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

Before the debate is resumed on this bill, I remind the Main Committee that, pursuant to the resolution agreed to by the House on 10 May 2011, this order of the day will be debated concurrently with Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2011-12 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2011-12.

Debate resumed on the motion:

That this bill be now read a second time.

to which the following amendment was moved:

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) 2001-12."

The immediate question before the chair is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science, Technology and Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support emphatically the omission of words and the change put forward by the member for Goldstein. When we reflect upon this budget in its entirety and the three appropriation bills it is important that we look upon the facts as stated in the budget, starting with the prebudget rhetoric of a tough Labor budget, of tightening of belts, and all we actually see is union mates being rewarded with millions and millions of dollars and $2 billion being slugged out of the pockets of families because of wasteful spending. In this budget the government delivered total savings of only about $2.7 billion over five years where total spending is almost $1.9 trillion. That amounts to 14c in every $100 and the majority of savings do not even come in until 2014-15, miraculously after the government has delivered their long-awaited surplus. As the member for Longman so eloquently put it last night in parliament, 'I celebrate my 21st birthday soon. In that time a Labor government has never delivered a surplus budget.' As all market commentators have agreed, this budget will do nothing to stop interest rate rises. It is also instructive to note that one-third of all Labor's savings are actually new taxes. It is a vagary of taxation law and of the way Treasury operates that a taxation hike is construed as a saving. We note from the budget that the budget deficit for the current year, 2010-11, is soaring to $49.4 billion. The forecast deficit for 2011-12 has blown out by $10.3 billion to a staggering $22.6 billion deficit for the next financial year. The net government debt is climbing to a record $107 billion in 2011-12 and it is forecast to remain at over $100 billion in the foreseeable future, at least to the next four years—that is, net debt of $4,700 for every man, woman and child, for every Australian.

Gross borrowings required to furnish the debt, as well as provide the necessary cash flow and so on, are forecast to go over $200 billion with the government requesting authority to increase gross debt to a quarter of a trillion dollars. It is a typical, old-fashioned, Labor budget—big on taxes, big on spending, very low on helping householders battle high costs of living, low on helping battlers deal with the high cost of petrol, electricity, gas, groceries, health costs and home repayments. There are no tax cuts for the first time in eight years, just tax hikes.

Appropriation Bill (No. 1) is for ordinary annual services of $72.85 billion and Appropriation Bill (No. 2) is looking at $7.4 billion to allow full annual appropriations in the Consolidated Revenue Fund for services that are not ordinary annual revenue. Appropriation Bill (No. 2) also increases the government's gross debt ceiling from $200 billion to a quarter of a trillion. Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) is $180 million to deal with the appropriating funds for the proper running of government services.

The Prime Minister was right when she said this was a traditional Labor budget. She was spot on. There is no duplicity here. There is no 'There'll be no carbon tax in my government' here. She was spot on when she said, 'This will be a traditional Labor budget,' and it has been—a huge deficit, huge borrowings, huge debts and huge taxes, all spun with a rhetorical line about being tough. The only thing they are being tough on is their lack of resolve to save money. They talk about the need to repay debt but they lift the debt ceiling to record levels. They talk about easing cost-of-living pressures and then they slug $2 billion out of family assistance to pay for wasteful spending.

As a matter of fact, in November last year we were told that the deficit for 2010-11, the current financial year, would be $41½ billion. On budget night it was revealed to blow out to almost $50 billion, a change of almost $10 billion—they got it wrong. In November we were told that net debt would peak at $94 billion; we are now told it will peak at $107 billion, or a $13 billion blow-out. Not only is net debt to stay above $ 100 billion for at least the next four years but the government will continue to borrow $135 million a day and Labor's debt repayment will be a staggering $7 billion a year. Cumulative interest on Labor 's debt will be more than $26 billion over the next four years. That is the legacy of this Labor government. Think of the infrastructure, the railheads, the ports, the hospitals, the community services that could be funded if this government had not wastefully spent money on recurrent expenses.

Labor does not like to admit that we have the highest interest rates in the OECD and among the highest home mortgage rates in the world. Labor's reckless spending and borrowing has seen interest rates higher than they would otherwise be. Since budget night there has been universal consensus that Labor's budget will have zero impact on the Reserve Bank's monetary policy, nor does anyone admit that under the Rudd-Gillard governments we have seen the greatest growth in government spending since the days of Whitlam. The best that could be said about the situation is that at least Whitlam had some style about him. In less than four years Labor has beaten Paul Keating's record. When he left $96 billion in net debt in 1996 the coalition paid that off and in just four years we are now left with $107 billion of debt. Labor's spending as a percentage of GDP is 25.2 per cent, almost three per cent higher than the last year of the Howard government. I note that it is not as high as the Scandinavian countries that the government likes to point to with respect to good policy, where government spending as a percentage of GDP is up to 50 per cent. Perhaps that is where this government wants to go: the ultimate nanny state. You the taxpayer and I the taxpayer do not know what is good for us, but the nanny Labor government clearly does.

Spending has gone from $271 billion in 2007-08 to $362 billion in 2011-12 under this government. It is the greatest growth in real spending since the disastrous Whitlam years. Yes, Prime Minister, you were spot-on on budget night: this is a traditional Labor budget, boots and all. While the government said it was bound by tight fiscal rules and would offset all new spending with savings measures, the budget papers tell a completely different story. The government cannot even manage to offset new spending in 2011-12, with a $2.3 billion deficit in that area. Of the $21 billion in savings the government claims over the forward estimates, at least 30 per cent of them are new and increased taxes and they will spend $19 billion of it on other stuff. In fact the $1.7 billion flood levy is actually claimed as the biggest saving in the budget. It is staggering that a flood levy is called a saving. It is mind-boggling how much money is being wasted. They could not even find $1.7 billion in a $360 billion budget to deal with natural disasters that are inevitable in a land of drought and flooding rains. It all harks back to pink batts, school halls and $900 cheques, all stuff that our children will pay off because of the reckless spending.

Now we see a $1.7 billion blowout as a result of Labor's failed border protection policies. The Labor government stood here for years and said: 'It is the push factors that are doing it. There is nothing we can do.' They have now reversed that and said: 'We will open Manus Island. We will take a one for five swap with Malaysia. That will stop it.' They have now realised it is the pull factors. It is a complete sham. Labor in opposition prior to 2007 condemned the Howard government for spending an 'abhorrent' $100 million dealing with our borders. They said such expenditure was a tragedy. The Prime Minister, when she was in opposition and we were getting three boats a year, rolled out that great line, 'Another boat, another policy failure.' Well, Prime Minister, we are getting three boats a week and $100 million has now become $1.7 billion. We are now finding the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship with his head through a manhole trying to convince asylum seekers to get down from a roof. That is what things have come to with this Labor government.

The bottom line is that the budget is based on a lie. The carbon tax revenue is nowhere in the budget, nor are any expenses associated with it. This carbon tax is a tax the Prime Minister said would never happen. 'There will be no carbon tax in a government I lead,' she said, hoping to win an election, only to reveal the truth a few days later. Revenue from the mining tax is factored into the budget, yet a tax is not even bedded down and apparently starts on the same day that the carbon tax is meant to start. The carbon tax is not in the budget but the mining tax revenue is. We know the carbon tax will simply export jobs and increase the cost of everything. Let us take cement, for example. The cement process uses a chemical process to release carbon dioxide to take, ostensibly, limestone and reduce it down, and 50 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions in cement production occur through that chemical process. There is no way to improve it and there is no way to rationalise it. Another 35 per cent is in the following processes, before you release the small balls of cement basis, and then 15 per cent is in the large rolling and crushing machines. The bottom line is that there is no way to reduce emissions in the production of cement. So how is the carbon tax going to work in the cement industry? Apart from all cement being imported, all we have done is move emissions offshore. Instead of using power from black coal fired power stations we are going to move emissions offshore to nasty, brown wet coal power stations in China. Emissions will go up and jobs will go down, but apparently this carbon tax is good for us. Revenue from the mining taxes is in the budget; revenue from the carbon tax is not in the budget.

Labor plans to borrow $18.2 billion for the NBN over the forward estimates, yet the potential for waste in this project is frightening. It will be a $50 billion project, and we all know that 80 per cent of IT projects blow out. It could be much higher. This is government betting on picking a technology when we know, right now, as a statement of fact that for every one user of wired broadband there are seven users of wireless broadband. I say to the government: how does your NBN help me with my iPad? How does it help me use my tablet and my mobile communication devices? How can it possibly work? How does it help me use wireless on my laptop? It does not. This is a government picking technology winners because Minister Conroy could not get the 2007 election policy correct of $4.7 billion and broadband to 98 per cent of Australians. On a flight to PNG the former Prime Minister changed his mind to $47 billion and broadband to 90 per cent of Australians. Well done; no wonder Labor knifed you in the back.

The budget is a house of cards, further illustrated by the decision of the Western Australian government to increase iron ore fines royalties by over $2 billion. Under the terms of the Prime Minister's agreement with the big three, the Commonwealth is obliged to credit in full all increased royalties from mining companies that are subject to the MRRT. This is of course added pressure on Labor's budget.

What is particularly galling is the hit on families: $2 billion will be gouged for the freezing of indexation of family tax payment supplements and upper income thresholds, despite the government talking down the impact of these changes at a time when families are struggling with massive cost-of-living increases. Electricity has gone up by 51 per cent since this government came to power. The truth is that $2 billion ripped away from struggling families will hurt them in one shape or form.

On top of that, as if we did not have overpriced school halls, pink batts and solar panel disasters, we have $376 million on 'building the entertainment revolution' through set-top boxes. It is absolutely and utterly deplorable. The budget is a sham. It is an incredibly wasted opportunity, and the Prime Minister is right: it is a typical Labor budget.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do like the member for Fadden. He will be disappointed that I am not wearing my bootstraps as I stand to speak about this very Labor budget. I want to let the member for Fadden know that my electorate is very pleased about the benefits that will come from this very Labor budget, to this very Labor and indeed very needy electorate, which is what Labor budgets tend to be about. They are about assisting those people in our community who are probably more disadvantaged than others and who are in greater need of services. In a moment I will talk about my community and how this budget will be of benefit to them. Firstly, however, in relation to how the previous Howard government dealt with illegal entrants, the infamous Pacific solution—and though I will say this and it will go into Hansard, I stand to be corrected—border protection might have cost about $100 million but I remember the figure of about $1 billion as being the cost to the Australian taxpayer for running the Pacific solution.

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science, Technology and Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

$70 million.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not think that it was $70 million. I remember that there was a lot of debate at that time about the enormous amount of money that was being spent. I have a recollection of some serious criticism of the government in relation to its insistence on spending a lot of money maintaining one individual on Nauru. I say this because this issue of illegal entrants is a very important issue to this country and it has been for a long period of time. It is an issue that carries many costs, one of which is a financial cost. So if we want to play politics with who is spending more and who is spending less and who is doing a better job of managing this, my view is that we need to look at the global situation and put our problem in the context of what is going on internationally. We might find that other regions in the world, especially in Europe, shoulder a greater burden of illegal entrants than this country does. I do not want to downplay the significance of the problem for Australia, but I want to make this point because we talk about it all the time without thinking. There are other places in the world that are dealing with this issue where the problem is 20, if not more, times worse than ours. So we need to keep it in perspective.

Back to the budget: this very Labor budget is of great benefit to my electorate and I am very pleased to speak to it today. I am particularly pleased to speak to it because the budget has introduced a very significant initiative aimed at assisting people back into the workforce. I know that we talk about this all the time. All governments talk about their desire to help people get back into the workforce, and lots of programs are devised and lots of money is spent to help people, whether they are from the disability sector, young people or mature age workers. This is a problem that has been with us for some time. We spend a lot of money and a lot of words on trying to get people back into work. We do that because it is very important for people to be working. Having a constructive life—one in which you are responsible for your day-to-day living—is very important. The dignity of work adds to the dignity of self. There are a whole series of other important psychological factors there, so we talk a lot about getting people into work.

But there is always one group of people who, for whatever reason, seem not to be able to avail themselves of these programs, and a lot of those people live in my electorate. My electorate has a very high rate of unemployment for young people—probably one of the highest in the country. It has been like that for a long period of time. There are a lot of reasons why that is the case. Over my years as the member I have always been perplexed—like a lot of our service deliverers—as to why we cannot succeed in reducing that unemployment level. One of the reasons is that, while there are a lot of services provided, at some point people are not getting the best information regarding how they can either get a job or get the relevant training necessary to get them into long-term employment.

Someone has finally decided to acknowledge this and try and do something about it. The government, through this budget, has announced a $304 million package that is aimed squarely at the unemployed and in particular the youth unemployed and those on long-term income support, the most vulnerable people and the people who need the greatest assistance and support to get into the workforce. The $304 million package involves 10 locations in the country. This is a package that requires the local communities to develop a structure. My electorate of Calwell is one of those 10 locations. The Hume City Council, which shares, as I have said many times before, the same borders as the federal seat of Calwell, is one of the local government authorities to have been chosen. I make the point that the package is an initiative of this budget, it is a very important initiative and it is part of the budget's aim to build a bigger workforce. We do this through more targeted investment in skills and training and through all sorts of measures to encourage participation. But, more importantly, through this program we will do it by actually helping people to learn about the prospects and those things that are available to them in the community so they can actually be helped. Not too much attention has been paid to that aspect of it in the past. We do this at a time—and, again, I speak very much about my electorate—when it is expected that, nationwide, unemployment will fall from its current level of about five per cent to about 4.5 per cent during the next two years. It is expected that half a million new jobs will be created. I know that they are only figures but, obviously, the people that cast the economic trends have a fair idea of where the employment prospects are in this country. There is no doubt that we have great potential for growth in Australia. We acknowledge that a shortage of participants in the workforce will be one of our drawbacks if we do not address it. We need to do that at a time when people, such as those in my electorate, are experiencing higher unemployment than the national average.

The intention of this $304 million initiative is to not only assist those people in my electorate but also provide a structure that they themselves create, not one that is imposed from above but one that is developed from the ground and responds specifically to the issues that prevent people from availing themselves of programs. It is the local community on the ground that will decide how it creates a pathway for its community. Of the $304 million funding, $38.2 million over four years will be allocated to support this local workforce participation through what will be called the Community Innovation through Collaboration initiative. Collaboration, I think, is the key word here, because it will work with all the stakeholders and the service deliverers.

The sum of $25 million has been allocated for a Local Solutions Fund for community organisations to deliver the programs, as I said, to help access educational and employment options, and a further $13.2 million has been set aside to provide service coordinators and community based facilitators. Whilst it is important for the community to be brought together to actually develop a structure to assist itself, it is necessary to have an overall coordinator who is not necessarily attached to any of the major bureaucracies but who is there to assist the community and help them work their way through the plan of action that I am looking forward to my community putting together in the next few months.

I was very pleased about this announcement. When I got back to my electorate last week I thought it would be absolutely important to hit the ground running on this one. I recognise that we have an opportunity to shape and mould this program. I am happy to report to the House that we called together some of our major local stakeholders to brief them about the government's package and to discuss how they saw this potential and how they thought we could bring it all together so that it could maximise the benefits for our people.

Local members will have a significant role to play in this, and I think that is a very good thing—local members know their community better than anybody else does, so we have a very important role to play in setting up this local advisory group. I decided that I would invite a core group of people from my electorate—the key stakeholders—who I thought would serve as the initial consultation group. I want to list them because they are very important people not only to me as a member of parliament but also to my community. I want to start by mentioning Mr Tony Coppola, who is the senior manager at Northern Melbourne Regional Development Australia. They are responsible for building partnerships between all levels of government, local business, community groups and key regional stakeholders in order to provide responses to economic, environmental and social issues affecting all of Melbourne's north. Mr Coppola is also a representative of North Link and its executive director, Mick Butera, assists him in this role.

I also invited the founder and executive officer of the Bridge of Hope Foundation, Mr John Walsh. Bridge of Hope is a registered charity that specialises in training and providing job opportunities for troubled youth and those in juvenile detention. The group of young people who are referred to as juvenile offenders—I have a very large number of those young people in my electorate—is one that we tend to forget about. We do not even talk about them, let alone try and devise opportunities for them. These are a particularly vulnerable group of young people because they have special needs. Many of them will end up in juvenile detention for a whole series of reasons which I will not go into. The key is what happens to them when they get out. Many of them will only be 16, 17 or 18—young people who need to be assisted back either into education or into some sort of training and given an opportunity. Often people do not want to deal with juvenile offenders, they do not want them.

We all face discrimination. I would probably face discrimination if I were suddenly to become unemployed—the discrimination that comes with being a mature-age person. It might mortify me to think that, but my age might be a problem for me in the workforce. These young people have all sorts of other problems. They are not as empowered as I or someone else may be. They need a fair go and they do not get a fair go. We need to change attitudes towards them before we can even help them. So I want to commend John Walsh and the Bridge of Hope, which hopes to do a lot of work in this area but needs to partner with government. I invited him to this meeting because I think they have a very important role to play.

The CEO of Brite Services, Margaret Ruff, was also invited. Brite is one of those extraordinary organisations that I have had the pleasure of representing. Brite is probably the only Australian disability enterprise in this country. It is an organisation that specialises in the employment of people with disabilities. I say it is unique because it started off being a sheltered workshop some 25 years ago when we did refer to these organisations as sheltered workshops. Thankfully, we all learnt that that was not very flattering language to use. These are people with special needs but nevertheless they like to work and Brite offers them long-term employment and they have become a thriving business. I am very proud of Brite because they have managed to win contracts for their people and there is a long future ahead for the people who work at Brite.

Another person who I invited was Ian Adotey. Ian is from the Broadmeadows Community Neighbourhood Renewal Project, which comprises another set of people who specialise in assisting the most vulnerable. Finally, I invited the CEO of Spectrum Migrant Resource Centres, Mrs Rosemary Kelada. Spectrum does an incredible amount of work for new immigrants in my electorate. They implement Australia's very successful settlement services. Unfortunately, I am running out of time, but I want to thank them for coming to that meeting and I look forward to working with them in the next few months to implement the government's program. (Time expired)

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to raise several issues today in relation to the federal budget and also some broader concerns within my electorate. Firstly I want to highlight the need for the federal government to support an application for $65 million to expand and enhance the Latrobe Regional Hospital under the Health and Hospitals Fund regional priority round. This application is for funding to build a new improved emergency department and additional endoscopy facilities and offer more beds for acute care.

By way of background, LRH is a designated regional health service and major provider of acute, subacute, mental health and specialist age care services for the Gippsland community. LRH is also an important teaching and training facility working in close partnership with Monash University School of Rural Health and Monash University Gippsland Medical School. Gippsland has some of the poorest health outcomes in Victoria. Current facilities fall well below existing standards and are not adequate to meet growing community needs, which are affecting LRH's ability to meet its designated role as a regional hospital and a teaching facility. This situation will be exacerbated in the future with predicted growth in demand of 13 per cent over the next 10 years. It is critical in that regard that the federal government recognises the growth that is going on in the Latrobe Valley community. With an ageing population, the increase in demand on our health services is apparent and I encourage the federal government to continue to invest in facilities at LRH in particular. The improved facilities and the increased capabilities will also make it easier for us to recruit and train medical specialists in the region and reduce the burden on Melbourne health services. Naturally there is a double benefit in that regard—we can actually service more people in our local communities rather than having them be forced to go to Melbourne, adding to the waiting lists in Melbourne. This is an opportunity for us in regional areas. I am advised that the cost of unnecessary patient transport at the moment is in the vicinity of $29 million a year, and that money could be recouped by government as a result of expanding this facility so that more patients can be treated in the Latrobe Valley.

We also have the hidden health issue of patients who are deciding not to seek treatment because it is too difficult for them to access it, particularly in communities like Gippsland where the travel to Melbourne can be in excess of three or four hours. People are making the decision that it is all too hard to go to Melbourne, find accommodation and access services in the city. I admit it is hard to measure this particular issue, but I constantly receive anecdotal information about people from the more remote parts of my region who are choosing not to pursue advanced treatment because they have to go to Melbourne. It is a key concern for us in our regional communities.

It is one of the reasons I have been so keen to be an advocate in this place for Rotary Gippsland Centenary House, which provides accommodation units for people who are receiving treatment at LRH. I would like to congratulate the federal government and the state government for continuing the level of bipartisan support for this magnificent facility. The Gillard government has supported the community fundraising efforts by providing $1.5 million for the next stage of the development, which will see nine more units being built. I actually inspected the progress on these units only a few weeks ago and I can report to the House that all is going very well there. It is going to be a magnificent addition to this facility, which has been such a crucial part of providing accommodation and care for people as they are away from their home at a very stressful time in their lives. I do take this opportunity to encourage the minister to visit our region for the official opening of this facility. It would be great to see her there for the occasion, which we hope will be towards the end of this year. I am sure she will be impressed by the work of local builders. I congratulate the organisers and the board of management for engaging the local building firms to undertake this project.

The planned upgrade that we are talking about is stage 2A of a larger redevelopment, so we are talking about substantial amounts of money. A master plan has been endorsed by the Victorian Department of Health, under both the previous Labor state government and the current coalition government. The project does have government support. It also has widespread community support, particularly the rebuilding of the hospital's emergency department where waiting times have become an issue of increasing concern. I have a great deal of sympathy for the staff at the front-line of the emergency department. They often cop all the poor headlines in terms of people being forced to wait for treatment and to wait on trolleys for extended periods of time. The staff bear the brunt of that criticism when, really, they are completely overwhelmed by the demand for services. I do encourage the federal government to continue to work with the state government on this most important upgrade and opportunity to expand the facilities at LRH.

On another positive note, it would be remiss of me not to take this opportunity now to mention the $23 million worth of funding announced by the federal government on 7 April last year. This funding was to expand the Gippsland Cancer Care Centre and provide an additional 414 radiation treatments and 8,000 chemotherapy treatments. I understand expressions of interest will be advertised next week for construction on this project. Again, it is a project which is much needed, tragically, in my community. The expansion of the Gippsland Cancer Care Centre will make LRH one of the prime facilities for the delivery of cancer care services in Victoria and according to LRH staff this funding will allow for a significant expansion of the radiotherapy, chemotherapy and dialysis units as well as an expansion to the pharmacy. It is tragic but it is a fact of life in my region that there is a growing need for cancer treatment in the broader Gippsland community and it is essential that patients can access these services in our region. The expansion will make LRH a leader in this area as the cancer centre doubles in size. On behalf of my community, I do welcome the funding from the federal government in that regard.

It is also important, in the context of that federal funding, to mention the fact—and reflect on it—of the inspirational efforts of the local community and the financial contribution they have been able to make to support this initiative. The Gippsland Cancer Care Centre has been the beneficiary of many fundraising events in recent years, several of which I have had the opportunity to attend. They have always been very well run. I refer to things like gala balls and community fun runs. It is a remarkable effort when you look at the socioeconomics of my community. They have been able to raise in excess of $3.5 million since the Gippsland Cancer Centre Appeal was launched in 2003. That is in addition to the fundraising that has been going on for Gippsland Rotary Centenary House. So I do take this opportunity to thank my community for their work in that regard. I thank the various board members who have served as volunteers on those fundraising committees, the business sponsors, the philanthropic organisations and the members of the broader general public who have been prepared to give their time and their money in such a generous manner. I think regional communities are renowned for such efforts and it is a real tribute to the people of Gippsland that they are such committed stakeholders in our health services. Although I have focused a lot on the Latrobe Valley here today, let me assure the House that right across my region there are auxiliaries and community based boards which are doing an extraordinary job every day of the week to supplement whatever government funding is available through the various health budgets. Without the efforts of these volunteers the health situation in every part of Gippsland would be far worse.

On a separate issue also to do with public health, I want to draw the attention of the House to an issue which is developing as quite a significant concern in the Bairnsdale district—a colony of flying foxes which roosts on the banks of the Mitchell River. It has been the subject of increased public debate in East Gippsland. I acknowledge that this is primarily a state issue but federal responsibilities do come into force under the provisions of the EPBC Act. I have brought this issue to the attention of the minister for environment but the urgency of the issue is about to escalate following the issuing of a health warning by the Victorian Department of Health only yesterday. A flying fox found at Bairnsdale has been detected as carrying the Australian bat lyssavirus and I will refer directly to the warning by Victoria's Chief Health Officer, Dr John Carnie. He says:

Under no circumstances should people handle flying foxes on their property as some diseases they carry, such as Australian Bat Lyssavirus, are transmissible to humans, …

Australian Bat Lyssavirus is a rare, but fatal disease which may be transmitted from flying foxes to humans.

Domestic pets may also be at risk. The virus is transmitted through being scratched or bitten by a flying fox.

It goes on to say:

Although it is known that many flying foxes across Australia carry the virus, instances of transmission to humans are very rare, with only two cases ever having been recorded—both of which were seen in Queensland.

Australian Bat Lyssavirus is detected from time to time in flying foxes in Victoria, but no human cases have ever occurred here. The disease has never occurred in domestic pets in Victoria.

While that is reassuring to some extent, the fact that the Victorian Chief Health Officer has had to issue a warning in relation to flying foxes in the Bairnsdale area is of great concern to my community. I would also like to refer to comments from a nearby resident who has written to the federal minister for regional development to raise her concerns in this regard. The letter describes the situation in Bairnsdale:

Since 2003 we have had a problem with bats. The bats have created a very comfortable colony amongst the residents of Bairnsdale, which increases by the year and have extended to 33,000 in number at times … As we have had an unusually wet year, the putrid smell has become unbearable for anyone living within the town.

The bat colony is in a forested area along the Mitchell River amongst poplar trees, situated within meters, between and in front of residential homes in the township and affects residents as far as a kilometer away …

The letter goes on to describe the battle by residents to have poplar trees removed. It is worth reflecting that the poplar trees are an introduced species and they are affected by white ants, in this particular case. The resident is critical of the lack of action by the Department of Sustainability of Environment, and I quote her again:

We do understand that the bat colony is protected, we are not asking for them to be killed, just removed. We feel that if the trees (which are considered dangerous and overhang a public footpath/bicycle track along the river banks) are removed, the bats are intelligent enough to find another forested area (of which there is plenty in the Gippsland area) in which to live.

We are now given to understand from a report issued by the DSE that they want the bat colony to remain, as they consider it to be a tourist attraction and if the trees are removed, they will erect artificial roosts for the bats! The report also states that they wish to educate us on the benefits of 'co-habiting with wildlife'. We think that this is plain stupidity given that the people writing these reports do not live anywhere near the bats and consequently, do not have to tolerate the constant noise and putrid stench from these animals, with which we have to live.

Having had the opportunity to inspect the colony personally, I have to agree with the letter writer: there is a stench associated with the flying foxes. The quality of life of nearby residents is being severely compromised and the constant noise is having an impact on people's health—and that is without even considering the issue of disease which may be borne by the flying foxes. So this warning from Victoria's chief health officer will, I think, escalate the concerns within my community. At a local level I have been working with my local state MP, Tim Bull, who I know is trying to find a way through the layers of bureaucracy to resolve the situation. At a federal level I will be seeking assurances from the federal government that it will not be using the provisions of the EPBC Act as an excuse to interfere in this matter. The location of the colony is a real problem for my community, and the local agencies need to develop a management plan which balances difficult environmental issues but clearly places the rights of the human population ahead of the flying foxes.

In the short amount of time I have left I would like to reflect on one other matter which relates to the federal budget, the federal government's failure to support my efforts to secure Commonwealth funding for the Princes Highway east of Sale. I have raised this issue in the House on several occasions in the past. I have also raised it directly with the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and, to be fair to the minister, he has given me a fair hearing in this matter. I have tabled petitions from my community, which reflects the level of concern throughout the Broader Gippsland region. The Princes Highway east of Sale is currently not eligible for Commonwealth funding in any form whatsoever; it is a responsibility primarily of the state government. The highway from Sale to Traralgon has been the beneficiary of about $140 million of federal funding under a joint project to see some duplication works undertaken. That does not gel with the people of Gippsland. It does not make sense for them that such a major highway, which is in desperate need of government funding to improve it from Sale to the New South Wales border, will not be able to access Commonwealth funding in the future. The stretch of highway I am talking about has one of the highest accident and fatality rates in Victoria. Tragically, there was another death this week. Hardly a month goes by without a fatality on that road. I am not saying every accident is a result of the condition of the road, but there is no question that it is a contributing factor to the high accident and fatality rates.

I have been working with my local state MP, Tim Bull, in relation to this matter and just recently we both wrote a letter to the state minister seeking support to fund a safety audit and the development of a 10-year strategy to upgrade the highway east of Sale. We also want the state minister to assist us in lobbying the federal government to make the highway east of Sale eligible for Commonwealth funding.

From my previous discussions with regional VicRoads staff, there does not seem to be a long-term plan in place for the staged upgrade of even the most basic safety features such as shoulder sealing, more overtaking lines, realignment of dangerous corners and improvements to the road surface. With an increase in the use of the road by large recreational vehicles, along with the increased size of the commercial vehicles on the road—the trucks, the caravans and those large Winnebago type vehicles—we are seeing a very close interface between large vehicles when they pass each other on some sections of the road, particularly east of Orbost to the New South Wales border, where there is no shoulder for more than 40 kilometres. The margin for error is so small that we desperately need to do something about it. I fear that we are going to have a major accident on the road involving a bus carrying children or tourists through the region and it is going to take a situation like that before the state and federal governments recognise their responsibilities to undertake a major program of upgrading this stretch of highway. In my view, too much of the current debate about highway funding east of Sale is based on anecdotal evidence. There needs to be a complete safety audit with a view towards developing a 10-year strategy so the federal government can then buy into it and take responsibility for parts of the road that need to be upgraded.

In addition to the petition, which is still out there gathering signatures, our view is being supported by the local chambers of commerce. I believe that there is a real opportunity here for both the state and the federal road ministers to work in partnership with my community. I invite both the state and the federal road ministers to come to Gippsland, take a firsthand look at the road and see for themselves the risks that our motorists are faced with on a daily basis. (Time expired)

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2011-2012 and related budget bills. There is no doubt that Australia has an economy in a position envied by many in the developed world. Our national debt is among the lowest in the world at 7.2 per cent of GDP, 10 times less than the United States of America at 72 per cent; our unemployment level is nearly half that of other major industrial countries at 4.9 per cent, compared with 9.6 per cent in France and nine per cent in the United States of America; our official interest rates are still two percentage points lower than when the coalition lost office; and our terms of trade are the best in 140 years. On top of this, the Labor government has created 700,000 jobs since 2007, during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, and we are aiming to create another 500,000 jobs.

These comparatively good economic statistics were not brought about by chance but rather by good governance and good decisions. There is no doubt that Australia dealt with the global financial crisis better than most. None of these outcomes would have been possible without the two stimulus packages that kept Australians in jobs. Although there are many Australians feeling the cost-of-living pressures, including in my electorate of Reid, it would have been much worse if the Labor government had not acted as swiftly and decisively as we did and the opposition had had their way, which was to cut millions of jobs.

Our government responded swiftly and appropriately when confronting the global financial crisis. That helped our country weather the storm. The 2011-12 budget is about keeping the economy healthy. We must not rest on our laurels. We must continue to strengthen our economy and create new opportunities. That is why this budget will get us back in the black by 2012-13 and spread the opportunities of the mining boom. As with all good governments, we must consider the context of our fiscal position and plan for an even better future, noting all of the obstacles and constraints. For the Gillard government, the expected tax collection over the last two years has been cut by $16 billion, as a result of historic national natural disasters, the GFC and the high Australian dollar. However, this will not prevent the government from making important investment in vital areas such as training, education and health.

The Chief Executive Officer of Australian Industry Group, Ms Heather Ridout, stated:

This year's Federal Budget is solid on the fundamentals of skills, infrastructure and fiscal responsibility. These investments will ease capacity constraints in these tight economic times.

Further, Ms Ridout noted on the establishment of a National Workforce and Productivity Agency:

All up, this substantial package, which delivers a significant new investment over a sustained period, will stand Australia in good stead in the years ahead. Ai Group argued hard for this, and we are delighted to see the proposals included in the Budget.

The National Workforce and Productivity Agency will work with industry to identify critical skills needs and develop workforce plans and issues. Another major role of the agency will be to administer the new Workforce Development Fund. As part of the focus on jobs, a new Workforce Development Fund will be created to respond to the most critical emerging skills needed in Australia and is expected to deliver 130,000 new training places over four years.

Our government is also committed to assisting apprentices, raising the quality of their training and providing incentives to keep them in training. This includes investing in a national apprenticeship mentoring program to support apprentices to finish their training, and developing new apprenticeship models that allow apprentices to develop faster and that recognise prior learning.

In my electorate of Reid, I have spoken previously on the wonderful facility of the Southern Cross Catholic Vocational College in Burwood. With joint funding from the federal government and the Catholic Education Office, today the college is a state-of-the-art trade training centre with over 100 students already enrolled.

I remind the House that, during the last federal election campaign, the Leader of the Opposition threatened that, if elected, he would stop the funding of trade training centres. Fortunately this did not occur, and I was very pleased to welcome the Prime Minister to Reid only a few weeks ago, and specifically to the Southern Cross Catholic Vocational College in Burwood, where she witnessed firsthand the state-of-the-art facilities on offer for students. The Prime Minister met some of our future mechanics, future beauticians and future carpenters. The Prime Minister even gave a short interview with aspiring journalists as part of their media studies—a recording that they will surely keep for posterity.

I am extremely proud to be a member of a government that continues to acknowledge the importance of trade training and support for apprenticeships. The initiatives continue to assist skills development in many different learning environments, and I welcome these initiatives.

In addition to the National Workplace Workforce and Productivity Agency, the Workforce Development Fund and a national apprenticeship mentoring program, our government will also offer students from years 9 to 12 a new national trade cadetship as an option under the Australian curriculum. The cadetships will be delivered through the trade training centres and other eligible venues, with up to 50,000 additional structured work experience places provided to students. This will assist in real work experience for apprentices and ensure they are ready to start their jobs with confidence once they have graduated. However, unlike the graduates of the Southern Cross College of Vocational Education, some Australians struggle with basic numeracy and literacy, and this is a barrier that prevents them from participating in the workforce. As I said before, this budget does not forget the people who need us most, and our government is supporting Australians to help themselves and improve their future work opportunities by improving their basic skills.

I could not agree more with the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations, Senator Chris Evans, when he said that basic training is paramount to building this country's workforce. That is why I am so pleased that this government is funding 30,000 additional places for jobseekers in the Language, Literacy and Numeracy Program. Without basic literacy, many people are condemned to a life of little opportunity and, sadly, in many cases, long-term unemployment. Our government has committed to changing this by providing long-term job seekers with critical skills to allow them to participate more fully in the workforce. This additional funding is targeted at job seekers who are registered with Centrelink and are identified as experiencing significant disadvantage in the labour market due to low levels of language, literacy and/or numeracy. These are targeted programs where each participant is given an individual training plan which is tailored to meet their specific needs. The training program is typically face-to-face and can be vocationally oriented. For those who are struggling in a large group setting, there is the opportunity for them to engage in small group training.

The increased funding of such programs helps break down these barriers for more Australians and allow them to not only improve their lives and engage in further study but to actively participate in the economy. Without literacy, these Australians are vulnerable. It is important that Australians who struggle with literacy do not feel ashamed and, instead, take action and are helped to improve their skills. Our government is supporting these vulnerable Australians to do just that. We are helping to break the long-term cycles of lost opportunity and unemployment by supporting Australians who need help with basic literacy to improve their skills and, in turn, improve their job prospects. None of the unemployed people I speak to really want to be reliant on unemployment benefits. The people I speak to want to work, and this initiative will help some of the most vulnerable in our society to be able to do just that. On this point, I note that our government believes in ensuring everyone is given the support and the skills they need to seek out employment. With unemployment at low levels, this indicates the government is on the right track.

Our government is also on the right track when it comes to education. We acknowledge and value the challenging but important job done by teachers throughout Australia, particularly those who teach students with disabilities. That is why our government will invest $200 million over three years to support students with disabilities in their classrooms and improve their learning opportunities. I believe this is due recognition of the need to improve support for students with disabilities. I am confident this added support will not only directly benefit students but will also be of immense benefit and assistance to their teachers. I commend the Treasurer for this investment and I am pleased to note that this investment has been welcomed by the New South Wales Teachers Federation.

The additional funding will provide new services, such as speech and occupational therapy, at-school and in-class support, as well as access to specialised equipment. For higher education, the government is making the significant investment of a further $1.4 billion to meet the demand for growth in university enrolments. In this year alone the extra funding will provide 480,000 undergraduate places. Funding will also aim to upgrade infrastructure at regional tertiary institutions and assist universities to support, attract and retain students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Despite the tough decisions on savings measures that our government made in this budget, education was one area where we did not hesitate to provide further assistance. The federal Labor government has nearly doubled the national education budget because it is core to our belief that education is essential to our long-term prosperity. A community with excellent skills has enhanced opportunities and can remain competitive in a global labour market. We are a government that believes in providing all Australians, irrespective of their background, the opportunity and encouragement to achieve that potential. There is only one area that could be more important than education, and that is health. Nothing is more important than the health of our family and friends. My electorate of Reid boasts one of the best hospitals in the state, Concord Hospital, as well as many local GPs and medical services and, being part of the inner west of Sydney, our services are rated among the best in terms of accessibility and quality. The Gillard government is making an unprecedented investment of $3 billion in health reform right across Australia. Notably, the government has made the largest Commonwealth commitment to mental health services in Australia's history, including $1.5 billion worth of investment in this budget. The $2.2 billion mental health reform package targets funding where the services in those communities need it most, with a total of 90 headspace clinics, as well as early detection to support young people with mental illness.

I know that my electorate would be very pleased to receive direct funding under this initiative. Many constituents have raised their concerns with me about the need for more funding for mental health, and this unprecedented investment by our government has led to many people emailing their support for this measure. So I congratulate the Minister for Mental Health and Ageing. I know families and friends who care for people suffering with mental health conditions realise how important accessible treatment is for their loved ones, and I am sure that the new funding will go a long way to addressing this very important matter.

I also commend the Minister for Health and Ageing on her Diagnostic Imaging Review Reform Package. I previously led a campaign for a magnetic resonance imaging service for Concord Hospital as well as Medicare funding for these MRI services. I recognised then the importance of access to MRI services to facilitate faster diagnosis of patients as well as early detection of disease. MRI services at Concord Hospital have been of invaluable benefit for the health outcomes of my constituents, and I am very pleased that the minister has announced that our government will be extending Medicare funding to cover the cost of more MRI scans than ever before in both metropolitan and, importantly, regional areas of Australia. Moreover, the package announced by the minister will also help to reduce the cost of MRI services by increasing the bulkbilling incentives for MRI services. I have seen firsthand the importance of access to these services, and I am delighted that these benefits are being extended to even more Australians.

Another important issue that I campaigned on in my electorate is quality dental care. I am very pleased that our government will establish a voluntary dental internship program to encourage graduates to expand their skills and work in the public dental system. The increase in the number of graduates will improve the access to much needed dental services.

I am very proud to be a member of this Labor government which is delivering for those in our community that need it most. I commend the Treasurer for making the tough decisions without compromising the vital areas of training, education and health. This is a budget that will stand our country in good stead for the future and will allow us to return to surplus by 2012-13. I stress again that we are leading the world in all the OECD countries in terms of the health of our economy. And in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and the dreadful natural disasters that inflicted our country last year and earlier this year, this government is proving once and for all that we are very, very economically responsible and any thought that the Labor Party in federal government cannot manage the economy should be allowed to rest once and for all. We are the envy of the world and it is little wonder so much capital is powering into our country and the value of our dollar is so high.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2011-2012 and comment on the budget, the first budget under the prime ministership of Julia Gillard and the fourth handed down by Treasurer Wayne Swan. For Treasurer Swan this is four budgets, four deficits and no surpluses. The three biggest deficits in the history of the Commonwealth have been under the treasurership of Wayne Swan.

This budget was labelled as tough, but it did not go far enough to curb Labor's years of wasteful and reckless spending. The waste that this government has overseen goes right back to 2007. We have seen programs, which may have been started with the best of intentions, that have blown out and not delivered—the school halls, the pink batts and the $900 cheques that went out during the stimulus package. The school halls program has a legacy that is still playing out in my electorate. Indeed, because of some of the poor selection criteria for subcontractors, I have got tradesmen in my electorate who are still owed money under the BER program. I find that most distressing. They believed that when they were undertaking work that was overseen by the Commonwealth government their payment would be safe. At the moment we still have those issues playing out.

This government is now looking to implement free set-top boxes for pensioners. This has all the potential to go the same way as the pink batts and the school halls. It is a $308 million program and is valued at $400 per person. A couple of weeks ago I was in a large electrical retailer in Canberra and you could buy a new digital television for less than that. So I think that, once again, while the intention may have been honourable, I believe this is going to get lost in the delivery.

Some of the alarming figures to come out of this budget are that the deficit has soared to $49.4 billion and net government debt has climbed to $107 billion. That puts government borrowing at $135 million a day. The interesting part is that the mining tax was mentioned in this year's budget but the carbon tax, which is due to be implemented on the same day, was not. While the intention behind the carbon tax may be to help boost the government's bottom line, it will rip the heart and soul out of Australia, no more so than in the electorate that I represent. Before the previous incarnation of the carbon tax, the emissions trading scheme, Professor Garnaut's report indicated that regional Australia would have an economic downturn of 20 per cent under the implementation of an emissions trading scheme while the cities would have one of eight per cent. The question I would like to ask is: why is regional Australia being asked to pay a large part of the burden for this grand gesture to prove that Australia cares about the environment more than anyone else in the world? The issue here is not whether you believe that the climate is changing and not whether you believe that man's activity has anything to do with it; the issue here is whether what has been proposed is going to have any effect on the climate. It certainly will have an effect in my electorate, which relies a lot on fossil fuel. We have a high freight component for everything that comes and goes, for the goods that we need and for the produce that we produce. We have a high fuel component in the crops that we grow and in the mining sector. Due to the fact that we live in a harsh climate, we rely heavily on energy to keep ourselves cool in summer and warm in winter. I fear what the proposed increases to electricity prices are going to do to the people of my electorate and to the most vulnerable, the pensioners, in my electorate. The Meals on Wheels volunteers were telling me last winter, even before the implementation of the tax, just with the increase in electricity prices so far, that when they were delivering meals to pensioners they were finding many of them in bed at midday, not because they were unwell but because they were frightened to turn on the heater because they worried about the cost of electricity.

The other issue is that in some ways it could have the opposite effect. In one small town, Mendooran, the supermarket owner told me that he is paying between $6,000 and $7,000 a quarter for his electricity. If that increases by 20 or 30 per cent and he becomes unviable and cannot keep his doors open, the 400 residents of that village will have no choice but to travel the 70 kilometres each way to Dubbo to purchase their basic requirements. I would think that would have a much larger effect on emissions and a negative effect on the environment.

Likewise, the cement plant at Kandos will close within months of this carbon tax being implemented. We will still require cement as one of the basic products that we use for road building and housing construction. We use a lot of cement. That will now be imported from elsewhere in the world. So, while there will be still the same emissions, or possibly a few more if it is going to a Third World country that does not have the same technology we do, the 200 people in Kandos who rely on that plant for employment will no longer have a job.

So it is not without some reason that I have trepidation about a budget that has a carbon tax not included but foreshadowed and a mining tax that will also severely impact on the viability of my electorate of Parkes, where mining now is emerging as a large part of the economy. Indeed, I think that the numbers of people now who gain employment from mining are probably similar to those involved in agriculture—it has moved at such a rate. The mining tax also underpins a lot of the promises that have been made to regional Australia for spending, so a lot of these announcements, certainly in the forward estimates of this budget, coming to regional Australia are very much contingent on the mining tax. The one hand giveth and the other taketh away. Certainly that is a great concern to the people that I represent.

The other component of this budget is the $1.8 billion flood levy. The great irony of that is that a large part of the Parkes electorate was flooded, maybe not as spectacularly as in some areas of Queensland but certainly with just as much devastation. Fortunately we did not have the loss of life that the people in Queensland had. It was a different flood. We had areas from late November right through till March that were affected by this flooding. While I think that nearly $800 million has been paid out by the government under the Australian government disaster relief program, very little of that has been available to my electorate. I made representations to the Attorney-General and he seemed to understand the case. He put out a press release naming 13 local government areas in the Parkes electorate that would be eligible for the Australian government disaster relief payment. But when those people fronted at Centrelink they were refused. The fine print said that, for them to be affected, the water had to have come from Queensland. I want to know why the water from Queensland is more devastating than the water in the Macquarie Valley, the Cudgegong Valley, the Namoi Valley and indeed the Castlereagh.

We had people who were severely isolated. One lady in the village of Quambone has a severely disabled son who was stranded on an electric bed for two days while they had no power. I am not blaming the budget for that; that is what happens, but she has been refused the government disaster relief payment because the water that surrounded Quambone and took out the power did not come in from Queensland. Residents of Goodooga were isolated for a couple of months because of water that came from Queensland; but they were refused payment because they were not deemed 'isolated', because they could walk from house to house—but there are no shops in Goodooga. They were isolated from Lightning Ridge. They had to rely on flood boats and they had to pay high prices for produce that was brought it. I find that quite mean-spirited and it was devastating to these people.

But the real kicker with this is that, because they were not eligible for the disaster relief payment, they are not exempt from paying the flood levy. We are not talking huge numbers, but a considerable number of people in my electorate who were severely impacted by the flood, had considerable loss and inconvenience, are now paying a levy to other parts of Australia. I understand that in some suburbs of Brisbane people were eligible for that payment merely because the power was disconnected for a couple of days—and I am not talking about the areas that were impacted by floodwater—but that is an anomaly and something I have been having a battle about since the end of January. It has caused a great degree of resentment and frustration with my constituents.

The Prime Minister this week announced that an extra 21,000 university students receiving youth allowance. Once again, students in Mudgee and Dubbo, considered inner regional areas, have missed out. For some reason they were considered not isolated and have not been eligible for the independent youth allowance. Hopefully the inquiry that is being undertaken at the moment will rectify that.

Another thing that was mentioned in the budget was the inland rail. I welcome the announcement of $300 million, I think, for the start of acquisition for the corridor for the inland Melbourne to Brisbane rail. It is one of the key pieces of infrastructure that not only will be of benefit to the people of the Parkes electorate but I believe will be of benefit to Australia as a whole. Certainly, the cities of Brisbane and Melbourne will also gain from that. But it was a little concerning yesterday in Senate estimates when Australian Rail Track Corporation representatives said that their priority was still the coastal route from Melbourne to Brisbane through Sydney. I think we need clarification and direction from the minister to the ARTC that the inland rail is a priority and that we should get that project going as soon as possible.

Another thing in the budget that is a concern for the people in my electorate are the changes to the fringe benefits tax for work vehicles and the further attempts to implement the private health rebate changes which will force more people onto public hospital waiting lists and away from private practice.

A lot of money has been going to regional hospitals in this budget, but I am concerned though about Dubbo base hospital. Dubbo base hospital had an excellent proposal of $57 million. Prior to the state election, the now health minister, the then shadow health minister, Jillian Skinner, promised that New South Wales would increase that by $50 million, on top of the $57 million, to make a worthwhile project for Dubbo. But this government removed $50 million and allocated $7.1 million to the Dubbo hospital. I think that was very short-sighted. It would make perfect sense to do this hospital in one go rather than in lots of little stages. The people of Dubbo were certainly disappointed by that change of heart. Thank you.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate on the government's budget bills for 2011-12. These bills will help ensure that the benefits of a strong economy flow to each and every corner of our nation. New programs in the budget will help get more people into work and train them for more rewarding jobs. Just as the government's focus on protecting Australian jobs during the global recession helped to position our economy as the envy of the world, our focus on jobs when times improve will ensure that we maximise our advantages into the future. Unlike the previous Liberal government, this Labor government is not complacent as the sun begins to shine. As former US President John Kennedy said, 'The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.' Most importantly, the appropriation bills show that the government is on track for a surplus in 2012-13—on time as promised.

The core of the budget includes a plan to build the more productive workforce our economy needs including a $3 billion training package, new ways to get people into work, and critical new investments in economic infrastructure. Our plan for better schools, hospitals and health care includes a total of $2.2 billion for mental health services and $1.8 billion for regional health facilities, and there is cost-of-living relief for families, investments in a sustainable Australia and new assistance for small business and manufacturers, all while making the difficult decisions necessary to get back into the black by 2012-13, years ahead of the major advanced economies.

Through these bills the government is also making significant new investments in my portfolio of human services. The budget backs up the government's agenda to modernise the delivery of public services. In 2011-12 the government is investing $113½ million in service delivery reform. This vital reform program will deliver more one-stop shops, more self-service and more intensive support for people who need it. It will make public services more accessible, more convenient, more efficient and more targeted at the needs of individual Australians and their families. The new budget funding for service delivery reform is the culmination of a process that began when my predecessor, Chris Bowen, announced our plans in this area in December 2009. For customers, service delivery reform will drag the way the government deliver services away from low-tech, inefficient practices into the 21st century. It will provide more one-stop shops, better self-service options and more intensive support, as I said.

For our staff, our plans will create more opportunities to work in new and different areas across the portfolio. Staff will be able to go beyond their traditional roles and provide more hands-on assistance to people in real need in ways that cut across traditional silos and responsibilities. For the government, our plans will allow us to deliver services more efficiently and cost effectively by getting rid of unnecessary paperwork, combining back-office functions and refocusing resources on those people who need the most help.

Our reforms will free up resources to provide tailored support to people who face multiple complex challenges and entrenched disadvantage. The budget includes $19½ million to extend the successful Local Connections to Work program. In the first seven months of this program there has been a 50 per cent higher job placement rate for job seekers who had been through the service. The new funding will continue to support the program at the nine sites where it is already operating and will allow us to open five new sites a year between 2012-13 and 2014-15. There will be a total of 24 sites around Australia by 30 June 2015. Local Connections to Work provides tailored assistance that caters to the specific needs of disadvantaged job seekers in selected deeply disadvantaged locations. The service brings a range of services together under one roof that job seekers can then access more conveniently. At each site, a range of different service providers are rostered on to deliver services from the Centrelink office. The roster arrangement means that during an appointment a customer will have the opportunity to talk with a number of other services right there on site to provide the assistance they need to overcome their employment barriers. Where a particular service is not available on site, job seekers are helped to connect with that service off site.

Job seekers can also have joint meetings with Centrelink and employment service providers. Those meetings can extend to other community partners with the consent of the job seeker to identify their needs and quickly link them to the right support. This closer collaboration between Centrelink and other relevant agencies gives a more holistic view of the job seeker who, in most instances, will only need to tell their story once.

Local Connections to Work programs are already operating at nine locations around Australia. The program has been operating in Frankston in Victoria and Campsie in New South Wales since May 2010; in Ipswich, Queensland, and Elizabeth in South Australia since June 2010; in Burnie in Tasmania and Campbelltown in New South Wales since March 2011; in Morwell in Victoria and Port Adelaide in South Australia since April 2011; and in Maroochydore in Queensland since May 2011. The budget also includes funding for 44 case coordination trial sites around Australia. The first 19 case coordination sites will be rolled out in 2011-12, and 10 of those 19 locations are the same locations where the government is making extra investments through the participation agenda. Case coordination under service delivery reform will identify people in need of more intensive support and connect them to appropriate services. In the future, case coordination has the potential to be a far-reaching program and it is a key part of the government's broader agenda to modernise the delivery of public services to Australians and their families.

Under the case coordination approach, staff will provide tailored support to people who face complex challenges and entrenched disadvantage rather than simply giving them yet another form to fill out or another telephone number to call. The program will assist job seekers, but importantly will go far deeper than that. It will also support people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, the recently bereaved, people in legal or financial difficulty, carers, people with mental health concerns, people with gambling dependency, and people with drug and alcohol issues. There will be different levels of service to reflect an individual's different level of need. Services will range from simple referrals, such as a training program or information about available services, to intensive support involving multiple coordinated appointments with non-government and local community services. A designated staff member will help customers, including by assisting them in their dealings with multiple government agencies like Centrelink, Medicare and the Australian tax office and giving them information about local services—for example, Alcoholics Anonymous, welfare rights, literacy programs, legal aid, gambling rehabilitation and financial counselling. They might help make appointments and they may be an advocate of behalf of the client with non-government services where necessary.

The budget includes a new $28 million investment in more one-stop shops—the co-location agenda. The co-location of Centrelink and Medicare offices into one-stop shops will provide much more convenient and accessible services in one location. The program will significantly improve the way public services are delivered throughout the community. By providing more than 500 new one-stop shops for public services across the nation, we can greatly improve access to those services, particularly for Australians living in rural and regional areas. The new offices will provide better access to Centrelink and Medicare services, from applying for Medicare rebates to making inquiries about family payments, all in one convenient location. That is great news for people in regional and rural areas in particular who may never before have had a Medicare office in their community.

Forty-two co-located Centrelink, Medicare and child support offices are already operating successfully, with another 12 to open across Australia by the middle of the year. The budget also includes a $24½ million investment to improve services for Australians in regional and remote areas and for the socially isolated. This new funding will extend the successful mobile office service and will provide many more outreach officers to help people in need. It will make it easier for Australians who live in rural and regional areas, as well as the socially isolated, to access government services and payments. The government's mobile offices made a huge difference during the recent floods, as well as during the drought, and so we are extending this vital service beyond 1 July 2011.

Mobile offices bring all of the services provided by Centrelink and Medicare directly to rural and regional communities, loaded into custom-built tractor trailers. In the past these offices were deployed to areas affected by drought, but more recently they were used in Queensland following last summer's natural disasters. Continued funding for the mobile offices and the introduction of a third office in 2014 will benefit up to half a million Australians who live more than 50 kilometres from a Medicare or Centrelink office.

I am particularly pleased that the budget includes funding for an additional 20 Centrelink community engagement officers. There are already 90 of these officers working at targeted sites across the country and they do a terrific job. They deliver essential outreach services outside the traditional office setting to people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. They go to boarding houses, drop in centres and other places where people sleep rough to help them claim and maintain income support payments as well as provide referrals to other support programs.

The budget also includes extra funding for an additional 13 Centrelink social worker positions. Centrelink social workers provide counselling support and referrals to people caught in difficult personal or family circumstances. Social workers were deployed in large numbers to Queensland earlier this year to assist flood victims and were also sent to New Zealand following the Christchurch earthquake, and even to Japan to assist Australians who were there after the tsunami. Through these significant investments in the government's service delivery reform agenda, taxpayers will also save $130 million over four years through improved information and self-service facilities across the Human Services Portfolio. By reducing paperwork, moving forms online and improving the single portfolio website and phone number we are providing more self-service options for people who want to do business with the portfolio in that way. This will make contacting and accessing the services of Human Services agencies simpler for millions of Australians. That is just a quick snapshot of what we will deliver through service delivery reform.

The budget also includes around $280 million for the Human Services Portfolio so that it can play its part in implementing the government's participation agenda. We will be delivering more targeted assistance to help job seekers who are capable of work to find employment. A key component of this package is the $38.2 million investment in a new program, the Community Innovation through Collaboration initiative. The program will encourage local innovation to boost the life skills and work readiness of people with multiple and complex needs. It will be rolled out in the 10 locations around Australia that receive additional assistance through place based programs and support services. The program will ensure that the needs of local communities are addressed with well-resourced, collaborative and effective local solutions rather than a one-size-fits-all program that is controlled from Canberra.

Community Innovation through Collaboration comprises two separate measures: a $25 million Local Solutions Fund to help community groups deliver programs to assist local people to get the services they need, and $13.2 million for local service coordinators and community based facilitators to ensure that local services are delivered effectively in ways that benefit local families and individuals. By investing in local solutions the government can better assist local communities to address disadvantage, through tailored initiatives that draw on local expertise.

The Local Solutions Fund is a concerted effort to engage with community leaders and not-for-profit agencies, who know better than most about what works and what does not work for Australians and their families in disadvantaged locations we are targeting. The program will give locals a say, making sure that groups that help local people are actively involved in developing and delivering local solutions that address the limitations of existing services. By investing and modernising the delivery of public services as well as new programs to boost workforce participation, the government is ensuring that my portfolio will continue to make a positive difference to the lives of millions of Australians.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2011-2012 and its cognate bills. I welcome the opportunity to speak on this legislation, which appropriates the funding sought through yet another Labor budget built on deficit, borrowing and debt. This is a typical Labor budget. We heard the government speak of a budget containing tough decisions but, once again, the government's spin and rhetoric fail to be matched by its actions.

We heard the Treasurer say before the budget:

… if we are going to be Keynesians in the downturn, we have to be Keynesians on the way up again.

The Treasurer said:

… being a Keynesian means supporting a counter-cyclical fiscal policy with government making room for the private sector when economic growth is strong.

Well, by the Treasurer's own standards, the budget is a complete failure. In the true Labor tradition the budget crowds out the private sector at every opportunity in order to prop up its forecast of a 2012-13 surplus. That will only happen by the government manipulating the figures again next year.

Far from making room for the private sector, these bills will increase government competition in the debt market. In November, we were told that net debt would peak at $94 billion. On budget night it was revealed that net debt is now $107 billion, and the government is borrowing $153 million every single day. Each day we have the government out there competing against private enterprise and small business for funding and putting pressure on interest rates paid by small business and homeowners.

Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2011-2012 seeks to increase the government's gross debt limit from $200 billion to $250 billion. So, instead of making tough decisions to produce a surplus, instead of cutting back on its spending, the government is simply increasing its debt limit and borrowing more and more taxpayers' money. Any surplus will be illusory as long as the government is paying back the debt. Cumulative interest on Labor's net debt will be more than $26 billion over the next four years. The repayments on government debt will be billions more than any surplus predicted by the government over the next four years. It is a budget built on debt and spending, and small business and householders and families will be the ones who have to pay. The Treasurer does not understand the impact of spending on interest rates. It is basic economics that record government spending and waste will increase the money supply in the economy and inflate prices. The Reserve Bank is given no choice but to increase interest rates to reduce the money supply and to reduce inflation. Interest-rate rises are not only hurting businesses but they are also increasing the cost of living. This government simply does not understand that there are many individuals and families feeling the pressure of cost of living and this budget does very little to help them. Again the government could help with inflationary pressures in the economy by easing spending and reducing government debt and competition in the credit markets.

The Treasurer states that the economy is crying out for workers but the reality is that not every sector in the economy is experiencing growth. Businesses operating in slow sectors are raising prices to deal with a combination of reduced returns, increased funding costs and higher interest rates brought about by this government. Labor simply does not understand that the government spending is inflationary and increasing inflationary pressures are adding into the cost of living. Aggregate annual inflation is currently 3.3 per cent, just about the Reserve Bank's target. But the aggregate figure does not give the full picture. According to the Reserve Bank, food prices are inflating by 11.5 per cent annualised. This has been constant over the past six months, well before the natural disasters hit Queensland. Transport costs have inflated in the March quarter by 10.6 per cent annualised, and this is hitting family budgets, workers and small business right across the country.

These pressures are being felt strongly in my electorate of Cowper. The electorate I represent is one of the most beautiful in Australia. In a geographical sense, we live in paradise: great beaches, beautiful national parks, a great subtropical climate. But behind the natural beauty of the region there are many North Coast residents struggling to make ends meet. A snapshot of the Cowper electorate provides insight into why this is so. In approximate terms the Cowper electorate has 20,000 age pensioners, 5,000 people receiving carers allowance, 9,000 on the disability support pension and 15,000 receiving Family Tax Benefit A and 11,000 receiving Family Tax Benefit B. Twenty per cent of families have only one parent and 37 per cent of couples have children. For the majority of those people the budget fails the very fundamental test of providing assistance with the increased costs of living. Indeed, the reality is that this budget locks in the Gillard government agenda, which will actually deliver a double-whammy to North Coast residents. In the first instance the budget fails to acknowledge that the rising cost of living is impacting on many low-income families and that their inflationary experience is far greater than the headline figures that are published from the Reserve Bank. Secondly, this government has made it clear that they intend to squeeze household budgets further by introducing a carbon tax. And they will be increasing it afterwards. That is one of the sinister things about this tax, that they will slip it in at a relatively low rate and then they will ramp it up. Watch this space. That will drive up the cost of everything.

Last Sunday as I completed my regular grocery shop I started to wonder about the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. I often wonder about the Prime Minister and Treasurer, I must say, but going through the aisles at Coles I wondered when was the last time the Prime Minister cruised down to the grocery store and when was the last time the Treasurer cruised down to the grocery store to buy some groceries. I guess the truth is that neither the Treasurer nor the Prime Minister has probably been to the supermarket anytime in the recent past. But the answer to that question really does not matter. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer are very much out of touch. If they were in touch with the Australian people then they would not be proposing to introduce this massive new carbon tax. They would be saying, 'We acknowledge the fact that the cost of living is rising rapidly, the fact that people are struggling to pay their mortgage, the fact that utilities are going up virtually every day of the week.' Hardly a day goes by without another headline relating to the increased cost of living. You would think that a Prime Minister and a Treasurer who are in touch with the Australian people would say, 'We mustn't do anything that is going to make this situation worse.' Our policy focus must be that we endeavour to take the pressure off the cost of living to ensure that the government is not out there in the debt market competing with the private sector, driving up interest rates. We should be trying to do that from a policy perspective. But what is the situation? It is exactly the reverse. We are going to impose a carbon tax that is going to drive up the cost of living—drive up the cost of every single thing that you buy—and we are going to tell the Australian people that it is good for them, that we are going to save the planet. I certainly commend Senator Joyce for raising the question: how does imposing a new tax cool the planet? The Prime Minister and the Treasurer have always failed to answer that question, a very important question indeed.

The carbon tax is going to make life difficult for the people on the North Coast. It is going to drive up the cost of everything they buy. It will drive up the cost of memberships in sporting clubs. It is going to adversely impact on volunteer organisations that are also struggling to make ends meet through increased electricity bills for Meals on Wheels or whatever other voluntary organisation you care to name. It is interesting that the carbon tax is off budget. It is not included in the budget at this point in time. This is a major tax reform—or we will not even call it a reform; it is a major imposition of a new tax, and it was not included in this year's budget.

Another important issue that faces Australia's financial future is how we are going to pay for the NBN and the benefit of the NBN. The budget papers detail that the government will be investing $27.5 billion in NBN Co. to build and operate the NBN. We hear from the government time and time again that the NBN should not be treated as a cost or an expense to government, yet for the NBN to be kept off balance sheet it must provide an internal rate of return above the government bond rate. The government's arrangements for the Commonwealth government business enterprises published by the Department of Finance and Deregulation state:

The required return on equity is the risk free rate plus the proportion of market risk premium appropriate to—

the enterprise. This means that in order to be kept off the government's balance sheets the NBN must at least generate returns at the risk-free rate, measured as the government bond rate. This is before we consider the market risk premium, a very important point indeed.

NBN forecasts a seven per cent internal rate of return which will just keep the project above the current 10-year government bond rate of 5.75 per cent and off the government's balance sheet. But it is becoming clear that the government and NBN Co. do not understand the risks associated with this project and any increased cost will effectively force the expenditure of the NBN onto the balance sheet as rates of return plummet. If our income does not come up to standard and up to the projections and our costs are higher than what is projected—and we already see that with the construction tender process—the IRR will fall. That will quite properly mean that the government's thinly veiled excuse for concealing the NBN from the budget figures will evaporate. It is interesting to note that on 1 April, April Fool's Day, NBN Co. indefinitely suspended their network construction tender because they felt the 14 tenderers were trying to charge too much for construction costs. It was April Fool's Day, and the government still has not woken up. The NBN Co.'s head of corporate services, Kevin Brown, all but accused the 14 tenderers of price gouging when he said:

NBN Co does not regard current pricing reflects capacity constraints in the industry, and we are progressing a different approach that we think will produce a better result.

We can ask if NBN Co. really thought that the tender submissions were in fact overpriced or whether NBN Co. are constrained by the funding being provided to them by the minister and the Prime Minister, who have no understanding of the costs and the risks in the IT industry. The government cannot increase NBN Co.'s budget because it will lower the internal rate of return for the project and therefore the IRR may ultimately fall below that hurdle rate which would require the project to be included on budget. The taxpayer component of capital expenditure for the NBN was originally $35.7 billion. We can legitimately ask whether the government lowered this amount to $27.5 billion simply because that is what it needed to produce a seven per cent IRR and keep the project off balance sheet so the government could claim a surplus next year. But without an understanding of the risks and an appropriate budget, this project is likely to blow out by billions of dollars. On Tuesday the CEO of one of the 14 tenderers, Leighton Holdings, Mr David Stewart, said the following with regard to NBN Co.'s tender process . It is quite interesting. He said:

Some of the things that people are asking us to do are impossible for us to even price.

He goes on to say:

I think if 14 contractors have come in with prices that seem like gouging, you would have to look at the contract to see what is going in those contracts because I don't think 14 contractors are necessarily missing the point.

Mr Stewart continues:

Often you find that any new enterprise that is set up as a special purpose vehicle all the experts decide that they can change all the Australian standards, change the contract conditions, change the risk profile and fix up an industry that was probably okay before they started.

The government simply does not understand the risks and price pressures in this industry, and we are heading for a financial disaster—one that is being kept out of the budget for strategic reasons and should be of great concern to all Australians. NBN Co. backed by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer are changing all the rules and destroying all the competition in order to prop up the internal rate of return.

We know competition policy rests on more competitors in the market. It produces a better outcome for consumers. It produces cheaper prices, yet with NBN Co., we are actually legislating for less competition. We are legislating to keep competition out of the market, which can only mean one thing: higher prices for consumers and a lessening in competition in the market.

This is a budget that has failed the Australian people. This is a budget that does not pass the test of being responsible. It does not pass the test of a budget that is required to deliver quality outcomes for the Australian people. This is a budget that is certainly not going to result in a surplus in 2012-13 unless we see a little more creative accounting from the Treasurer. (Time expired)

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

I rise in the Main Committee here today on three budget appropriation bills which are being debated concurrently. They include the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2011-2012, the Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2011-2012 and the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2011-2012

On the night of the budget and leading up to the budget, the Treasurer said that he declared that this was a budget that would deliver to regional Australia like no budget before it. I have got news for the Treasurer, because I do not know where he finds regional Australia but he did not find it in many part of Queensland, including my electorate. I am a representative of regional Australia. I am a representative of the seat of Maranoa and the voice of the people of Maranoa in this place, and Maranoa covers some 40 per cent of the land mass of Queensland. I fail to see how this budget will significantly benefit the people of regional Queensland. For instance, $500 million has been slashed from regional funding, and there is not a single new cent that has been introduced or announced for rail or road projects. We are talking about new money; not rebadged money but new money.

The Warrego Highway, for instance, in my electorate starts not far west of Brisbane, near Ipswich. The RACQ believe that it needs an injection of some $380 million just to repair the road, not to upgrade it. This is the highway between the port of Brisbane that goes out into the Surat Basin. I am sure you, Madam Deputy Speaker Bird, can appreciate the impact that the resources sector is having on roads in many of our communities.

The Landsborough Highway, which I am sure you would also be familiar with: not a single new cent for it. It leaves the Warrego at Morven and goes through to Cloncurry. It is the major highway from southern Australia leading to Darwin through Mount Isa: not a single new cent. The Gore Highway, the Cunningham Highway, the New England Highway in my electorate—all these highways are in the seat of Maranoa. Of course they extend well beyond the boundaries of Maranoa, but they have not received a single cent of new funding in this budget. Sure, some money was announced for flood damage as a result of the natural disasters last year and this year, and I welcome that funding and I acknowledge it. But we need more than just repairs to the roads as result of the flood damage. We need new money to upgrade these very important major highways that link with the Murray-Darling Basin, western Queensland, the Surat Basin—that huge resource area where the roads are under enormous pressure from the trucks and the volume of traffic, which has escalated to a point I would not have imagined in my lifetime—and the strategic roads to the outback. We used to talk about the beef roads many years ago going out to the Channel Country, the remote communities and the pastoral sector—well beyond the major highways. There is no money for those except for flood damage money, which will only repair the flood damage as a result of the recent natural disasters.

There are no plans to work on the second range crossing at Toowoomba, and I want to talk about this for a minute. During the natural disaster earlier this year, all the range crossings from my electorate right through to Kingaroy were cut and were out of action—Cunningham's Gap, Murphys Creek, Toowoomba Range, Heifer Creek crossing and D'Aguilar Highway from Blackbutt. All of those highways were cut, and that meant that normal traffic obviously could not move through but also that trucks with goods for those communities could not move through. Fuel comes in in tankers on a just-in-time basis. Food comes into the supermarkets and shops on a just-in-time basis. When I went into my local supermarket during the floods, I could not believe there was no food available. There were some non-essentials but there was no perishable food—milk and the basic essentials of everyday life. It was extraordinary. Why? Food, fresh vegetables, meat and all sorts of perishables come in by road just in time. These goods are being moved all the time on those highways, yet we were cut off from where the transport originates, which is mainly in the markets around Brisbane and the processing sector in the south-east corner. The trucks could not cross the range anywhere from north of Toowoomba and upper Kingaroy through to the border.

During the flood natural disaster I thought I had better fill my car with fuel. When I went to the fuel station, I found there was no fuel in town. Why? Once upon a time strategic reserves of fuel were held out in western Queensland at the fuel depots. Those days have long since gone and now fuel comes in almost daily to replenish the service stations. When the Toowoomba range and all the other roads I mentioned were cut, fuel and food could not be transported to our communities. We are so dependent on the road infrastructure and on this just-in-time basis for the delivery of so many essential items. We have to look at these highways and how we can ensure we are not cut off in the future from the delivery of essential items. The second range crossing is therefore critical in the longer term.

I believe Queensland was also dudded under the $1.8 billion announced by the government for regional health and hospitals. In the lead-up to the budget, I thought it sounded pretty good. Despite being home to almost a third of Australia's regional population, Queensland received just 12 per cent of the funding. Yet this was a budget for regional Australia. Payments have been massively skewed towards the Independents, who support this minority government. Tasmania, for instance, received some $80 million more than Queensland, despite having a fraction of the population. And this is meant to be a budget for regional Australia? The largest payment was a $240 million boost to the Royal Hobart Hospital in the independent seat of Denison, held by Mr Andrew Wilkie. It just defies logic. There were a few payments to Queensland hospitals, once again, along the coast, but there was nothing for the area west of the Dividing Range for the length of Queensland, north to the Northern Territory border, apart from one for Toowoomba, sitting on top of what we often call the great sandstone curtain.

The only money that we did see was, I think, some $4.9 million for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, which is certainly welcome, for the upgrade of their bases in Mount Isa and Longreach. But there was nothing like the $1.8 billion, nor the share that should have come to Queensland, going into regional hospitals.

We now find out that we are going to lose our Medicare access points. There are 840 Medicare access points across regional, rural and remote Australia. I understand that they will be phased out over the next three years and that 33 of these Medicare booths will be removed from my electorate alone. These are points where people can go with their Medicare claim, put their claim into the booth—it may be a rural transaction centre where local farmers can use the Q-Gap facility—and, within three days, they will have their money in the bank. We are going to lose those services from my electorate and also 840 across Australia.

I am told that you can now do it by telephone. I am meeting with Medicare later and I will be very interested in that meeting. I think we have all experienced that frustration, sitting at the end of the telephone, being told: 'Your call is important to us; you have advanced in the queue, so please don't go away.' Then you listen to some beautiful music for another three or four minutes and the same message comes back again. I am very concerned that that is the sort of service we are going to get, which will replace across-the-counter or face-to-face service.

Then we have the forgotten families in this budget. This is the first budget in eight years that has not seen a tax cut for families. Labor used to talk about 'working families'. Where are Labor's working families in this budget? We are going to see support for families cut at a time when they are facing tremendous cost-of-living pressures. Since this government came to power, electricity prices have risen by some 51 per cent. Grocery prices are up 14 per cent, and education and health costs are up by about 20 per cent and there have been seven interest rate rises in a row, increasing the average mortgage repayment by some $500 per month. The government is going to strip some $2 billion from families by freezing indexation on key family tax payments and income thresholds for the next three years. Families did not get a tax cut but corporate Australia did. That just defies logic. There is a tax cut for large companies, publicly listed companies, corporate Australia but not families.

Then we see the rollout of the digital television switchover. Some $400 will be available to people on pensions and income support, to switch over from analog to digital. Anyone who has been to any electrical store lately will have seen that you can buy a set-top box for up to $40 or $50, not $400. In some cases, you can buy a digital television set for less than $400. Whilst this payment may be well intended, it will be yet another program administered by the government. It reminds me of those insulation batts that burn down houses. It also reminds me of the school halls program, following the global financial crisis, and here we are, in 2011. The Westmar State School had lost its school—it is a small community—because of a fire. I am absolutely frustrated. The P&C are now being asked to put some of their own money into the so-called 'stimulus package' for their local hall. It is going to be a multipurpose hall without walls, apparently. It will have a roof but nothing else. The government is saying, 'We want you to put some of your money in to enclose it.' It is another example of the mismanagement of programs under this government. Not only can they not handle money; they have no idea of how to run a program.

Then there is agriculture. Against the backdrop of the huge global food challenges we face over the next 50 years, we have to increase food production, according to the United Nations, by some 70 per cent, yet the Labor Party is cutting support for agriculture across the board. From the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry we got a one-page press release, demonstrating the total lack of interest in agriculture and the important role regional Australia plays, feeding Australians with clean, green food every day. Farmers across Australia feed 60 million mouths every day with their production—not only Australians but a further 40 million outside Australia are dependent on the food we produce. Yet the government has ignored in this budget the agricultural sector.

Then they say they are going to bring in a carbon tax. If there is something which will hit every household and every business in Australia it is a carbon tax. Far from assisting, as is suggested in the carbon farming initiative—I spoke about this in the House last night—this carbon tax will drive costs up for our agricultural sector. It will put more pressure on the land and, if this does come to pass, farmers are going to have to produce not only what they have produced in the past but also they will have to pay the flow-on effect of a carbon tax in increased electricity prices and increases in transport costs. The only way farmers can deal with that is to put more stock on the land, putting more pressure on the land, and perhaps not having rotational crops in their arable lands, so that they will have to work the land harder. The net impact of a carbon tax will mean that in some cases farmers will be less competitive if not uncompetitive in the global market. (Time expired)

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

As I rise to speak on this year's appropriation legislation, I would preface everything I say by the fact that my No. 1 concern for the electorate of Calare in the 2011-12 budget is securing funding for essential infrastructure—infrastructure which would help progress rural and regional Australia and ensure its prosperity in the future. A Bells Line expressway or just a new serious track over the mountains, a new Lake Rowlands dam and medical school for Charles Sturt University: they were the issues at the top of Calare's priority list. There was not one new funding announcement in the federal budget for Calare. Treasurer Wayne Swan claimed that this budget delivers for regional Australian like no other budget. That is a little hard to equate with a $500 million cut from regional programs. Whatever the new delivery is, it is not in Calare.

Labor declared that this was a traditional Labor budget, and they were right—another big deficit, more borrowing and debt and more taxes. Quite obviously, what Labor is offering Calare is a bigger deficit, more borrowings and higher debt. And the borrowings now? This is a great advancement! Over 12 months it has gone from $100 million a day to $135 million a day. I would guess the Treasurer can be very pleased with himself on that line. Regional Australia has been robbed in this budget. There is not one cent of new money for roads and rail. It appears regional development will be contingent on the looming mining tax, a mining tax that would hurt one of the biggest industries in my part of the world that it relies on and the people who work in it rely on. In fact, the flow-through is right through the community. The mining sector has kept Calare's economy strong and it has kept Australia's economy strong. There is a large proportion of the electorate who are employed directly and indirectly by that sector. A tax which threatens these jobs also threatens the entire region. As I say, it flows right through, right down to coffee shops, dress shops, whatever. Take Orange, for example, with the expansion of Newcrest Cadia mines, coalmines such as Centennial Coal, Coalpac near Lithgow and North Parkes mine at the western end of the electorate. The mines invest enormous amounts into the communities. They involve themselves at the community level. They employ local people and keep our businesses thriving. Introduction of a mining tax has the ability to damage entire communities in our part of the world.

The other giant hole in Labor's budget is the Gillard-Brown carbon tax. As we heard the member for Maranoa say, instead of ending months of uncertainty around the controversial tax, this government failed to include detail on how the tax will impact on our cost of living and jobs and cannot or will not answer questions in that regard in the House. Let me tell you that a carbon tax will without a doubt seriously hurt my region's business operations. A few weeks ago I had the good fortune to visit the Electrolux factory, which employs over 600 people in Orange. I had not visited it for a couple of years and the tour provided me with a classic example of how the carbon tax can affect not just the obvious industries but the retailing and the whitegoods industry as well. It produces a range of quality fridges and freezers, which are sold both domestically and internationally. Currently the main competition is Korean. Electrolux has worked out that even a very modest carbon tax will add about $10 to a fridge. Now, $10 may not seem much on an $800 fridge but it is not $10 on the cost of a fridge that is the issue. Currently they are running something like $70 or $80 over and above the cost of the Korean competition. This makes them $80 or $90 instead of $70 or $80 over the cost of the competition, which does make a huge difference. It is adding about 15 per cent more to the cost overrun they have across the competition. It is a better article and they are able to deal with that, but they are not able to deal with another 15 per cent differential in that cost. It is a huge issue, especially when it involves 602 jobs in Orange.

Lastly, this budget was an opportunity for Labor to invest in regions such as Calare. As my colleague Warren Truss, the member for Wide Bay, noted, what the bush got was lip-service and hollow rhetoric but nothing much in the way of benefits. It certainly got a $500 cut in regional programs. Vital infrastructure, particularly roads and rail, are heavily relied upon in our neck of the woods. The inland rail link was mentioned briefly. However, there was no new money there. The only announcements about that were old hat, and there will be nothing in it for three years anyway. That is only for the paperwork and beginning of planning stages of the project in three years. The devil is really in the detail. All we have seen in the 2011 budget is a series of rehashed and revisited promises. The budget did not reveal anything we do not already know and it certainly did not deliver for Calare.

Calls for a decent road or a decent track over the Blue Mountains and water security are two big infrastructure projects we have to have. When I say water security I am not talking agriculture, I am talking urban; I am talking domestic and manufacturing water. Everyone west of the mountains knows the absolute importance of fixing up the access through the Blue Mountains. As far as water security is concerned, the long-term fix to ensure the central west does not again get into the position it was in a year or so ago is to have a new Lake Rowlands dam.

Charles Sturt University put forward a proposal requiring $98 million to put in a medical school particularly targeted to bring in people who want to practise in regional and country Australia. It will be somewhat different to what the University of Newcastle does, but the object is to bring in people who will still have to pass the same exams as the most brilliant student has to pass. We all know that training country students is the best way to retain people to practise in our part of the world, and the dental school is a fine example of how to proceed in that direction. The Vice-Chancellor of Charles Sturt University rightfully said:

Rural Australians will be disappointed by the government’s failure to put forward critical plans to address severe shortages of GPs in rural Australia.

This government had the opportunity to do just that. We all know that we are bringing in many overseas doctors. Something like 50 per cent or more of doctors in rural Australia are overseas doctors, and the only way we are going to address that is to train our own. That has to be accepted; it has to be addressed. It is a huge disappointment.

Funding for these projects, along with many others in regional Australia, failed to get a mention. That is ridiculous, especially when we know that the government is spending $50 billion to roll out optic fibre across the nation, much of which could be obsolete within a decade. That kind of money could fund so many things. It could fund so much infrastructure that would be there forever—road and rail through the Blue Mountains or inland. If you think about what $50 billion could fund, it is enormous. I worked out once that the last time Labor ran up a debt, which was $96 billion—and admittedly it took 14 years that time—it took the coalition 10 years to pay it back. This time they have run up around $110 billion in about 2½ years. The interest on the money last time was over $100 billion. How much infrastructure was in that? Infrastructure is needed in Northern Australia. I do not want it all, but we do need it in regional Australia.

Agriculture was also largely neglected in this budget. Along with mining it is one of the leading industries, certainly in Calare, and it is also the industry that I am largely responsible for. The government plans to direct an extra 6,000 skilled migrants into regional areas on a short-term basis from 2012. It is too little too late. The NFF has said that there are approximately 80,000 skilled positions to fill in the agriculture sector alone. Regional Australia is in desperate need of these workers, yet agriculture and horticulture have been specifically excluded from the raft of apprenticeships being funded. The farm sector drives over $150 billion a year in economic production and the industry supports 1.6 million Australian jobs, yet Labor has taken another swipe at agriculture, slashing nearly $33 million from its budget. The agriculture budget contains more missed opportunities than dollars. It was a nonevent, and the minister could have managed it from a beach in Bali. Coming into the budget, I suppose we should be thankful, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, that they did not put more time into it or he would have taken more money out of it.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

I probably should be. Coming into the budget, biosecurity was the one area that the government really needed to focus its energies and concentrate its policy on. However, despite forcing AQIS and Biosecurity to retreat from cutting research and development, Minister Ludwig has again ignored the Beale review—his own government's review, which was put into place back in 2008—and failed to increase their budget. It is a fact that inspections per unit of imports into this country continue to decrease.

Labor has also managed to cut $33½ million to the cooperative research centres, meaning that the CRC for National Plant Biosecurity and the Invasive Animals CRC are unlikely to be refunded. I have seen them lately, and they are extraordinarily worried about the funding situation they are in. Our worst fears look increasingly likely as a result of this budget. The government continues to ignore glaring failures in proactively protecting Australia's shores from pests and diseases.

The government claimed during the 2010 election campaign that they had a renewed focus on the regions, but the budget does not deliver for the people or industries of our regions. Biosecurity is such a huge issue for us. The federal government ignored myrtle rust, which is really guava rust, and ignored the fact that New South Wales wanted to deal with it. It ignored the fact that Queensland wanted to deal with the Asian honey bee. The minister and the department pretty much walked away from it. We now have myrtle rust not just hooking into nurseries; it is hooking into eucalyptus. Some four to five eucalypt species are now suffering, and it is up into Queensland. It could have been dealt with, but the bureaucrats and the ministry did not want to do so. This is a really serious issue. Biosecurity is a time bomb waiting to blow up. I implore the minister and the government to take it far more seriously.

Last year I said that the budget was an opportunity for Labor to invest in our regions. Once again, that has been ignored. My electorate and the farmers of Australia have been left to pick up the pieces. And now we are going to have to pay back a net budget deficit of well over $100 billion once again.

Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in this place today to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2011-2012 and the other appropriation bills. A short while ago I was quite excited to see that our Acting Prime Minister and Treasurer had decided to spend three days of his Easter holiday in Cairns on a fact-finding mission. I thought, 'Wow, this is a great opportunity for him to have a look at what is clearly one of the economically depressed regions of our country.' Forty-odd per cent of our economy relies on tourism, and we have had everything from floods and pestilence to cyclones—all the disasters you have seen in the media. Some people have decided, just on the basis of what they have seen in the news media, to cancel holidays they had booked to Cairns, even though the actual event might have occurred somewhere in the south-east corner of Queensland, which is probably closer to Melbourne than to Cairns. The impact on our businesses has been quite profound.

This is at the end of a couple of years of very, very difficult times in our region. We certainly got no benefit out of the stimulus package, given that governments were hell-bent on making sure that the primary contracts for any of the work that was done were provided to southern based contractors, leaving our own local builders and contractors to pick up the crumbs and putting them into very significant economic difficulties.

But I thought, 'This is a great opportunity.' The Treasurer swanned into town, where he stayed in a five-star hotel on his fact-finding mission—and I do not suggest that people should not do that. Afterwards, he left. On budget night I listened to his speech and I really got excited. I thought there was going to be something for our city from this government. Right at the beginning of his speech, he acknowledged that we have a patchwork economy and that it is growing unevenly across the nation. We talk about 'patchwork', but in my region there are gaping black holes. The patches to fill in those holes have not even been manufactured yet!

The Treasurer talked about the natural disasters devastating families, cities and towns—and at the height of Yasi and at the start of the floods he could not have been more accurate. I thought this guy has seriously listened. Then he talked about the high dollar and, for the first and only time in his entire budget speech, he mentioned tourism, plus many manufacturing industries and especially small business—again, how true that is. In the last two years in my region, over 400 small businesses have folded and there are a hell of a lot more at the precipice; they are ready to go. He acknowledged that not every region prospers. He did not mention my region specifically but I thought that acknowledgement suggested that he was going to do something about it.

He also said that not every health service was as good as it could be, particularly for the mentally ill. Again, I got excited because at the last election he had promised a headspace facility in Cairns. I thought, 'We're going to get that announcement today.' But I was very disappointed. As I sat there and listened to him go through his rhetoric—go through his speech—he never mentioned tourism again. He did say that Cyclone Yasi was going to cost the economy about $9 billion in lost output and reduced real GDP. But then he decided to talk about solutions. He was going to put 50,000 single parents back into the work queues. He was going to get the long-term unemployed and, of course, people with disabilities back to work. I thought to myself, 'This is not quite right'—and he is getting further into the speech. The problem we have up in Cairns is close to 14 per cent unemployment. So we are going to get these guys back into a job; but they are not long-termers. These people lost their jobs last week or the week before. So what is the point of training long-term unemployed people for jobs that do not exist? So I thought maybe we were being sold a bit of pup here.

Then he started talking about infrastructure, and I thought 'wow'. Four years ago the government announced $150 million for an overpass on Ray Jones Drive. They had announced it three times over the four years prior to that announcement by Minister Albanese when he was up our way recently. He also confirmed the government's commitment to the region by announcing that a southern based contractor would be doing the work. He made that announcement about a week before the last standing civil constructer, who had employed up to 600 people in Cairns, went into liquidation. They had not even been considered.

Then I thought, 'What is he going to announce now?' He said, 'We're going to build the National Broadband Network and invest $36 billion in vital roads, railways and ports, like the Moreton Bay Rail Link in Queensland, the Gateway project in Western Australia, the Western Ring Road upgrade in Victoria and, with the additional funds, duplicate the Pacific Highway.' I thought, 'Anything he's going to say in that speech is not worth a cupful of cold water,' because he did not even mention the Bruce Highway and the fact that in the last 12 months it has been closed close to 200 times because of floods and other issues. There was no commitment there. He did not re-announce the fact that he was still going to build a $150 million overpass on Ray Jones Drive; it has not started yet. I came away feeling very, very disillusioned. I thought to myself: 400 businesses have closed. The CEC Group, with over 34 years of operation, has just shut down. Other businesses are Glenwood Homes, with over 20 years of operation; Winfield's Electrical, with 58 years of operation; CMC Constructions; the Hedley Group; Cocoa Cola; Northpower Electrical; and Smithfield Electrics And today I heard that CityLife magazine announced yesterday that it is intending to close as well. The list goes on and on. I have to tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, it is very, very depressing.

Every day people are coming into the office about this. We have had meeting after meeting to try to get our local builders and suppliers involved in the rebuild after Yasi. It is almost impossible to get the government to listen to us. Most of the contracts continue to go to their mates in the southern part of the state, leaving only the subcontractors in our areas to pick up the bits and pieces, which are really not quite enough to keep them alive. We had unemployment of close to 14 per cent. It has dropped recently, but the reason it has dropped recently is because people are leaving town. That is the main reason. People are leaving town or going into part-time employment because full-time employment is not there. So I am pleading with the Treasurer: for goodness sake, whatever you do, do not start training the long-term unemployed or those with disabilities or the single mums. Give the people who lost their jobs today and yesterday an opportunity to get their job first.

I recently had a look at what one of our Independents, Mr Windsor, got out of the budget: BAE Flying Systems, $120 million; $20 million for a new medical training facility; $10 million for a Sports Dome in Tamworth; $120 million allocated for the redevelopment of the Tamworth Hospital; and $31.6 million for a regional cancer centre.

We have had a community up there that has been raising money now for a number of years to set up a cancer facility. On my side of politics we had committed to build a wellbeing centre for this organisation—not a cent out of this government to support that, and I think that is very, very disappointing when you stop and think about the amount of money and commitment that has been put in by the community to establish this themselves. Yet this government can go down to an Independent and give $31 million to his electorate. We were only looking for $12 million. The members for COUCH that set up this organisation would have to feel very much cheated.

We did get $12 million for the continued redevelopment of our public hospital on a site that has to be evacuated every time there is a storm. It is not capable of withstanding storm surges or cyclones so they evacuate the whole hospital and the community is without a hospital. They gave $12 million. I see there is $120 million for the Tamworth Hospital, plus another $20 million for funding for new medical training facilities. In Cairns we were looking to set up the Australian National Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine. The JCU is a wonderful institution and it would have been a great addendum to it as a national institute. But of course they did not see fit to put any money into that either.

You have to be very cynical and very sceptical when you talk about commitments by this government in relation to what they are able to do. I go through the election commitments. As I said, there is the $150 million for stage 1 of the Bruce Highway—nothing has happened; $40 million for performing arts—not a cracker has been spent. They got a coordinator in for fly in, fly out jobs for Cairns, but there have been absolutely no direct results from that at this point in time. You have got Cazalys—they are still spending the money, $3 million, on that, and there was another one for remote housing, $4.5 million, which is still to be delivered, and the list goes on There was $9.37 million for the Daintree Rainforest Observatory—it still has not been done. There was a commitment to Headspace, but it still has not been done. There was $3.5 million for development of the rugby league, which still has not been delivered—not a cracker. You have to ask yourself: when are they going to start being serious?

I say to the Treasurer that he needs to start being serious. He needs to match his rhetoric with action. Cairns in the far northern region is in desperate need of support. We have people up there who, from 30 June, will be paying an increased Medicare levy, who are expected to support people in the area affected by Cyclone Yasi. Nobody in my region and north of my region can access any support. They cannot access any of the loans or any of the grants because it is just impossible for them to do so. First of all, their buildings may not have been blown away but their businesses certainly were. But because they might have had a dollar in their credit card or they had some level of insurance or they had gone out and got a second job to feed their families, they were automatically disqualified. It is an absolute disgrace that these people continue to desperately need this help and there is nothing available for them. Alan Jones was up recently in our region and started to highlight some of these plights, and I desperately hope that he continues to raise these issues on a national level.

Peninsula Development Road was shut down through this event, and none of the businesses up there are entitled to support. Mulley's Market and Fuel, at Coen,and the Exchange Hotel up there have had very little custom since December. The roads have been closed. Again, they are not entitled to support, as are none of the roadhouses up there. Also, the Bloomfield River causeway got washed away. It only opened up a week or so ago, and the Lions Den Hotel on that road, which is totally reliant on traffic coming through, is not entitled to a cracker out of this, as are all the other businesses reliant on that. You have people like Peter and Rosie Johnson, who have a little roadhouse up there, who have been doing it really, really tough. It is just so unfair—and there is nothing at all in this budget.

If we want to start fixing the problems, I can start giving a few ideas for the Treasurer to consider. First of all, he can extend the entitlements of the Cyclone Yasi natural disaster area to include businesses affected in the event in Cairns, the Daintree coast, Cooktown and Cape York and review the eligibility criteria so that businesses can access the support. That will make a huge difference. He can also commit to immediately start on the Bruce Highway, not reannounce it in another 12 months, and change his view to allow somebody local, one of our local contractors, to do the job rather than have the job done by southern based contractors.

A third thing he could do is make a commitment to establish the seed funding for the sports, performing arts and cultural initiative that will see the development of a tropical campus for the Australian Institute of Sport in Far North Queensland. That will get shovel-ready projects started immediately, get jobs and give opportunities there.

The government could also commit to the first stage of the Australian National Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine. They could commit to an all-weather bridge over the Bloomfield crossing. A lagoon for Port Douglas would be wonderful to assist them in revitalising that community, and do not forget the $22 million required to rebuild the sea walls in the outer arm of Torres Strait. And, if they really want to start talking about economic opportunities, they can get rid of that insidious wild rivers legislation that is going to lock up any opportunity for future development in Cape York, along with the proposed blanket World Heritage listing in the area.

These are some initiatives that they can consider. These things can be done immediately. They will give opportunities and give hope to our region rather than the absolute, total, blatant disregard that we have seen in our community now for far too long. I call on the Prime Minister and I call on the Treasurer to get up there and start to make things happen rather than continue to talk about it.

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

The time allocated to the honourable Chief Opposition Whip has now well and truly expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.