, the Landmark. Not only did the community dig deep for the whole project, but we also announced the memorial’s winning design, by Griffith University architecture student Sarah Batchelor, and I am proud to say that she is a Moreton constituent. Even though we had entries from all around South-East Queensland, thankfully a Moreton constituent won. Sarah’s design features a black granite base, a stainless steel bowl and two structures designed to look like smoke or fire rising from the bowl. You can have a look at my webpage to see the design, as my words do not do it justice. Sarah’s design captures the Chinese tradition of burning incense to commemorate the dead and the Australian ode to the fallen, ‘Lest we forget.’ The winning design was not chosen by me; it was chosen by the Memorial Steering Committee in consultation with the RSL and a local feng shui master.

The memorial will be constructed in the Veterans Memorial Gardens at Sunnybank RSL and will honour the service and sacrifice of the Chinese diaspora in the Australian defence forces. It will be a focal point for future commemorative services and a place to appropriately honour the military contributions of our Chinese-Australians. This project is being driven by a lot of goodwill in my local community. While I hope there will be some federal dollars made available for this project, it is largely being funded by the generous donations of local citizens, particularly our Chinese-Australians, or Australian-Chinese.

We can never undo the injustice of the past, but we can provide some hope for the future. This evening I begin the call for an apology to Australians affected by this racist White Australia policy—Pacific Islanders, too, but particularly the Chinese diaspora. Fair-minded Australians should consider whether it is time to say sorry or carry out some other gentle form of reconciliation. That this policy came into law is a sad fact and a low in Australia’s history, but it is an incontrovertible fact from our history. We should not deny it. Instead, we should acknowledge the hurt still carried by many in our community who have connections stretching back to the Middle Kingdom. It is time to begin the journey towards ‘sorry’. We must apologise to the generations of Chinese-Australians, or Australian-Chinese, the Chinese diaspora or whatever they wish to be called. I should point out that the committee that organised this memorial competition was in agreement on everything except what we should call the Chinese-Australians, the Australian-Chinese or the Chinese diaspora—but that is committees for you. We cannot right the wrong. We cannot rewrite history, but we can start to write the future.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The foundations of the 2010 budget were laid in the panic of the 2009 budget. A little over a year ago the Rudd government was faced with an economic environment of considerable uncertainty. Concerned that the Australian economy would follow other developed economies into recession, the Rudd government embarked on the largest and most extravagant spending spree, or fiscal stimulus, in our history. The massive level of fiscal stimulus, over $60 billion, was one of the highest in the OECD, notwithstanding our economic circumstances were, and were recognised to be, much better than those of any comparable country.

First, we went into the downturn with no central government debt—in fact, thanks to the hard work of the coalition in government, we had cash in the bank. Second, our banking system was well regulated—again, thanks to the reforms of the coalition in government. Our banking system had a very small exposure to sub-prime lending and was in every respect financially stronger and more secure than its counterparts in America and Europe. Third, our economy was enjoying the benefit of strong and growing demand for our resources from strong economic growth in China and India, among other developing countries.

Faced with the inherent uncertainties of the circumstances we were in, and in the knowledge that we were better positioned than comparable countries, a prudent government would have spent less and spent it more wisely. That was precisely the counsel we gave the government at the time, and precisely the counsel they ignored. Had they heeded our advice there would have been no home insulation disaster, with all its tragic consequences; nor would there have been billions wasted on the Julia Gillard Memorial Assembly Hall program. And, if the government had chosen to spend less, and more wisely, the 2010-11 budget would have started off with a materially lower deficit.

So the 2010-11 budget’s massive deficit of $40 billion this financial year and $57 billion next year—the largest in our history—is in large measure a consequence of the panic of 2009. The Rudd government can argue that at the time it believed it was staring into an abyss and that all around it there was gloom and disaster. But, having overspent in 2009, and the subsequent strong performance of our economy demonstrating how ill-judged was last year’s budget, how can the government justify in this budget failing to do anything to reverse the massive increase in public spending it set in train last year?

Niall Ferguson recently reminded us that, while Milton Friedman may have been right in saying inflation was always a monetary phenomenon, blow-outs in public debt, and public debt crises, are always and everywhere a political phenomenon. He wrote:

They are consequences of political weakness. Excessive expenditure and insufficient taxation, failures to make decisions about unsustainable fiscal policies are political; they are not the results of profound economic processes.

So, just as last year’s overspending was the consequence of political panic, this year’s lack of action to remedy that overspending and cut back on expenditure is the consequence of political weakness.

The largest new policy contribution to government revenues over the forward estimates comes from the proposed resource superprofits tax, which seeks to replace state royalties for the extraction of natural resources with a new profit based tax which will raise an additional $9 billion in net revenue for the Commonwealth in its full year of operations. Many market analysts have expressed the view that that $9 billion is a low figure and that on a steady state the take from the mining industry will be substantially more. The tax will substantially increase the share of mining companies’ profits taken by government and, in that respect, it can only reduce the attractiveness of investment in the Australian resources sector. The government has argued that, paradoxically, increasing the tax on mining companies will increase investment in the mining sector—yet at the same time it proudly boasts that its increased tobacco excise will reduce smoking. Their claim is barely credible.

The tax is described as a ‘superprofits’ tax and seeks to tax 40 per cent of a mine’s profit after deducting its expenses, including depreciation of capital investment. Before calculating the taxable profit figure the expenses are uplifted by a percentage equal to the 10-year Commonwealth bond rate, currently around 5.7 per cent. Describing a profit which is over 5.7 per cent as a ‘superprofit’ is absurd. It could more fairly be described as a ‘slightly better than thoroughly anaemic profits’ tax. The government argues that this risk-free rate is appropriate because, under the new tax scheme, the Commonwealth is prepared to refund to the taxpayer 40 per cent of any unrecovered losses from the mining project at its closure. The government therefore is proposing to effectively nationalise 40 per cent of every resource project in Australia, seeking 40 per cent of the profits in return for offering, at a long-away date, to pick up 40 per cent of the losses. In other words, the government argues that only 60 per cent of the capital invested in the project is subject to the normal commercial risks of the project failing—the remaining 40 per cent is underpinned by the Commonwealth’s commitment.

Moving out of the Treasury and into the real world, the fact is that this ‘Commonwealth put’, over 40 per cent of the project’s losses, will not reduce the capital costs of mining projects as the Treasury supposes. That proposition, upon which the whole economic argument for the tax depends, is highly theoretical and completely untested. The market’s judgment is that all the tax does is reduce the returns available to investors and therefore it undermines the attractiveness of the sector as a whole.

Most major mining companies operate in many countries. Mining is truly a global industry, and countries compete not just in the quality of the resources on offer but in terms of their taxation. In a study published last week, Goldman Sachs JBWere concluded that the superprofits tax will make the Australian mining sector the highest taxed in the world. They give as an example the case of iron ore. They show that the total tax burden on iron ore projects in Australia will be 56.8 per cent, whereas in Brazil, our most important competitor, it will be 35.8 per cent.

It is natural that, with projects involving massive long-term investments, investors are going to be very sensitive not simply to the tax rates but to the fiscal stability and, indeed, predictability of the countries where the mines are to be located. So any government seeking to make a major change to the way in which mining companies are taxed should ensure that the changes brought about are after thorough and detailed consultation with the industry. Here, of course, there was plenty of potential for that consultation. The mining industries have for years argued that profits are a more appropriate basis for levying royalties than gross revenues or, indeed, volume of production. So the fundamental premise of the change was not in contention. There was therefore every opportunity and every reason to consult widely before finalising the shape of the new tax—the less of a surprise and the better understood the tax was prior to its announcement, the more measured would have been its reception.

But the government chose not to do that. It could have very readily released the Henry tax review when it was presented to the government in December last year and there could have been a fully informed discussion about the recommendations of the Henry tax review, including those that related to resource taxation. Given that this was clearly an essential item in the thinking of the Henry tax review and the government, a paper on this issue could have been produced, such as a green paper, and made the subject of thorough consultation in the course of last year. There was every opportunity to engage the industry which, as I said a moment ago, was prepared to consider reforms to the way royalties were levied. Goldman Sachs concludes that the current resource super profits tax proposal risks altering a long-established perception of Australia as a country with fiscal stability.

The upshot of all of this is that we have the government imposing a great big new tax in conditions of great uncertainty and confusion—all created by the government itself. The inevitable consequence has been a loss of confidence both in the government and in Australia as an investment destination. We have seen politicians from Canada leaping onto the television to make sure that everybody knows they offer a more predictable and more friendly taxation environment for mining companies. Projects in Australia are being put on hold or abandoned. Thousands of jobs are at risk, as are billions of dollars of investment, whether it is in the hands of the mining companies or the Australian households whose super funds have invested in the mining companies and which have been devastated by the destruction of value caused by the government’s handling of this matter.

The Commonwealth bank’s budget summary is headed ‘From China with love’, and that is a fair comment because fundamental to the budget’s optimistic view of our economic future is the assumption that Chinese demand for our resources will continue unabated with our terms of trade rising to a 60-year high next year. This big bet on continued Chinese demand is the assumption that underpins the mining tax. The government assumes that Chinese demand will be so strong, that commodity prices will be so high, that the industry will be able to bear a substantial increase in the government’s share of its profits. And this is the fundamental point that we must not forget. We can debate the design of the tax—profit base versus gross revenues. We can debate the question of whether it should apply only to new projects, as the industry contends, or whether it should apply to all projects. We can argue the toss about whether it should apply differentially to different minerals. But at the end of the day the fundamental economic reality is that this is a substantial increase in the government’s share of the profit pool generated by the business of mining in Australia. That, inevitably, must have the consequence of reducing the attractiveness of investing in that industry, because the pool of profits available to investors has been reduced by the government increase in taxation.

Recent events in Europe have reminded us that the global economy is a long way from being out of the woods. While we sagely observe that Greece’s financial woes and near bankruptcy are the product of unsustainable government borrowing and spending, we should note that the government debt of many other countries is not far enough behind for any comfort. Indeed, there are a number of developed countries where the levels of government debt are well ahead of the levels in Greece. We also need to recognise in this uncertain world that a linear continuation of high levels of economic growth in China is by no means assured, and again debt is at the centre of those concerns. The true level of government debt in China is difficult to discern, because so much debt has been raised by state owned enterprises, local governments and, in particular, local government owned investment companies. China’s RMB4 trillion stimulus package—13 per cent of GDP—announced in 2008 was enormous by any standard, but additional to this investment has been another RMB20 trillion, an additional investment, by local government investment companies.

Much of the investment activity undertaken by these local investment companies owned by local governments has been in real estate development, which has fuelled the growing real estate bubble which the Chinese government has very recently been endeavouring, insofar as it can, to deflate. Professor Victor Shih of Northwestern University has recently estimated that, taking into account the indebtedness of these local government owned investment companies, the real level of government related debt in China would be close to RMB40 trillion in 2011, or 96 per cent of GDP, and 4.6 times total government revenue. This is a high estimate. There are estimates around, including from Goldman Sachs, which are considerably lower than that, but on any view the real level of government related debt in China is dramatically higher than that in the official figures. Professor Shih’s estimate would place China among the countries with the highest debt to GDP ratio; however, it is worth noting that, like Japan, China’s high level of indebtedness is almost entirely funded from domestic sources. Indeed, one of the aspects of the Chinese debt story that may well develop a political dimension is that this has been a very bad deal for thrifty Chinese households who have been depositing their savings in banks at low interest rates, and the money is then lent on to government related corporations. Household thrift has been subsidising government waste.

Of course, as households receive inadequate, negative real returns on deposits, many have naturally sought to buy property as a hedge against inflation and this has also contributed to the housing bubble. The China economist Michael Pettis calculates that at a minimum the subsidy paid by households to banks and their mostly government related borrowers in the form of excessively low rates on their deposits is five per cent of GDP per annum and possibly up to twice that amount. There is a high degree of uncertainty, as I said a moment ago, about these estimations of total government related indebtedness. The question exercising the minds of policy makers and market analysts therefore is: what is the likelihood of Chinese banks suffering a very high non-performing loan ratio leading to the need for a government bailout of banks and government owned investment companies?

And what are the implications of all this for economic activity in China? So far this year there have been mixed signals from the central government with some leaders calling for banks to cut their exposure to local investment companies and real estate investment more generally, with others indicating that a continuation of stimulus fiscal and monetary policies is appropriate. Recognising the risks in making forecasts about a market which is so complex and so lacking in transparency, we must, nonetheless, recognise that there is a substantial risk that the Chinese government may respond to the massive growth in debt by restricting new lending and perhaps by fiscal consolidation—raising taxes, perhaps by taxing property—all of which would certainly put a crimp on growth in construction and hence demand for our commodity exports.

The risks associated with the Chinese boom continuing therefore are plain enough, yet there is very little evidence that they are being taken into account by the government in this budget. A more prudent government considering a new resource tax, for example, may have directed at least a portion of the proceeds of that tax to government saving, perhaps in the form of a sovereign wealth fund, so that there is an ability to fund deficit spending when the boom goes sour and an ability, as and when required, to invest outside of Australia as a means to take upward pressure off our own exchange rate.

Dr Henry in a recent speech rejected this idea largely, it seems, on the basis that the revenue surge was going to be long-lived, in which case he said, ‘The alternative of tax cuts,’ permitting the private sector to make its own savings and investment decisions, ‘should always be considered first.’ Whatever the merits of that argument—a sovereign wealth fund to save for a rainy day versus immediate tax cuts—it is revealing that he regards the surge in revenue from the resources boom as being long-lived. In other words, it appears that the Treasury does not anticipate any material interruption to the high rate of growth in China.

Returning to the theme with which I began this speech, the government’s attitude to China is similar to its approach to the global financial crisis last year. In each case the government is confronted with uncertainty, and the question is how to respond to it with policy. Last year the government concluded that we were staring into a bottomless abyss, so bleak was the future. This year it concludes we are riding a boom which will never end.

A more prudent judgment would say that neither conclusion was likely to be correct. Certainly, a wiser policy response would be one which gives you the flexibility to deal with the possibility that outcomes may not be as bad—or this year, as good—as you imagine. Last year it made sense to spend less, more wisely and, if circumstances required, to then consider spending some more. As I said at the time, the parliament was not closing down; it was always open to the government to come back and spend more if it needed to. Firing off all the ammunition in the first engagement, as the government did, deprived it of any flexibility and it was left spending far more money than it would have done had it known how the economy would actually perform.

Equally, this year the government is not making enough savings and is continuing to spend on the assumption that revenues will remain strong indefinitely. A more prudent approach would be to cut expenditure more, reduce debt and make more savings from the mining boom’s revenue bonanza so that, if things do not go as well as expected, we have the fiscal flexibility to respond.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2010-2011, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2010-2011 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2010-2011. On 11 May the Treasurer delivered his third budget for the 2010-11 year and beyond. It was a responsible budget. It was a fair budget. It was a prudent budget. It was a budget that struck the right balance at a time of continuing global volatility and uncertainty. It was a budget keeping Australia’s economy strong while securing Australia’s future. It was a budget that reinforces the government’s sound economic credentials. Having carefully steered the Australian economy away from recession, Australia is now projected to have a budget surplus in 2012-13—that is, three years earlier than previously predicted. Significantly, national debt will peak at just 6.1 per cent, which is less than one-tenth the average of other advanced economies. This was a budget that from all credible economic commentators got a tick of approval.

It is a budget that even the opposition have been unable to discredit, and so the opposition have had to resort to the desperate line that the Australian people should simply not believe the budget forecasts—forecasts, I might say, that have been produced by Treasury and which, to my knowledge, have not been refuted by any reputable economic analyst. The opposition produce no evidence, no analysis or any expert authority to support their claim that the budget forecasts are not achievable. But, typical of the opposition, if you cannot credibly argue a case with facts, you resort to a fear campaign and simple rhetoric. If you say something often enough, people may believe you.

What was more telling was the opposition’s erratic response to the budget. It began with the Leader of the Opposition’s budget reply speech, a reply which highlighted several points. Firstly, the opposition leader simply does not understand economics and he has no economic credibility. I am not surprised that people like former Liberal leader John Hewson and former Treasurer Peter Costello echo these sentiments. Secondly, it was a budget aimed at appealing to the extreme sectors of the Liberal Party. Thirdly, it was a budget reply lacking the detail that the Australian people are entitled to expect from the alternative government. The opposition leader squibbed and passed that responsibility on to the shadow Treasurer, who, we were told, would reveal all at the National Press Club address on 19 May. We know what happened at the Press Club. Only at the end of his address did the shadow Treasurer provide journalists with any details of the opposition’s budget strategy. Why? So that he could not be quizzed by journalists on the alternative budget. He then passed the opposition budget response on, like a hot potato, to the member for Goldstein, who in turn had to be saved by a staff member. No-one in the opposition wants to take ownership of the opposition’s budget response.

What was just as noticeable was the half-hearted, lacklustre response to the budget by both the member for North Sydney, the shadow Treasurer, and the member for Goldstein, the opposition shadow finance minister, in their appropriation addresses to parliament only yesterday. I listened to both of them. I would have thought that from the two economic spokesmen of the opposition we could have expected a more passionate display in their responses to the budget—if they genuinely believed in what they were saying. Clearly, they did not.

The opposition leader did, however, in his budget reply, reveal his core beliefs. What we saw from the opposition leader’s budget response was that the real Tony Abbott was once again exposed and that the opposition leader wants to take us back to the past. He wants to bring back Work Choices. He wants to cut thousands of Public Service jobs. He wants to cut health and education spending. He has form on that because, as we all know, he cut $1 billion out of the health budget when he was Minister for Health and Ageing in the previous government. He opposes superannuation. He stands, first and foremost, for big business and multinational companies and his pretentious support for small and medium businesses has now been exposed.

But it goes further. The opposition leader has admitted that he cannot be believed unless he is providing a scripted reply. What has now been exposed is that even his scripted announcements cannot be taken as ‘the gospel truth’—to use his words—after it was revealed by the Minister for Finance and Deregulation yesterday that previously announced scripted opposition policies, such as allowing small business to carry back tax losses, getting rid of the means testing of the baby bonus and family tax benefits and reversing the tightening of concessional superannuation tax treatment, have been axed, whilst funding for the so-called ‘green army’ commitment and the Toowoomba Bypass has been substantially reduced. These were scripted, gospel truth commitments made by the opposition, and it is clear that even they cannot be relied on because either they have been axed or the funding has been dramatically cut.

The government’s management of the Australian economy in the face of the worst global recession since the Great Depression has been the envy of other advanced economies. Notably, not once in their budget responses have opposition members acknowledged the global financial crisis. I was pleased to hear that the member for Wentworth actually did that just now. He is probably the first opposition member to do so. Do they really believe that the Australian people have no understanding of the global financial difficulties that Australia has had to deal with and that we still face? Time and time again they credit former Treasurer Peter Costello’s surplus with having saved the economy when it was confronted by the economic crisis that we have endured over the last 18 months or so. I remind members opposite that, even if they want to believe that—and I certainly do not—Peter Costello is no longer in this House. He deserted them some months ago.

I am particularly concerned that, if elected, an Abbott government would cut Building the Education Revolution funding and the funding for trade training centres. I have spoken with most of the schools in the Makin electorate about their BER projects. Without exception, they are very appreciative and supportive of the program. Last Sunday I was at the Torrens Valley Christian School for the official opening of the school’s new covered outdoor learning area and new arts and science classrooms. Torrens Valley Christian School commenced in 1980 as a non-denominational reception to year 12 school. It is not a wealthy school, but with the hard work of the school community and some government support along the way it has grown to be a school of around 600 students. I have visited the school on several occasions, including jointly with the Prime Minister to see the school’s guitar-making program, run by John Fox. I know parents whose children attend the school and I hear nothing but praise and compliments about Torrens Valley Christian School.

Last Sunday parents and teachers told me that the BER funding provided to the Torrens Valley Christian School by the Rudd government has enabled the school to deliver on the school’s long-term vision years, perhaps decades, earlier than otherwise would have been possible. The beneficiaries of the government’s funding will be the young people and teachers who otherwise would never have had those facilities. I take this opportunity to acknowledge the leadership role of school board chairman Andrew Ferguson and principal Nigel Bennett as they continue with the next of the BER capital works already underway at the school.

A fortnight earlier, I was at Modbury South Primary School, with the Deputy Prime Minister, for the opening of their new school hall. Adjacent to Modbury South Primary School are Modbury Special School and Modbury High School. All three of those schools are getting new facilities. All three of those schools, from my discussions with them, are very appreciative of what they are getting. Most of the schools in the Makin electorate have their BER projects underway—but not all. The opposition announcement that they will cut BER funding if they are elected will place at risk and disadvantage St Agnes Primary School, Our Lady of Hope School, Ingle Farm Primary School, Modbury West Primary School, North Ingle School and Salisbury East High School, which I understand have not yet commenced their BER projects. The children, teachers and parents at those schools will, quite rightly, want to know why their schools have missed out if the opposition blocks that funding.

For small business, the government’s 2010-11 budget provides a company tax rate cut from 30 per cent to 28 per cent from 2012-13 and a company instant asset write-off for assets under $5,000. Of course, the opposition would also scrap this provision yet continue to claim that they care for small business. The opposition may well be the friend of big business, but it is the Rudd government that is the real friend of small business. Since coming to office, the Rudd government has supported small businesses with a series of measures including: funding of business enterprise centres around the country, the bonus tax deduction increased to 50 per cent for asset purchases last year as one of the government stimulus measures, cutting of red tape in areas of state and federal regulation affecting businesses, simplifying the superannuation payment system for small businesses—and I could go on and on with measures taken by this government to help small business.

Most importantly, however, this government through its stimulus packages has assisted small business and medium-sized businesses by keeping many of them afloat during the global economic downturn. The infrastructure and BER projects that opposition members voted against, criticise at every opportunity and want to cut are overwhelmingly providing work and income to the nation’s 720,000 small businesses. In my own electorate I speak to many of those small businesses on a regular basis. I have spoken to many of them who have won contracts through the Building the Education Revolution or through one of the other infrastructure projects that have been funded by this government since it came to office. I know how grateful they are that this government committed to the stimulus packages. I have been told by many of them that were it not for these projects they would have run out of work.

Members opposite, who voted against all of these measures at every step of the way when we introduced the stimulus packages last year, come into this place and say that they support small- and medium-sized businesses. They should be supporting each and every one of these projects that the government has committed to, because these projects are in essence underpinned by the work that is being carried out by small businesses. I also know, from speaking to people in my community, that there are plenty of mums and dads who know they have still got a job because of the stimulus payments.

We know that we have an ageing population. We know that total pension payments will rise and that living on the pension can be difficult. That is why the government when it came to office significantly increased pension payments for single pensioners and why, since then, it has reformed the pension increase index as well. It has also supported pensioners with a whole range of measures, from support through the health system to support through utilities payments and the like. But, even with all that support, we know that it can still be difficult if you are on a pension. So, unless we put away more money into superannuation funds for the future, Australia is heading for a major dilemma. It does not take a lot of common sense to see that. Yet the opposition fails to see this obvious consequence and has also opposed this measure—that is, putting more money into superannuation—thereby denying millions of Australians a quality retirement. Furthermore, over the next 10 years this measure will increase the nation’s superannuation pool by $85 billion, and those funds will undoubtedly be invested in other nation-building projects.

This government plans to increase the superannuation guarantee from nine to 12 per cent by 2019. Even that amount could perhaps be increased further, because we know that prices will continue in future years to eat away at whatever money people save. By investing in superannuation funding, we are trying to ensure that there is a real future for the working people of today’s Australia. Yet members opposite, who I am sure in most cases have their own superannuation funds and are trying to ensure they have something to look forward to when they retire, are prepared to deny the same support to the 8.4 million working people around this country. I find that incomprehensible. Simple logic tells me that not preparing for retirements in this nation in the years to come is incomprehensible. Simple logic also tells me that most members opposite would have superannuation funding support for themselves, yet they are not prepared to do what they can to support their fellow workers.

Other speakers on this side of the House have talked about the government’s investments of $661 million for skills, $652 million into a renewable energy fund and an additional $2.2 billion for the health system, the delivery of the third year of tax cuts for working Australians, the simplification of tax returns for 6.4 million Australians, the 50 per cent discount on interest income of up to $1,000 and the $700 million contribution this year towards a new $5.6 billion infrastructure fund over the next 10 years, taking the government’s infrastructure funding to $37 billion.

The last matter I want to focus on is the resource super profits tax proposal, which has been discussed in this chamber at length today and on previous days. The tax underpins some of the Rudd government’s key budget commitments and I make these observations about it. Firstly, all the revenue raised from the RSPT will go into superannuation for the nation’s 8.4 million working Australians, reducing company tax from 30 per cent to 28 per cent, building national infrastructure for the future or providing resource exploration rebates. In other words, it all goes back into the community. Secondly, as has already been highlighted, over the last decade resource tax and royalty payments have fallen from one dollar in three of mining profits to one dollar in seven. In 2008-09 mining profits were $80 billion higher than in 1999-2000, yet the government collected only an additional $9 billion in revenue.

Thirdly, the RSPT effectively replaces resource royalties in which royalties are paid on volume regardless of whether a profit is made. Fourthly, mining companies will also benefit from a reduced company tax rate from 30 per cent to 28 per cent. Fifthly, these are national resources owned by the Australian people which can only be sold once. To ask that the Australian people get a fair return on their resources is not an unreasonable ask. When you consider that a similar tax applies to the petroleum resources and that it did not stop the $40 billion Gorgon project from going ahead, I doubt very much that the fear campaign being run by both the mining industry and members opposite will stop the mining from going ahead. It is absolute nonsense.

Whilst any industry, whether it is the mining industry or any other for that matter, is making a good profit, then it will continue with a project. It is my view that the fear campaign that is being run by members opposite and the mining industry itself is not doing the industry any good whatsoever. But it is also my view that once this tax is put in place the mining companies will get on with their job of mining, investing on behalf of their investors and developing the mines that they have already earmarked. I doubt very much that any sensible business operator will set aside a venture if it is profitable and this tax only applies if there are superprofits being made.

This is a budget that continues to deliver for the Australian people and builds on the Rudd government’s commitments to date. They are commitments which began the long hard road of ensuring that every Australian has a future they can look forward to and which rebuild this country to the country that we all would like to see in the years to come. I commend these bills to the House.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2010-2011, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2010-2011 and the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2010-2011. I will make a few comments on the content of the bills and the surrounding policy that the government has developed. Firstly, I will make a few comments about the technical side of the budget. The outcomes are far better than I thought they would have been a year ago. In that sense, obviously the stimulus payments have made a degree of difference. Unemployment levels are much lower than were projected, and that is a very positive thing in any economy. The ratio of debt to GDP is good at 6.1 per cent of debt to GDP. In any advanced economy it would have to be considered, particularly after a global financial collapse, a good outcome. As a number of speakers have said, the ratio of debt to GDP is about one-tenth of the average ratio of the developed communities. In that technical sense, one would have to say those two things—unemployment and the debt to GDP—are positives for the budget.

Many people do have concerns, however, about the deficit, which is a bit over $40 billion. Again, that is something like $18 billion less than was projected last year. Even though we are all a little paranoid about debt, some degree of debt is not necessarily a bad thing. Most individuals carry some degree of debt. It is the capacity to repay that becomes important. Some of those ratios indicate that Australia does have the capacity to repay. I remember standing in this building a year ago when we were very concerned that the debt this year would be in excess of $200 billion. Even though it is a large number, we are now talking about $93 billion. In that sense, we can breathe a sigh of relief to some degree that mass unemployment has not occurred. The sorts of fears that a lot of us expressed a year ago in the unknown environment of the global collapse and how Australia would fare have been unfounded.

I know politics has to be played in discussing waste, mismanagement, inefficiencies of expenditures and how the stimulus packages were rolled out et cetera. but there is no doubt, in my mind anyway, that the injection of money into the economy has had a significant impact. We can argue that the Building the Education Revolution expenditures or the insulation expenditures were too large, too rushed or not administered effectively. The Ken Henry strategy of injecting money into an economy when there was great concern about the capacity of the private sector to keep the economy rolling has had a very real effect on the outcomes of the budget.

As I said, there will be arguments, and I would argue with the government about some of the building projects that took place. Now, since the global financial crisis has moved on somewhat—it may return, you never know; it depends what happens in Europe and other places—the debate tends to go back to how efficiently those massive amounts of money were actually spent, rather than to the real driver behind the Henry strategy, which, as I understand it, was for money to be injected into the economy within as broad a framework as possible. That involved an injection of funds into all our schools and our local governments, while, individually, people got $900—and there was a lot of argument about that.

There was also the insulation program. Although many of us would say that we should have programs that encourage renewable energy, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and efficient energy use, under the insulation program the process of injecting money into the economy was more of a priority than the cooling or warming of people’s homes. The election will be fought on some of these economic matters. But I do pay regard to those key indicators that I reflected on a moment ago.

Going to other issues within the budget, the big winner in terms of increased expenditure has been health. Health is one of those things that I think all of us realise acts like a continuous sponge in terms of money, and it is a very easy avenue for claiming political points from time to time as to the inefficiencies of various health systems. For instance, I remember that, when I first went into the New South Wales parliament in 1991, the proportion of the total budget spent on health was about 18 per cent. Currently—and obviously it is a much larger budget in New South Wales—the health budget is more than twice that. I think most of us recognise that you cannot have a budget in any of the states—or in the overall Commonwealth, for that matter—where more than 40 per cent of the total budget goes to the health area; otherwise, other areas will have to suffer. I appreciate what both the government and the opposition are trying to do in terms of reviewing the way in which health is administered. That will be an ongoing debate, one that will run through to the election. In the budget that we are talking about tonight, health has had an injection of about $7.3 billion.

The government’s broader policy platform, as I understand it, is to establish health regions and, to run those regions, have some sort of local or regional board control. I would like to put in a plug for the existing structure that operates in the New England electorate. The Hunter-New England region embraces a larger region than just New England; it also embraces the Hunter region, around Newcastle. I would like to congratulate those involved for the way in which that has been administered. I was one of those who argued against the larger region at the time, but I think there have been successes achieved. Not least of those successes is the relationship between the University of Newcastle, the University of New England in Armidale, which now has a medical school, and also the university department of rural health which is based at Tamworth. In terms of the training of medical practitioners and associated professions, particularly nurses, that relationship has been a real success story, in my view. I remember the Leader of the Opposition, when he was the Minister for Health and Ageing some years back, came to Tamworth and looked at the university department of rural health, and I think he could see quite obviously that that relationship was a very, very good one. As part of that program, eventually, a medical school was formed, and it will have a teaching relationship with Tamworth Base Hospital, Armidale Base Hospital and Taree base hospital, which is not in the electorate of New England.

Even though I applaud the moves on both sides to try and make the health system much more efficient and remove the blame game that continually goes on between the states and the Commonwealth, I would urge them to look very closely at what is working and what has worked in the past rather than just have a blanket approach for the Australian community—not have something new for the sake of having something new where there have been successes scored in the past.

I thank the member for Newcastle, who was here a moment ago, because one of the things that did come through in the budget was a $42 million cancer clinic for Tamworth. It is something that the community has been arguing for for a long time, and we believe that will be part of a new hospital redevelopment process which is much needed to assist with the training of the medical students from the University of New England as they come through to the teaching part of the hospital. So there will be a major redevelopment of the Tamworth Base Hospital, and the cancer clinic—of the $42 million, three-quarters came from the Commonwealth and the other quarter from the New South Wales government—will be part of that process.

On a broader level, there are concerns about MRIs. I think the minister for health really needs to have a close look at the provision of MRI services not only in our region but in many other regions. There is a need for more MRI licences across many regions in Australia and for Medicare rebates to be able to be accessed for MRI services. I think that is something that has to be looked at, particularly with the growth of cancer.

Before moving off the health budget the thing that I was a little disappointed in was dental health, which received very little mention and no additional funding. I think if we are serious about health reform, our teeth have to be part of our bodies. They are going to have to be factored in at some stage as they are actually part of us. They are a very important part for young people and old people. I am fully aware of why dental health has not been included in the Medicare arrangements and of the original history of the split-up et cetera. But it is something that the Australian people are clamouring for and the surveys that I have done in my electorate suggest that they would be prepared to pay more in their Medicare levy to have those services provided. There was money in relation to mental health but I still do not think we are doing enough there. I think we are all aware of the issues that are out there in our communities.

The government has formed a Renewable Energy Future Fund, and I believe the opposition is going to can that if it comes to power. There is a degree of hypocrisy and I think the government is going to have to start to get its marketing right. We have been through the climate change debate, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and the various reasons for doing certain things and now the government is setting up a Renewable Energy Future Fund. I think somewhere around $600 million is being put into that fund to encourage use of renewable energy. In relation to LPG the Leader of the National Party highlighted the issue that a fossil fuel tax is going to be imposed on a renewable energy, that of biofuels. There is a degree of hypocrisy and there are mixed messages coming through here. If we are serious about renewable energy, why are we going to impose a tax regime on some sources of renewable energy and not on others? When people are trying to interpret these messages, particularly in regional Australia, they become a little bit concerned.

Then there is the mining tax. I am in favour of a rent resource tax. I did economics at university. I have never practised as an economist but I think anybody—including the mining industry themselves, the Minerals Council—who thinks about how to extract a rent from the use of a resource such as the mining industry would suggest that a rent resource tax is a much fairer way of extracting money than a royalty system. I argued from the start on this because the mining minister organised a briefing for me with some Treasury people and one of his own people to try to get my head around what the government is trying to achieve. It was easy to see that it was a very complicated arrangement. I do not think the government has marketed what it is trying to do very well at all, partly because it is extremely complicated and partly because it is rebutting some of the simplistic arguments that the opposition is putting up, as well as rebutting the fairly effective campaign from the Minerals Council.

One thing that seems to be coming through to me quite clearly is that the long-term bond rate, a rate of about 5.8 per cent, being a determinant of a superprofit really does need to be reviewed. If the government is serious about consulting with the mining industry it should be set on having meaningful discussions. I said to some of the miners in my area, ‘Don’t just leave this to the Minerals Council,’—because some people on the Minerals Council are more interested in the politics than solving the problem—‘Get your own figures into the debate so that the Treasury people and the people reviewing this can look at real companies and real outcomes in terms of what the rent resource tax will mean to those particular companies.’ I think the government has to be a little bit serious about having a look at the long-term bond rate as the determiner of the start-up point of a supertax, as they call it. As has been in the media in recent days, the 40 per cent for company losses seems to be an argument coming from the mining industry and others. That may well be something that could be taken off or reduced and would have an offset effect against the long-term bond rate start-up point.

Positives in the budget for the electorate of New England include the national broadband rollout. Part of Armidale will be one of the five sites chosen and there are a lot of very good people prepared to assist in relation to that. There is also the Murrurundi Tunnel. I heard the minister for mining talking about that today and that $580 million was being expended in the Hunter corridor. Part of that program, which has not been expended yet but is coming down to the wire, is to put a new tunnel or bypass over the Liverpool Range, which is on the edge of the New England electorate. There is other money being spent on the Hunter rail network.

The matter of a water study arose with the Prime Minister yesterday in question time. The government is putting $1½ million into funding that study to come up with some independent scientific rigor in relation to mining on the Liverpool Plains, where two companies propose to mine. I was very pleased to see there is about $1 billion in a program called Water for the Future. For the Barraba community, which I have raised on a number of occasions, the government is going to put money into some feasibility work in relation to that community. A long-term fix for the Barraba problem of lack of water may well come out of that particular fund, as could the augmentation for Chaffey Dam.

There are two other issues that I would raise briefly as time has beaten me once again. The major problem on the New England Highway that remains now is the Bolivia Hill. The minister for infrastructure is well aware of it. It is only about 1.3 kilometres long but is quite expensive to fix. However, unless it is fixed it will remain a real deathtrap. I once again implore the government to have a serious look at this piece of road. I believe the minister is coming up in the next few months to look at the Bolivia Hill. I also urge him to look at the Tenterfield bypass because a major tragedy is going to occur in that area if something is not done about infrastructure. (Time expired)

Maxine McKew (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak to Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2010-2011 and related bills tonight in three respects: my portfolio responsibilities as parliamentary secretary for regional development, my own electorate of Bennelong and the country as a whole.

When it comes to the infrastructure portfolio, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government and the Treasurer have delivered a strong and responsible investment in nation building infrastructure. It is an investment that will expand our productive capacity as a nation and put us in a position to capitalise on the opportunities that become available as the global economy recovers. The first big ticket item in the infrastructure portfolio is our $1 billion investment in the government owned Australian Rail Track Corporation to upgrade the interstate rail freight network. These projects will increase freight movement by rail and reduce travel times along three key corridors: Brisbane to Melbourne, Melbourne to Adelaide, and Sydney to Perth. We expect these projects to create 1,500 jobs in regional Australia.

I am also particularly pleased to see the commitment of $70.7 million to complete detailed planning on an intermodal terminal precinct in Moorebank, in Sydney’s south-west. I speak to many audiences across the country about the importance of integrated transport planning. Certainly the terminal at Moorebank shows this government’s rock-solid commitment to integrated transport infrastructure. Moorebank will improve the movement of freight to and within the Sydney basin, which in turn flows on into an improvement in national productivity. It will also help clear existing bottlenecks and reduce urban congestion by taking more trucks off the road. We certainly anticipate that the staged redevelopment of the Moorebank terminal will commence in 2013.

The other big ticket item in infrastructure is our commitment to a $5.6 billion 10-year infrastructure fund to commence from 2012, with an initial contribution of $700 million from the Commonwealth. As the minister has explained, funding will be distributed in a way that recognises the infrastructure pressures on resource rich states, particularly Queensland and Western Australia. This is a fairer way of distributing the wealth from our nation’s mineral resources. Importantly, the new fund will make infrastructure spending a permanent feature of Commonwealth and state budgets. In the meanwhile, Infrastructure Australia will continue to advise on national infrastructure priorities to inform both private investors and governments.

As stimulus programs subside and the $36 billion Nation Building Program unfolds over six years, we in the Rudd government certainly have our eyes firmly fixed on the future. We are building the physical and the human infrastructure needed to grow our economy. We need infrastructure to support a modern health and hospital system and we are boosting superannuation to 12 per cent by putting our national savings on a much stronger footing.

Importantly, the budget boosts productivity growth. Again, as the Minister for Finance and Deregulation and others have explained many times in this place and outside, productivity growth is a key determinant to our future prosperity. This was confirmed again in the recent report by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics and its inquiry into productivity growth, chaired by the member for Dobell. The report makes the very pertinent observation that favourable commodity prices, while they may improve our per capita income, are not necessarily linked with productivity growth. In fact, our productivity growth declined through the resources boom—and this was documented in the report—by 0.4 per cent from 2003. As a responsible government, the Rudd government is acting to secure the sort of long-term economic growth that will maintain and improve our standards of living. In his forward to the Standing Committee on Economics report, the member for Dobell made another very important observation: He wrote:

Income and productivity growth will occur in firms that embrace technological change and achieve technical efficiency.

He continued:

… in order to secure long-term economic growth Australia will need to focus on improvements in the technical efficiency of firms and their utilisation of technological advances.

I notice on the speakers list that the member for Cook is down to speak after me on these bills. Up until early this year, I think he was a member of House Economics Committee. He would have taken part in many of the public hearings into the committee’s inquiry into productivity growth. So I am anticipating his explanation as to how productivity growth will benefit from abandoning the technological change and efficiencies on offer from a National Broadband Network.

I was in Maroochydore only late that week, launching the local Regional Development Australia Sunshine Coast committee. In areas like the Sunshine coast and, indeed, all around regional Australia, the NBN is the piece of infrastructure with perhaps the greatest potential to transform Australia’s regions. The ability to live on the coast or in the hinterland and telecommute is a dream that will become that much easier with universal access to high-speed broadband. I think we can only begin to grasp the transformative effect that a truly wired Australia will have, particularly on the delivery of better health, education and skills training. It was interesting to hear the member for New England provide his endorsement for a national broadband as well. It is, in my mind, absolutely essential infrastructure.

Regrettably, the opposition has said it will scrap the roll out of the NBN—this most important piece of infrastructure. So I look forward to how they will explain this to people across Australia, particularly to people in the regions and to many of my constituents in the IT industry, in the global economic corridor that is Macquarie Park. But there you go—what is a little inconsistency from the opposition? It is the same Leader of the Opposition who wrote a book saying that the best teachers need to be paid more, and then said that he will axe the program which will do just that—of course, that is Labor’s $42 million Smarter Schools program—that is, if the Leader of the Opposition manages to make the transition and become Prime Minister. This is the same opposition leader whose coalition economic principles talk up the importance of school based apprenticeships and traineeships but decides to cut trade training centres and schools.

Debate interrupted.