Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Earlier, I was addressing the underhand and deceptive way in which this government has sought to increase the Commonwealth debt ceiling from $200 billion to $250 billion. In order that this parliament has the transparency that should be granted by any responsible government on a matter of this consequence, I formally move the amendment previously circulated in this chamber: I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"while not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) condemns the government for incorporating in an annual appropriation bill provisions to increase the limit on government borrowings above the total of $200 billion;

(2) recognises that a special case must be made for such a significant increase in borrowing limits and that the government must explain any special circumstances that it believes justify such an increase; and

(3) demands that the Parliament be given the opportunity to consider separately and vote on the proposed increases in borrowing limits set out in Part 5 of Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2011-12.

Rather than live within its means, this government is not only increasing taxes and spending but also increasing government debt. At a time when millions and millions of Australian families are seeking desperately to live within their means and to meet their cost-of-living expenses, and at a time when a government is increasing debt in such magnitude, to massively lift this debt ceiling without proper parliamentary scrutiny is totally unacceptable. It has never before happened in this chamber that this sort of measure would be included within an appropriation bill. Trying to hide this measure under the cover of an appropriation bill has confirmed the fears and the anxieties of millions of Australians about the competency and trustworthiness of this government. This is a failed government. It is a dysfunctional government. It is a dangerous government. I urge this House to support the amendment that is now before them.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Deputy Chairman , Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

David Lloyd George, the founder of the modern welfare state, said:

We put no burden upon the necessities of life of anyone. We are taxing surplus. We are taxing luxuries. If a man has enough after maintaining his wife and family, and can spare something upon whisky and tobacco, why should he not afterwards contribute towards the pensions and defences of the country?

We propose a great scheme in order to set up a fund in this country that will see that no man suffers from hunger in the dark days of sickness, breakdown in health, and unemployment which visits many of us This is what we are going to do. These schemes for the betterment of the people …

This government is also putting in place schemes for the betterment of Australians. We are implementing a carbon price to deal with dangerous climate change—a carbon price that will operate by taxing the 1,000 biggest polluters—putting a price on pollution that recognises the damage that that carbon pollution does to future generations. We are helping families by providing assistance in those crucial times of need. We are implementing a minerals resource rent tax so that Australians get a fair deal for the subsoil resources that are their birthright. The Labor government helped Australia to navigate the global financial crisis. When the largest downturn since the Great Depression beckoned, we listened to Keynesian economics. We put in place a timely, targeted and temporary fiscal stimulus that protected around 200,000 jobs and tens of thousands of businesses. We used the opportunity to invest in long-term infrastructure, roads and school infrastructure that future generations will benefit from.

This budget is delivering the fastest fiscal consolidation of the modern era. Just as we implemented Keynesian economics in the downturn, we are implementing Keynesian economics in the upswing, through rapid fiscal consolidation. We are reforming our system of taxation. We want the Australian taxation system to be simpler and fairer. We want it to be a system that most efficiently delivers essential social, educational and health services while providing the incentives to keep our economy growing.

I want to focus today on the tax incentives introduced in the most recent budget, because I think that these are initiatives which have received too little attention and that this budget that is marked by its deep commitment to lasting tax reform. The government has announced 12 measures since the 2010-11 budget to reform our taxation system, including (1) a measure that removes the unintended tax incentive for people to drive further than they need to in order to obtain a larger tax concession by reforming the statutory formula method for valuing car fringe benefits. That measure implements recommendation 9(b) of the Henry tax review. (2) We have improved participation incentives for couples without children by phasing out the dependent spouse tax offset, consistent with recommendation 6(a) of the Henry review. (3) We are better targeting tax incentives by replacing the entrepreneurs tax offset, consistent with recommendation 6(c). (4) We are improving small business tax rules by replacing the entrepreneurs tax offset with a small business tax package that includes a $5,000 immediate deduction for motor vehicles, consistent with the intent of recommendation 29. (5) We are improving certainty for investors by allowing infrastructure projects of national significance to carry forward losses with an uplift factor to maintain their value. (6) We are increasing support for families by increasing family tax benefit part A payments for 16-to-19-year-olds, recognising that the cost of looking after teenagers does not go down. (7) We are reforming family payments by reducing the overlap between family tax benefit part A and youth allowance. (8) We are improving regulation and reducing red tape for the not-for-profit sector by establishing the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. (9) We are improving certainty for the not-for-profit sector by introducing a statutory definition of 'charity'. (10) We are improving tax system governance by committing to a principles based approach to tax law design. (11) We are allowing the Board of Taxation to initiate its own reviews of how tax policies and laws are operating. (12) We are establishing a New Tax System Advisory Board.

This budget and these important tax measures build on the Gillard government's long-term plan to strengthen our economy and make the Australian tax system simpler and fairer for business and the community. In the case of the entrepreneurs tax offset, it has long been recognised that it is poorly targeted for small businesses. There is little evidence that it has acted to encourage the establishment of small businesses. More than 80 per cent of small businesses were eligible for the offset. Rather than allowing a small business to grow, the entrepreneurs tax offset encourages businesses to structure affairs in a particular way despite the market opportunities which might be present. The assistance provided is a fairly low level of assistance to very small businesses. The maximum claim is $2,500 but the average entrepreneurs tax offset claim was less than $500, with 70 per cent of claims being below $600. That is a small amount of money for a fair bit of paperwork. The vast majority of claimants have income from sources other than business income and nearly all are individuals. Under the entrepreneurs tax offset, it is possible for taxpayers to recharacterise their income as business income—for example, by working as a contractor instead of as an employee in order to claim the ETO.

The entrepreneurs tax offset is difficult to administer and adds to the complexity of our tax system. There are better and more effective ways to help small businesses: such as the $5,000 immediate deduction for motor vehicles from 2012-13 that was a hallmark feature of this government, such as reducing the GDP adjustment factor for pay-as-you-go instalment taxpayers to four per cent for 2011-12, such as simplifying and increasing the instant asset write-off threshold to $5,000 from 2012-13, and such as providing a head start to the reduction in the company tax rate for small businesses from 30 per cent down to 29 per cent from 2012-13. Around 2.7 million small businesses stand to benefit from these measures. The savings from abolishing the entrepreneurs tax offset will fund those progressive measures for assisting small businesses. Those savings will be reinvested into the small business tax reform package.

We are also modernising Australia's taxation system by removing antiquated notions about gender roles. The dependent spouse tax offset was introduced back in 1936 at a federal level, although some of the states had their own small programs at the time. During the second reading debate in this place, one member justified the measure, saying that he felt it was the duty of a husband to maintain his wife and therefore it was right and proper that he should receive a deduction for it. I do not think these are sentiments that would be shared by most 30-somethings in the labour force today. This is a measure for families without children, and I think that most modern-day couples would not expect the government to provide a tax break in the case where one partner chooses not to work. This measures is not just about removing antiquated notions but about encouraging greater workplace participation, because it phases out the dependent spouse tax offset, which penalises work for stay-at-home spouses. And, as we know, increasing participation is absolutely critical in a modern Australia with our businesses facing skills shortages. Work is a good way of maintaining contact with the community and a first job is a stepping stone to a better job. We in the Labor Party are strongly committed to the dignity and value of work.

If a dependent spouse earns more than $282, under the current program the entitlement reduces by $1 for every $4 that the dependent spouse's income is above this threshold. The effect of that is to put in place a 25 per cent tax rate additional to current marginal tax rates on the first $10,000 earned by a so-called dependent spouse. This measure will be progressively phased out for those aged 40 years and below. And, importantly, those taxpayers who are invalid or permanently unable to work or are carers or who are aged 40 or above will not lose their benefits.

The budget also introduces important measures to fix the current system of fringe benefits taxation for cars. The existing statutory formula method for determining the taxable value of car fringe benefits delivers a greater tax concession the further a car is driven. Anecdotes in my own electorate about people who pass the keys onto their teenage child to drive to the coast for a weekend do not reflect the way in which most Australians would want to see their tax expenditures used. Car fringe benefits arise when an employee uses a salary sacrificed or employer provided car for private use. Under the statutory formula method, a person's car fringe benefit is determined by multiplying the relevant statutory rate by the cost of the car. These statutory rates are designed so that a person's car fringe benefit decreases as the distance travelled by their vehicle increases. People can therefore increase their tax concession by driving their vehicle further. The AFTS Review reported evidence that this is exactly what people do.

We are removing the current incentive for people to drive salary sacrificed and employer provided vehicles further to increase their tax concession and in the process burn more fuel and damage the atmosphere. We are reforming the statutory formula method by replacing the current statutory rates with a single rate of 20 per cent that applies regardless of the distance travelled. This reform will only apply to new vehicle contracts entered into after announcement on budget night. It will not affect people who have already entered into contracts, and will be phased in over four years.

People who use their vehicle for a significant amount of work related travel will still be able to use the operating cost and log book method to ensure that their car fringe benefit excludes any business use of their vehicle. Over the forward estimates, this reform will result in an increase in revenue of $970 million, an increase in GST payments to the states of $50 million and a reduction in other expenditure of $33.9 million.

We are also helping small business through the immediate depreciation deduction, which now applies to motor vehicles. The additional benefits that we are putting in place will assist many small businesses in Australia. The vast majority of businesses operating in Australia, around 96 per cent, are small businesses. They often experience greater cash flow difficulties than their larger counterparts. The Gillard government looked after those small businesses when the global downturn happened. We did that because we recognised that small businesses were much more vulnerable than large businesses, which are better able to smooth over the economic cycle. Our economic reforms recognise that small businesses are very much the lifeblood of the Australian economy. We are reforming things like the entrepreneurs tax offset in order to assist small businesses and to give small business owners the certainty that they need in assisting our economy.

With taxes, we build society. Tax reform needs to be grounded in good, strong economics. It needs to reflect the values of Australian and we need to recognise when those values change. When values about environmental protection change, we need to reform fringe benefits systems that create perverse incentives to drive cars further. When norms about dependent spouses change, we need to reform old tax laws that are based on outdated 1930s notions. We need to keep on making these updates because we in the Labor Party recognise that economic reform is not something that we do once and then forget about. It is an ongoing process. It is important that we engage in that ongoing process and use opportunities like the Henry tax review, which has laid down many of the key principles important in devising the architecture of Australia's tax system. It is important that—as we in the government do in the case of climate change—we listen to the advice of economists and take into account that our tax system needs to be shaped by expert advice. Those in the opposition are sometimes too willing to go for the quick sound bite and too willing to ignore expert advice on climate change and tax reform. We in the Labor Party are committed to ongoing economic reform and to improving our tax system so that it is simpler, fairer and as efficient as possible.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to rise today to speak on the three budget appropriation bills, which are being debated concurrently, and also the amendment moved recently by the member for Goldstein. I can summarise in one sentence the response of my constituents in the electorate of Farrer when I consult them about it: 'When all the indicators tell us that Australians are doing so well and whenever we pick up a newspaper, read the business pages, turn on the radio and listen to our respected business commentators we are told that as a nation we are doing well, why do we as a family feel that we are doing badly, that we are pressured with cost of living increases at the fuel bowser, in the supermarket and particularly in the area of child care?'

That summarises, as I said, the confusion that people are currently feeling in response to the budget. The government talks very much about a budget that focuses on savings, but on one hand it is saving while on the other hand it is spending. It is saving about $21 billion but the budget turns around and delivers about $18.1 billion in additional spending. So the government cannot be taken seriously when it talks about wanting to bring the budget back into surplus and keeping the economy strong.

In November last year we were told that the deficit for 2010-11 would be $41½ billion, but on budget night it was revealed that it had blown out to almost $50 billion. In November we were told that net debt would peak at $94 billion and on budget night it was revealed that that figure is now $107 billion. Not only that but net debt is set to stay above $100 billion for at least the next four years. The government continues to borrow $135 million a day, and interest on Labor's debt will be a staggering $7 billion a year. As we point out quite often, once the budget is back into surplus it will not mean that all the debt that has been accumulated during the period of Labor being in office will have been repaid. It will not; the budget will just be in surplus. There is a huge task ahead of us. I know these big numbers often do not mean much to people when they are talked about in the way that I just have, but imagine what we could do with $135 million a day. Imagine what projects we would all find in our electorates and what worthwhile spending we would all want to support.

This is a narrowcast government without imagination. I forgive people for a lot of things but I never forgive them for lack of imagination. The constraints they are under because of this requirement to service this huge budget deficit mean that there are very few things they could do even if they had the imagination to do them. I know it is easy to hark back to the time when we were in government and to how good those days were—they certainly were by comparison—but when I go back to those times the thing I remember is that we as a government had flexibility. This government does not have the flexibility to move within the constraints of the enormous debt burden that it has given itself.

There might have been legislation on the table during the Howard government that was not quite right. We could talk about ways we could fix it. We could find some additional funding to address a certain problem. I remember, for example, managed investment schemes and an Australian Taxation Office determination that really affected people in my electorate who had made investments. A sensible, mature discussion meant that they could be looked after. There are many other examples. I remember that exceptional circumstances support for farmers during drought did not extend to those who were irrigators. We talked about it and we worked out that that was not reasonable. More money was found to support irrigated agriculture, because the budget was strong and government had the capacity to do that.

My real criticism of this budget is that the government does not have the capacity to move and everything is constrained. I want to reflect on the response within my electorate of Farrer but also from the perspective of being the opposition spokesperson for employment and child care. Cost of living is coming up for us as local members more than is any other single issue, and child care is absolutely critical to that. We saw in the press this week that childcare centres had been forced to use collection agencies to extract unpaid debts from families. That just goes to show how close to the wind many of our childcare private provider and community provider businesses are.

Just last week I was in the electorate of my neighbour, the member for Parkes, between Dubbo and Coonamble. I visited Coonamble Children's Services, which is a community childcare centre. It is a good example of why child care has to work for the families that use it. Without this childcare centre, many people in the town of Coonamble could not work. That is the point. One of the members of the committee is, I think, a stenographer. She said that if she is not there in the town of Coonamble to work as a stenographer people will have to go to Dubbo to get their medical services, which is quite some distance—two hours down the road. If the childcare centre is not there, she is not going to be able to carry out her job. So we lose the participation of that person but, more importantly, we lose the medical service in this small town, along with the childcare service when it is affected.

This was a community childcare centre just struggling to make ends meet, if I can put it like that. This is not a result of the times; this is a result of the government's national quality framework. We in the coalition support improved quality standards. We support anything that gives us high-quality child care, but we have an important key difference from the government: we say that we already do have a strong, very high-quality childcare sector in this country. The Minister for Employment Participation and Childcare does not seem to actually be the minister for child care; she seems to be the minister who complains about child care and criticises our childcare sector against every measure we stack up, and we stack up very well.

This quality framework is demanding that small centres employ staff who have higher levels of qualifications than they already do. They need to change the ratio of staff to children, particularly babies, and they need to jump through an enormous series of bureaucratic hoops, which, as I have said many times, involves—picture this, and it is real—a childcare worker with a toddler on one hip and a clipboard on the other ticking off boxes and making sure that the bureaucrats somewhere, should they ever want to check out what actually happened on the paper trail, have that paper trail secured, never mind so much the care of the children. Of course, this is the wrong approach. It goes against any common sense that you could muster.

The national quality framework—and the government has done nothing in the budget to step away from that—is going to add to the real costs for families. It is going to mean that childcare centres put up their fees. It is going to mean, as we have seen in the press today, that childcare centres have to use debt collection agencies to collect debts as small as $50. That is, as I said, how close their businesses are sailing to the wind. They have no fat in the system. They have no savings. They are operating from day to day in their accounting. Every cent that comes in needs to be there to pay for wages or, for example, to pay for locums. I visited a childcare centre in eastern Sydney. While some of their staff are training, they still need to keep the ratios where the government is demanding they be. There is no flexibility in that but, more importantly, the trained quality staff are not available to fill these positions; they are using agencies. The cost of employing an agency person is skyrocketing to up to $100 an hour. A childcare centre in eastern Sydney may well be able to afford that, but certainly a rural and regional one cannot. From my point of view, there are real alarm bells in the childcare sector in this country. Generally, this was a budget that was defined by its broken promises and backflips. As has been pointed out, it is rife with class warfare, gimmicky stunts and destined to add to the white elephants before it: pink batts, building Julia Gillard's memorial halls, cash for clunkers and so on.

The Productivity Places Program was the flagship of the Prime Minister's attempt to solve the skills crisis, but the funding for the Productivity Places Program has been redirected to fund $360 million for the Trades Apprentice Income Bonus, $94 million to the New Enterprise Initiative Scheme—where was this funding previously?—and $399 million over four years towards the Building Australia's Future Workforce package. What this highlights is the sheer waste and ineffectiveness of the Productivity Places Program, which was so great that even the brains behind it had to concede that it is better off being discarded to the scrapheap of irrelevant, ineffective government programs.

To many, that sounds like a bit of mumbo jumbo, but what I am saying is that one grandiosely titled program has been replaced by another, money has been moved around and more bureaucrats have been employed in the process. The government is talking about incentives and places as if somehow these are all going to translate into jobs—they may; they may not. What we really need to solve the skills crisis is a concerted effort by the government to address what some of the fundamental problems are, for example, in apprenticeship training. Also, there is no program to bring people with the right skills to Australia and keep them here, and the economy lacks the flexibility to change when required.

I also want to touch on the National Broadband Network because it is very important to rural and regional constituents. As a member of the Joint Committee on the National Broadband Network, I have gained a very interesting insight into what is going on. I have been very disturbed about the cost, the quality and the future, particularly for my constituents. In a public hearing last week I asked the CEO of NBN Co., Mr Quigley, when those who are outside the 93 per cent fibre footprint could expect to get an improvement in their broadband services. This group of Australians has not been promised speeds of 100 megabits per second but only 12 megabits per second—which is better than they are getting now and they will take that. When I asked when that might reasonably be expected to happen or when work might reasonably be expected to start, it was clearly in the never-never.

I was disappointed that the question did not really seem to have occurred to the NBN Co. management. I do not want to be unfair, because I am going to demand that they bring back answers to our committee. It is not good enough to just say that they are delivering fibre to 93 per cent. I know it does sound like a lot—and I have great concerns about their ability to do that, by the way—but while rural, regional and remote Australians know they will not get the same deal as those in the capital cities they do want to have some expectation of improved services, particularly given that at the last election many of them considered increased telecommunications as one of the reasons they voted the way they did. Maybe they did not believe Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd when they talked about those increases and improvements—

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member for Farrer should refer to the Prime Minister and the foreign minister by their titles and not by their names.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I apologise and I acknowledge that you are completely correct. The National Broadband Network and increased broadband services are vote changers and can be game changers, but the rationale behind this government's re-nationalisation of Australia's telecommunications system is not going to deliver that in a cost-effective manner. We know there has not been a cost-benefit analysis of the NBN. We know that every time we look at the numbers they are skyrocketing. We know that rural and regional constituents are not particularly important unless they happen to be strategically located so that the Prime Minister makes a fuss of them, but that is not happening for the vast majority of rural and regional Australians.

The government has not yet demonstrated to me that fibre to the curb, fibre to the node or fibre to anywhere but the premises would not deliver a much better solution. As I say to people, 'If I have fibre to the premises, why should I be able to sit and watch Toy Story 3 in 3D on delayed telecast with the massively increased bandwidth that comes to my house, without producing a single productive thing for the nation, when somebody who lives next door to me who may be a pensioner is paying for that through increased taxes?' The scale of the spend is absolutely frightening.

I want to mention one more thing because it is critical to the electorate of Farrer—that is, water. As a member of the Standing Committee on Regional Australia, along with Tony Windsor and many of my good colleagues on both sides of this place, we are shortly going to be recommending a course of action. It is important that the government acknowledges that the Murray-Darling Basin plan in its current form, or even in the form it is at now and moving to—I guess we do not know exactly where that is—really has to service the needs of rural communities that depend on water.

As I have said many times, it is possible to get a balance between irrigated agriculture and the environment. It is not a zero-sum game; you do not need to have one or the other. It is time that the government listened to those rural communities and understood their perspective when they voice their real concerns about the effects of this plan on their future. I am delighted to have been a member of that committee. I know that we have done some good work. In travelling the country, we have heard the truth and it is important that we reflect that in this place when it comes to a final report. (Time expired)

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

I am proud to stand here today in support of Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2011-2012, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2011-2012 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2011-2012. This budget reflects Labor's values. It maintains a strong economy so we can provide services to all Australians, particularly to those who need them. I am talking about families who are struggling with the rising cost of living, the unemployed seeking to get back into the workforce, the disabled in our community and the young generations who I see working pretty hard at school and who are taking advantage of training and higher education opportunities.

The Treasurer made it pretty clear in the lead-up to the budget, and as a consequence of the budget, that this budget steers us onto the path of bringing us back into surplus by 2012-13. I think that is a pretty remarkable objective and one that is being realised in this budget. It is remarkable because on this government's watch there has been a global financial crisis of proportions not seen in 70 years and there have been a number of devastating natural disasters. These have all required the government to act decisively for the benefit of Australians as well as to protect our economy. That makes Australia one of the strongest economies in the Western world, especially when you consider that our terms of trade now are the strongest they have been in 140 years and national government debt is among the lowest in the world. Australia's national debt is down to 7.2 per cent of GDP, as opposed to that of the United States, which is 72 per cent of GDP, and that of Great Britain, which is 75 per cent of GDP.

That brings me to what is probably one of the most important issues in this country: unemployment. Unemployment in this country is nearly half that of other industrialised nations. Our unemployment rate presently is 4.9 per cent, compared to nine per cent in the United States and 7.8 per cent in the UK. Those are the facts and they are the boundaries within which this budget has been constructed. The budget will create another 500,000 new jobs. That is on top of the 700,000 jobs that we have created since 2007. It is important that in this debate we get the facts right. Whilst we talk about these numbers and try to be positive about this country, we are met with sloganeering from those opposite. It has started already, and we are going to hear it time and time again.

Last Friday I visited Hoxton Industries in my electorate. They employ over 150 people, all of them people with disabilities. They are the beneficiaries of $1 million under a program aiding the employment of disabled people. I greatly enjoy visiting Hoxton Industries because it is a place where the effects of this Gillard budget really can be seen. It is a fact that without this funding these jobs would not be there. I am proud to be part of a government that gives priority to providing employment opportunities for disabled people.

On my visit I was struck, quite frankly, by just how important it is to have a job. It is more than just the job; it is the sense of being part of a community, the sense of having fulfilment. Really, it is the sense of family. I also enjoy my visits there because I get to meet a lot of the mums and dads of the employees. The mums and dads are about 80 years old, and their kids are in their 30s, 40s and 50s. This is something we do as a community. Nicole Bruce, a friend of mine, is the General Manager of Hoxton Industries and she often speaks to me about this and how this must always be family focused.

Visits such as these remind me that the economy is much more than a set of numbers and that the government's role goes beyond balancing the fiscal spreadsheet. It is about helping people by providing opportunities through strong health and education systems, training programs and support for the disabled and ageing. The central tenet of this government is to keep unemployment low.

Satisfying employment is unashamedly the centre of community wellbeing and is one of the core values of Labor. Contrast this with the attitude of the opposition, who think this year's budget is another opportunity for hollow sloganeering backed up by an incredible lack of detail. Throughout budget week—it was not all that long ago, so we can all remember it—the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, were out there at every opportunity giving a sound bite about how they would bring the budget back to surplus one full year before the Labor government. That they were doing so is a matter of fact. If you cannot remember it, you can get the Hansard and check that is what they said. It reminds me of an old saying that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. That was the whole issue: they went for the sound bite, saying they would bring the budget back to surplus one full year ahead of Labor, but they failed to give any indication of what programs they might cut. Sometimes we got a little bit of insight, such as when we saw the Liberal Party infighting about which programs might be sliced. Sometimes, in all that confusion, the Leader of the Opposition actually indicated they might even increase some programs. But when it all got too desperate for them to say how they would bring the budget back to surplus, they reverted to form. They said, 'Stop the boats!' They went straight back to the immigration debate as a way of diverting people's attention from their lack of detail on what they would do if they had the opportunity to control this budget. That was the contribution of the alternative Prime Minister and the alternative government: absolute, dead-bottom zero.

There are not many things I have ever agreed with Peter Costello about, but one thing he is right on the money about is that the Leader of the Opposition has no interest in economics. We saw that less than two weeks ago in his response to the budget. The budget debate is an important time for our nation because it talks about the future. That is exactly what the Gillard government has been delivering over the course of this week and that is why I support these appropriation bills: they are addressing our future in a balanced way. They are setting the path to a balanced budget whilst providing for those in need.

I will speak a little bit about my electorate of Fowler. In the last election I moved from the seat of Werriwa and had the honour of taking on the seat of Fowler. Whilst the community of Fowler is not all that far away from Werriwa, it has a number of significant differences. My electorate of Fowler is the most multicultural electorate in the whole country, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Being in the electorate of Fowler has enabled me to work very closely with community groups on their issues and to help them deliver a stronger community. When I was elected I made five key commitments to things that I believed could make a real difference to the community. I will take a little bit of time and update the House in relation to them.

Firstly, I made a commitment that I would work to ensure I would be available to the community and that I would run an office dedicated to servicing the needs of both individuals and the community alike. Central to our jobs as members of parliament is to make ourselves as available as we possibly can. I have sought to do that in the new community of Fowler by, in addition to my electorate office, having three outreach offices. One is in Cabramatta, one is in Green Valley and one is in Miller. Those offices are held each week and people know they can come to the office and see me with or without an appointment. Sometimes it is difficult to get to my office because of lack of public transport and, unfortunately for a lot of people, lack of time. What I have pledged to do is make myself available to the community when they need me and make sure I am there in their times of need. I am very indebted to the various groups that operate in my electorate. They do a fantastic job. They have shown great generosity in welcoming me as their new local member and I look forward to working closely with them into the future to deliver a stronger community in Fowler.

Secondly, I work with organisations that support the disadvantaged, the homeless, the disabled and the aged to assist them in their vital role. It was always one of my strong focuses when I was the member for Werriwa, and it is something I bring with me to Fowler. A little earlier I mentioned my experience with Hoxton Industries where I visited, again, last week. This coming Friday I will be holding a disabilities forum in my electorate with a view to formulating a discussion paper to present to the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers. I am looking forward to hearing from all persons working in the disability sector or, more importantly, from those who are disabled as to what we, as a government, can do to help make their lives a little easier. I would like particularly to thank Lucy Reggio and Grace Fava for their assistance in the preparation of this event. I know they do sterling work in our community and provide wonderful opportunities for our children. They give those with a disability not only hope but a real sense of inclusion in our community.

Through government I hope to create more local employment opportunities, particularly for the young. Regrettably, one of the things I did inherit when moving to Fowler was one of the highest youth unemployment records in the country. We all have an interest in doing something about giving young people opportunities, particularly those between 15 and 24 years of age. Giving a person a job is giving a person a future. There is a saying that you can give a person a fish to eat or you can teach them how to fish, which will sustain them. This is something we are working very hard on locally. We know that giving young people a start and access to employment is giving young people a future. That is something that I will stay very focused on. I am proud of the fact that, in the budget, provision was made to help young people get into a job through training and through the greater provision of education. That is something that is certainly absolutely essential in my electorate of Fowler.

Another commitment I made was to bring greater awareness to the issue of domestic violence and the impact it is having on our community. There is absolutely no excuse for domestic violence and much work needs to be done in this area. The primary aim of our efforts is to protect the victims and protect our children from domestic violence. Of course, it is not a pretty picture in the south-west of Sydney. I sponsored a detailed report on domestic violence in Western Sydney, which I commissioned through the ANU graduate program, and it was tabled last week. Domestic violence is something I want to be engaging my electorate on and ensuring that people understand that domestic violence is out there, that it needs to be spoken about and discussed, and that people need to take responsibility for it. I am calling on all men to get up and take the pledge that we will not stay tolerant, accepting or silent in respect of domestic violence. This is something I certainly want to be focused on in my electorate.

Lastly, when I was elected, I said I would give whatever support I possibly could to the police in my region, who do valuable work in protecting our community. I have had a long commitment to working with the police. In the main I have been their advocate on various issues in state and territory police jurisdictions as well as the Australian Federal Police. I try to give the police in my electorate all the assistance I can because they do a fantastic job, sometimes under very, very difficult circumstances. I acknowledge that the police are a particular class of person; it takes a very special person to put on a police uniform and go out there day after day and do what is necessary to look after the community. I know, Madam Deputy Speaker D'Ath, you know that because your husband, George, is a policeman in Queensland and does a sterling job up there. (Time expired)

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

I spend a lot of my time out and about knocking on doors and going to the shopping centres in Cowan because, like so many other members of this place, I have no interest in sitting behind my desk or playing golf when there are opinions to be listened to and people to be seen in my electorate. It is certainly clear that there are two federal issues that I continually hear about from my constituents—that is, border control and the carbon tax. Therefore, I will take this opportunity today to speak on these issues I continually hear about. However, before I do so, I note that within the budget the share of GST flowing to Western Australia is forecast to decline again to below 70 cents in the dollar, with the mining tax also forecast to redistribute wealth away from Western Australia. This redistribution of wealth away from those who produce it is something like socialism.

Given the time available, I will focus on the two key issues and I will begin with border control. I can say this is a great source of irritation for my constituents. They do not like the money being spent to deal with the government's soft and ineffectual policies regarding the boats and they do not like the toleration of riots, the sabotaging of boats and the endangerment of Australian Navy personnel, and they do not like the free giveaways, the special deals with those who come by boat and the pathetic deal with Malaysia. My constituents see that the lives being lived in facilities paid for by the Australian taxpayers are good. The high-quality food, the free goodies, the gym and the unrestricted internet access all stand in stark contrast to what the people get from their own government. That really irritates those on fixed incomes and they know that, if it were not for the policies of this Labor government, Christmas Island would not be full, the numerous detention centres around Australia would not be being built and operated and buildings would not have been wasted. Therefore, I support the establishment of an inquiry into the crisis in the immigration detention network. Intense scrutiny of the government's policies is now required as we know that there are as many as three critical incidents a day within the network. Apart from these incidents, the inquiry would also look at a cost blowout of some $3 billion, the record number of detainees and the massive blowout in the average time a person is detained. Clearly there is a need for these matters to be ventilated.

With regard to the immigration and border control system, I want to get specific on a number of points regarding the comprehensive failures by the government. I will begin with the Malaysia deal. I would say that the Karen people in Cowan know I support their cause and support their resettlement in Australia. I have said that on many occasions since I was elected in 2007. I supported the shadow immigration minister when he spoke of exchanges of those who come by boat with those who have been stuck behind refugee camp wire or have been approved as refugees. I support such exchanges, particularly where a person who jumps the queue is exchanged with a person who has been waiting in the long queue. Yes, I support that sort of arrangement. We would pay for the person we receive and the other country would pay for the person they receive—one for one. Yet that is not what we got from the government. We got a four-year deal where the Australian taxpayer pays for 4,800 people at a cost of $292 million. We take 4,000 at $55,000 a head and give them 800 at $95,000 a head and we pay the whole bill. This is desperation and desperation will cost the taxpayers another fortune.

Malaysia is not a signatory to the refugee convention, something that the Labor Party used to have a problem with. From the latest reports it has been said that the deal is not finalised yet. The minister says that the one hundred asylum seekers that have arrived since the deal was announced will be processed overseas, but the Malaysian Minister for Home Affairs is reported as saying that only those who arrive after the deal is signed off will be part of the exchange. Here we have got a deal where Malaysia ships out 4,000 refugees and accepts just 800 asylum seekers. This is a bad deal where Australia loses in every respect. It looks bad and it is. The only thing that really surprises me is how the government, the Prime Minister and the minister for immigration can come into this parliament and proclaim that this deal is something they are proud of. It is unbelievable. They should be ashamed and everyone who sold out the national interest should be ashamed as well. This will be a failure that will go down in our history as one of the most colossal examples of government failure, right up there with the Whitlam government.

Like some bad telemarketing advertisement, this portfolio has many such examples of abject failure and defeat, so I will go to the regional processing centre fiasco. In many ways, the regional processing centre idea signalled the government's absolute loss of control on the issue to our regional neighbours. This is like a poker game where you bluff on nine hands in a row and, with sweat running down your face, your opponents know that on the 10th hand you are going to be bluffing again. The Malaysians saw this government coming and they knew how desperate the government was, so they got a great deal. What makes it worse is that the Malaysian High Commissioner let the cat out of the bag when he said that Malaysia would exercise discretion over who it would accept. The Prime Minister on the last Tuesday in question time actually said that Malaysia would not determine who was sent here, but we will be carefully watching this point because everything this government says unravels in these matters.

That brings me to Papua New Guinea and the announcement of the intent of the Labor government to now establish a processing centre on Manus Island. Clearly the East Timor regional processing centre has now been consigned to the thought bubble scrapheap and replaced with the Papua New Guinea regional processing centre, which seemed to come as a surprise to the PNG government. Yet I understand that they are not opposed because they know that the government will pay and they will negotiate fiercely, probably settling on a cash amount five times what the PNG government would have wanted in the first place. In the future, historians will look back on this moment and say that the only regional centre created by this government was a regional embarrassment centre, clearly in the ministerial wing.

Manus Island is an interesting location. A lot of members of this place spoke harshly of the original plan that established Manus Island under the Howard government. Hansard is littered with rebukes and commentary from Labor MPs mentioning Manus Island and railing against the actions of the Howard government. The list is of course extensive and no doubt former members are probably quite happy that they did not have to confront the hypocrisy that is now evident. The former members for Charlton, Fremantle, Corio and others certainly had a go at the Howard government and the island. Of course, there are still members here that spoke so strongly against Manus Island, including the member for Melbourne Ports and the member for Lingiari. The minister for immigration even had a go at Manus Island and offshore processing in 2006. Minister Crean, Minister Garrett, Minister Burke and the defence minister made much of the backlogs in 2004—all strangely quiet now with the re-emergence of Manus Island. The much-maligned so-called Pacific solution, which was so strongly railed against by Labor members of this place in the past, seems to be back again because the government are desperate and will ditch any so-called principles that they claimed to have had to try to cobble together some facade of an answer to this problem they created. While I say the so-called Pacific solution is back, the government's failures will continue and the taxpayers will continue to pay for cost blowouts because the Labor government will not reinstate the key aspects of the Howard government border protection policy, including temporary protection visas. They should embrace the coalition's policies to provide the real deterrents that are required to stop the boats.

The other great problem for this government is the view of the Australian people on the protests, riots and part-time rooftop stunts. We know that the inability of the government to control and manage the ever-increasing stock of detention facilities around the country is a source of great embarrassment for them. In question time on 10 May the minister refused to specifically answer a question without notice about whether rooftop protestors had been allowed to get down off the roof and even charge their mobile phones—a part-time protest—and, Minister, the people know this; they have seen it and they are not happy. And then there was the destruction of the Villawood detention centre buildings in April—the computer room, kitchen and medical centre all destroyed—let alone the home-made bomb the minister read about in the papers recently. And what about the significant destruction of facilities at Christmas Island, which will seek no charges laid or accountability levelled at those who caused the destruction. Even today there were reports of assaults on guards on Christmas Island. Australians will want that dealt with appropriately, including the refusal of visas and the laying of charges. And then there was the explosion of SIEV36. This caused death and injury but there were no charges laid or visas rejected—another justifiable cause of outrage in the Australian community.

There is a big difference between the comprehensive failures of this government and the system that worked. The system that worked was our system; it stopped the boats through temporary protection visas and utilising offshore processing facilities, including Nauru and Manus Island. Of all those who were sent to these facilities just 42 per cent eventually made it to Australia. As I said, the one for five deal with Malaysia will cost $292 million. It is the latest example of a budget blow-out, and it will cost more than the so-called Pacific solution ever cost. So the people of Cowan are right to ask about the waste of money, the terrible deals done, the terrible policy statements that are later rescinded or die a quiet death. Free nose-hair trimmers and cigarettes, destroyed facilities and massive budget blow-outs—those who jump the queue are not only above the law but also get a load of freebies that our pensioners and those on fixed incomes would love to be able to access.

The second issue I want to raise in this debate is the carbon tax. Born of a lie, the carbon tax is a set of numbers that the government have kept out of the budget to help fix their figures. I will just go through the realities of what may well end up being the greatest deception in the history of this country. Although the Prime Minister's outright political self-serving lie in the week before the last election was a big deception, the assertion that Labor's carbon tax will do anything for global temperatures is the greatest deception in our national history. It will do nothing more than fleece money from Australians and make our employers less competitive; it will do nothing but give the government money.

Today it was reported that the government's own climate commission, bought and paid for with taxpayers' dollars, had handed down its first report—hand-picked, and consensus therefore guaranteed. What do they say? Firstly, they say that everyone agrees with them that anything that is currently proposed in Australia will only slow carbon growth in the atmosphere—but to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the reduction of carbon dioxide will pretty much have to stop altogether. And that, of course, will cause those who subscribe to the theory of anthropogenic global warming to urge deep cuts here in Australia. That is right: let us say the world. Switch off everything now and we can save the world but of course, unfortunately, there is still the rest of the world. It was not reported in the papers today what effect the rest of the world's current plans will have on the climate, so I will be looking to that in the detail of the report.

Let us look at the claim that a carbon tax will reduce carbon output. We know that carbon dioxide makes up around 395 parts per million in the atmosphere. But 97 per cent of that is naturally occurring, so human produced CO2 accounts for just three per cent of the CO2 in the atmosphere, or just 0.00001185 per cent of the atmosphere. But that is not the bottom line for this country because Australia produced just 1.8 per cent of that figure. That means Australian production of CO2 amounts to 0.0000002133 per cent of the atmosphere. That is the figure against which this failure of a government wants to apply a multibillion-dollar tax, to reduce that figure by five per cent. So this Labor government's multibillion-dollar tax will result in the reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere by 0.000000010665 per cent. This is just another example of a failure of a policy that will do nothing for the environment and will only damage this country and reduce the standards of living for Australians—an absolute disgrace.

I have described this carbon tax as the greatest deception in the history of this nation. It is a fraud and it is a disgrace. But we should not be surprised, because it is like so many other Labor government programs that naturally turned out to be inefficient, ineffective and record-breaking in terms of their exorbitant costs. The whole global warming theory has been proven again and again around the world to be an excuse for profiteering, fraud and political advantage.

I take this opportunity to thank my constituent Neil Sullivan for his recent visit to my office. He handed me pages of references to carbon trading frauds in Europe. Indeed, if you do any internet searches for carbon trading fraud you will find hundreds of listings related to this problem. Billions of dollars have gone missing as organised crime has targeted the weaknesses inherent in the system. Of course, that was recognised back in September 2009 when the Guardian newspaper reported an overhaul of the European Union's VAT system to stop fraud, and to do so before the Copenhagen summit. In spite of that action, the fraud on VAT related carbon remains a problem in 2010. It was also reported at the start of this month that European spot markets for carbon credits were prone to fraud, and they were shut down for 15 days after a large online fraud took place.

These are the same problems that confront this government—a government that has resided over numerous failed programs that have cost the taxpayers large amounts of money. I certainly find it difficult to be comfortable with any assurances this government makes about fraud and rorting when there have been so many examples of such failures that the Labor government has initiated.

I said at the outset that the two major issues raised with me by my constituents are border control and the carbon tax. These are big issues and they represent a fundamental breach of faith with the people by this government. On border control, the government is tasked to maintain the control and integrity of the immigration system, and they have achieved neither. They cannot even ensure that those who break the law are held accountable for their actions.

On the carbon tax, not only is it a terrible lie that has been told to the Australian people for political expediency, but the suggestion that it will in some way be effective in reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and thereby reduce global temperatures is an even bigger lie. These are two of the many issues on which the government, if it really believed in itself, would seek an election to demonstrate its mandate. The reality is that the only thing this government now believes in is the maintenance of power, and sadly that overrides all other considerations.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2011-12 and the cognate bills. These bills solidify the foundation of the Gillard government's budget, our work and commitment towards a stronger economy and better communities for all Australians. In particular, I will endeavour to speak on what this budget will deliver for constituents in Chifley in education, health, local infrastructure, jobs and training, to ensure improved pathways to opportunity.

The budget required difficult decisions necessary to deliver $22 billion in savings, and I commend Treasurer Wayne Swann. I note the presence in the House of the Assistant Treasurer and I also recognise his contribution to delivering a solid, economically responsible budget despite the challenges Australia faces as a nation, with natural disasters such as cyclones and floods in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales, and what those did to our bottom line. The budget remains on track for a surplus in 2012-13. It is also important to set the context. Australia is in transition between slow, sluggish growth during the GFC and rapid growth with a return to surplus.

I would like to begin my contribution to this debate by highlighting this government's record on building a strong economy. We are set to experience a surge in investment never seen in this country before, with business prepared to invest in a way not witnessed previously. It is a reflection of the confidence of business in the direction of the economy. To ensure that the economy travels as far and strongly as possible, this budget is taking action on two fronts—infrastructure and skills. Without skilling up our workforce and drawing back into the workforce as many people as we can, we will continue to be plagued by skills shortages. We certainly require an 'all hands on deck' approach, which is the focus of the budget, aiming to build a stronger workforce, particularly as the economy is set to take off. I will return to these two issues later.

I reflect on the hardest hitting time since the Great Depression. The government's policies during the recent economic downturn provided families in Chifley and across the nation with the support they needed, via the economic stimulus. Instead of slashing jobs we created 750,000 new jobs since coming into government. As much as the opposition would like to omit this achievement when talking about the collapse of financial markets in 2008, or even acknowledge a return to surplus well ahead of any major advanced economy, the government's economically and fiscally responsible budget has moved to ensure that we are heading towards a surplus by 2012-13. We have outlined our plans to achieve this.

On top of this we have delivered $47 billion of tax cuts. For a person on $50,000, we have cut their tax by $1,750 per year. And we did this with an eye to ensuring we kept tax as a share of GDP at or below the level we inherited—on average 23. 5 per cent. This year we are at 21.8 per cent.

The previous government, on the other hand, was the highest taxing government of all time—peaking at 24.1 per cent of GDP in 2004-05 and 2005-06. Back then it was 24.1 per cent; today it is 21.8 per cent. Unfortunately, the opposition have on occasion expressed a wish to do the same as us in terms of returning to surplus, but, minus a plan to illustrate this to the public, there is no substantial proof.

It is worth looking at where we are compared to those beyond our shores. The figures that strike me are the unemployment rates of major economies like the United States and United Kingdom, who are still struggling with unemployment rates that are double Australia's unemployment rate of 4.9 per cent. In fact, approximately 30 million jobs were slashed across the globe during the aftermath of the global financial crisis. The government is building a strong economy for the long-term gain of the country. It is forecast that the economy is to grow by four per cent and that unemployment rates will go down to 4.5 per cent.

As the member for Chifley, I can say that this budget is creating jobs, creating opportunities for the 4,000 apprentices in the Chifley electorate—this budget is about building Australia's future workforce—and training and skilling up Australians to experience the benefits of work. Particularly in an area such as ours, this is an especially critical objective. These 4,000 apprentices in Chifley will be provided with a $1,700 trades apprentice income bonus to encourage them to complete their critical trade qualifications. These apprentices will also benefit from $100 million for a national apprenticeship program and the $281 million support package for additional tax-free payments. And in the area of vocational training we are investing $3 billion over six years including $1.75 million for reform of the training system—this is in partnership with industry—to deliver skills in demand.

Soon students in Chifley will also be able to attend trades training centres at local high schools in the electorate, such as Loyola Senior High and Wyndham, Tyndale, Doonside and Evans high schools. During the December period last year, I visited about 30 schools and I have seen the next exciting phase of the Building the Education Revolution roll out—with Doonside and Blackett School BER ceremonies in December 2010 and the opening of Tregear Public School library and refurbishments in March 2011. Only recently I went to St Aidan's Primary School and saw the work that was being done there in Rooty Hill.

It has truly been fantastic to see principals, school staff, parents and tradespeople working together to deliver these important projects for the whole school community. Now that these projects have been completed teachers and students in our local schools will be teaching and learning in 21st century facilities that they richly deserve and can be proud of.

We are providing families in Chifley from Doonside to Tregear with increased support to ensure that children stay on at school and longer, in secondary school in particular. I point to the fact that about 8,000 local families will benefit from the extra $4,200 that will be provided to children aged between 16 and 19 receiving family tax benefit A. This is an important measure, particularly as I am especially keen to see an increase in retention rates in an area where retention rates have been stubbornly lower that the national average.

The education tax refund will also be extended to school uniforms to help with education costs for families, from 1 July of this year. I welcome this measure wholeheartedly because of what it will do to help families with costs such as sports uniforms. This is on top of refunds for books and other school items and will make getting students back to school, with the items they need, easier. It will certainly not be the be-all and end-all in helping boost retention rates but it will be a major encouragement to those families that are keen to see their young children stay on in school longer and build their bases of personal skills.

In terms of health care within Chifley, the government has delivered on a number of fronts, including a boost for Mt Druitt and Rooty Hill primary health care, with $250,000 from the primary health care infrastructure grants program, helping health facilities undertake a broad range of treatment for patients and helping ease the pressure on hospital emergency departments. The government has also invested $4.5 million for more emergency beds and equipment at Mt Druitt Hospital, under the historic National Health and Hospitals Network Agreement. Nationally, $419 million is being invested in headspace and EPPICs. We are fortunate to have a headspace presence in Mount Druitt, which I have had the honour and privilege of visiting, seeing firsthand the work they are doing in offering support to young people in Chifley. The government's $2.2 billion mental health package acknowledges the need to provide greater support in this area, and our commitment has received particular support for its focus on early intervention.

I mentioned earlier that the budget is delivering in terms of infrastructure, and that is certainly the case in Chifley. Chifley and other Western Sydney residents are set to benefit from a $10 million Smart Technology trial for the M4 motorway to improve safety and tackle congestion in a city in which it is estimated that about $8 billion in extra cost is generated each year because of congestion. As a federal government we are also investing $100 million in the Suburban Jobs program. This program is designed to encourage employment growth closer to where people live, to help deal with, among other things, the congestion that comes with the growth of our cities.

Moreover, some $4.1 million of funding will be extended to Blacktown City Council. Some of that will be to upgrade local parks. Importantly, the bulk of it will be directed to completing the Mount Druitt community resource hub, for which I was keen to lobby for support, along with my predecessor, the former member for Chifley Roger Price. That community resource hub will provide training and community meeting facilities.

The capability of the library in Mount Druitt will also be upgraded and people will be enabled to access the internet, in an area where broadband access rates are lower. People have problems from a family income perspective in being able to get home connections. Through Blacktown council, through the resource hub, we will be able to provide students access to something that demonstrably has an impact on people's education and transforms their lives. I am proud that the government has been able to add $4 million in funding to $4 million in funding from Blacktown council to develop that resource hub. It is taking shape at a rapid pace, right before our eyes, in Mount Druitt. On top of that, another almost $1.4 million funding will be provided to Blacktown City Council to maintain and upgrade local roads, which, as always, are of keen interest to local residents.

On investing in skills and nation building, the NBN is the largest nation-building project in our history. For residents in Chifley it will deliver affordable high-speed broadband. It is a great investment which will provide abundant economic and social benefits. I have spoken in this place about the fact that some suburbs in the Chifley electorate will be among the first in all of Sydney to access the high-speed internet network. It will be a boon for Western Sydney and particularly for those households and people who have raised with me over the year their frustration, particularly in suburbs such as Woodcroft and Doonside, about being unable to access internet for their families, for their work at home and for their businesses. The NBN is something they have long been after and will ensure that they are either in the same or in a better place than the rest of Sydney.

This is possible because of the range of decisive measures taken by the government, investing in the nation while at the same time ensuring that we are pulling back. It is worth noting we are engaged in the fastest period of fiscal consolidation that has been seen in four decades. The government will not stand in the way of businesses trying to access money for the purpose of the investment that I reflected upon earlier. We will see that fiscal consolidation having great benefits for the economy. While we are pulling back the amount of money that we are drawing upon in the economy, we will also make sure that we are investing in the skills and infrastructure needs of the nation. I am delighted to support the way that the government has been able to achieve those objectives in the way that it has in this budget. This year's solid budget will deliver for Australian families and it will return us to surplus. We have committed to providing savings for the future. The budget will look after the most vulnerable and, most importantly, support families. I commend the budget to the House.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I never like to make references, if I can avoid it, without referring to the last two or three days of my life experience. In the last week in North Queensland we had the final coup de grace for the Babinda sugar mill, leaving a town of about 4,000 people with no employment. The town does not have much, if any, tourism. It has a few bananas, but very few, and a little bit of farming. It is basically a town of one industry. That was sugar, and the sugar mill has closed.

Last week, when I was addressing the ETU conference in Victoria, I was telling the ETU delegates—of which there were nearly 1,000—that we are no longer a mining country; we are a quarrying country, and that is a big difference. I was probably more a miner than anything else before I came into this place. I worked my own mines and I also worked as a labourer in the Mount Isa mine, so I have seen it from all angles. The costs in Australia are so high that one of the five major mining companies in Australia has already decided that it will not be doing any more processing in Australia: Xstrata. As I was actually delivering the speech to the delegates in Melbourne, Victoria, little did I know that back in my home town, if you like, Mount Isa, it was being announced that the copper smelter would close and the copper refinery in Townsville would close. In a mining country, if you dig it out of the ground and turn it into metal, you export metal. If you are a quarrying country, you dig it out of the ground, upgrade it a bit and it concentrates, and send it overseas. We are a quarrying country. The vast bulk of our revenue comes from quarrying coal and iron ore, and it will now come from quarrying copper. The biggest copper producer in the country will now be quarrying copper.

I got the good news some three or four days ago that three of the major dairy farmers in my area were going out of dairying. The Malanda dairy factory has gone from 240 farmers down to about 55 farmers. It is very hard to see how our factory can survive. The towns of Malanda, Atherton and Millaa Millaa are all dependent upon that dairy factory. If you switch from dairying, which is a high-employment industry, to cattle raising, there is very little employment whatsoever. Obviously it does not take much energy to see that the fences are up and there is water in the trough—that is really all that has to be done with cattle.

Having said that, the last week was a week of disaster for North Queensland; we have also had the announcement by Treasury officials which, in my opinion, amounted to a confirmation of the prognostications that the Australian dollar is going to go to US$1.70—an exchange rate of 170c. Even if that figure is 150c, foreign tourism in this country is being absolutely devastated by a dollar that has risen from 60c to over 100c. If it continues to rise, there is infinitely more disaster on the way for the base metals industry, the cattle industry, the tourism industry and the sugar industry.

I was at the Esplanade in Cairns recently, late at night, to get a quick take-home meal, and there were only three cafes open. I asked the taxi driver, 'Have you blokes got a holiday today or something of that nature?' He said, 'No.' There used to be 23 cafes open till 2.30 in the morning on the Esplanade in Cairns and now there are only three open after midnight. That is a fair barometer of the state of play.

Having said a series of negative things, let me praise the government. They deserve very high praise for their actions during the global financial crisis. All right, if some of the money was wasted they deserve a good kick in the backside for that, and we praise the opposition for delivering the kick in the backside. But the opposition can stand condemned—very worryingly condemned—because there was no doubt that their rhetoric constantly and continuously was opposed to the borrowing and spending of money by the government. If there is some other way of getting yourself out of a recession or a depression, then I would like to know about it. I strongly recommend that the people in the opposition do a bit of reading. I strongly recommend John Maynard Keynes, Hjalmar Schacht, Aiko Takahashi or John Kenneth Galbraith to them. With the smallest amount of reading in economics they would understand that, if you have a recession or a depression, you have to spend money. The very worrying, disturbing and scary thing is that they were saying exactly the same thing from 1932 all the way through to 1939—and we had the worst depression of any country on earth, even worse than America's. At least America got the message, although pretty late in the day. Takahashi had got the message very early on, Hjalmar Schacht got the message very early on and, of course, John Maynard Keynes was saying it before the depression. If he had been listened to, there would have been no depression. For the opposition to be once again repeating the mistakes and having a very superficial knowledge of economics is very, very worrying.

Having praised the government for their action during the GFC, which they richly deserve, in spite of the tenacious attack from the opposition, I see that in the budget there is an allocation of $950 million to deal with the effects of Cyclone Yasi, which is half of the budgetary allocation of $1,800 million. We have been terribly worried that all of this money is going to go to Brisbane, because the Brisbane government, in a most extraordinary decision, set up an authority to dispense the money in Brisbane, comprised of Brisbane people and based in Brisbane—and the legislation referred to the 'flood disaster recovery authority'. The word 'cyclone' was not there and the North Queensland members of the Queensland parliament all voted for it. I saw the legislation and was on the telephone to the Prime Minister's office within three seconds. They thought they were going to pass through this parliament legislation which did not mention North Queensland and the destruction of Yasi.

For what it is worth, I think that the losses caused by Yasi in money terms—not in terms of the loss of life; there was a very great tragedy in the south-east corner of the state—will be worse than were suffered in the south-east corner. I say that because in the banana and sugar industries alone the losses will go very close to $1,000 million, before we get to the destruction of housing and the complete destruction of Dunk Island and Port Hinchinbrook, to give but two examples. Finally, with the clean energy corridor, the government and, particularly the Treasurer, deserve to be singled out for the highest of praise here. We also thank very sincerely the Leader of the Opposition, because I think he has a very genuine commitment to building a transmission line to take power. 'Nation building' is a term often used. The Rudd government carried out two initiatives that future generations of Australians will praise them greatly for. There is the building of a national information highway—and, again, it may not be built in the most cost-effective way, but at least they are building it—and the building of a national energy highway. To a very large degree, I think the Treasurer can claim to be one of the architects of that initiative. We are hopeful and confident that the clean energy corridor will provide four per cent of Australia's petrol requirements, two per cent of Australia's electricity demand and it will be clean and renewable and forever—that, once built, it will be there indefinitely.

Many other speakers have canvassed other issues in the budget, and it is sometimes hard to see the budget except in terms of interest rates and balanced budgets. This place has a primitive, simplistic love affair with balanced budgets. One of the reasons that I have always been an admirer of Kevin Rudd—and the word 'restraint' leaps to mind—is the restraint shown when he was running the state of Queensland. There was a very restrained approach to the spending of money, and it was a hallmark of his administration in Queensland.

I do not think that anyone would question that I was one of the inner kitchen cabinet of the Bjelke-Petersen government. He very kindly nominated me to be the Premier on numerous occasions—along with Lin Powell, who, I might add, would have made an excellent Premier of Queensland. I am not so sure that I would have, but Lin would have. I was one of the inner group in that government. That government was regarded as the greatest achieving government in Australian history in terms of economic achievements and nation building. The person who most said that was in fact Peter Beattie. At the burial of Bjelke-Peterson he said: 'This man and this government created the coal industry of Australia and the tourism industry of the state of Queensland.' He should have added that they also created the aluminium industry.

We had the most unbalanced budget in human history, I would think. In the space of two or three years we borrowed $3,000 million to build a railway line from nowhere to nowhere. A little moth-eaten coastal town called Gladstone had this giant railway line built out to a railway site called Blackwater. There was not a single mine anywhere near that railway line, but they believed that if they built that railway line the mines would open. Les Theiss said, 'I can't open a mine unless I've got a railway line to get the stuff out,' and the government said, 'We're not building a railway line until you build the mine'—and it was chicken and the egg. Along came Ron Cam and this man called Bjelke-Peterson and the chicken and the egg argument was no more.

Similarly, they built a power station—one of the four biggest power stations on earth at the time—and they did not have a single customer for it. But they believed that, if they built that power station, they would have a massive amount of the cheapest electricity available anywhere in the world and it would attract an aluminium industry—and that is exactly what it did.

I have never been enamoured of balanced budgets. If you go out and spend money on self-indulgence, building tunnels, bridges in Brisbane and speeding up traffic flows in Sydney, that is good—I am not saying it is a bad thing to do—but do not say that that is nation building. That is what I would put under the heading of 'self-indulgence'. I have represented city areas in Townsville and Cairns and, yes, we have had to do a bit of that self-indulgence as well. But where has the nation building been? Where are the dams, the ports and the railway lines? Where have those things been?

I will conclude on the issue of interest rates. Australia has five per cent. The RBA sets our interest rates at five per cent. The last time I looked, in the European Union, the EU, it is one per cent, in America it is 0.1 per cent and in Japan it is 0.1 per cent. Why are we out of step with the rest of the world? It is costing us. It is driving our dollar through the roof and wrecking our export industries. (Time expired)

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

It is quite a challenge to follow the member for Kennedy. He is a passionate advocate for his area and for the issues that he believes in. I rise to voice my support for Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2001-2012 and the related budget bills before the House. This is a solid budget that charts a course to surplus, supports more Australians going back to work and delivers on the Gillard government's commitment to a fairer Australia—and it does all of this in the context of putting a price signal before Australians on harmful greenhouse gas pollution.

This budget is not a wasteful, vote-buying exercise but a responsible economic blueprint to ensure that Australia remains a competitive, modern economy and a society where no-one is excluded or forgotten. As was said on budget night, it is a Labor budget. The Treasurer, Mr Swan, made that very clear. I think back to some of the more recent budgets from those opposite—the Howard-Costello efforts of 2006-07. Former Prime Minister Paul Keating referred to Mr Costello as being the laziest Treasurer of all time—that he just sat back in his hammock and had a push every now and then and that he did not have a reform agenda or actually take any positive steps in terms of looking to where Australia needed to be in 20, 30 or 40 years time. Thankfully, the Labor Party is around to do things like that—to be a bit adventurous and to be prepared to look over the horizon. The Gillard-Swan budget supports Australians who are doing it tough. The mining tax measure will ensure that all Australians can benefit from the mining boom. Australians should never forget the economic wizardry of Treasurer Wayne Swan. It helped save Australia from the period of economic recession which plagued almost all other economies in the dark days of the global financial crisis. Let's look at the scoreboard and compare Australia's performance with some other countries before the GFC and after the GFC. In future years, when they write economics textbooks there will be special pages and chapters devoted to Wayne Swan and the team around him that was able to come up with this incredible response to the global financial crisis. I think that history will be much kinder than some of the negative comments that come from those opposite—they will be consigned to the back pages of history. It is hard to appreciate the benefits of something that never happened, like the global financial crisis, especially when there are big fear campaigns. But we all know, especially the Labor Party, what a recession does. We know how it hits homes, how it hits individuals and communities and how whole postcodes can be dragged down. A recession would have meant thousands of Australians without work. There would have been much higher government debt, much higher inflation and lower living standards. As I said, the human cost comes with it as well. The stimulus put in place by the Labor government ensured that this never happened. The crisis did have a massive impact on government revenue, and this can be seen in the bottom line today as detailed in the budget papers.

I am often surprised about what makes headlines in the budget. There used to be a much more detailed process in terms of media attention. Budget items were gone through step-by-step by the Treasurer and by opposition members in their responses. But the last two years have been quite strange. There has been quite a derailment of that whole analysis process. It has been an attempt at a media exercise rather than a budget reply speech. It is quite strange. A case in point is the opposition endeavouring to beat up so much controversy regarding a program to ensure pensioners do not get left behind in the transition to digital television. As country Victorians will tell you, this has been rolled out in lots of parts of Australia and there have been no problems at all.

Often it is the funding programs that do not grab the headlines that make the most significant impact. One that I am particularly proud to talk about—especially in front of Minister Shorten, who I know was particularly passionate about this in his former role—is the extra support for students with disability in Australian schools. The budget delivers $200 million in new funding to support students with disabilities and their teachers. It is a great initiative. I am sure it has got some Shorten fingerprints on it and it is part of the Rudd-Gillard government's response in an area where, unfortunately, not every opportunity has been taken in the last 20 or so years. I am proud to be part of the former Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee that put out the report Access all areas,which has shaped some of that. We are waiting on the government response to all of those recommendations.

This funding is available to all schools—government, Catholic and independent. We do not care what the sign over the gate says; it is for all schools that teach students with a disability. It will enable these schools to provide better support for these students, including speech and occupational therapy at school and access to special equipment such as audiovisual technology to assist students to learn and engage with their classmates. I know there are other former teachers in the chamber at the moment, such as the member for Braddon. As former teachers, we know how some little technology can ensure that a student with disabilities is able to do just the same as everybody else—especially modern technology. The funding also provides additional in-class support from teacher aides and allied health professionals and an adapted curriculum tailored to meet the needs of students who do have disabilities. The funding will also support teachers—very important people in the process, especially in the context of the past 20 years of mainstreaming of people with disabilities. It will help teachers improve the planning and delivery of lessons and also activities to better engage support staff and curriculum experts and to access expert advice to learn. These are common-sense measures and $200 million will go a long way towards making sure that students with disabilities get as much support as possible as early as possible so that they can be mainstreamed. I understand that there are more than 164,000 students with disabilities attending our schools. This funding will be welcomed by them, their families and their teachers.

The budget also delivers $147 million to support families with young children with disabilities. Through Better Start for Children with Disability, we will make early intervention services more affordable for parents and carers. From July, children up to seven years of age who have been diagnosed with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, fragile X syndrome, sight or hearing impairments will be eligible for services under the program. These are early intervention services and that is what is most important, because they are able to provide support before children enter into patterns of behaviour that are particularly difficult for schools. The early intervention services include speech pathology, audiology, occupational therapy, physiotherapy and psychology. Children will have access to a total of $12,000 in flexible funding for early intervention services and will be able to use up to $6,000 in any one financial year.

We all know how important these measures are in order to transition people from primary school to high school and then an even more difficult time, I would suggest, from high school to the workforce. Obviously the hope would be to have as many of the 164,000 people as possible transition to a job that gives them some dignity and independence. Obviously, there are other supported measures. I was at a service run by the Wesley Mission at Rocklea in my electorate last Thursday. The service is called MailpaQ. Rocklea was hit by floods and unfortunately they lost their lifts and a lot of their customer stock. People with disabilities pack the material. Thankfully, through the government's Temporary Viability Support funding, which supports Australian disability enterprises facing short-term financial difficulties—this service has also had to do some rebuilding because of the natural disasters; had they had to close, all of these people would have lost their jobs—they got $27,000 from the Australian government to purchase a truck to make deliveries and a further nearly $70,000 to make up for the loss of customer stock. It was great to see the pride on the faces of these guys when I was there with Parliamentary Secretary McLucas on Thursday.

These measures build on our proud record of delivering for people with disability, because we want all people to enjoy equal opportunity for employment, education and access to goods and services. We have already increased the disability support pension and carer payments. We have doubled funding to the states and territories under the National Disability Agreement and launched the National Disability Strategy. The government is also considering its response to the House of Representatives inquiry into the universal access, the Access all areas that I mentioned earlier. I am particularly proud of the BER buildings in Queensland, and particularly the ones in my electorate that I know of, which were all built to the disability standards.

There were 39 projects in 24 schools within the electorate of Moreton. I attended the opening of the Graceville State School last year. It has a lift so that the many students who have access problems are able to access the new library. Wellers Hill State School, which is also in my electorate, has not opened yet, but when it does it will have similar lift facilities. I was lucky enough to be at MacGregor State School, which is the biggest state school in Queensland, with about 1,200 kids. Their new facilities are called the Tharenou Centre after the long-term principal Steve Tharenou. That centre also has a lift. At the same time, they opened a liberty swing, the first liberty swing that I had seen at a school. It is a swing for people in wheelchairs. They are able to have the experience of being on a swing. I have a two-year old and I know how much time I spend pushing him back on forth. It is good that kids in wheelchairs can also have that experience. That was kindly funded by the Sunnybank Community Club. They are not cheap; not cheap at all. It was great to see that. It was opened on the same day as the centre.

What do these BER buildings and their universal design features say? They illustrate that the Labor government believes in giving everybody an opportunity. The Tharenou Centre is a case in point. Simple changes, such as the architectural approach of having a lift and exceptionally wide verandas suit people in wheelchairs. But it is also great to have extra wide verandas to keep the classrooms cool under the hot Queensland sun. These BER buildings are examples of the Labor government stepping in and providing opportunities and an economic vision. Admittedly, the BER strategy was an economic stimulus strategy rather than an education strategy, but it turned out to be a fantastic contribution to making a fairer society.

The schools in my electorate that do not have lifts—because obviously lifts are very expensive—have made sure that they have those universal design features, so they have ramp access. Examples include Eight Mile Plains State School, Robertson State School, Runcorn Heights State School and Sherwood State School. They have ramp access, which is good for parents, grandparents and students who have disability problems.

I have learnt a lot about lifts since January this year, when the floods went through my electorate and 5,200 properties were affected. A simple lesson that people have learnt is that the last person out should put the lift at the top and walk down the stairs rather than walking out the bottom. We have had so many lifts damaged because the last person out left the lift in the basement. Obviously, when you get two or three metres of water go through, that is not a great way to treat a lift.

This budget before us is all about being a Labor budget and it confirms the fact that Labor has an economic vision. Despite the tough times, despite to the budget that have come with the cyclones in Queensland, the floods in Victoria, the floods in Queensland and other natural disasters. The Gillard-Swan budget is to be commended. I am sure when in time we look back we will see that it made a significant contribution to the future of Australia.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to address the package of appropriation bills for 2011-12. This is a budget that asks families in my electorate of Paterson to do it tough so that the Gillard Labor government can be weak. This is a budget that makes local people pay for the waste and recklessness of the Gillard Labor government, which has wasted their money through failed programs like school halls rip-offs, pink batt fiascos and border protection blowouts. This budget would be a joke if it was not so serious.

One of the most important things in a regional area like Paterson is roads. They are the highways to opportunities that allow my constituents to access education, health services and employment, to name but a few things. But there is not a single new cent—new cent—in this budget for roads. There is $1.75 billion for the border protection blowout, but nothing to boost safety for tens of thousands of drivers. Take for example the feasibility study into the F3 orbital link. That funding has been delayed now until 2015-16. And I am still waiting for the press release from the member for Robertson, Deborah O'Neill, who made much of that promise before the 2010 election and in her maiden speech here in this House. But she has been strangely quiet. Labor did designate $10 million for upgrades to Bucketts Way, which passes through my electorate, but it comes from the existing funding in the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program and is to be spent entirely in the electorate of Lyne. Why? Because Labor sold its soul and shook hands with Rob Oakeshott, the member for Lyne, to take power, and now it is willing to put that deal ahead of the people. I have always been proud of my local councils when it comes to such road funding. Great Lakes, Taree and Gloucester councils have always used a tripartisan approach to the Bucketts Way funding, and that has had some great results. For example, when the previous coalition government delivered $20 million for Bucketts Way, each council chipped in to get the work done to a great standard across the entire length from Taree through to Medowie. This budget undermines that cooperative and productive approach the people of Paterson are so proud of.

The coalition will identify a problem and create a solution. By way of contrast, the Gillard Labor government finds a solution and creates a problem. Labor's plan to give pensioners television set-top boxes has caused a huge outcry in my electorate. Here we have pensioners struggling with the cost of petrol, groceries and health care. Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics released on Monday 16 May show that the cost of living for pensioners has increased by 4.1 per cent over the year to March, well above the official increase of 3.3 per cent. For families the figure was 4.9 per cent, and it was even worse for welfare recipients at 5.1 per cent. Yet Labor wants to help pensioners out by blowing hundreds of millions and spending at least double the real cost per household to install set-top boxes.

This will become, as the Leader of the Opposition put it, the building the entertainment revolution. It will not work, and I can tell you why. Firstly, Labor obviously has not learnt the lessons of its expensive Home Insulation Program. That scheme put local businesses in my electorate, such as the Battmen in Forster, under severe financial stress. It caused scams to run riot, encouraged unsafe work and saw the cost of insulation blow out. Master Electricians Australia has already warned the government about the risks associated with this new scheme but, true to form, this government will not listen.

That is not even the worst part. In my electorate of Paterson there are whole suburbs that will not and do not get any terrestrial digital reception at the moment because they are relying on analog. When that is switched off next year they will have nothing. So what on earth are these residents going to do with a set-top box? Perhaps they could use it as a paperweight, a stool or a footrest. It is like giving the people a plate with no food to eat. This Labor government has a choice. It can upgrade the television towers in my electorate or it can force people to use satellite instead. Satellite will not have all the local programs, news or advertising. This seems like an easy choice, yet in this budget there is no money to upgrade the self-help transmission site at Elizabeth Beach. This means that each household at Elizabeth Beach will have to apply for Labor's satellite subsidy. I have done the sums, and it will cost Labor more to pay the satellite subsidy to the households in Elizabeth Beach than it would to just upgrade the tower in the first place. Such is the incompetence and waste we have come to expect of this government.

In these appropriation bills Labor has promised to establish a new aircraft noise committee to examine possible solutions for mitigating aircraft noise in Port Stephens. Labor says the committee will examine all options, yet it does not say a single word about implementing those options or committing any money to implementing those solutions. Worse still, the Labor government seems to think this satisfies its 2010 election commitments. This is nothing but an insult to the people of Port Stephens, who are burdened by the current ANEF 2025 through no fault of their own. Their homes could be rendered worthless and their livelihoods are now in a state of limbo. These people—my constituents—were promised a new ANEF by the end of last year. They are still waiting.

This government should be ashamed of its lack of action and for breaking an ironclad promise. Then again, this Prime Minister, in the same week she promised to lift the ANEF, also promised that no government she led would have a carbon tax. The member for Newcastle should also be ashamed for letting down cancer patients across the Hunter. The Calvary Mater hospital missed out on an MRI Medicare licence in the budget despite being our region's largest cancer services providing hospital. On 26 October last year, in a speech in this House, the member for Newcastle said:

I am pleased to say that the state government has this year installed an MRI machine at the Mater hospital, and I am working closely with the Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, knowing that they will require some support for the operation of that MRI. The Calvary Mater hospital is the largest oncology service deliverer in New South Wales.

So what is Mrs Grierson's excuse for the nondelivery—that the machine is not operational? In a detailed submission earlier this year the Mater management explained that the scanner would be operating from 30 May, a whole month before this budget takes effect. As the Newcastle Herald reported on 13 May:

Mater medical staff council chairman Aidan Foy said the omission from the budget package was outrageous.

'Inability to get Medicare coverage for it will cause really serious problems for the large number of outpatients we see who will need MRIs,' he said.

'It is completely incomprehensible why a major cancer centre would be denied a Medicare licence for an MRI [scanner].'

That it now may be funded in 18 months shows how much the member for Newcastle takes her people for granted.

Labor just is not able to make the tough decisions. It proclaimed $22 billion in savings but actually soaked up $19 billion of that in new spending. Of the $3 billion remaining, $1.8 billion is revenue from a new tax, the flood levy. So, from a budget of approximately $360 billion, the Labor government has saved just $1.2 billion. That is like saving $1.20 from $360. I would not want to put Treasurer Wayne Swan in charge of my piggy bank account.

I now turn to the impact of this bill on one of the portfolios for which I am shadow minister. The budget is the annual opportunity for a government to show what they believe in and what their priorities are. There is still a lot of uncertainty about what exactly the Gillard government believe in, but this budget proves that they do not believe in the Australian tourism industry. Since Labor was elected in 2007, total annual government spending has ballooned to $406.5 billion, a 49.5 per cent increase, yet the Gillard government's annual investment in Tourism Australia has now gone backwards by $16.2 million in real terms. In this budget the Gillard government prioritised things like the $308 million overpriced set-top box giveaway and the $10 million gift to the union movement so they could build a new website. At the same time, the Gillard government levied a $6.2 million efficiency dividend on Tourism Australia, the statutory authority charged with marketing Australia to the rest of the world. It is very interesting to see this $6.2 million efficiency dividend levied on Tourism Australia because, according to the Minister for Tourism, there were no more efficiencies to be had at Tourism Australia. I would like to draw the attention of the House to question in writing No. 58, which the minister answered in November last year. I asked the minister what cost saving initiatives had been identified at Tourism Australia for 2010-11 but had not yet been implemented. His answer? Nil. So in November last year, the very time the Minister for Tourism would have been putting in his bids to Finance, the very time he would have been preparing submissions for the Expenditure Review Committee, he said there were no corporate cost savings to be had at Tourism Australia in 2011-12. This can only mean one thing: the marketing activities of Tourism Australia will be cut because of this efficiency dividend. At the very time we have a surging Australian dollar, at the very time our two biggest tourist source markets, Japan and New Zealand, have been hit with natural disasters and at the very time when this industry needs the support of the government, Labor are cutting the marketing activities of Tourism Australia.

But this is not the only bad policy decision of the Gillard government that will make it harder for the 500,000 Australians who work in the tourism industry to keep their jobs. This government is doing all that it can to make things harder for our tourism operators. In addition to cutting funding for Tourism Australia, this government has increased tourist visa fees by 33 per cent and increased the tourist departure tax by 24 per cent, while cutting the very services it is meant to pay for by $34 million. In fact, the government's own budget papers said the Gillard Government:

… will reduce operational staff allocated to the passenger facilitation function across the eight Australian international airports.

So the government is making it more expensive for tourists to come to Australia, and reducing the very services they first see when they hop off the plane. The Gillard government completely bungled the tourism industries' industrial relations framework with their so-called modern awards, which were so modern it took us back about two decades!

This government spent more than $100,000 operating the National Long-Term Tourism Strategy Steering Committee. They spent $17,165 on printing 500 copies of the Jackson report—more than $34 for each copy, nearly $1 per page. I would hate to see the Minister for Tourism in charge of printing a Grisham novel. You can just imagine it: walking past the airport bookshop and seeing A time to kill, 'Now just $491 a copy'! The government's extravagant printing budget would be less offensive if they had actually done something with the recommendations in the report, and they have not. I have to say there is a lot of good work in the Jackson report. Many of the recommendations informed the tourism policies the coalition took to the last election. But where is the government's action? They are bogged down in bureaucracy.

The template that became the hallmark of the Rudd government—review, report, repeat—is still alive and well in the Gillard government. The other hallmark of the Rudd-Gillard government has been their inability to balance the books. In this budget, the government announced new savings for 2011-12—the appropriation I am speaking on today—of $3.7 billion, but then it announced new spending measures of $6.3 billion. So the budget position has worsened by $2.6 billion because of the policy decisions taken in this budget.

The tourism industry is wearing the burden of Labor's debt and deficits without having got any of the benefits. The Treasurer's incompetence is making it harder for tourism operators in two ways. Firstly, the Treasurer's reckless and undisciplined spending is putting upward pressure on interest rates. Not only does this make it more expensive for Australian tourism operators to borrow money but also it is a significant factor in the appreciating Australian dollar, which is making Australia a much more expensive tourist destination. Secondly, when the government are out in the market borrowing money to finance their spending habits, they are crowding out private investors who are seeking to borrow money for tourism assets. The tourism industry needs investment and the last thing it needs is for the government to be competing with private borrowers in the marketplace for finance.

The tourism industry deserves more than a throw-away line in the Treasurer's budget speech. The tourism industry deserves a government that will deliver real money and real action to support the industry, and the Gillard government stands condemned for failing to deliver it. What we see from this government is waste, mismanagement, recklessness and an abandonment of the industries that require the support of the Australian government. This government has failed the simple test of one that is there for the betterment of Australia.

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

The member for Paterson just gave his doomsday delivery on the budget and the policies of this government—his usual approach since he has been in opposition. I remind the member for Paterson of a couple of things. He goes on about the lack of an analog signal in his electorate. He is well aware that he would have black spots anyway.

Mr Baldwin interjecting—

No, you sit and listen for a moment; we listened to you. This government has continued that program and will be moving to a conversion to digital, as he well knows. If he wants to go on about the rollout of digital terrestrial tower signals and continue to claim that that is cheaper for those people in black spots to receive than satellite reception then why not talk about the ongoing maintenance costs associated with terrestrial signals from towers? Of course he will not do that because he knows that the satellite system is the only sensible system to provide digital television. I see he is leaving the chamber—as he always does when anyone raises anything about his comments on his own electorate. What he also does not comment on is the fact that satellite transmission of digital signals will involve not only all the channels available in the metropolitan areas but also a local news coverage on a specific designated television channel for his area. But, of course, he does not tell the people of Paterson about that, so I will for the record.

He also trumpeted the same sorts of arguments on the program to provide set-top boxes for older Australians. We all know that the cost is not just the cost of the set-top box itself. We know it involves a suite of programs to support the installation of the set-top box. It involves the wiring and antenna orientation, if that is required. It also involves support service for over 12 months thereafter to ensure that the users of the set-top box are getting the right services and using the set-top box correctly to get the digital signal. So it is part of a whole range or suite of associated things provided. Those opposite know that, because they supported the legislation when it came into this House. This has been in process now for some months and those opposite supported it.

But News Limited come along, with a few of those on the other side, to ape an argument on this. And of course out it comes—here we are looking at another example of the so-called installation fiasco. It is absolute nonsense. Those on the other side know it. News Limited know it, but it is not in their interests to promote anything positive. We are quite happy to support older Australians who need support in setting up for the coming digital conversion. It has worked in Mildura, it has worked in other places and it will continue to work. But those opposite do not want to talk about that.

The other thing that was trumpeted by News Limited and aped on the other side was this great so-called class warfare allegedly driven by this budget. When you look at the figures for the family tax benefit—both what is given and suspended for some time—you can see that it is an absolute nonsense. In the main, families will in fact be much better off because of this budget, and the figures substantiate that. But is that what is in the media? No, it is all about so-called class warfare and how middle-class families have been hit unnecessarily by this budget.

What we tried to do with this budget was to be fair and to be responsible and, through it, we are trying to achieve the aim of getting the budget back into surplus by 2012-13. That is exactly what the budget sets out to do. It is made up of savings of $22 billion and it has a number of expenditures to assist families, to assist the economy and, in particular, to assist small businesses. Whilst doing that, it aims to keep the parameters of our economy in check so that we can, indeed, go into surplus as promised in 2012-13.

Listening to the member for Paterson, who echoes the arguments about the economy of many on that side, you would never believe we went through a financial crisis. According to the member for Paterson, we have done nothing to maintain this economy in its relatively sound position compared to other countries—to keep the economy strong and in a better position to service our debt than most countries, if not every other country in the world. Those opposite know we have done that. They may quibble about where we spend money and where we may have savings, but the Leader of the Opposition, in his reply to the budget, could not specify savings. He would not specify where the revenue will come from for any expenditures. All we got was this headland vision of waffle and negatives all the way.

If you look for the Leader of the Opposition's line-by-line reply to this budget, his detailed criticism of it—and indeed when you look for that in the media—it is missing. Any substantive analysis of this budget is essentially missing. I expected to hear that detailed criticism from the other side, but all we got was what Tony Abbott is very good at—slogans and vague comments. When he is asked to be accountable, he cannot be accountable.

That inevitably led to the sorts of tensions that arise in those opposite. We know that the member for North Sydney was upset by a number of the so-called assessments by those opposite and we know that he has been in conflict with his leader. We know that others on that side are greatly disappointed by the Leader of the Opposition's inability to provide anything of substance.

The Leader of the Opposition is calling for a change in government—'Let us go to an election,' he begs. Why would he want to go to an election? Is it that we do not have any legislation passing through this place? I do not think so. Indeed, substantial amounts of legislation have been passing through this place and there will be more. Is it because this legislation has no substance? No, it is not. Legislation passes through this place, the Australian economy continues in its development and this House continues to function. So, gee, Tony—Leader of the Opposition—why do you want another election? Tony was upset that, when he thought he could bribe and buy his way into government with members from the crossbenches, they saw through it. In fact the more he offered them, the more they were determined that he was not fit to govern this country—and nor is he.

Even if our polls may not be as high as one would expect, I will tell you what—the Leader of the Opposition's polls are no cause for comfort for him or those opposite. So what does that tell you? You can argue that there may not be substance in everything we do here, but I tell you what—there is no substance in the Leader of the Opposition and those opposite know it. If you were hoping for a little miracle this year, forget it. This parliament will go its course. The Australian people expect that and that is exactly what will happen. Things change, my friends, as you will see.

I think this budget provided a fair balance to the Australian people and to people in my electorate in particular. I refer to some comments in my local newspaper. I would not say that the commentator is a big fan of Labor. I would say that he is pretty independent. He says of the budget in part that there are:

Many worthy budget measures, some less so and some icebergs coming up.

That is quite a reasonable assessment from his point of view. We will see. We all know that there is legislation on very important matters affecting the economy coming up. I think many Australians are looking forward to this playing out, and play out it will. The commentator from my local newspaper, apart from raising a few problematic things, says:

… the welfare-to-work measures are needed and excellent.

Those on the other side, in their feigned interest and care for those on welfare, claimed that what we were trying to do was beat people with a stick rather than support them. When you actually look at the measures we are implementing, you see that they are indeed to support, to encourage, to enhance programs which exist now, to get people who are dependent on welfare into work, in particular to try to isolate areas of need that require support. In my area, the municipality of Burnie has been designated as one of 10 areas requiring further assistance. That is on top of all the programs that exist currently and there is funding available to support personnel and further programs, driven from the bottom up, to assist people who are on welfare into work and into training. As the commentator from The Advocate goes on to say:

… the welfare-to-work measures are needed and excellent. As are $2.2 billion to fight mental illness and targeting skilled migrants at regions that need them.

Australia must maximise its workforce, especially given population ageing and the significant opposition to immigration; with many opponents struggling to differentiate between refugees and the skilled migrants needed in the mining boom.

There were not masses of new, locally specific announcements, and nor should there have been.

This is a time for belt tightening and a time when regional rorts should be kept to a minimum.

That is not to bag worthy government spending—

and I am very pleased to see this—

such as the North-West and Northern funding for job-creating ventures, which appears to have been a great success.

Indeed, this government, along with the Tasmanian government, provided $17 million for business enterprises in the north-west in particular and in the north—in the light of the paper mills closing and the closure of Tascot Templeton, the carpet factory in East Devonport, and McCain's processing plant, or part thereof, in Circular Head—who put their own money in as well to grow their businesses. In fact, they had something like 121 applications, with many more millions of dollars to invest. Thirty-five projects were successful and provide already 200 jobs, and indeed look to fulfil the target of 400 jobs. So that is working very well in my electorate and is an excellent investment in our region, along with the people who are making it happen. The commentator from The Advocate goes on:

Also, for all its issues, the Rudd stimulus was a positive for the economy.

But now it is time to rebuild the nation's bank balance.

On a final note, many economists have made light of the government's desire to return to surplus by 2012-13.

They may be technically right, but they are also mistaken.

Having the national books in the black would be a big psychological plus in an economy where public confidence has taken a battering.

I think that, in a sense, is a fair assessment of this budget, warts and all. It offers fair savings and reasonable expenditure in areas of need, particularly trying to grow the economy, to grow jobs, to grow apprenticeships, to grow skills and training and, of course, to support education. I would also thank the government to this point for its selection of part of my region to receive extra assistance to support jobless families, young parents who are unemployed and the long-term unemployed. Unemployment is entrenched in some parts of my region and needs this extra support. (Time expired)

Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Gillard government's Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2011-2012 and cognate bills proposed by the Labor government as part of the 2011-12 federal budget. I would like to start by talking about the bedrock of this country—the family. The coalition supports smaller government in Australia, government which trusts its people with the ability to manage their own affairs, choose where they want to live and work and where to send their children to school.

The coalition supports choice and allowing the economic and social flexibility for Australian families to better their own situation through hard work, commitment and a fair go. Sadly, these are opportunities and visions not shared by the Gillard government with its bureaucratic and centralised approach to governance. Families must be given support by the government to grow and not be suffocated through higher taxes. Australian families are forgotten by this wasteful and reckless spending. Families in Hasluck know that, since Labor was elected, electricity prices are up 51 per cent, gas prices are up 30 per cent, water prices are up 46 per cent, education costs have risen 24 per cent, health costs have risen 20 per cent, rent costs have risen 21 per cent and grocery prices are up 14 per cent.

A $26 a tonne carbon tax will add 25 per cent more to electricity bills and 6.5 cents a litre more to fuel bills, which are already skyrocketing. But who knows what the final price on carbon will be? The real power behind the government, the Greens, are touting figures of $40 and $50 a tonne and as late as last week Senator Sarah Hanson-Young of the Greens signalled the price should be $100 a tonne.

The Australian public and business sector needs consistency and is not getting it. The family tax benefit freeze on indexation will also hit Hasluck families hard. A family with two children and a stay-at-home parent stand to lose up to $147 worth of benefits, while a family with both parents working will be $116 worse off. Families struggling to make ends meet on an income of $45,000 will also be hit. To quote directly from the Australiannewspaper on Thursday, 12 May:

Unlike the changes to family tax benefit thresholds, this savings measure will hit even the lowest-income families.

This short-sighted measure encapsulates the pain Hasluck families will have to suffer due to the poor fiscal management of the Gillard government. In only four budgets, federal Labor has turned a $20 billion surplus into a $50 billion deficit and $70 billion in net assets into $107 billion of debt. This government is still borrowing $135 million every single day.

Hasluck is in desperate need of infrastructure, health and social projects to make its economy more productive and its streets safer and to give its people better access to health services. Just one day of borrowing by this reckless government would alleviate many of these issues. For example, the Perth to Darwin Highway in the north of Hasluck has been identified by all of the area's state politicians and infrastructure experts as being of critical need to the state's transport infrastructure. Heavy haulage transport taking machinery and goods to the north, which is fuelling our resources boom, is being woefully neglected by this government. Trucks are forced to operate within a curfew; gigantic mining trucks being transported up north are fighting for space on a rural road with holiday-makers trying to visit the Swan Valley. It is a serious accident waiting to happen. Family cars trying to turn off at a winery have road trains bearing down on them. Visitor numbers are suffering.

Instead of putting $10 million towards a tourism campaign to boost this area, Labor gave $10 million to trade unions to 'provide tailored information and education resources to their membership'. The Gillard government's budget relies almost exclusively on the mining industry, yet has done nothing to improve logistical routes for it in the south of the state. Stage 1 of this project is desperately needed and Labor is fully aware of this situation. Three days of Labor borrowing, over $400 million, is all that is needed to make stage 1 a reality, a reality that would have a massive impact on business and tourism and could save lives unnecessarily at risk from this treacherous section of road.

Other issues of infrastructure are the need for an improved Roe Highway and Berkshire Road interchange. Heavy haulage barrels down the Roe Highway before it gets to the area of the planned Perth to Darwin Highway. The Shire of Kalamunda is so frustrated that it is taking the step of writing to ministers for action. Once again, this is not a new problem. Shire President Don McKechnie calls it a 'dangerous intersection' that cannot be funded under the black spot program due to the cost. The WA Department of Main Roads put the funds needed to start work at roughly $11 million. Just two hours of Labor's borrowing would fix this terrible intersection—just two hours. Think about that for a minute. I ask those opposite to try and explain this situation honestly to the Australian taxpayer and to the people of my electorate. They deserve better.

It is not just roads either; Hasluck is in desperate need of parks and recreation facilities. The three local governments—the City of Gosnells, the City of Swan and the Shire of Kalamunda—have all expressed to me their urgent need for funding towards their projects. The local playgrounds at parks throughout Hasluck need an urgent upgrade. I was shocked to discover during the election campaign several parks which regularly had needles, bottles and smashed glass hidden in the sand. Residents have taken it upon themselves to keep these parks clean, but there is so much more to be done. For example, the community of Wattle Grove needs funding for parks and open space. The Shire of Kalamunda has impressive plans for the area but lacks the funding to see it realised in the next financial year. The residents of Hasluck should not have to put up with a lack of recreation facilities for themselves and their families, and the government needs to take action in this key area.

I am disappointed. Nearly all of the commitments I made to the electorate before the election will go unfulfilled in this budget. Labor has not put any money into the solar towns program for Forrestfield, which a coalition government would have put $300,000 towards. I am disappointed that the Kalamunda Districts Rugby Union Club renovation and expansion will not get the $1 million to make it a reality. I am equally disappointed that the Machinery Preservation Club will not receive the $450,000 needed for new premises and funds for its national rally. I am, however, pleased to see $1.2 million for the road link between Elmore Way and Kalamunda Road in High Wycombe, which would have received this same amount if the coalition were in government, under a commitment I made prior to the election. Likewise, the Gateway WA project will also receive needed funding to alleviate traffic and issues of accessibility.

The Gillard government is spending well over $1 billion of the people's money next year to house and treat asylum seekers that have flooded to this country under Labor's failed border protection policy. In the electorate of Hasluck, we have asylum seekers being housed in a local caravan park. The cost of all this alternative housing is adding up and this is reflected in the budget. A solution to this issue needs to be urgently found, and a deal with Malaysia will not fix the government's problems.

Let me turn to education, an area close to my heart and one that I have considerable experience in. Our young people are in desperate need of federal leadership on this issue and are sadly neglected by the Labor government. Schools across this great nation are forced to go cap in hand to P&Cs to find funds for the most basic of services. Labor's budget shows it is going horribly wrong in this portfolio and lurching from one crisis to the next.

The budget reveals a blow-out to the Computers in Schools program, with the total cost now coming to $2.4 billion. Think about that sum of money for a moment. Two point four billion dollars is $110 per person in Australia. When you break that figure down further, into the number of working Australians, it is well in excess of $200 per person across this country. Originally, $1 billion was set aside to give every year 9 to year 12 student a computer at school, and the government has still only delivered just over 400,000 of the proposed one million computers. Just last year, only 1,476 of the required 5,902 computers were delivered in Hasluck. That means that 4,426 year 9 to year 12 students in my electorate are missing out.

Couple this with the government's freezing of the trades training centres for every school until 2015-16, according to this budget. Hasluck relies on trade training centres to offer its young people an alternative pathway to university and to ensure we maintain the domestic capacity to produce skilled workers. But this government is screaming for more skilled people in this country to keep our economy strong and then does this. Mr Christopher Pyne, the shadow minister for education, said:

I didn't think the rollout of this program could possibly go any slower. After three-and-a-half years only 70 trade training centres are operational out of a promised 2,650 and now a freeze will mean further delays. Remember, this policy was the centrepiece of the education programs announced by Labor in 2007. The so-called education revolution was going to build a trades training centre for every high school.

These are damning words for a poorly managed portfolio under the Gillard government.

Hasluck is in desperate need of more training and skilling opportunities not only for students but also for those who wish to reskill themselves to enter the workforce. I have met a number of constituents who have hit unnecessary barriers to accessing training opportunities. We should be funding real and achievable programs to utilise our entire population to provide the workforce for the future.

Then there is the class war policy of penalising students who pay their HECS debts upfront. Upfront repayment bonuses will be slashed from 20 per cent to 10 per cent and the early repayment bonus from 10 per cent to five per cent. This is a short-sighted policy and penalises families who have worked hard to put their children into higher education and wish to enjoy a benefit from paying tuition fees earlier. These are not necessarily rich parents. I have met many mothers and fathers in Hasluck who believe that one of the most important things they can do is to provide their children with a good education and they work hard to do this. It sends the wrong message to Australia that, if you work hard and try not to get into debt, there is no reward. Hasluck families will once again be hurt by the ill-advised change to the HECS regime.

I turn my attention to health, one of the most important responsibilities for government. Aside from the bungled administration of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and the growing list of medications not put on the PBS by Labor leaving families at risk, there is an issue with growing bureaucracy and waste. Dental reform is missing from this budget and it is an area of severe neglect on the part of the government. I come to dental rebates, which are missing from this budget, and this is a serious concern for the country as a whole. Dental health is a relatively inexpensive problem to treat initially but one that costs hundreds of millions of dollars in the long term. Poor dental health leads to heart disease and other complications. A few thousand spent on a patient with bad teeth can save hundreds of thousands of dollars that would be needed to manage this patient long term with cardiologists, nurses and a hospital bed, not to mention the social exclusion this person suffers as a result of the impact that this has on the family.

The decision to move the reform back to the 2012-13 budget is a typically short-term, headline-grabbing, poll driven, political decision-making stunt by the government. In Gosnells, there is a severe shortage of GPs to treat the growing population of young families and new Australians. If you want an indication of what things are really like for GPs, speak to Don Prendergast, at the Swan Medical Group, who has lived and worked in the area for many years. People such as Don are on the front line and stress the importance of early access to good primary health care in order to prevent future complications from arising.

Access to primary health care should be universal to all my constituents but, unfortunately, this is not the case. Too often, I hear families rationing and sharing medication because they cannot get to see their GP who bulk bills or they cannot afford the $65 consultation fee to get a script off those GPs who refuse to bulk bill. This is a disgrace. The long-term effects are devastating and we should be providing as much support as we can. Whilst the funding has been allocated to mental health, which is long overdue and greatly needed in the industry, the government has failed family members who act as carers. There is a significant number of constituents in Hasluck who care for a relative. They are dedicated people who are sons, daughters, parents, friends, cousins or grandparents and who do outstanding work in our community, yet there is little place to support them.

The government measures for the seat of Hasluck do not fully address the extent of need that is required. I hope that in future years, as we approach future budgets, my advocacy and the arguments that I will put forward will become a focus of the work that I undertake in the fight to gain their share of the federal budget for the programs that are needed. It is important, as I said in my maiden speech, that ministers are there for all Australians, that in the allocation of resources for infrastructure programs and services all families in this country be considered equally in the context of need and also in the context of economic development and opportunities that in life need to be afforded to them by government.

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

It is a pleasure for me to be able to speak on Appropriation Bill (No.1) 2011-2012 and the other appropriation bills. The budget is all about responsibility, it is about opportunity, it is about getting the economic fundamentals and the balance right and it is about getting Australia back on its feet as a result of Australia having suffered a significant set of circumstances. I remind the opposition that we had a global financial crisis, a crisis that was the most severe that this country has faced for 75 years. This government took the hard decisions—and the correct decisions—to ensure that the way we structured the economy and the budgets kept people in jobs, that we kept the economy going, that we kept business working and that that would progressively over a period of time keep the Australian economy ahead of comparative economies in the OECD and the rest of the world.

To that effect, today our economy is the envy of almost every other comparative economy in the world. These countries acknowledge the good work that this government did during that crisis and where we sit today. I hear members across the chamber bleating on and complaining about debt and how it is the end of the world. You would think that we were living in a vacuum, that somehow we were isolated from all the things that took place right around the world and that Australia never had this greatest financial event in 75 years or that we have had some of the greatest natural disasters that this country has seen, in some cases, for generations. You would think we were living in a vacuum.

Those opposite talk about debt and what that debt costs per day. Name me anybody who has created wealth in this country who has not borrowed. Name me one. Name me one country in the world that has not created wealth and jobs by not borrowing. The fact is that if you do not borrow, if you do not do it right and if you do not do it at the right time, you leave the economy weak and struggling. This government did not do that. We did what was necessary to ensure that people would remain in jobs, that the economy would stay strong, and that people were looked after on the way through—vulnerable people, people who need government assistance, people on pensions and people who need the government to support them at their time of need—and that is exactly what we have done. That is exactly what this budget is about. It is a responsible budget that goes through a set of measures that will get us back in the black—as has been said many times—to ensure that this economy will be exactly where it ought to be, and that is to provide for ordinary people, for businesspeople and for the economy. It is also about ensuring that there is a fair distribution as to what is commonly referred to as the two-speed economy. But we in this place should all acknowledge that it is a multispeed economy. In different parts of different states the economy runs at different speeds. The only way we can make sure that everybody has an opportunity to take part in that economy is to provide a budget that does exactly that—and that is what we have done. It is just a simplistic boneheaded argument from the opposition that budgets are all about one thing—a magical surplus. This is where they stick the spare money under the mattresses in their bedrooms; they do not spend it on the people who need it. What sort of economic logic is that? This is the sort of argument you get from the members opposite. They talk about infrastructure and about how the interest bill from one day's deficit could pay for a particular road. They do not have a lot to speak about on infrastructure. They were in government for those long 12 years and rivers of gold flowed into Canberra no matter what they did. There was a reason they had surpluses—which, by the way, they never predicted; they always had an unexpected surplus. Why didn't they spend those surpluses then on the roads in Western Australia, Queensland and other parts of the country that needed to be repaired? It is not as if those roads have changed since then.

The only government that has spent any significant amount of funds on infrastructure in this country is the Labor Party—Labor governments. Labor has been the only government over generations to take the tough decisions. If there is anyone who could be blamed for today's deficit, it would be the opposition for not having spent the money in the first place when it was available, when the rivers of gold ran into Canberra, on the necessary infrastructure to keep the economy strong. Now we hear those opposite complaining that 'poor old Western Australia doesn't have enough roads; it has goat tracks and potholes'. Where were you when you were in government for 12 years, when there was an abundance of surpluses? You could have spent the money, but you preferred to stash it under your bed, to hang on to it for a rainy day—which would never have eventuated under the Howard government—and expected everything to be rosy. What about all the poor people who missed out? What about the jobs you didn't create? What about the boom times that could have been even bigger and the money, if properly spent, that would have meant that today we would not have to invest money in infrastructure, because that would have already been done?

I do not hear too much coming back from the other side about road, rail and ports—all the things we had to do from day one when we were elected in 2007. That is the reality. That is the track record of this government when it comes to budgets and spending. This is reflected in a whole range of other areas, including skills investment—investment in people. We are about making sure that when there is a boom we take the profits from that boom and spend it in the right areas. But we are also about making the right people pay. When we start talking about mining and a boom—the boom gets bigger and bigger in the resources sector—we should make sure that those who are benefiting from that boom provide a greater share of the benefits to the Australian people. We can then spend more on infrastructure and so do more with that economic boom.

But I do not recall that being part of the ideology, of the agenda or of any budgets when the Howard government was in power. What we have done in this budget is focus very squarely on the things that build on the resources boom and that build for a future when we will not have a resources boom. That is the reality. There might be a further 20 years of a so-called resources boom but that boom for Australia might vary. It might graduate up and down depending on the Australian dollar or on the prices of resources. So we need to start making some very serious economic decisions today. If we are going to have a skills shortage, we need to invest in skills training so that Australians can get those jobs. We will not need to have more 457 visas in place to import skills when we have Australians in those skilled jobs.

This is when we need to spend it and this is when we are spending it. We have done this in really difficult economic times. No-one was expecting the massive tragedy, the devastation, that we saw in the Queensland floods and with Cyclone Yasi in the north of that state, the fires in Western Australia or other disasters that occurred right across the country. We are squarely focused on what needs to happen. Trades apprentice income bonuses are about making sure that we support apprentices in the right areas of the economy. We know that employers want to put apprentices on, but they need a helping hand and so we are doing that for them. We also want to make sure that apprentices stay in an apprenticeship, that they follow it through—and so we are making sure of that. In my electorate alone there are 3,336 apprentices who will benefit from this investment. Thousands of young people will be given the skills and the opportunity through this government's budget and through this program.

When it comes to training, we are going to invest $550 million in a new workforce development fund that puts industry at the heart of the training system. We have to work with industry—something that the opposition might find a little bit unusual. We have to work with all stakeholders in industry and with the workers in industry to make sure that we do this right. We will deliver 130,000 new training places over four years. That will help to balance out the boom-and-bust days that we experience from time to time in this economy. In terms of incentives for employment, in the electorate of Oxley there are about 1,419 very long-term unemployed people who have not had work for two years or more. We have very specific programs to break that cycle of unemployment because that is where we need to make investments. If we can break that cycle we can break the generational unemployment cycle. We actually provide something for people. We also provide something for the economy and something beyond what just one simple budget can do. Better skills is something that I am really proud of. We have invested in a whole range of areas. We have invested in bricks and mortar with the Building the Education Revolution—halls, libraries and science labs—and we have also invested in people, in skills. We have invested in teachers and in getting the national curriculum right. In taking those big leaps forward, those big steps, we want to make sure that education is front and centre in everything that this government does.

I heard something about dental care. I remember that there were masses of opportunities for dental care in those 12 years of the Howard government that never materialised. The Howard government always talked about it but, when the rivers of gold were running into Canberra, there was no dental care for those most in need of it. Under this government, we will continue to break down this problem and give people the assistance they need—an extra $53 million to establish a voluntary dental internship year, an extra 150 internship places and money to go into dental care, particularly for pensioners. We want to support more families. In Oxley in particular, 5,700 local families will be eligible for an extra $4,200 per child between the ages of 16 and 19 because of a significant change to the family tax benefit. We are investing in people who need it and we are investing in the right areas of the economy. We are getting the balance right in a very tough budget and economic year to make sure that those who get the assistance are those who need it the most.

We are not stopping there. We are also helping small business and manufacturing. We are doing more to lower the company tax rate than any other government has done in this country. Building on top of the $5,000 for asset write-offs, there is an immediate deduction in the 2012-13 budget for purchased motor vehicles. This will provide some $350 million in further cash flow to benefit small business.

In digital assistance we are providing $31.8 million over three years to provide eligible pension recipients across Queensland with professional assistance to convert their televisions from analog to digital. We are also co-locating a number of one-stop shops for Australians who are seeking access to Australian government services. This is often a complaint, so we are going to co-locate these. In my electorate it will be at the Mt Ommaney shopping centre. Disability services are getting an enormous injection with an additional $1.6 million being spent on people with disabilities in the electorate of Oxley. There are also the much heralded and very necessary mental health programs that we are putting forward.

This has been a good budget. It is a tough budget, but it is a fair budget that gets the balance right and will get us back in the black.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian people delivered a verdict at the last election that was unexpected by the nation, by the government and by the opposition—that is, a hung parliament. It was a verdict that said, 'We do not have confidence in either of you to the point where we will give you a mandate to govern.' So that mandate was transferred to Independent members of this parliament. In speaking to many Australians, as I do as a local member, the people's understanding of the hung parliament and the arrangements that followed was that they were given another Labor government. But what happened was that the government actually changed hands at the last election. Did we have a Labor government beforehand? Yes. Do we have a Labor government today? Yes, we do, but it is a changed Labor government. So at the last election campaign we had a change of government.

The change of government entailed a deal between the Prime Minister of the day and her leadership and a small number of Independents elected across the nation. To do that deal, particularly with one group—the Greens—the Prime Minister had to make concessions on things that she had previously, and genuinely, said she would not do. She had to literally oppose what she had said during the election campaign. We do not know all the details that were thrashed out in those meetings; we were only onlookers of the evening news. What we do know is that during the election campaign the Prime Minister said, 'Under my future administration there will not be a particular tax.' The Prime Minister then called that tax a carbon tax. She very clearly said to the Australian people, 'Under my future administration'—as she understood it at the time—'there will be no carbon tax.'

We as a nation took that at face value. As much as people say that they do not believe politicians, they do believe prime ministers and opposition leaders will do what they say they will do. If they say they will not do something, people believe that they will not do it. So a misunderstanding of the deal that the Prime Minister had to do with the Greens is a misunderstanding of the change of government because there was not only a change of government on election day because we had a hung parliament but also a change of government in the ensuing days and weeks of discussions with the Independents over what areas the government would need to change its position on.

The Prime Minister could have come out at that time and laid out before the people of Australia: 'To form government I have had to agree to these specific issues to get the support of the Independents. I know I said that before the election, but for us to form government we have done a deal with the Independents.' If the Prime Minister had then said immediately, 'This is the deal that I have done and part of the deal is that we are to introduce a carbon tax' the Australian people could have accepted that that was the deal. But to ignore it was to leave the Australian people out of consideration and bring them to a place of disappointment because they were not included in the process of government that they had just voted on.

Disappointment is one of the most difficult emotions to deal with, as anybody who has been disappointed knows, and it is a lingering emotion. So today the broader nation—from the top of Queensland to southern Tasmania, from the west to the east—is disappointed with the government, because it says it is now going to introduce a carbon tax. That disappointment, by my reckoning from the Australian people that I meet with, is palpable. It is expressing itself in many ways, particularly through disappointment with the current Prime Minister. All issues become manifestly greater than they would otherwise have been because the people now feel that, no matter what the government does, the voice of the Prime Minister cannot be trusted. I do not know what the way back is for the government, but I know that my opposition to the carbon tax does not stem from the pure politics of, 'They want it; we don't.' My opposition to the carbon tax comes from the fact that many of the workers in my area—I once represented all of the power stations in the Latrobe Valley and I now represent many of the workers in the Latrobe Valley—can see themselves once again being the patsy for a political decision that needed to be made in order to take government.

The other issue is the test of a budget. The test of a budget for me is, bottom line, how we look after our most vulnerable—our frail elderly, our very young children, our disabled and those who have mental difficulties. I think that, in a bipartisan mood, mental health has come to the fore, and I believe we are progressing. But when it comes to our frail elderly, our youngest children and our disabled we still have a long way to go—and that is the test of the budget. The other test for me is what has happened in previous budgets that is still happening and being spruiked today, by the Treasurer in this case. I have heard previous speakers talking about skills training. In this government's last three budgets they have spoken about and funded skills training. Does that mean the money that was funded in the last two budgets did not work and so today we must still talk about skills training?

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, because we've got to keep on going.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, it is not a matter of keeping on going; it is a matter of rejigging the money each year to pretend that you have done something new on skills training. In truth, you have not. Every year you have reannounced, under a different name, a different package—and still we struggle with skills training. This is an indictment of a Labor government whose focus should be on making those programs work year after year, not just reannouncing them year after year.

It is very clear that, in our nation at the moment, families are struggling with the cost of living. I give you the example from Victoria of electricity prices, which have increased by between 30 and 40 per cent, mostly because of the former Bracks-Brumby government's determination to set a benchmark of 20 per cent of power having to be produced by renewable energies. What did they actually achieve? Between 3½ and five per cent of that target. It is great to get a front page article on renewable energy and what they are doing about it purely for the votes, but when the rubber hits the road you see that they have not reached their target and you read about it in a small article on the third page of the paper.

Cost of living is extremely important to families with mortgages. I am in a big mortgage belt area and people are concerned mostly about the uncertainty that pervades government at the moment. That concern manifests itself in many ways. We believed that we were in the running for some funding through the budget for the Warragul hospital—the West Gippsland healthcare centre. It received zilch, nothing, nano. I believe that 19 projects were funded across the nation, but none for Gippsland, although we are going ahead with some roads programs which will be beneficial.

I return to my farmers and say this: I owe John Howard because he was extremely important to all of the farmers across my electorate. Through the drought years, for 13 years, the Howard government never once walked away from a farmer. In fact, you might be surprised to know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that over those years the Howard government, with John Howard's signature on each one, spent $2.424 billion—that is, $2,424.1 million—on those farmers over that time. That does not count all the expenses that went into our farming communities. There was a direct concern and care for farmers who were suffering through that drought period. Each one of those farmers remembers that McMillan, of all places, was one area that was not in the funding stream because we just did not fit the criteria—but our farmers suffered in exactly the same way. I stand here at this time when, except for Western Australia, we are beginning to face the end of the drought and the results of all that has happened over 13 years in the full knowledge that, to the best of the ability of this parliament, the previous government and this government, we have supported those farmers through thick and thin. We will continue to support our rural communities through thick and thin.

I have some dreams that I would like to happen. I would like future governments to invest in aged care to the point where bonds were taken into high care. I have never moved away from that, from 1996 to this day. I would like to see money poured into our public secondary colleges across this nation, where every child in Australia, every teenager, can expect equal education, and that we retrain and re-fund our public education system. I would like to see cutting edge research on renewables rather than unsubstantiated expenditure in the area of a carbon tax of which we do not know the framework, where it will go or who will be paying. I would like to see cleaner emissions from our transport fleet of cars and buses.

We have great opportunities in this country to make a real difference not only nationally but to the world. We are good thinkers and we are good innovators. We can from this day forth take those opportunities and bring them to the attention of the world. (Time expired)

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to address a number of aspects of the budget that have not been remarked on by other people, and I want to start off with the government's determination to make an input in the area of homelessness. Recently in St Kilda we have seen the benefits of this government's commitment to do something about the issue of homelessness. In March, along with the Minister for Social Housing and Homelessness, Mark Arbib, I opened the St Kilda community housing project. This project was supported by the Australian government social housing initiative and had transformed a 20-room shared facility boarding house into a rooming house with 34 self-contained apartments of a decent standard. This project has yielded tremendous results for the individuals who are able to recommence their lives, often by getting back into housing and, therefore, back into employment and back into the community.

The government should be very proud of some of its activities in the areas of homelessness, and the opening of the centre followed a wonderful co-achievement with the Salvation Army that was completed earlier this year, again, with the government's absolute commitment to addressing the issue of homelessness. The Salvation Army initiative, along with private and government money, has transformed an area of Prahran along Dandenong Road into one of the paradigms of how a decent society can treat people who are in an unfortunate situation of homelessness.

I must say, in all of the reactions to the budget I was astonished at the shadow Treasurer's assertion that the global financial crisis was a hiccup. I think this illustrates the difference in the attitude of this government and the perspective that this government has from the opposition. The shadow Treasurer wants to be the Treasurer of this nation—a nation that has had the chair of the G20 because of the respect in which Australia is held—and he says that the global financial crisis is a hiccup. What is 21 per cent unemployment in Spain? The young people there are in the squares demonstrating because 45 per cent of people under 30 have no work. Is 15 per cent unemployment and a completely ruined economy in Ireland a hiccup? Is the fact that Greece is virtually bankrupt a hiccup? Some people have no perspective. Australia is in a very strong financial situation largely due to the activities of this government and the solid way the Treasurer handled the global financial crisis.

I would like to turn to the issue of our investment in education and the much derided and attacked Building the Education Revolution. Let us not talk falsely as those opposite do about this government's funding of new school classrooms. In nearly every electorate that I know the money has been spent in the most efficacious way possible. We are a growing country with large numbers of children entering schools. This expenditure on schools, classrooms in particular, has come at a perfect time for many schools across the nation—government, independent and the Catholic school system.

The debate about school funding has been drowned out by people like radio compere Neil Mitchell at 3AW, who laughably refers to 'school halls without doors'. This is such a joke. Mr Deputy Speaker, I am sure that in your electorate and in the electorate of every member, if you go to see the buildings that have been built as a result of the BER you will see such pride from the school communities and such intelligent use of the money in every educational system.

It was very enervating for me to read in the Herald Sun about 'school halls without doors' after going to open St Columba's Primary School in Elwood, or Mount Scopus Primary School in Mayfield Street, or at Lauriston outside my electorate, or Shelford Anglican Girls' School in my electorate, or St Kilda Primary School or Caulfield Junior College, where my children used to attend. The is a complete transformation of the educational atmosphere in which our kids are studying now, right across Australia, thanks to this laughably called 'school halls without doors'. It is a complete transformation and has achieved its purpose of employing large numbers of tradesmen, who would otherwise have been unemployed during the global financial crisis. I ask Mr Mitchell and the coalition: if the investment in new school buildings, classrooms, science and language centres and playing fields is a waste of time, why do federal and state coalition members continue to turn up to every school, not only in my electorate but around the country, to bask in the thanks of grateful school communities? Why do the editors of the Herald Sunand journalists like Peter Mickelburough fail to respond to invitations from schools that they attack in their newspapers to come and see what has been achieved, not just with the government money but often with the government money leveraged with money from school communities who have built even better facilities than would have been possible if they had just used the government BER money?

Recently I represented the government at an opening at Lauriston Girls School, a very famous school in the electorate of Higgins. It is not in my electorate but I was asked to represent the government and I did. Lauriston is a wonderful school and has long been a beacon of girls education. The member for Higgins, Kelly O'Dwyer, was there as well, which is fair enough since she is the local member. She seemed very supportive of Lauriston Girls School, as she should be. However, whenever the member for Higgins has had the chance she has risen to speak in this House and in press releases of the government's funding of school building being a crime against the taxpayer. What incendiary language! It certainly was not the language used when we were at Lauriston Girls School for the wonderful ceremony for the opening of the new facility they have there at the back of an Italianate building, which they have now been able to completely refurbish.

This overblown hyperbole and incendiary language does Neil Mitchell, the editors of the Herald Sun and their journalists and the coalition no good at all. I ask them: what school funding would you cut? What schools would have their BER programs cut? Would the coalition call the investment in the refurbishment of classrooms at the Victorian College for the Deaf a crime against the taxpayer? I think not. It is one world in here and one world out there. They are all at the opening of these schools and they are all criticising it in here.

To my dismay, these overblown falsehoods extended to the Melbourne newspaper the Herald Sun. Last year journalists Peter Mickelburough and John Masanauskas claimed in their article 'You pay $150m for rich schools' that Caulfield Junior College was a rich private school. Caulfield Junior College is in fact a government school. Perhaps in the inverted snobbery of the Herald Sun because this government school looks so good, has such good academic results and was able to use its BER money so effectively, these people think it is a private school. In fact it is a government school that has used the BER money. Again, if you had been there at the ceremony, Mr Mickelburough or the editors of the Herald Sun, you would have seen that it has completely transformed the educational circumstances in which our Australian children work. In fact, we can say that under this government we have seen a golden era of investment in our schools. If we do not invest in providing our children with the best equipped schools and the best resources, we do not only ourselves but also the nation a disservice.

Let me turn to the wisdom of the idea of free-trade agreements. Australia has been a leader in the export of agricultural commodities since the 19th century and a significant supplier of processed foods to the world, mostly to Britain. Since the creation of the EU—and there is certainly no need to detail this to the House—with its multitude of supports for its own agriculture, Australia has had to turn to other places in South Asia, North Asia and the Middle East. We have very good exports to those parts of the world and there is a substantial and growing demand for fresh and processed products in the food services sector. Processed food now constitutes 15 to 20 per cent of retail consumption in Turkey, and the largest market in the region for such foods is Saudi Arabia, where 80 per cent of retail food is imported consumer ready. Food service markets to hotels, resorts and restaurants is growing rapidly. In the UAE 200 new hotels are expected within five years. The food service industry provides a great opportunity for Australian food processing and exporting. Market access in the Middle East is said to be improving with barriers such as laws on food additives, high tariffs and prohibition of processed foods being reduced.

This would be all well and good if it were to actually work like that. However, many countries have replaced their old tariff protection with excessively strict quarantine, labelling and packaging controls. I certainly understand the need for Australia's exporters to places like Turkey to pay attention to product labelling requirements, religious and health restrictions on food additives and alcohol, product testing, turnaround times and specific documents needed for imports, a large number of these countries, including Turkey, are using both tariff and non-tariff barriers to make Australian products non-competitive in their marketplaces. It is particularly annoying when products in a similar area, such as fruit juices, are imported into Australia with minimal tariff or non-tariff barriers.

I want to turn finally to what the Lowy Institute calls the diplomatic deficit in Australia—that is, the shrinking of funding in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This is something that has occurred not just during this government but over the past 20 years. DFAT's diplomatic corps has shrunk very substantially. I want to read an excerpt from a very significant paper presented to an inquiry into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade by Dr Paul Monk:

While the Federal public service grew by a whopping 25 to 30 per cent between 1996 and 2008, DFAT contracted by 11 percent. Over the past twenty years, DFAT's diplomatic corps shrank by nearly 40 per cent, from 870 overseas based staff in 1989 to 537 in 2009. While monies passed through DFAT for various purposes had increased by hundreds of millions of dollars per annum over the past decade, its operating budget had suffered seriously. Indicative of the relative neglect of DFAT is the fact that its resourcing has shrunk over the past decade from 0.43 to 0.25 percent of Federal government spending.

The most significant consequence of this reduction, both relative and absolute, in resourcing for DFAT has been what the present Secretary, Mr Dennis Richardson, described as the near incapacitation of our overseas representation in several crucial respects. One of the starkest indices of this is that Australia has fewer overseas missions (89) than all but four members of the OECD. Those four are the Slovak Republic, Ireland, New Zealand and Luxembourg and far fewer than the OECD average 150.

There are 120-plus missions of various countries here in Canberra. There are countries of more than 50 million people in which Australia is unrepresented. I can think of one in particular—Ukraine. We had representation this morning from the Ukrainian embassy here in Canberra. Ukraine is a country of 50 million people. It is full of technical universities, particularly in its eastern half, which produce very capable mining engineers—something you would have thought Australia would be very interested in, particularly with our important skills based migration program—yet this is a country where Australia is completely unrepresented. It is very difficult for people from Ukraine to get visas to Australia. They have to apply for a visa to Moscow, and once they are in Russia, they are able to apply for a visa to Australia. This is the effect our under-representation overseas is having.

In contrast to the member for McMillan, I am very supportive of this budget and the Prime Minister. I think this budget's contribution to skills training and mental health, and the government's responsibility in bringing the budget back to surplus, are very good elements. But Australia must do more to ensure that as a big, confident and wealthy country we have proper representation overseas. We need to look very closely at where our foreign missions are based, and we need more of them.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in the debate on the 2011 appropriation bills. It is breathtaking that the Labor government has performed so true to form. They got their hands on the steering wheel of government and in record time have driven us into debt and deficit. Yes, we all know about the global financial crisis, but it hardly touched us in comparison to other developed countries because of our strongly regulated banking sector. We did not have all those dodgy debts. A legacy of the Liberal government is our strongly regulated banking sector. And, of course, we have the ongoing strong performance of China, our major customer, which continues to grow on the back of our country's natural resource bounty.

We have the best terms of trade on record. The Rudd-Gillard government inherited a surplus of over $20 billion but it has been squandered. The budget was only a few days ago, although it feels like a lifetime ago. When we were listening to the budget I looked around at my colleagues and, instead of seeing them triumphant at the thought that the public would not like it and would swing even further towards us, I could see the despair and massive disappointment on the faces of my rural and regional colleagues. They realised it was going to be another two years before we could set the record straight and once again put to proper use in a magnificent country all those taxes, excise and customs payments made to the Treasury of Australia.

It is understandable that the public response to this budget was disbelief in some quarters, great despair in others, and a strong sense of: 'Bring on those next two years, we need a change of government.' Who can forget the stimulus package with $900 payments to the living, the dead and some lucky people in New Zealand? Who can forget the pink batts debacle where installers lost their lives and house fires were commonplace? Now that we are in winter, the elderly, especially in my area, are still discovering that the insulation that the government paid for does not in fact exist over most of the ceilings in their house—it was a shonky deal from start to finish—and they are still nervous and distressed that there will be fires in their ceilings.

But there is an extra $111 million in this budget to try and do more to mop up and secure the houses that had pink batts put in them. Imagine how we could spent that money. The whole pink batts debacle cost the nation more than $2.4 billion. Imagine how many rural students could have been supported in their living away from home study costs with a share of those millions or billions. Instead we have seen a massive drop in students even applying for university places in the so-called inner regional areas, which in the case of southern Australia extends from the outskirts of Melbourne to Deniliquin. What an absurd way to divide the country.

The government acknowledges that we have a massive skills deficit in regional Australia. With this budget, we were told to be cheerful because they are going to boost the regional skilled migration scheme by 6,000 people or perhaps more. But, at the same time, they have taken away opportunities and chances for university study for year 12 graduates who could have been that next generation of skilled people. How absurd, how short-sighted and how cruel. There are a lot of families in my electorate who are yet to have the first member of their family attend university. The hopes of those families are now dashed for another generation—or at least until we get back into government.

Rural areas typically do not have courses like medicine, engineering, science, law, architecture, economics and languages. It is not a case of going to your local TAFE or campus of a university, because those courses are not there. The list of courses that are missing from rural Australia goes on and on. How much did this government put into more regional university courses, places and campuses? Not very much at all. So what has happened? If you are in the so-called inner region—Labor's inane boundary delineation—and you earn a couple of salaries of, say, $70,000 and $30,000, or two incomes of $50,000, you are, Labor has told us, a rich family and you do not deserve to have support. We are told that middle-class welfare, first and foremost, was the target of this budget. Well, for families in the inner region earning $100,000—part of the Murray electorate—their sons and daughters now find it impossible to go to university and study away from home because it costs about $20,000. If the income of your family is only $100,000 gross and there is more than one child—there are perhaps two or three who want to go to university or who are finishing secondary school, which is expensive too—then you will have to give up on the dream of your sons or daughters attending university.

The way the rules have been changed for independent youth allowance are so impossible and improbable that it is impossible for students to get to university now via the coalition's independent youth allowance scheme. I have to tell students who come to me begging for a change: 'I am sorry; the regional Independents in the House of Representatives failed to support the amendment that came through from the Senate, which would have fixed this. So we're going to have to wait, perhaps for another two years, until the government changes and we can do right by Australia's next generation of country students who have the capacity to go to uni.' What a cruel, terrible thing for a family to have to contemplate—their sons and daughters have the marks to go to university but they just cannot afford it.

Interestingly, I went to an Independent Retirees meeting in Shepparton last week. Usually, the Independent Retirees concerns are about superannuation, interest rates and the cost of utilities. Guess what the concern of the independent retirees of Shepparton was. It was a big group—there were about 60 of them—and their concern was the inability of their grandchildren to be able to afford to go to university due to the impacts of Labor's independent youth allowance scheme. That is what my independent retirees were so sad about. They had, for all their lives, anticipated that their grandchildren would be able to go to university with government support. Now they see their most earnest desires and wishes thwarted. I think that is tragic. It is also unforgiveable.

The government, as I said, has killed off the next generation of skilled workers and professionals from rural Australia, and they stand condemned for it. It is not that every cent in this budget or the previous two budgets has been sensibly and carefully spent. Let us think about Grocery Watch, Fuel Watch, Cash for Clunkers and the My School website. It just goes on and on. This year's Labor budget has locked in at least $4,700 of debt for every Australian man, woman and child. We will have to pay at least $18 million a day of interest payments on this debt. And it will grow; we know that—this is a Labor government, after all—and we have to assume most of these payments will go offshore.

I have mentioned the pink batts and the other obscenities like Grocery Watch and Fuel Watch but I think the My School website is going to stand out in the annuls of history as one of the most destructive things that was ever done in Australia to our excellent education and to our teachers' capacity to do what they need to do in schools. I am talking in particular about NAPLAN. We have subverted the teaching of our grades 3, 5 7 and 9. In my electorate I have had reports from parents that in composite grades 2-3 or 3-4 a whole half year is spent teaching the grade 3 NAPLAN. How tragic for those families that their kids are not being taught a full curriculum. The kids are being focused on the NAPLAN. Why?—because it is published on the websites as a name-and-shame exercise.

In my electorate I only had two schools that were listed as above satisfactory. The rest were unsatisfactory. Are my schools all so terrible? No, my schools are in very low socio-economic status communities. We have just gone through seven years of drought and then a flood. We have a very large population of refugees from Africa and the Middle East. The students from those areas have only been in Australia for one, two or three years but there are no criteria in the NAPLAN results or in the My School website that allow for this very challenged school population. We have a lot of Indigenous students too; there is some compensation or consideration of their performance in schools.

Why is it that a government would produce a scheme like this—'name and shame'; let's look up the website—and they think it is succeeding when there are hundreds of thousands of hits? It does not then look at the results and pump into the schools that appear not to have made the grade appropriate funding for extra support for specialist teachers, aides specialising in English language needs or special additional teaching capital. No, that has not happened. All we have is the naming and shaming. I am dreading the next round. I know that in the schools in my electorate the teaching is often superb but the families are often extraordinarily challenged. We have schools where every child comes on a bus so you cannot have after-school activities. I was in one school last week—Lockington Primary School—that had over 150 dead computers. When I say 'dead' I mean that they are seven or eight years old and they do not work. Those computers are lying in corners gathering dust—and probably mice and redbacks—right now. There are only about five working computers of modern vintage in that school of over 100 students. And that school is supposed to be competing, eyeball to eyeball, with schools which are well endowed and have modern computers, or at least computers that work. That is the sort of thing that my schools are dealing with, and they are not being supported. I think that is disgraceful; in fact, it is disgusting.

And there has been no extra money in the budget for biosecurity. Is that why in the apple and pear fire blight interim risk assessment protocol that has just come through, the New Zealand farmers are not required to do anything on top of their normal picking and packing process under which their apples go to their local domestic market? Not a single different or additional protocol or process is required for those fresh apples to leave their fire blight infested and infected orchards, to be put into a container and come across to Australia, where Coles and Woolworths will choof them up to the apple-growing areas or, more importantly, the pear-growing areas of Australia, where the bacteria, I have no doubt, will be released to our currently disease-free orchards.

In my area we grow over 80 per cent of Australia's pears. You can imagine what my growers are thinking. It is not just apple and pear fire blight bacterial disease that will come in on the fresh fruit; there are other pests that we know will piggyback on those fresh apples, and not a single additional protocol is being required. It would appear, too, that no Australian biosecurity staff will be involved in the New Zealand exercise. In other words, it is the no-frills, cheap-and-nasty exercise of just bringing it on in. Why?—because the Prime Minister said in her speech in the New Zealand parliament the other day, 'Oops! Sorry, we've kept your apples out too long, really. We didn't mean to. Bring them on in; we don't care anymore.' She got a standing ovation. There is no real mystery about why: when I was in New Zealand just a week or 10 days after that they were still gobsmacked that a prime minister would suggest that it was only market issues or commercial issues that had kept the apples out of Australia for all those years, given they have that disease and we do not. What an extraordinary thing for our Prime Minister to say in their parliament!

Of course, New Zealand is famous for its kiwi fruit. They have now got a bacterial canker, which they got very quickly from Italy. Italy's commercial kiwi fruit orchards are now devastated by a bacterial canker. New Zealand picked it up almost immediately, and guess what—our biosecurity and quarantine services are still allowing fresh kiwi fruit into Australia from Italy and New Zealand. They have said, 'Oops! Better not bring any plant material—that could be a bit dodgy—or, perhaps, pollen. We'll think about that.' We are being exposed to enormous to risk via a scaled down Biosecurity Australia, which is told, 'No more money—just get smarter.' Biosecurity has not been too smart lately, and I cannot imagine what they are going to do other than continue to leave us exposed to diseases in our country, where we do not even have the legally available streptomycin that in New Zealand they saturate their apples in before putting it into the domestic market.

I could go on declaiming and despairing about the lack of research and development money for rural and regional Australia, for agribusiness enterprise and for the Bureau of Meteorology for telemetry. We were flooded out in my part of the world. We lost $2.2 billion worth of my farmers' livestock and equipment because there were no warnings with no working telemetries in the rivers, the regulated streams. The Bureau of Met needed more money to provide those. Guess what—no more money for the Bureau of Met. As far as future floods go, we will just have to keep the old fingers crossed because, again, this government does not seem to connect the dots.

This government does not seem to understand what needs to happen in this country. They do not care about future generations who will live beyond their own electorates. That is a shocking disgrace in a parliamentary democracy. I am afraid we might have two years before the next election. A lot of people in my electorate simply cannot wait that long.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be speaking in this important debate on the appropriation bills. This has been a difficult budget to frame because it has had to be framed in the context of a patchwork economy, where we are dealing with inflationary pressures. In some regions and sectors where investment is booming, the labour market is tight, while in other areas and sectors—like the retail sector and regional Australia—people are feeling the pinch. They are indeed doing it tough.

It has been a budget where we have had to deal with the residue from years and years of neglect in areas such as infrastructure and mental health. We have had to balance where we can inject additional and much needed funding at the same time as investing in long-term needs such as skills and skill development.

In framing budgets such as this there have traditionally been two approaches. The first approach was very popular under the former government, and that was the Santa Claus approach. The Treasurer would stand up on budget night and act like Santa Claus, ensuring there was a present under the tree for every constituent group. Nowhere was this Santa Claus mentality on the annual budget process more prevalent than in the former government's treatment of pensioners. Year after year pensioners would have to wait until budget night to know whether the Treasurer would deign to grant them their annual one-off bonus and enable them to continue to pay their utility bills and meet their fortnightly payments.

With our approach to the budget, we did away with all of that and readjusted the annual pension so that we had a record increase in pension payments of up to $128 per fortnight for people on the maximum rate. Contrast that to the Santa Claus approach to the budget. The approach of Labor in government puts the principles of economic and social responsibility ahead of the annual Christmas, Santa Claus, approach, handing out lollies and goodies but neglecting the national interest. Our approach to the budget reflects our values and takes into account the long-term national interest.

This budget is about returning the budget to surplus before too long but also managing the different pressures within the economy and focusing on long-overdue national needs, such as mental health, with a $2.2 billion mental health initiative, and also ensuring that we do not leave people behind with the growth that we anticipate over the next three years. It is about ensuring that those people who were left behind in previous years, in previous mining booms, are not left behind as we move through mining boom mark 2. This budget is about the future, not the past. It is about balancing the needs of today with the task of building the economy of the future. It is about jobs, skills and education and training, which are the building blocks of economic participation and productivity.

This is a Labor budget because it is built on the foundation stone of the over 750,000 jobs we have created since we came to office and because it anticipates the creation of half a million jobs over the next few years. It is a Labor budget because it is focused on jobs and on not leaving people behind.

In this time of relative prosperity, compared to what is going on in the rest of the region and the world, it is easy to forget what a success story the Australian economy is. Around the world there are unemployment rates of eight, nine and even 10 per cent. In some countries, through the global financial crisis, millions of jobs were destroyed. The loss of a job is catastrophic. It not only derails an individual's aspirations and life plans but affects their whole family. It affects people's sense of confidence and identity. We know this on our side of the House and that is why we have given priority to creating and protecting jobs. That is the cornerstone of this budget. It is also a budget which is about improving support for Australian families, with additional support for low- and middle-income families and families with teenagers. Next year, this government will spend $32 billion on assistance to families through the family tax benefit, the childcare rebate and the baby bonus and paid parental leave schemes. As we do this, we are also prioritising the next generation of workers.

I was very interested to hear the member for Murray stand up recently in this place and express her concern for school funding. I hope we enjoy the support of the member for Murray when the review into school funding reports towards the end of this year and we try to reform a system of school funding which, frankly, has been distorted by the actions of the former government. I hope we do enjoy the support of the member for Murray because the sorts of principles that will inform our approach to school funding will be of great benefit to students in electorates such as mine and, I suspect, such as hers.

The member for Murray addressed the issue of the access of regional students to higher education. It is a fact that in just one year there has been an increase of 21,000 university students receiving youth allowance as a result of the reforms to the system made by our government last year. In just 12 months, the reforms to the youth allowance have seen a 15 per cent increase in the total number of university students receiving youth allowance. That is 135,000 students in March 2010 compared to 156,000—an increase of 21,000—this year. There has been a 108 per cent increase in the number of dependent university students from disadvantaged backgrounds receiving the maximum rate of youth allowance, many of them from my electorate of Throsby, and a 22 per cent increase in the number of rural and regional university students receiving youth allowance. The member for Murray may do well, as may other members in this place, to look at these statistics because she will realise that the changes to youth allowance and other associated reforms are actually benefiting students from rural and regional areas. More than 36,000 of the 107,000 young people who are now eligible for youth allowance for the first time and who are receiving more money than ever before come from rural and regional areas.

My electorate of Throsby covers a region of great economic and social diversity. While there are many areas of economic prosperity and wellbeing, Throsby also contains some areas of great disadvantage, with higher than average unemployment, particularly long-term and youth unemployment. I see the member for Gilmore in the chamber. She would know that suburbs that are now part of her electorate also fit this description. It is my belief that governments of all persuasions have failed people in these suburbs and more needs to be done to ensure that we do not hand disadvantage from one generation to the next through intergenerational dependence on welfare. My electorate of Throsby was once an area where manufacturing was the biggest employer and now it is the services sector which accounts for the biggest percentage of employment, including in the construction, retail and healthcare sectors, which have nearly doubled over that period.

In this story of economic transformation we know that some people have been left behind and they remain a challenge for the government to assist, which is why I am very pleased that in this budget we have identified 10 regions that require particular attention throughout the country. One, in the local government area of Shellharbour, which falls partly in my electorate of Throsby and partly in the electorate of the member for Gilmore, has been identified as a priority area for place based initiatives. What this is all about is identifying those people who are either at risk of long-term unemployment or have been long-term unemployed, identifying the barriers to employment and putting in place local and personal solutions.

We have identified teen parents as one of these groups. I am very pleased that we will be putting in excess of $40 million towards assisting teen parents and jobless families to re-enter the education system and re-engage with education, job training and jobs to ensure that they increase not only their own life chances but those of their children. If we do not do something about this as we enter mining boom mark 2, we will ensure that once again we have failed this group of people and we will condemn not only these young parents but perhaps their children to a lifetime of welfare dependence and disadvantage. I am very proud that the Gillard government has identified this area and this group of people as a priority in this budget. I look forward to working with the member for Gilmore and the agencies in the Shellharbour local government area to ensure this program really does work.

We are doing this all in the context of bringing the budget back into surplus by 2012-13. This will entail the largest and fastest fiscal consolidation that has ever been seen in this country or is likely to be seen anywhere around the world. We are able to do this because the economic fundamentals are very strong and because the prospects for the economy are good. We are able to do this because we have taken some tough decisions in terms of budget cuts. Spending is something that members opposite obviously love to speak about or see their frontbenchers speak about, but, interestingly, when it has been their turn to stand up and speak in this debate as representatives of their local constituencies, it is a love that dare not speak its name. Speaker after speaker have talked about the areas where they would like to see more money being spent, but not one of them has suggested areas, particularly areas in their own electorates, where they believe spending should be cut. We are proud of the fact that in difficult economic circumstances we are taking the tough decisions which will enable us to bring the budget back into surplus by 2012-13 and ensure that we deal with the priority areas of mental health and skills development, ensuring that we have the workforce and the skills to meet mining boom mark 2, and that we spread the wealth that is created by that mining boom beyond the mining states and the mining regions to other regions and other sectors of the economy at the same time that we ensure that we do not leave people behind and we deal with the long-term issues of neglect, such as mental health.

I would like to conclude on an issue that was raised by the member for Banks in his speech in this debate, where he talked about his support for the government doing everything it could to ensure that we were spending in the most effective and efficient way possible. He made a contribution to the debate about the efficiency dividend, which has been increased in this budget by 0.25 per cent to 1.5 per cent. This is an annual cut to the running costs of public sector agencies, or the majority of public sector agencies. I have in a former life been very critical of this as a blunt instrument. I stand shoulder to shoulder with every other member on this side of the House on the need for the government to find savings and efficiencies wherever possible. I believe that the public sector needs to ensure that it is able to perform its functions in the most efficient and effective way possible. But I maintain my belief that I think that the efficiency dividend is a very blunt instrument, and I would like to work with all members of this House and others to ensure that, in the years to come, it can be replaced by a much more sophisticated instrument that does not disadvantage the sorts of agencies that were alluded to by the member for Banks—the small cultural agencies and the small central agencies—and also those agencies that are providing welfare and other assistance to the most needy in society. (Time expired)

Joanna Gash (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In his opening line of the budget, the Treasurer said: 'The purpose of this Labor government, and this Labor budget, is to put the opportunities that flow from a strong economy within reach of more Australians.' In the aftermath and in the cold light of day, I am struggling to identify how the nation's newfound wealth is being delivered to the constituents of Gilmore. Nowhere can I find what I would call an investment in the future for the region. In fact, if anything, it is over reliant on good luck rather than good management, with perhaps a vague promise of things to come provided we all maintain the faith.

An unfortunate fact of life is that the longer we leave things the more expensive they will become—but, ultimately, less affordable. As an example, perhaps the most profound symbol of economic opportunity along the South Coast of New South Wales is its primary freight route, the lifeline feeding the many businesses that support the population growth of the South Coast—that being the Princes Highway. In turn, these businesses generate jobs and income to support families, setting the criteria for future growth and development not only of the community but each individual within it. There is nothing in this budget that says we will profit from it and nothing in this budget that lends a hand along the way. The Princes Highway has been totally ignored. Extending Main Road 92 from Nowra to Canberra has been ignored. The need for a third bridge crossing over the Shoalhaven River to ease a natural transport choke point has been ignored. That is only the tip of the iceberg, and I will return to this issue further on.

This budget is increasingly becoming an irritant to the broader community. Surveys have shown an overwhelming rejection of the budget within days of it being delivered. Some have described it as the worst budget in 20 years—and rightly so. In fact, I have written this one off, as have the majority of Australians. But what I want to itemise here are the things we need, not what the government thinks we need to have. Our pensioners do not need set-top boxes while their teeth are rotting for want of attention from the public dental health system, which may as well be non-existent.

How long has Labor, both state and federal, been carping about the need for better dental services yet have done nothing about it? In fact, they have removed the highly successful and popular coalition Medicare Dental Scheme and replaced it with a vague promise of better things to come. It is being marketed as something far superior, but we just do not know the details. Sounds like a rehash of the NBN program that has blown out to 10 times the cost first promised with 10 times the time line for delivery.

With the track record of this government, I am not holding my breath, but I do want to say this: for the Shoalhaven campus of the University of Wollongong, the coalition government delivered a medical faculty for both doctors and nurses. The idea was that students trained in regional and rural areas were more likely to stay and work in rural and regional areas. The same can apply to the supply of dental practitioners prepared to work in the public health arena. If they are genuine about delivering better dental care to the regions, I would like this government to deliver the Shoalhaven a dental training facility.

While on the subject of health, I would like to briefly touch on the issue of the government's Medicare Local Scheme, which displaces the Division of GP's model. In my opinion, the Shoalhaven Division of GP's was a very efficient organisation. It served its community well because, as part of that community, it could relate to the issues of concern. The government's alternative, amalgamating the Shoalhaven and Illawarra divisions into a larger bureaucracy, has effectively de-localised the service. I suspect what will emerge is a less responsive organisation, focussed more on mass delivery rather than on specific targeting. This is no reflection on the doctors themselves; rather the inevitable encroachment of government bureaucracy.

The de-personalisation of communities is being accelerated under a government that is hooked on growing bureaucracies. Bigger is not always better, and I think the government is learning a harsh lesson from some of its more ill-starred programs, like the pink batts, the NBN and the BER. It is costing us huge sums of money for questionable returns—money that can be better spent on regions like Gilmore which have genuine unmet needs and are regularly hostage to city-centric Labor governments. Huge sums of money are being wasted to prop up a discredited government--and the lesson has still not been learned.

This government is persisting with introducing a carbon tax despite the fact that the majority of Australians do not want it. It is a tax which will add to the sky-rocketing cost of living that many Australians, big and small, rich and poor are concerned with. Electricity prices are sky rocketing for no apparent reason, other than what seems to be a catch-up phase after years of neglect by successive New South Wales Labor governments. They tried to tell us that the money was going back into New South Wales but what they failed to explain was that, in their view, New South Wales stood for Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong. Even in those terms I do not think that Wollongong was particularly well served. Having picked up some of the southern region of Wollongong—namely the Shellharbour area—I am surprised at the neglect those areas have endured. Despite year after year of being taken for granted, lacklustre politicians, corrupt local councils or exploitation, Labor—thanks to the influence of the unions—kept being voted back in. I often scratched my head wondering how people could be so blind but now it seems the penny has dropped and Wollongong is no longer the super-safe Labor stronghold it once was.

Shellharbour relies significantly on the fortunes of the Port Kembla steel industry complex, both directly and indirectly. Yet this government wants to kill the goose that lays the golden egg by imposing a carbon tax. The CFMEU and AWU, many of whose members work in the steel and allied industries, support the carbon tax. How is this possible? I thought they were fighting for the worker. The ex-ACTU lawyer, official of the Community Services and Public Sector Union and now member for Throsby, who is still sitting in the gallery, recently put a motion to parliament strongly advocating the introduction of a carbon tax. His supporting statements made no mention of protecting the interests of the very members he once represented. They are gone and forgotten, it seems. It is a sad reflection of the narrow political ideology of the union leadership, who it seems will gladly sacrifice the interests of the very workers they purport to represent for their own political advancement.

What well-known Labor powerbroker is often quoted as saying 'whatever it takes'? BlueScope Steel has made it publicly known that it cannot compete on the world stage with one hand tied behind its back. I was told that if their competitors paid the same tax they would have no objection. In a highly competitive market, where overseas labour costs are well below Australian standards, why impose an own-goal penalty when there are other ways of reducing carbon emissions? It is plain stupid.

At a time when the government is saying we are living in boom times, how is it that economies are being imposed? If we are living in boom times, why are family benefits being cut? And if we have to make savings to bring the budget into surplus, why are we blowing money hand over fist on asylum seekers, pink batts, set-top boxes, school computers and overpriced school halls and libraries which, in some cases, are not even wanted? If things are going so well, why is the government seeking the approval of parliament to increase its borrowing limits?

The public health system is a basket case, yet this government wants to discourage private health insurance, which actually lessens the pressure on the public hospital system. That is why we will continue to oppose cuts to private health insurance. The government is cutting PBS payments and yet is funding 24-hour superclinics even where there is some question as to whether they can be fully staffed as first intended. In fact, the only promise made by Labor for Gilmore in the last election was that the Shellharbour superclinic would be open by last Christmas. We do not even have a plan yet, and the well-promoted clinic for Shellharbour still has not opened its doors. Clearly, this is another false promise made to win votes. Again: whatever it takes.

The Leader of the Opposition was criticised for not detailing a budget position in his budget-in-reply statement. What he did do was outline a vision and a plan for the future—not a series of questionable promises that rely more on good luck than on good management. Besides, what would be the point for a government that stopped listening years ago and is obsessed by the polls and its own political survival? Over the last 12 months, representations have been continually made to the federal government urging them to increase infrastructure funding in Gilmore—funding that will stimulate economic investment and growth for the region. It is time for this government to show some financial maturity by stopping the frivolous spending, ending the carbon tax uncertainty and redirecting funding to projects that will really produce benefits.

A few short weeks ago, the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government visited Gilmore. I thank him for keeping his promise to me to visit Gilmore. During that visit, four projects which are vital to the growth and wellbeing of Gilmore were put to him through a council briefing. Gilmore needs to have the ability to tap into the mainstream economy, and for that we need an enhanced freight transport route to the markets in Victoria and Canberra. The Gilmore leg from Nowra to Nerriga was finally completed last year. While tourists appreciate the improvement, freight transport remains denied. This road has to be completed now from Nerriga, through Tarago and onto the Federal Highway, but that is now the responsibility of Goulburn-Mulwaree and Palerang Councils. Shoalhaven is anxious to have the matter expedited to enhance economic and commercial opportunities, so our fundamental infrastructure need is anchored to Main Road 92. We asked the minister to assist us with funding in three significant investments. We asked jointly with Goulburn-Mulwaree and Palerang Councils for the upgrading of Oallen Ford Bridge, which currently has a five-tonne limit. Shoalhaven also wants a utility augmentation of the Albatross Aviation Technology Park to satisfy Commonwealth requirements to move civilian contractors off the base. Main Road 92 spills at Nowra Hill and it can be argued that it offers little benefit for the lower Shoalhaven in the Milton-Ulladulla areas, which also have a need to improve their arteries. That is why we have asked that Turpentine Road be sealed—some 12 kilometres that connect to Main Road 92. This would encourage greater use by freight carriers to move freight between Ulladulla and Canberra via Main Road 92 rather than using the challenging Kings Highway from Batemans Bay.

We also asked for funding to help rejuvenate the Shellharbour marina project. It is central to the growth of Shellharbour and the economic benefit of its residents. The minister remarked to me how impressed he was with the international standard of Shoalhaven industry and the way we worked with neighbouring Kiama, Shellharbour and Goulburn councils. I hope the minister has come away with a better understanding of the challenges and constraints the Shoalhaven currently faces and the integral role these projects will have to play in advancing not just the Shoalhaven but the entire Illawarra and South Coast areas. I would again like to thank the member for Hotham for his visit. It was an absolute pleasure to host him. I would also like to thank the Shoalhaven City Council for the generous use of their chambers. With world-class manufacturing and aviation facilities expanding and developing in Nowra, Gilmore can become one of Australia's key economic hubs.

In concluding, I would like to mention a couple of other matters. Much has been said about this budget in the media, much of it not very flattering. My role as a member is to bring to the attention of government the views of the people I represent. There are two significant issues in the Gilmore community. Firstly, this government has allowed itself to become hostage to the Greens agenda. We want a government that has the strength of character to stand on its own two feet and not be beholden to minority radical interests. Secondly, stop the boats. Australians hate queue jumpers and they hate money being spent on people who ignore the rules. Two billion dollars has been cut from family benefits, with the cost of processing asylum seekers having risen by $1.7 billion. Families are doing it tough. Grocery prices are going up, fuel prices are going up, power prices are going up and health costs are becoming unaffordable. The great Australian dream of owning your own home is slipping away for many Australians. Our population is ageing. The strength of our dollar is the enemy of our export industries and the tourism industry.

We did not elect Senator Bob Brown to run this country but that is what is happening with the blessing of this government. It is wrong on so many fronts and this government must now show the strength of character to stop wasting our money on its faulty ideology. We want real investment, investment that will return dividends in bucket loads.

The Prime Minister got elected on her promise that there would be no carbon tax. Now that she has broken that promise she has no mandate. Under the conventions of the Westminster system that binds all ministers of the crown—and if she had any sense of decency—she should go back to the people. If she refuses to do so then she is repudiating centuries of democratic principles to which Australians expect their government to subscribe to and honour.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have been listening to those opposite talking today on these bills. What a carry on. I want to address a couple of areas raised in this carry on, the first being the NBN and the comments by those opposite about how it is not an investment and how it has not been explained—according to them—in the budget. They do not believe that this is an investment in our future. Only last week, Armidale was switched on. The enthusiasm of that community and their local member was matched only by the wet blanket of the member for North Sydney, who said, 'When the button was pressed, I thought there goes $18 billion.' It continues to amaze me how adept those opposite are in having an opinion on something that they know nothing about.

We had the member for Gilmore in here calling for investment in the regions. She is getting an investment in Kiama Downs, which is near her region. And the member for Throsby agrees with me. If you want to know what the biggest investment ever is going to be—one that will drive local jobs and drive transformational reforms in health and education—you need look no further than the NBN.

On the topic of people having opinions on things that they nothing about, it is interesting that one of the centrepieces of budget reply of the member for Warringah was that the coalition would rollback and scrap the NBN and replace it with a cheaper network using a variety of technologies. So we would go back to the policy that those opposite took to the last election—the gift that keeps on giving. I lamented the demise of the member for Casey as the shadow communications spokesperson. But now they want to talk about how we should have a variety of technologies, which is the policy that they took to the last election. What a vandal. He says that the way this country will go forward is by scrapping the largest infrastructure project in Australian history, which not only is underway but is being switched on regional areas and is about to move to second release sites, including Riverstone in my electorate. Yet again, the Leader of the Opposition has shown that he does not understand the NBN or the budget.

It was interesting to hear the Leader of the Opposition say that we do not need the NBN because speeds of up to 100 megabits were already potentially available to almost every major business and hospital and schools by using a high-speed cable already running past one third of Australian households. That is right: one third. Do not worry; if you live on the east coast, you will be fine. But the other 70 per cent—all of regional Australia and outer metropolitan Sydney—will be left behind. This is the fantasy land legacy left by the wasted Howard years: this delusion that Australia was doing just fine in terms of broadband development while we fell further and further behind.

We know that the Leader of the Opposition used his reply not to bring anything of substance to the debate but just to attack the NBN and call for a market oriented solution for the need for faster broadband. The market has failed. The NBN is the only investment in broadband that will exist in many parts of regional Australia—like Armidale—and in outer metropolitan Sydney, like the new estates in the north of my electorate. We do not need to take my word for it. The United Nations official overseeing communications said: 'The way that I see it here, Australia has undertaken the largest infrastructure project ever. Three to five years from now, Australia will be number one in broadband in the world.' That is a quote that you would never have heard until the NBN project was commenced in this country.

I note that the Minister for Finance and Deregulation has belled the cat here. The Leader of the Opposition and his continual arguments about the NBN figures in the budget. The Leader of the Opposition argued that the investment in the NBN could be used to fund roads and other projects. What he fails to understand—as all those opposite fail to understand—is that the government's $27.5 billion contribution is an investment; an investment on which this country will get a return. You do not need to look any further than the fact that the biggest driver of GDP in any country in the world is ICT development. Australia did not even have a policy on ICT when those opposite were in government.

The carry on regarding the NBN in this budget process has been matched only by the mocking of some elderly and other vulnerable people in our community by those members opposite. For these people, TV is their only point of contact with the outside world. I am talking about the digital switchover and the household assistance scheme, which has been successfully rolled out to something like 40,000 households already. Many of these people who have been and will be provided with assistance live alone. They have no-one else to rely on. Those opposite would prefer to leave them in the dark so that when the analog switchover date comes these vulnerable people will turn on their TVs and get nothing. For those opposite, this is just a big joke. I find that absolutely disgraceful, particularly considering that the consumer expert group that advised on the formation and implementation of this policy includes member organisations such as the Country Women's Association, National Disability Services and the Deafness Forum of Australia. It is an absolute disgrace that those opposite should seek to mock these kinds of people in this way. I will also point out that it is no wonder that the vast expanse of the digital society regards the Leader of the Opposition as a joke when it comes to digital policy in this country. I bet he would be hard pressed to name the digital switch-over date of his own region, let alone that of every other region in Australia. I also point out that the $350 figure is an average cost of the assistance package for households. It is not merely a set-top box; it is a set-top box that is accessible for the elderly and for people with special needs. It includes installation, rewiring, antenna adjustment, demonstrations and access to a free hotline for 12 months following installation.

You need look no further than a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald headed 'Set-top boxes a lifeline for elderly'. I quote:

Critics of the federal government's plan to provide pensioners with set-top boxes have underestimated the importance and cost of providing continuing technical help to the elderly and people with special needs … Television is the main point of contact with the outside world for many people …

The article was quoting Chris Mikul of Media Access Australia. It looks at the case study of a pensioner who bought a set-top box so that her analog TV could receive a digital signal. She then had to spend $300 on a new antenna, and the technician helped her to set the system up and taught her how to switch between broadcast television, DVDs and videos.

As I have said, this has been rolling out to tens of thousands of Australians already. I do not believe that pensioners and vulnerable people should be left in the dark when it comes to this issue. I also point out that if you want to look at the rationale for this you can go back a few years and find it. Have a look at the Digital Action Plan for Australia, which says:

The Government recognises that some Australians may find it difficult to make the switch to digital—due to either personal circumstances or geographic location. Digital Australia will be prepared to provide information and technical support to communities and individuals who may find the switch a little more challenging.

It is interesting: that is the Digital Action Plan put in place by Senator Helen Coonan in late 2006 when she was the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. I find it absolutely ludicrous that those opposite should criticise a scheme that is actually based on a policy that they sought to implement when they were in government.

I happen to care about older Australians and their participation in the digital economy, which is why last week I was very pleased to visit the Seventh-day Adventist aged-care facility in Kings Langley, which benefited from $6,700 under the Broadband for Seniors Kiosks program. This provides free broadband access, computer training and up-to-date technology to help seniors keep in touch with their families and friends. It was a delight to be able to go to this facility and see how this government is investing in ensuring that no-one is left behind when it comes to the digital revolution, not only when we make the switch from analog to digital but also as broadband is rolled out and made accessible.

I mention a couple of other projects in Greenway that have benefited under this budget. Last week I had the pleasure of visiting the Riverstone Neighbourhood Centre with the Parliamentary Secretary for Community Services. We announced expanded federal government support for emergency relief services under this budget, and that provides vulnerable people with assistance with groceries, clothing, transport and pharmacy vouchers. These emergency relief services are crucial to supporting some parts of my community. There was $400,000 set aside in the budget for emergency relief providers in Greenway. It was greatly appreciated by service providers, including the Riverstone Neighbourhood Centre. To quote Ms Barbara Rowe, the administrator of the centre, 'All the volunteers were so appreciative of the fact that the federal government was able to deliver to them on this point.'

In their words, advocacy for the needs of residents in Riverstone has its unique challenges. It is geographically located on the edge of the Blacktown LGA, it is on the fringes of Penrith and the Hawkesbury and there is a risk that governments incorrectly perceive Riverstone to be well served by neighbouring facilities and services, the result being that Riverstone is too often overlooked. It gives me great pleasure to say that the funding announced for Riverstone's emergency relief services was certainly not an oversight. The Riverstone Neighbourhood Centre does an outstanding job in administering this emergency relief to many people who may be struggling in the northern parts of Greenway. As the workers and volunteers attested when the parliamentary secretary and I visited, the GFC was devastating to so many families who are still attempting to recover. Some people are struggling as a result of this patchwork economy that we find ourselves in, and this government is committed to helping those people in their times of need. One of the most important elements is that this funding comes in a three-year contract for service providers, which gives them the certainty to continue providing their services.

The other aspect of this budget with which I am particularly proud to be involved is its jobs focus and it jobs focus on Western Sydney. We have seen the investments of $100 million in national apprenticeship mentoring as well as a $281 million support package of additional tax-free payments to encourage apprentices in critical trades to complete their qualifications. In Greenway there are over 3,000 apprentices who stand to benefit from this investment. It is of immeasurable benefit to young people in particular. I was delighted last Monday to be joined by the Treasurer at Cumberland Ford in Blacktown to see firsthand the benefits of investing in local apprenticeships. I thank Mr David Stevenson and Mr John McInerney from Cumberland Ford for their commitment to producing apprentices who are work ready and who are skilled up and to ensuring that they can deliver in the workforce. During our time at Cumberland Ford I met with the Ford Apprentice of the Year for 2010, Mr Justin James, who told me that taking up an apprenticeship was the best decision of his life.

I am so pleased that this government realises the need for a highly skilled workforce, and that is why we are investing in training skilled workers in their apprenticeships. As we know, there is a large dropout rate amongst apprentices. This budget will work to support 200,000 trade apprentices over four years in skills shortage occupations to stay in their training and to get a job.

As so many people in my electorate tell me, so many of the social ills that are raised with me as I go around the electorate and speak to people are the result of young people and others not having long-term employment and not having meaningful training that makes them job ready. This investment is exactly what the residents of Greenway have been asking for. One of the key indicators of someone's health, as we know, is whether they have a job—whether they are healthy in terms of not only their physical health but also their mental health and the dignity that work provides to ensure that they can contribute to society. I would like to end by talking about the investments in health that are also being made in Greenway. Last week I joined the Minister for Health and Ageing at the Children's Hospital at Westmead to announce the changes under the federal budget where children under the age of 16 will get MRI scans more quickly and cheaply, and there will be new licences for more than 60 existing MRI machines across Australia. That includes an upright MRI machine for the Western Imaging Group in Blacktown. I am extremely grateful to the Minister for Health and Ageing for responding to the many representations I have made about the need for more licensed MRIs in the seat of Greenway.

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

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 34. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The member for Greenway will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.