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

Before the debate is resumed on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2011-2012, I remind the 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) 2011-2012 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2011-2012.

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 is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We heard all the leaks which said that this was going to be a tough budget. Yes siree, the Treasurer and the Prime Minister were talking it up all along. This, my friends, was going to be the year of delivery. Well, they got that right! They delivered a $49.4 billion deficit; they have delivered a record borrowing limit of $250 billion; they have delivered a record net debt of $107 million; they have raised their own record borrowing on a daily basis to $135 million per day; they have raised their own record of interest payments on this debt to $7 billion per year—that is, $19,178,072 per day or $799,086 per hour, after hour, after hour, of interest payments alone.

We have heard about the China boom mark 2. We have heard the Minister for Foreign Affairs wax lyrical about the rivers of gold coming to our economy. But we have seen what this government has done with these and we—the people of Townsville—sit back, scratch our heads and wonder what happened. And what do we have to show for it: debt, no plans and no prospects. We certainly have seen growth though. The Commonwealth Public Service has grown by over 20,000 people since 2007. While the Prime Minister was telling everyone that things are tough and we have to tighten our belts, her Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet grew by over 100 new staff. This budget does not deliver what it promised. In fact, the biggest line item in the savings in this budget is the flood levy itself. This government can talk pretty tough, but it cannot back it up.

I take issue, as does my electorate, with the announcement of funding for the Bruce Highway and roads in North Queensland. The Treasurer carried on about the announcement of roadworks in Vantassel Street as though it was brand-new funding. Those of us who have been hit by the continual flooding of the Bruce Highway know that this was already to be done. This flood mitigation work was pulled during the recent floods to aid flood mitigation work elsewhere in the state. The project has been reinstated but surely the Treasurer will not mind if we in Townsville take this promise with a grain of salt. It should never have been pulled in the first place.

In the week prior to the budget, I held a budget roundtable in Townsville. Those in attendance included small businesses in the mining and construction sectors, retail and service industries, and representatives of our region's chamber of commerce and health sector. To a person, they want the waste stopped. They look at the way this country and our state of Queensland are being run and they want the waste stopped. They are sick and tired of being treated like an ATM for any level of government which cannot balance its books. Each and every one of those represented at the meeting have been forced to make tough decisions to keep their costs down. But at every turn they are faced with an increasing number of taxes, charges and regulations from government, which simply does not see anything other than an easy grab. It has to stop. I call on this government to get serious about taxation and deliver on its promised tax summit so that real reform to the way business and individuals are taxed can be discussed and implemented. In Townsville, the message I am getting is that business is simply not hiring. We have seen unemployment rise to 8.5 per cent in my city. While there are significant projects happening in Queensland, Townsville may face skill shortages as professionals in trades chase jobs across the state and the country. All these government charges and regulations are making it increasingly costly to live anywhere, but especially in Townsville. There have been interest rate rises, levies, rising government charges and the like which have added to the pressure on ordinary families. The strain is seen in my office every week when I see broken families and pensioners come to me, worried about where they will get the money to survive. They do not care whose fault it is that bananas are $13 a kilo or that petrol is $1.45 per litre. They just want help, and they do not see it coming from this government.

What they do see coming from this government is a continuation of the failed pink batts and school halls programs. What they do see is a set-top box program worth $376 million being rolled out by the same people who delivered the pink batts program and the solar power program. Somewhere in that meeting surely someone, anyone, would have said, 'Are we sure about this? Haven't we got form on this sort of thing? Haven't we learned any lessons from the last few times we got involved?' Surely someone somewhere said something about it costing $360 for a set-top box to be installed at a pensioner's home. I checked the website of the Good Guys in Townsville and found six different digital TV sets costing under $360, the cost to install a set-top box. So why bother with a set-top box at all? Send them all to Troy Williams and they can get a brand new TV for less than the government is paying. Where is the sense here, and why has no-one in the government stood up in this place and said, 'This is just not a good idea'?

Of course, the whole budget is basically predicated on a lie, and the Treasurer dare not speak its name. That the carbon tax is not mentioned in the forward estimates reduces this budget to a farcical document. He comes into this House and pours scorn on all who dare to question his commitment to the tax. But he is not allowed to include it in his calculations, nor was he a part of the team used to sell the product to start off with. This government does not care about global warming, climate change or climate action. What this government care about is telling Australians that the budget will be back in surplus in an election year, and they do not care how they do it. They simply cannot stop spending. It is only by taxing people that they can do this. This government and the Treasurer want the people of Townsville to believe that the budget will be back in surplus due to economic management but, in truth, they are just going to raise taxes to try to get a result.

I would like to say that the reforms to mental health are welcomed by all of us. It is a good start, but there is still a lot of work to do. I would like to use this opportunity to call for the states to get out of mental health altogether. We need a system where decisions are made and the money gets to the pointy end as quickly and as intact as possible. By having to engage the states in the process, there are extra costs which take vital funds away from the clinicians and the services they provide. I recognise the government's commitment to headspace and the recent approval of the headspace phase 1 at Riverway in Townsville. This is a vital project, and the non-intrusive way in which young people can access services will save this country millions of dollars into the future. I know that the Mental Illness Fellowship of North Queensland has also received funds from this government to establish a proper base in Townsville away from the hospital in a non-threatening manner. I note that Andy Froggatt, their soon-to-depart CEO, has worked very hard to get this up across all levels of government. I thank the government for their support here. I do note though that the new funding is actually outside the forward estimates. I just hope that this is not some sort of accounting trick to appease the sector while not delivering on these vital reforms.

I want to touch on something not covered in the budget but something that surely must be considered. The Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits Scheme, or the DFRDB, needs to be indexed correctly. I am not about to take a swipe at this government for its inaction, because it has been in front of the Whitlam government, the Fraser government, the Hawke government, the Keating government, the Howard government and the Rudd government. As well as the Gillard government, all have ducked and weaved on the issue and made those people in our defence forces who have served at least 20 years all the poorer by doing so. The Whitlam government needed cash and took the money for the Defence pensions and absorbed it into consolidated revenue. For that, he told the forces, they would keep all their benefits and their pension would be indexed to the consumer price index, the CPI. Every other pension is also indexed to the male total average weekly earnings, the MTAWE, and the pensioner and beneficiary cost of living cost index, the PBCLI, as well as the CPI, whichever is the highest. This has meant that the DFRDB recipients have slowly but surely slipped further and further behind.

I have a very good working relationship with retired Brigadier Neil Weekes, who is a DFRDB recipient. In one of our conversations last week he asked me if it was fair. When I asked him what was fair, he responded by asking me what was fair or right that DFRDB recipients who have served a minimum of 20 years in the armed services continually are treated as second-class citizens by their government. We as politicians line up every Anzac Day and we let the reflected glory of our men and women of the armed services wash over us at functions and on exercises. But as soon as they retire we drop them like a bad habit. We, the coalition, have finally been able to get this as policy on our side and we will fix this once we have government. But wouldn't it be lovely to be as one House on this issue? It is no wonder that all politicians are treated with scepticism by the defence forces when we are pretty much two-faced in how we deal with them. No, Neil, it is not right and it is not fair.

When it comes to education, I have real concerns about some of the government's plans in this country. I worry about NAPLAN. I worry that it has become the only thing taught in schools. It is the only thing taught in the years that the test is given. It is the only thing taught in the year preceding the examination. My question is: what happens to sport or music or art? These are disappearing from our schools' teaching landscapes as the My School website is hanging schools out to dry. The $400 million being touted as bonuses for high-performing teachers is simply misguided. The sooner we as a country realise that teaching is a calling and the money, while important, is not the sole decision maker for professionals making the career choice the better. I think you would find that most primary school teachers would prefer the money to be spent on additional aide time to assist them with delivery of quality education. By installing a bonus system into schools you are making internal politics and personal relationships more important than providing education to our children. I would also call on the government to recognise the need for funding equity in primary and secondary schools. If we can learn that mental illness can be better treated if detected early—and the cost to the community is lowered if it is treated early—then surely funds must be made available to primary schools to pick up and treat learning difficulties and/or disabilities.

This budget does not provide a decent building block for the future. It is too much of a punt to be taken seriously. This budget fails to address rampant government spending and papers over the cracks instead of bringing in real reform. For the sake of Australia and for the sake of Townsville we must have a change of government.

Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take this opportunity today to speak on the very important Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2011-2012 and related bills. This is a vital budget for this nation and it is certainly a Labor budget, a budget that focuses on the key elements and key challenges that this nation faces, both in terms of building a modern economy and also making sure that every Australian has the opportunity to participate in a workplace and to earn a respectable wage. I believe this budget is not only very much a Labor budget but also a very fair budget, a budget that is very smart and of course does recognise the very important challenges our nation faces and will build employment opportunities as the private sector returns to this economy following the global financial crisis.

The budget talks about an economy that has near full employment. In my electorate of Corangamite and also in the broader Geelong area there is almost full employment at the moment. Many of the communities that are still suffering from unemployment have in fact had multigenerational unemployment, and I believe this budget provides opportunities for those particular parts of the Geelong community to engage in the workplace.

It is fair to say that our economy is the envy of the rest of the world. Many parts of the OECD still have an unemployment rate that is close to 10 per cent. Of course our own unemployment rate is just a tick under five per cent. This budget is the right budget for this particular point in Australia's evolution. It provides for record investment in many parts of our economy, particularly the nation-building parts of our economy—rail, road and our telecommunications system. The National Broadband Network will be critical, particularly for rural and regional Australia. The regions will be given a playing field level with that of metropolitan Australia, something that has certainly not been the case with broadband. Being a regional member of the House of Representatives, I am very pleased and proud that the National Broadband Network will open up our economy and put us on a level playing field.

This budget provides $1.8 billion for critical infrastructure upgrades to our public hospitals and health services, particularly for the regions. In Geelong we were very pleased to receive the announcement of $26 million for a regional cancer centre, which will not only service the broader Geelong region but will provide very important cancer outreach services to the Western District of Victoria, an area that has suffered from high rates of cancer. This fantastic initiative was put forward by the Geelong Hospital, and I was very pleased to be with the minister, Nicola Roxon, in Geelong to make the announcement that we would invest in that very important area.

This budget also delivers in terms of our transport infrastructure in Corangamite and for the whole of the western side of the state. Particularly, we are working in partnership with the state government to deliver the Regional Rail Link, an important piece of Victorian infrastructure that this government is committed to, which will assist western Victorians with access to Melbourne via public transport. Importantly, locally this budget continues to deliver the necessary funding for the Geelong Ring Road, which is a very important road in the Geelong region, and also provides funding for the continued duplication of the Princes Highway. The Princes Highway is arguably the most important piece of economic infrastructure in the Geelong region. Again, we are delivering the necessary money to duplicate it not only to make the road safer but also, importantly, to open up the western side of Victoria and to provide a very much safer transport passage and greater access for primary producers and others in western Victoria to get their product to the port of Geelong, the Port of Melbourne, Avalon Airport and Tullamarine Airport. I think that says a lot about this government and the priorities that we have set. We very much believe in putting in place the nation-building infrastructure that we do of course require.

Importantly, this budget also continues the process of implementing our historic higher education reforms. I have spoken on education in almost every single session of parliament since we came to office in 2007. We certainly have great ambition for Australia's education system, whether it be our universities or our schools. I must say I am a very proud member who has contributed to a lot of the debates that have taken place in this place on education. This budget continues to deliver with respect to that. Again, some $500 million is available for regional priorities. Again, this particular government is very keen to ensure that our regions do not miss out. Labor has had a very proud and longstanding history with respect to Australia's regions. Importantly, this budget again prioritises funding for our regions.

This budget also provides some $916 million for regional infrastructure projects that will be undertaken by our regional development bodies. They will be prioritised by those bodies. We have made available funding for those regions for the very projects that they require and that they consider as priorities. It is part of a $1 billion program that this government has committed to over the next five years.

I do want to make the point that in every budget, except for this last one, Labor have been in a position to be able to deliver tax cuts. We were not in a position to be able to do that with this budget. I know that the Treasurer has had to make some very tough decisions to enable us to bring the budget back to surplus. We will of course continue to work hard to do that. In terms of reducing the Commonwealth spend as a proportion of the economy, I think this budget is the single biggest step back that the Commonwealth has ever made. It is important that we do that, because we have a very substantial pipeline of private sector funding, particularly in association with the mining industry, that will be coming through in the next few years. It is important that the Commonwealth step back from the economy to enable that investment to come through. If we do not make those tough decisions and the Commonwealth does not reduce its spending—which is what we are doing—then of course that will have inflationary consequences in the Australian economy and will push up the cost of living and a whole raft of other things. We have delivered what I believe to be a very substantial budget.

I particularly want to make the point that, for many generations, my seat of Corangamite was considered a backwater by the Liberal Party. They owned the seat—that was their belief—for some 73-odd years and nothing much ever happened. There was no funding, no election commitments and no campaigning. None of that took place. We worked hard and we were able to win the seat in 2007 and again in 2010. That really was on the back of a lot of hard work and getting the right mixture of projects in the seat to open up the economy and to provide opportunities for young people from my part of the world to go to university, not only to the major metropolitan universities but also locally. We have worked hard with Deakin University to put in a lot of additional money to enable it to grow as an institution. I certainly look forward to continuing to work with the university to grow that institution, which has very much embraced Geelong and assisted the great transition that has taken place across the Geelong community. It is an innovative university and one that is very comfortable working with the federal government's innovation agenda. I look forward to continuing to work closely with it and the various ministers to ensure that it is able to grow and provide opportunities for young people.

It is also important to recognise that every single primary school in my seat has had a construction project either finish or be underway—building new classrooms, new libraries, new sports stadiums and the like to help educate young people. When I get around to talk to those school communities—the parents, the teachers and the students—they are all singularly excited by the Commonwealth government's massive investment in Victorian schools. It was pointed out to me that Building the Education Revolution was like the equivalent of 10 years of normal state government capital—a massive investment to help stimulate the economy but also, importantly, to provide modern educational spaces which teachers could use. We have also put money into the new GP superclinic. We continue to work with Deakin University and the innovation centre. We continue to invest in the duplication of the Princes Highway and in the Geelong Ring Road.

This budget, as I said earlier, is a budget for its time. It is a tough budget. We have had to make some difficult and challenging decisions. But I think it will set up our economy to take full advantage of the mining boom. I commend the bill to the House.

Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No.1) 2011-2012 and the 2011 Labor budget. It is important that I place on record how little this budget delivers to the people of my electorate of Flynn. Flynn is a very productive electorate. It has aluminium and cement industries and coal-fired power stations. It is the beef capital of Australia. It has grain, citrus, sugar cane, small crops, cotton—it goes on and on. We add a lot to the Australian economy.

I want to expose this budget for what it is: all talk and no action. It is all smoke and mirrors. The government has shown again that it has no idea when it comes to nation building. It has no idea how to manage the big projects needed to secure Australia's future. I will give you some examples of how the Labor government budget fails not only the people of Flynn but the people of Australia. Firstly, the majority of workers in Central Queensland must drive long distances to and from work. Many work in mines and in the service industry and their homes are hundreds of kilometres from where they work. This budget will penalise these workers by slugging them for going into work. Under the 2011 Labor government budget, people who have no choice but to travel more than 40,000 kilometres per year will pay 20 per cent fringe benefits tax, up from the current seven per cent. On a $65,000 vehicle, a miner, a tradie or a salesman will shell out an additional $8,450 in tax. This is not just an attack on the mining industry; it hits the pockets of all kinds of workers who purchase a work vehicle through salary sacrifice and have to drive long distances in doing their work.

Secondly, the government must stand condemned for continually breaking election promises. It must stand condemned for building false hopes within the community only to let people down because it has no idea how to plan and manage projects within budget. I will give you some more examples of how the people of Flynn have been short-changed by the Gillard government and how they are being lied to by the Gillard government. These are just three examples. And you Labor guys over there had better put your fingers in your ears, because I know you do not want to hear this—that goes especially for the member for Capricornia, who has done her best on radio and in the papers to gloss over these issues without giving any idea at all when the real work will start.

Let us look at the Calliope Crossroads, the Yeppen bridge and the Gracemere upgrade—and then there is the Port Access Road. Promises made during the election campaign of 2007 and in 2010 have been pushed aside and replaced with a wide range of excuses. This is not good enough. There is an urgent need for the government to get back on track and stop hoodwinking the Australian public. The Calliope Crossroads presents a vital bit of infrastructure which enables Dawson Highway traffic to cross over the Bruce Highway at Calliope. It was promised, at a cost of $55 million, by both major parties in 2007. Labor failed to honour that promise during its first term of government. It was promised again in 2010, but by this time Labor had driven the cost up to $155 million. In the 2011 budget, however, there is nothing—only a few pennies for planning. This intersection has been planned to within an inch of its life. Millions have been spent by Labor planning for something, but they have no idea at all when this project is going to start. There have been suggestions that the original $55 million to complete the project will only cover the planning and resumption of land.

Likewise, another bridge for the Yeppen flood plain, with double lanes to Egans Hill and to Gracemere along the Capricorn Highway, is essential. The Gladstone Port Access Road is also an important project which so far has had no public consultation. We can all see the need for these projects, but nothing is being done to bring these plans to reality. In fact the government, in its latest budget, reveals that work will only start in 2014-15 and then only if the mining resource rent tax is approved. How many people will have to die on these roads before the government moves?

The reality is that the government cannot move on these issues because it is virtually bankrupt. It has transformed a strong surplus economy in 2007 into a basket case in just three years. In 2007, the coalition left the Australian people with billions of dollars in the bank. We are now borrowing in excess of $135 million a day and this budget seeks to increase our borrowings to $250 billion, up from $200 billion. We have wasted money on the failed pink batts program, the dodgy BER scheme and the countless other touchy-feely, feel-good projects. Labor has thrown money around like a drunken sailor, and I apologise to the drunken sailor for associating him with this government. The 2011 Labor government budget is an attack on middle Australians. It is an attack on working families. It is an attack on the hardworking men and women of Australia who work in our regional towns and cities.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to turn your attention to another very important issue affecting the people of Flynn. I refer to the proposal by the Labor government and the Greens to introduce a carbon tax into the Australian economic landscape. To pretend that a carbon tax will not cost several thousands of Queenslanders their jobs is in my opinion the height of gross stupidity or incompetence or both. Our forefathers and captains of industry have worked diligently over the last 200 years to establish a wide range of industries and development projects across Australia. We cannot let the Green-Independent-Labor government destroy our industrial base. My electorate is without doubt the carbon capital of Australia and it naturally follows that it will be that area of Australia that suffers most from the effect of a tax that will effectively make industry less competitive on the world market.

Like with everything else, this government skirts around the issues. They will not tell industry what price per tonne they will have to pay for this carbon. Is it going to be $26 per tonne or $45 per tonne? Maybe it is going to be $100 per tonne, as demanded by the Greens, or maybe it will be somewhere in between. Uncertainty destabilises our industries. The government has a responsibility to ensure that any change to the way businesses are taxed and regulated is carried out in a measured way over a long time frame. To pretend that this tax will improve world pollution and lower temperatures, when the government's own experts say any change in a thousand years will be minor, is dishonest. The reality is that this is a tax the government must have to help dig itself out of the fiscal hole it has created for the Australian people. Let us be honest about it. Tell the Australian people the truth. The government cannot manage money and we need the Australian public to yet again cop it on the chin.

The state of our health and community services in the electorate of Flynn is in urgent need of an overhaul. There is nothing in this budget to give the community any comfort at all. On 27 July 2010 Prime Minister Julia Gillard said, 'I want to be absolutely clear—mental health will be a second-term priority for this government.' The budget papers reveal that this is a tricky move by the Prime Minister. Most of the money will be delivered in five years time—the last year of the next term of the government. The budget shows that $500 million has been cut from regional programs. It is a snub to Central Queensland when $480 million of regional development funds has been allocated to the roads around Perth Airport.

In summary, this budget delivers nothing substantial to my electorate of Flynn. It eats into the incomes of hardworking families and will take jobs from Australia and place them overseas. The government is gambling with our country and our lives. There are no guarantees about the precarious world economy and yet this sham of a budget is based on the assumption that the economies of our trading partners will continue as they are today. Where will we be if these predicted downturns in China occur? What measures has the government taken to deal with another global economic disaster if it should happen? The government has left us no room to move. It has spent foolishly and has not provided for much needed infrastructure projects like the Bruce Highway and many other trouble spots around the area, especially our internal roads. I implore the government to get its priorities sorted out and concentrate on projects that will benefit Australians in the long term.

Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

During a time of global economic uncertainty when many Western countries are battling against low or negative economic growth and a large national debt, this budget is all about getting the settings right. It is about getting the settings right for a strong, secure and sustainable economy that will benefit all Australians in the years to come. As Craig James, chief economist at CommSec, has said:

Overall, it is a smart budget, and a budget right for the times and challenges ahead.

There is much talk about our economy today being resourced based—indeed, our resources industries do make a huge contribution to our national output—but, as the Treasurer pointed out in his post-budget speech to the National Press Club, this is as much an oversimplification as thinking Australia was just an agricultural economy during the last century. We are not simply a resource economy and the time of our manufacturers has not passed. Indeed, our manufacturers have innovated and moved with the times and they will continue to do so.

I take the opportunity today to talk about one innovating manufacturing sector in my electorate: defence manufacturing, its importance to the region's economy and jobs and how this sector has been responsible for making or breaking the aspirations of several political candidates and in some cases political careers. It is worth spending some time going through a brief history of defence manufacturing in Bendigo. Seventy years ago the Commonwealth government announced plans to build a Commonwealth ordnance factory in north Bendigo to manufacture and refurbish heavy gun barrels for the Australian Navy, produce munitions and a range of other heavy engineering tasks for the war effort. Between 1942 and 1981, the factory not only manufactured and refurbished defence equipment for Australia's requirements but also completed several large export contracts including some for the United States navy. At its peak of operations the factory employed well in excess of a thousand people.

The announcement in 1981 by then Treasurer Phillip Lynch that the Fraser government would sell or close the Commonwealth Ordnance Factory with a loss of hundreds of jobs produced an angry reaction in the Bendigo community. A study of the impact of the proposed closure on Bendigo's economy was undertaken and an intensive lobbying campaign got underway. In fact, three Bendigo councillors got together and nominated as legislative assembly candidates in the 1982 Victorian election on a cross-party 'Save the Commonwealth Ordnance Factory' ticket. The idea was that those electors who would normally vote Liberal but wanted to register a protest about the factory sale or closure could vote for Councillor Joe Pearce and direct their second preference to the Liberals, Labor voters could vote for Councillor Dick Turner and direct preferences to Labor and those supporting other parties could vote for Councillor Chris Stoltz and then preference one of the minor parties or candidates. In the event, sitting Liberal member Darrell McClure was dumped and Labor's official candidate, David Kennedy, who campaigned extensively on the Commonwealth Ordnance Factory issue, was elected.

The proposed closure claimed another political victim in the following year's federal election when sitting Liberal member and then Chief Government Whip John Bouchier was defeated by Labor's John Brumby. The future of the Commonwealth Ordnance Factory was once more a major issue in the local campaign.

In the late 1980s the Commonwealth government restructured several government owned defence manufacturers, including the Commonwealth Ordnance Factory and the Commonwealth Clothing Factory which had been manufacturing defence uniforms and combat clothing since 1912. In 1989, then Minister for Defence Kim Beazley announced that a new government owned entity, Australian Defence Industries or ADI, would bring these organisations together to create Australia's largest defence manufacturer.

Another reorganisation in 1992 saw ADI consolidate its defence clothing manufacturing operations in one location at McGoldrick Court in Bendigo. Three years later, this was established as a separate business and subsequently sold to the private sector and became Australian Defence Apparel. This company has a track record of innovation in the manufacture of combat clothing and associated equipment. It continues to operate today, producing high-value personal body armour as well as a range of military and combat uniforms, and currently employs about 300 people.

The future of the remaining ADI operations was again an issue in the run-up to the 1996 federal election. The then Leader of the Opposition, John Howard, visited Bendigo and promised not to privatise ADI. He told a press conference, including the Bendigo Advertiser, on 14 February 1996, 'No, no and no; we have no plans to privatise ADI.' The coalition won the election and John Howard became Prime Minister on 2 March 1996. Bruce Reid, who had defeated Labor's John Brumby in the 1990 election, was re-elected as the federal member for Bendigo with an expectation that the government would keep its promise not to privatise ADI. In early 1997, the government selected ADI's Bushmaster protected mobility vehicle as a preferred option over the ASVS Taipan alternative. Then in February Liberal Minister for Defence, Ian McLachlan, announced the government's decision to fully privatise ADI, despite John Howard's campaign promise to Bendigo not to do so. The Howard government was re-elected in 1998, but I successfully defeated the new Liberal candidate for Bendigo, Max Turner—Bruce Reid having announced his decision to retire—with the ADI privatisations betrayal and the future of the Bushmaster contract among the main local issues. John Moore replaced Ian McLachlan as defence minister in 1998 and the following year the Howard government sold ADI to a fifty-fifty partnership comprising Transfield Australia and French company Thompsons-CSF, which is now Thales.

In 1999, the first production contract for 370 Bushmasters was signed with ADI and the first Bushmasters to be used on operations, the two original prototype test vehicles affectionately known as B1 and B2, were deployed to East Timor. After Peter Reith replaced John Moore as defence minister in 2001, he received a recommendation from the Defence Materiel Organisation that the Bushmaster production contract should be cancelled. Sections of the defence department and senior military personnel had expressed strong doubts regarding the Bushmaster's suitability for the ADF. This ensured that the suitability of the Bushmaster and ADI would again be a major issue in the 2001 federal election campaign. The Howard government was re-elected, but I was successful in retaining Bendigo for Labor.

In March 2002, I led a deputation to new defence minister, Senator Robert Hill, to argue the case for retaining the Bushmaster contract for ADI. Four months later, Senator Hill, to his great credit, announced that the government would honour a revised Bushmaster contract with ADI, although the number of vehicles would be reduced from 370 to 299. The first production Bushmasters rolled off the assembly line at ADI Bendigo in 2003 and in 2006 Thales Australia acquired 100 per cent ownership of ADI and assumed full control of its operations. The company restructured and Thales specialist vehicles were created at the Bendigo factory. By this time, more Bushmasters had been deployed in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan, where again and again they demonstrated their superiority in saving the lives of Australian defence soldiers.

After succeeding Senator Hill as defence minister, Dr Brendan Nelson increased the contract with ADI for Bushmaster PMVs to a total of about 730 vehicles. This was about the time that the Australian Defence Force Land 121 Phase 3 vehicle acquisition program released specifications for several light, medium and heavy trucks including a number of armour protected vehicles. Twenty vehicles were initially assessed with a view to short listing the light to medium category down to three, but despite the Bushmaster's proven combat performance, a utility variant, then called the Copperhead, was not even included in the initial assessment process. Again, some senior defence personnel had expressed doubts on this vehicle's suitability.

Meanwhile, having seen the success of Bushmasters in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Netherlands Defence Force placed an initial order for 25 Bushmasters, which was subsequently increased to a total of 86 vehicles. This important export order was won despite a conspicuous lack of support from the Howard government for Thales' efforts to sell their world-beating products overseas.

In the 2007 federal election, potential export markets for Thales protected mobility vehicles was a major issue in the Bendigo campaign. I retained the seat for Labor and the member for Hunter was sworn in as the new defence minister in the Rudd government. This was followed by further export success for the Bushmaster when the British defence force took delivery of 24 vehicles.

In 2008 the new Labor government overhauled the troubled Land 121 Phase 3 program resulting in the Bushmaster single-cab utility vehicle finally being considered in a new round of initial assessments. Subsequently the Defence Materiel Organisation short-listed the Bushmaster utility, along with vehicles from Mercedes-Benz and MAN. We are still waiting for a final purchase recommendation, which has been expected from the DMO since last December.

The ADF also needs to replace a significant part of its ageing Land Rover fleet and its Land 121 Phase 4 program will provide around 1,300 light protected mobility vehicles for this purpose. Defence minister Fitzgibbon announced in 2008 that Australia would commit about $40 million to participate in the US joint light tactical vehicle development program, with a view to buying a US vehicle to meet the ADF's light protected mobility vehicle requirements. The minister's statement also signalled an opportunity for Australia's defence manufacturing sector to compete in the light protected mobility vehicle program, and Thales developed the Hawkei prototype for this category. However, during private briefings on Land 121 Phase 4 from senior DMO personnel in 2009, I was told that they did not believe Thales were capable of producing a light protected mobility vehicle. Senator John Faulkner replaced the member for Hunter as Minister for Defence later that year and a separate Minister for Defence Materiel, the member for Charlton, was appointed.

In May last year Mr Combet announced funding for three Australian manufactured light protected mobility vehicles to compete against the US JLTV. Thales, Force Protection and General Dynamics each received funding of up to $9 million to develop prototypes. Thales's Hawkei is the only Australian designed and manufactured vehicle involved. We have also learned from the US documents made public by WikiLeaks last year that US diplomats have been pressuring Australian officials to abandon our defence manufacturing sector and purchase products exclusively from the United States.

In the narrow re-election of the Gillard government in 2010, I was returned as the member for Bendigo, the member for Perth replaced Senator Faulkner as the Minister for Defence and the member for Blaxland became Minister for Defence Materiel. In February this year Thales delivered two Hawkei prototypes for an intensive test and appraisal process to select an Australian light protected mobility vehicle to compete with the successful US JLTV vehicle. A decision on this is anticipated within two years.

The people of Bendigo continue to support the city's defence industries. In April, about 300 people attended a rally to demonstrate that support. Since then, the defence minister has announced an order for another 101 Bushmaster PMVs for the Australian Army. Today, Thales is part of Bendigo's progressive and innovative defence industry—one that also includes protective clothing manufacturer Australian Defence Apparel and the Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation. Bendigo's defence industries employ more than 800 people and the jobs supported by the ADA and Thales operations alone represent approximately 18 per cent of Bendigo's total employment in manufacturing. It is one of the key sectors of Bendigo's economy. The annual direct output generated by the defence industry in Bendigo is estimated at more than $490 million and, including the flow-on effects to other sectors, the industry's total contribution to the local economy is estimated to be around $760 million a year.

I have tried to demonstrate today that Australia has a world-class, innovative manufacturing capability in protected mobility vehicles and armoured protective clothing. I believe it is in our national interest that this should be retained and supported—and this is a regionally-based industry that contributes significantly to the economy of central Victoria. As I have also shown, we do not always make it easy for our domestic manufacturers to deliver the world-class products they are capable of producing. The saga I have recounted of Thales and its Bushmaster vehicle program is one of delay, prevarication and uncertainty, and it has claimed more than one political scalp along the way. If we are serious about encouraging our manufacturers in this country, we must walk the walk and not just talk the talk. We must do better. Government can do much to support local manufacturing through its various acquisition programs without making compromises on the quality of its purchases. This year's budget includes several measures that continue this government's support for local industries to innovate and compete in world markets. I commend the budget to the House.

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The budget Appropriation Bill (No.1) 2011-2012 and related bills were largely built on a speech full of misrepresentations, make-believe and an incredible dose of optimism when the Treasurer introduced them on budget night. Labor proclaims this budget for what it might do not in this financial year, and not in the next financial year, but in the year after that—that is the key selling point of this budget. We seem to have moved into a bit of a time warp where we have chosen to ignore the budgets and the fiscal position in the intervening period and are not talking about this financial year or the next but the one after. There is a suggestion that at that time Labor will deliver something it probably would not know if it saw it, and that is a budget surplus.

I say make-believe is at the heart of this budget because, when you look at the assumptions that underpin it, we need to take into account a number of things. The Gillard government is counting on record high terms of trade staying that way and at worst being diminished by four per cent, a fairly minor adjustment, but apparently the Gillard government believes these incredible terms of trade, probably the best in 150 years, will not change by more than four per cent.

Secondly, it then talks about some Herculean projections in revenue. If you look at the GST figures, for instance, there is an enormous growth in the revenue that that is supposed to bring in. There are also some assumptions embedded in it about what the mining tax will bring to this budget even though the mining tax has not been finalised and many commentators are suggesting the concessions or negotiations that Prime Minister Gillard engaged in will see the biggest three mining companies likely to be paying less tax than they are now because of changes in the way assets will be valued and offsets in terms of state-based royalty changes.

There is also something that cannot speak its name in this budget, and that is the carbon tax, one of the most substantial impacts on the Australian economy and on the Australian community, a new tax that comes in at exactly the same time as the mining tax. Albeit not well argued and not well analysed in the budget, the mining tax is at least there. But the carbon tax is not. Then you go behind those figures even further and you realise the slender surplus that the Gillard Labor government believes it will produce not this year, not next year but the year after—a slender surplus that is less than most of the adjustments in the budgets over recent years, but apparently we are supposed to believe that in these out years those assumptions will be right—is built on bracket creep. There are no tax cuts to adjust the threshold rates at which income tax is paid. So you will see Australians who are fortunate enough to gain an increase in their income increasingly moving into higher tax brackets. There are not even tax cuts in this budget that maintain people's tax liability; as their income goes up they are going to sneak into higher brackets and pay higher income tax because of it. But on the flipside, in terms of family allowances and the like, you see a number of those benefits also now getting into this budget benefit through bracket creep category where, as their incomes move and those thresholds stay frozen, people will increasingly move out of those areas of eligibility. So it is a piece of fiction. This budget would be in the fiction section of most public libraries but, alas, we are here to discuss it.

But there is one moment of disclosure and that is the disclosure, I think in Budget Paper No 2, where there is finally an admission that the debt ceiling that the government has had to operate under will need to be increased. You might recall that when Labor was elected the debt ceiling captured by the Commonwealth Inscribed Stock Act, if I recall correctly, was around $75 billion. It was pushed out to some $200 billion as part of the government's response to the global financial crisis. It was pushed out there with an assumption that the government would need to account for its actions to move out to that higher figure to prove that there were some special considerations that justified that increase. Now not only are we faced with a request to push that $200 billion debt cap out to a quarter of a trillion dollars, $250 billion, but now the government wants to have no requirement on it to explain and to justify its actions to increase the debt to $250 billion.

Why this is important is that, long after the electorate is able to cast its judgment on the Gillard Labor government and whatever that judgment may be, some of the legacies of its actions will still be with us in terms of the debt that we will all need to pay—not only service but hopefully repay at a subsequent date when the coalition is elected down the track, but we will all be paying for it. It is perfectly reasonable that, if the Gillard government wants to max out the Visa card limit of the Commonwealth, it should account for its actions. That is why the coalition's amendments are very worthy of support. We have said that we are not declining to give the bill a second reading but the government deserves to be condemned for incorporating in the bill this plan to push its government borrowing limits above $200 billion, and that we should recognise that a special case must be made for such a significant increase in borrowings and that the government must explain any special circumstances that it feels justify taking our debt above $200 billion. The parliament needs to be given the opportunity to hear the government's case. If the government is so convinced there is a need to blow out Commonwealth debt above $200 billion then the requirement to justify that action is perfectly reasonable. There may well be a good reason, but where is the accountability and transparency in this Australian parliament where the Labor government thinks it can simply run over the top of a $200 billion debt limit feeling no need to justify its actions to the Australian public?

The debt binge that the government is on is just one of a number of challenges that my community, my electorate, and also the constituency that I represent as the shadow small business minister are facing. It is little wonder that small businesses are struggling to get access to finance, when there is a gorilla in the room devouring financial resources at such a huge rate, as evidenced by the blow-out in the government debt for this year, next year and, I would dare suggest, for many years to come. But that is just one of a number of challenges the small business community faces that the government has not faced up to in this budget. The government has failed to address any of the major and compelling concerns and challenges faced by the engine room of our economy. In fact it seems almost an environmental initiative that the government is trying to take a couple of cylinders out of the engine room of our economy as some kind of response to climate change.

It is quite bizarre. The key challenges that the small business community face do not even crack it for a mention in this budget. Instead, there are a number of tricks where the government is suggesting it is doing good things by the small business and family enterprises of Australia but where they are actually being serviced by harmful measures that the government is not that keen to talk about. Earlier speakers have talked about the impact of FBT changes and what they would mean for a small business that might provide a delivery van or a work vehicle for their employees. There is also the issue of the instant write-off. The government seems to proclaim that as a great win for small businesses, that somehow there will be a cash flow benefit. But they have failed to mention that to get the benefit, in the example cited by the Treasurer, for an end-of-year tax benefit—not this financial year but next, probably payable in October 2013 or somewhere in that order—of $1,275 you need to spend $34,000. In terms of cash flow analysis, that is a hell of a lot of lolly—$34,000 to get $1,275 back. But it is the only good thing that the government thinks it can cite in this budget.

You dig a little bit deeper and you wonder: how is this being financed? The courage of the Gillard Labor government is to take on 400,000 of our smallest businesses. By scrapping the entrepreneurs tax offset, they are ripping out of 400,000 of Australia's smallest businesses and self-employed an incentive to provide for their own wellbeing and to provide opportunities for others. This measure was introduced by the Howard government to give support and encouragement to those people prepared to invest in their potential to support their own livelihood, to nurture a business, to grow opportunities in this country. If you think that is a terrible thing to do, it was quite remarkable last week when Canberra based Labor MP, Andrew Leigh, had a spray at those who were actually benefiting from the entrepreneurs tax offset. Rather than face up to the over 400,000 small and microbusinesses scattered right across Australia, who see this modest incentive as some encouragement to provide for their own requirements and to provide their own employment and economic opportunities, Mr Leigh had a spray at them, suggesting that people are deliberately organising themselves and rejecting 'market opportunities which might be present' solely to claim the ETO benefit he describes as 'a fairly low level of assistance'. So what is he saying? Is he saying that for a 25 per cent discount on taxable income people would turn their back on an opportunity to grow their business? He went on to decry the fact that the average payment being made was less than $500 and that 70 per cent of those claiming it were getting less than $600 back. Looking at the standard tax table and allowing for a tax-free threshold, the average person claiming the entrepreneurs tax offset—which, according to Labor's own figures, is around $500 in benefit—is earning about $420 a week. These people are earning less than $22,000 a year as entrepreneurs in their own right through self-employment, and this Labor government wants to take a modest incentive off them to somehow fund a dodgy cash benefit where you spend $34,000 to get $1,275 back.

What is this about? The people being criticised by the Labor Party are earning under $22,000 a year and they get a modest benefit for that. Mr Leigh goes on to say that 70 per cent of the claims are for less than $600. According to the standard tax table and allowing for the tax-free threshold, do you know how much they are earning? It is $466 a week. Their grand income is under $25,000 a year, and they are getting slugged with extra tax by this Labor government, which claims to have some passing interest in small business. Well, it does not. Labor has never understood small business and never bothered to understand the challenges that the small business community face. It was bad enough when Kevin Rudd was Prime Minister, but at least there was apathy. Now it is downright adversarial.

What the small business community needs is an advocate and an ally. Since the election of the Labor government, 300,000 jobs have been lost in the small business community and 25,000 small businesses no longer exist. When the government boasts about the jobs it is creating, it is not boasting about jobs being created in small business and family enterprises. These are the economies of outer metropolitan and rural communities that do not have the luxury of a CBD or a mine. This is what drives the livelihoods and opportunities across Australia and they are being done over, day in and day out, by this government.

But it gets worse. The Prime Minister has the gall to go out there saying that you must value the working capability of every Australian. Well, apparently not. Apparently you only value people who receive a pay cheque. Why would you go after them with this enterprise tax offset? Why would you wipe that out? It is because they are self-employed. They are not receiving a pay cheque; they are trying to earn their own and perhaps create pay cheques for others.

But it gets worse. The opposition and those two million people who derive their livelihoods from self-employment were very concerned about secret meetings between the union movement and the Gillard Labor government, the ones that were denied and then admitted to. Nick Sherry had a very awkward time in the Senate explaining these meetings that everyone else seemed to know about but he said did not happen. This coordinated, multipronged assault on legitimate contracting and self-employed arrangements had another weapon added to it out of this budget. This is now a new weapon. It was not enough to send out the Fair Work Ombudsman to get stuck into self-employed independent contractors. It was not enough to send the tax office out after these people with no evidence that there was a need to have such a jihad against them as has been unleashed by this Gillard government. It was not enough to send the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner out after them. That was not enough. Do you know what is out there now? Under this budget, the Labor government wants those people who are engaging contractors to now be involved in this web of making sure nobody is self-employed and that everyone is forced into a traditional employee-employer relationship where the union movement has what it believes is a controlling stake and a controlling interest.

When is enough enough? When are you going to let independent contractors and self-employed people actually have a fair go? Every day there is a new attack on them. Why? It is because they do not fit in this neat little unionist view that everyone receives a pay cheque. These people are earning their incomes through hard work. They do not have the comfort of being able to turn to an employer and say, 'Hey, things are a bit tough, but that is okay; you can cover me for a few more weeks until things pick up.' These people do not become unemployed; they just do not have enough work. As the government talk around participation in our economy, do they not realise that self-employment is a legitimate way for people either returning to the workforce after periods out or maybe contemplating retirement trying to juggle their working arrangements? Being an independent contractor and self-employed is as legitimate as any other way of earning a livelihood in this country, but you would not know it.

Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten came out with another press release today somehow suggesting, 'It will not be a problem for any honest contractors; we will just throw a bit more red tape and compliance obligations at them.' You stalk people and harass them out of a legitimate career and employment trajectory, and those people who dare engage contractors because it supports their entire workforce— (Time expired)

Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the Gillard government's disciplined and responsible 2011-12 budget, and I congratulate the Treasurer and his department and staff. This budget delivers the fiscal settings and savings that will keep a lid on inflation and return Australia to surplus in 2012-13 while delivering an historic and comprehensive mental healthcare program and investing further in jobs training and in renewable energy.

That combination of fiscal prudence, hard-won savings and forward-looking investments is, in a nutshell, the hallmark of our government, which has delivered the following significant achievements. It has put in place a response to the global financial crisis that has seen Australia outperform other developed countries. It has reduced unemployment and maintained low inflation growth against the background of the worst crisis since the Great Depression and following a summer of unprecedented natural disasters. It has made the largest investment in schools and the largest single lift in payments to pensioners. It continues on the path to increasing our foreign aid commitment to 0.5 per cent of GNI by 2015-16.

This budget makes a historic $2.2 billion investment in mental health services. This government has been prepared to make very difficult decisions, such as introducing a carbon price to the economy and adopting world-first plain packaging for cigarettes, often at some political cost, so that Australia benefits now and in the long term.

The budget includes $22 billion in savings by achieving efficiencies in the delivery of government services and by continuing Labor's program of identifying unnecessary and unproductive churn in our tax and payment assistance framework in order to ensure that government payments and concessions are made only when they are for genuine assistance. That is the responsible thing to do and it is the only way to ensure fairness in the system. By creating savings we will not only improve the bottom line but also make possible key investments in critical policy areas and better support for those who need it most.

Despite the strength of the resources sector in WA, there are many people in the Fremantle electorate who are not benefiting from the boom and who, instead, are facing rising costs in the form of state government electricity charges and the rent impact of a severe housing shortage. This is especially true for those on low and fixed incomes. In recognising the patchwork nature of the economy, and also by bringing forward the low-income tax offset, this budget provides $772 million of increased family tax benefits to support parents with dependent teenagers aged 16 to 19 in full-time study.

In addition to the record pension payment increases, made since 2009, which have seen the maximum pension rate increase by $128 per fortnight for singles and by $116 for couples, this budget now expands the work bonus for pensioners, which will come into operation from 1 July. This change follows the same philosophy that drives the government's efforts to support and encourage greater work participation across the board. Those words 'support' and 'encourage' are important, because the approach of this government is to ensure that (1) the system provides incentives for people to move from welfare to work and (2) the education and training and job support framework can enable that transition.

This budget does both of those things. As I have just mentioned, the pensioner work bonus changes mean that older Australians can now work more before suffering a reduction in their pension payments. The government will also be providing $95 million in wage assistance to reward employees who provide work to persons, including older workers over the age of 50, defined as 'long-term unemployed'. In terms of supporting work readiness, the budget introduces the Building Australia's Future Workforce package, whose initiatives include $558 million to deliver around 130,000 appropriately tailored training places; $200 million in assistance to apprentices; and $1.75 billion in partnership with the states and territories for necessary reform of the vocational education and training system. This investment is a distinctly Labor project and it will be particularly welcome in my electorate, which includes areas that have higher than average youth unemployment and therefore presents a clear need to equip young Australians with the skills and qualities that allow them to take advantage of jobs that the Western Australian economy is generating.

Of course, the Building Australia's Future Workforce package follows from earlier steps taken by the government in this area, such as the funding of the Trade Training Centres in Schools. In March this year the community cabinet came to Fremantle. It was hosted at South Fremantle Senior High School, which will be the site of a new $4.3 million maritime trades training centre. Just two weeks ago I accompanied the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, Peter Garrett, on a site visit to the new training centre. These are the kinds of substantial training and education ventures that will be the foundation of jobs and productive lives for the next generation of Western Australians.

From a Fremantle perspective this budget addresses a number of issues that have been prominent in my community, and I want to touch on some of those. Mental health reform is the best example of this government's steady progress in tackling overdue and big picture reform. Indeed, there were few larger issues in 2010 than the need for a dramatic shift in the way that mental health care is provided and funded in Australia. It is an issue that I have been engaged in for a long time, not least because acute mental health care is provided through the Alma Street Clinic of Fremantle Hospital and so there is a focus in the Fremantle area on people receiving that care. For too long, mental health care has been the poor cousin within the health services framework and for too long mental health has been poorly understood and inaccurately perceived by the general community. Change has been occurring and I want to acknowledge the courage of ordinary Australians and of prominent people who have come forward and been open about their own mental health challenges, including in this place the member for Goldstein. When people realise that depression or anxiety is an illness and when people realise that it comes out of nowhere to affect footballers, bricklayers, lawyers, musicians, teenagers and politicians and when people realise that it can be treated and that it does not have to be a barrier to participation in life or a barrier to performance at a high level then we will have achieved a cultural shift that allows us to approach this area of health openly and without stigma.

On the night of the Candidates Forum that was held in Fremantle during the 2010 campaign, a candlelight vigil was held to demonstrate the strong desire in the community to see a new and effective commitment to mental health care in Australia. It is no surprise then that the government's historic $2.2 billion mental healthcare package has been well received. I have had a number of emails in the last three weeks welcoming the introduction of short- and long-term measures, including the $433 million for suicide prevention, the $492 million for early intervention when it comes to children and young people who experience or who are at risk of mental illness and the $200 million to support mental health programs for those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

I recently accompanied the Minister for Social Housing and Homelessness, Senator Arbib, to St Pat's crisis care centre in Fremantle, where this funding was warmly welcomed. Those who work day in, day out with the homeless, like my friends at St Pat's, are only too aware that mental illness is both a cause and a consequence of homelessness. When the first annual Gimme Shelter concert in Fremantle was being planned five years ago, it was a clear objective of the concert to raise funds and awareness not only for homelessness but also for mental illness. It is fantastic that the federal government has also recognised this link in the budget and provided serious money towards assisting the many Australians struggling with the dual difficulties of homelessness and mental illness.

To drive the long-term reform in this area, the budget provides new funding of $12 million to a total commitment of $32 million over five years for the creation of an independent National Mental Health Commission, which will provide accountability and transparency as well as contributing analysis and direction in the development of the Ten Year Roadmap for ongoing mental health reform. The commitment to increase the national network of headspace centres to 90 has been particularly welcome. Fremantle was fortunate to have one of the first such centres established and it has proved its worth from the moment it became operational.

At a time when the cohort of senior Australians as a proportion of the population as a whole is set to increase markedly, I am a big supporter of initiatives that give effective support and resources to assist elderly people who wish to continue to live independently. As I have said before, wherever this is possible I think this is actually the natural preference of most people and most families and it is also a scenario in which the load on the residential aged care system can be reduced. For those reasons I am delighted that this budget brings with it new increases to Home and Community Care, or HACC, program funding. The latest allocation of $9 million in funding to WA brings the total 2010-11 WA funding to more than $212 million, underwriting services that benefit 66,000 Western Australians or nearly three per cent of the population. Eight providers in the Fremantle electorate are among more than 270 organisations that deliver HACC services. In addition to the extra $396,000 in recurrent funding, four Fremantle providers will also receive one-off funding for new capital including Neighbourhood Link in East Fremantle, which will receive nearly $140,000 for a new bus; Melville CARES, which will receive $40,000 for IT equipment; and, the Villa Dalmacia Social Centre, which will receive $15,000 for vehicle modifications. In each of these cases and through the boost to recurrent funding, this Labor government is making an investment in the wellbeing of elderly Australians and in the peace of mind of their families, while at the same time alleviating the pressure on residential aged care.

That effort to help those who want to live at home has a parallel in the budget with the $72 million Healthy Communities Initiative, which supports local governments who run programs that encourage healthier lifestyles and therefore deliver important preventive health outcomes. Once again, this is funding that provides direct benefits to individuals but also reduces the likely future impact of illness and disease that result from unhealthy diet and lifestyle choices. In my electorate, the City of Cockburn was one of four local governments in Western Australia and the only one in the metropolitan area selected under this program. It will receive $700,000 for its Co-Health Lifestyle Project, which is aimed at those not working full time and at risk of poor health outcomes. It also includes some targeted nutritional education for Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander Australians. The Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, made this welcome announcement at the Cockburn seniors club in my electorate two weeks ago. As noted by the Mayor of Cockburn, Logan Howlett, at the event, the Healthy Communities initiative also complements extremely well the existing projects encouraging healthy lifestyles that are underway in the city of Cockburn and to which the federal government has provided generous assistance, including the Coogee Beach Surf Life Saving Club, the GP superclinic and the Bibra Lake wetlands education centre precinct.

In terms of big picture infrastructure, I am very pleased that the budget provides further support for rail freight into the port of Fremantle. As part of the government's $350 million contribution to the Perth urban transport and freight corridor upgrade project, we are providing funding to the development of the Kewdale Intermodal Rail Supply Chain, and that includes a $27 million contribution to a rail-passing loop near Fremantle port and works comprising stage 2 of the North Quay rail terminal. The project will provide intermodal freight services for the receipt of interstate and intrastate containerised and bulk freight and international and interstate containerised sea freight.

That is the direction we need to go in. By increasing rail and coastal sea freight, and by supporting better freight coordination through the Kewdale intermodal facility, we will see a road freight impact reduction by volume of total freight. More trucks and more and bigger roads for those trucks cannot be the answer to our freight challenge. I am glad that this government is keen to work in partnership with the WA government when it comes to new rail infrastructure and to better roads and freight management yet, quite sensibly, continues to have absolutely no interest in funding the outdated folly that is Roe Highway stage 8.

In conclusion, this budget is a no-nonsense, practically oriented and rigorous blueprint for economic stability, responsible savings and necessary investment in the things that matter for Australia's future—namely, education and training, health service capacity, economic infrastructure and renewable energy. It is marked as a Labor budget by its fairness; its social responsibility, when it comes to protecting and assisting vulnerable people in our community; and its willingness to undertake difficult reform, including reform to Australia's tax and payment assistance framework.

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No.1) 2011-2012 and cognate bills and to condemn the lost opportunities that this budget represents. This is indeed a budget that has a bark that is worse than its bite. Madam Deputy Speaker, two weeks ago, you might remember, the hounds were out howling at the moon before this budget was delivered, howling about how tough things had to be and howling about how tough measures would be taken to bring the budget back into surplus. But what was the result come budget night? An utter disappointment and a disgraceful waste of opportunity.

This budget does not cut back on spending. On the contrary, the budget actually increases spending, ramping up government expenses from $351 billion to $368 billion. That is no way to go about returning a budget to surplus. If that is the government's plan, then it is a dog of a plan. That is not surprising as it comes from a dog of a government delivering a dog of a budget. It beggars belief that a government purporting to have the ability to bring a budget back to surplus would start by increasing spending. You do not have to have a high-school education to recognise the fundamental flaw in that plan, and Labor wonders why the public thinks it has no economic credentials.

If this government thinks spending more money is a tough budget that can deliver a surplus, then it is not smarter than a fifth grader. But increased expenditure alone is not why this is a dog of a budget. The real issue that Australian families find unpalatable is the reckless waste they are witnessing from the current government. Far from tightening its belt, this government has employed an additional 24,000 public servants since it took power in 2007. That is a bitter pill to swallow for people in my electorate of Dawson, many of them living in regional towns with an entire population less than that.

We now have 1,027 public servants in the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency alone. This is a department that has proved to be a total failure. It has failed its first priority for 2010-11, which is spelt out in its corporate plan. It is, 'Delivery of the government's election commitments.' That is not just a fail; that is a fail of epic proportions. The government's pre-election commitment was that there would be no carbon tax. The Prime Minister said, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' That was her election commitment, and yet we have 1,027 public servants there in the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency beavering away to achieve the polar opposite of that election commitment, trying to sell a lie to the Australian public. It is now time for the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency to amend his department's corporate plan so that he can at least say that 1,027 public servants paid by the Australian taxpayer are achieving the election commitments of the one Greens MP in the House of Representatives.

It is the same Australian public money that is going to pay for the scandalous excesses of this government, like exorbitantly priced set-top boxes for pensioners, valued at $400 each. Even the pensioners recognise what a contemptible waste of money that program represents. Those who have already purchased a set-top box for themselves tell me that they would just like to be reimbursed the $50 that it actually cost them. I have listened with interest to various members of the government, particularly the member for Kingston, yelping that the coalition members keep talking about these set-top boxes. I say: get used to it, because that is what the general public is talking about.

How can this government look the public in the eye and say to them, 'We're paying $400 of your money for something that is worth $50'? How can this government look the public in the eye and tell them, 'We're increasing our offshore asylum seekers spend by an extra $1.7 billion of your money so that we can swap one of our illegal immigrants for five of Malaysia's'? These are not the actions of a government capable of a budget surplus. These are the actions of a government with an atrocious record of debt and deficit. Australian families who are struggling to meet spiralling cost-of-living expenses cannot even comprehend the sheer magnitude of the debt that this government is racking up. How can the average family comprehend interest payments of $135 million every day? The average family cannot even comprehend just how much money that is, let alone the thought of borrowing that much on a daily basis to service debt incurred by a government addicted to spending—$135 million a day, and every single taxpayer will have to pay that debt back.

It is also interesting to hear the government speakers yelping about how the coalition have not produced a detailed budget on how we would do things. The answer to that probably should be a bit obvious: fixing the Labor-Greens debacle is a moving feast because the mess gets bigger each day, $135 million a day bigger, and that is if they stop making bad decisions today. But debt and deficit are to be expected from this lot in the long run. This dog of a government is a mongrel breed with a big Labor streak, a Labor streak that has no form on the board for economic competency, just a track record of reckless spending and reckless taxing. And added to this mix now are the Greens, whose barren economic understanding is limited to the cost of a pair of sandals and whose economic answer to alarmist bleatings about climate change is to close down all the coalmines in Australia.

This government is a pack of strays with no legitimacy, no direction and no leadership, an illegitimate government that has sold its soul and the soul of the Australian taxpayer in a desperate grab for power. The price the Australian people have to pay for the grubby deals that are so far apparent is blatant pork-barrelling in the extreme to woo the Independents, reckless pokies legislation that will destroy clubs and the communities that depend on them and, of course, the biggest tax with no mandate to ever be thrust on Australian families. This is a sign of a weak government, a dog of a government with not one but many different leaders, these multiple leaders all leading the pack astray, all pulling in different directions and pushing the government from one extreme to the other.

One of this government's leaders, Senator Bob Brown, is leading the pack off to investigate this rotting carcass of a carbon tax that no-one wants to touch, but now it is one in, all in. They are all feeding on that same rotting carcass because that is the only way they can stay in office. And the country is forced to follow, even though everyone knows it is a rotting carcass. Industry can smell that it is rotten, business can smell that it is rotten, and families can smell that it is rotten. Even the government recognises how rotten it is, by not including the carbon tax in its budget. The majority of this pack is too embarrassed for the public to see where it is going to be led. The mining tax legislation has not been introduced into parliament, yet it is in this budget. How can this government pretend the carbon tax is not part of the nation's economy in the next four years when it will have far-reaching, damaging consequences for every single person, every single family and every single business in this nation?

This dog of a government is embarrassed because it knows it has no mandate to introduce a carbon tax. On the contrary, as I said, the Prime Minister has a mandate for there to be no carbon tax under the government she leads. Even the taxpayer funded Climate Commission cannot sell this tax to families, who will have to pay for it, because those families are not stupid. They understand the Climate Commission is just a taxpayer funded advertising scheme for a bad tax. They understand that the commission was never going to provide advice or a report that did not support the government's carbon tax decision that has already been made, that was made in a backroom deal to get the Greens on board to form government.

We have been given thousands of doomsday predictions and not one of them has come to pass. Even a couple of weeks ago the world was supposed to end. The world did not end, and we did not have aeroplanes dropping out of the sky or nuclear weapons launching themselves with the Y2K bug. The world did not end in an ice age as they predicted back in the 1970s. Forty years ago science, as reported in Time magazine in June 1974, was of the opinion that global cooling that had been experienced for more than three decades was a sign of an impending ice age.

We do not need scientists to tell us that the climate is changing. The climate is always changing and always has changed. But that is not to say we should not cut pollution or develop alternative energy. And everyday families know that the best way to cut pollution is to do something about it. They know that investing in new technology will cut pollution. They know that taxing every man, woman and child in Australia is not the way to cool the planet. Families in my electorate of Dawson know that if Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery's wild predictions of people having to row a boat down the main street of Mackay to get to work were true—that is what he said—then getting slugged an extra $300 on their electricity bill would not make one scrap of difference.

The Greens, who have a single member in the House of Representatives, seem to be the majority shareholder of the leadership of this government through Senator Bob Brown. The extent to which the Greens are willing to hold this government to ransom is a frightening proposition for the Australian economy and the families who depend on it. Not happy with the mining tax to bleed our biggest industry dry, the Greens have insisted on this carbon tax, so bad that the Labor streak in this government are too embarrassed to show it in public and put it in their budget. But, as if that is not enough to kill the golden goose, they have insisted on including in this budget an amendment to the fringe benefits tax that will see hardworking miners pay $8,000 a year for the privilege of going to work. Under these changes, someone who works in the mining industry and who leases a $65,000 vehicle for the long drives to and from work, racking up more than 40,000 kilometres a year, will be taxed at 20 per cent instead of seven per cent FBT. That means the FBT payable for that vehicle, which is used to get them to and from work and around the work site, will increase from $4,550 to $13,000. But it will not just apply to mineworkers and the industries servicing the mines; it will also apply to regional farmers and even sales representatives forced to travel enormous distances just to provide for their families. It would appear this government has some kind of visceral hatred for people who are working hard and having a go, especially if they live in rural Australia and even more especially if they have the misfortune to work in the mining industry that is propping this country up.

The extremist Greens, and the Labor government that panders to their extremist views, will continue to kill off industry, to kill off opportunity and to kill off the hopes and dreams of families until the Australian people have the opportunity to stop them. They will continue to rip the heart out of our way of life and our future in the interests of a few—the few scruffy tails wagging this dog of a government. While this budget delivers further blows to the cost-of-living pressures on everyday families, it makes a deceitful attempt to look like it gives more than it takes.

Last year prior to the election we identified the need for urgent action on mental health in Mackay. The Mackay region has an unacceptably high rate of youth suicide. There is a very good solution to this problem. It is called headspace. Headspace mental health centres have proved to be successful in terms of curbing youth suicide. The coalition made an election commitment to the people of Mackay that we would provide a headspace centre for the region if we formed government. We did not, but we still intend to work hard to get this Labor government to match that commitment. It is unacceptable that an area of such need is ignored in the latest rollout of new headspace centres. We had a petition circulating in Mackay that got 4,000 signatures in six short weeks. It was with great expectation that people who worked so hard to highlight this issue watched the delivery of the budget, and expectation was heightened with the leaks of a big investment in mental health. However, it was a little off the mark—$700 million of the mental health package was re-announcing previously committed funds. But there was a glimmer of hope: $197 million and 30 new headspace centres. But, on closer scrutiny, only seven per cent of the funds will be provided in the next financial year and more than 80 per cent does not kick in until after the next election. In an act of high deception, this yellow dog of a government pushed $65 million of that $197 million out to a period of five years from now. Flying in the face of a standard four-year budget estimate, the government included a third of the package in 2015-16. If Professor Flannery is right, we will all be rowing boats down the main street of Mackay before that promise ever comes to fruition. In addition to that are $580 million in cuts to mental health programs coordinated by GPs. On Friday, I was informed that psychologists have been sacked, in the mess that is now the coordination of federally funded health services in Mackay. One wonders whether this is the result of those cuts.

This is a government that must accept the fact that if you lie down with dogs you will get fleas. It is a flea-bitten government that needs to go to an election, and the most humane thing to do is to let the people put this dog of a government down before it is too late.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We just heard some comments about mental health. These appropriation bills before the House certainly deal with mental health. Record numbers of Australians are receiving mental health treatment, according to an evaluation released today. There are certainly still some groups who are not accessing the services that they need, so there is more work to do. While treatment rates for people with mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression have improved from 35 per cent in 2007 to an estimated 46 per cent in 2010, many young people, men, people living in rural and remote areas and people in areas of high socioeconomic disadvantage are still missing out.

The honourable member for Dawson says that his seat is missing out on headspace services and other things. Maybe it is him; maybe he is not working hard enough to generate the activity needed to get those resources in his area, or maybe he cannot put the figures together. I do not know. But people with mental health issues are entitled to services and this government has put money into this budget to deliver those services. Let's not talk about dogs and fleas; let's talk about what is happening. What are the opposition proposing? They have not produced a budget; they have just ranted and raved. The shadow Treasurer has failed to produce an alternative budget—once in the House and once at the Press Club. They just will not say what they would do to spend budgetary moneys.

An evaluation of the Better Access to Psychiatrists, Psychologists and General Practitioners through the Medicare Benefits Schedule initiative was released today by the minister. Better Access provides Medicare rebates for mental health services. The evaluation was commissioned by the Department of Health and Ageing in 2008 and was overseen by experts in the mental health and research fields. The evaluation found that from 2007 to 2009 over two million people received more than 11.1 million individual mental health services. Around half of all Better Access consumers may be new not only to Better Access but to mental health care more generally.

The initiative provided value for money for those it reached and consumers experienced clinically significant reductions in levels of psychological stress and severe symptoms upon completing the treatment. Investment in Better Access has been $1.45 billion from 2006-07 to 2009-10. The evaluation findings are encouraging, especially on access and improvements in treatment rates for common mental disorders. They also point to some areas of particular concern that echoes the feedback received from the mental health forums held late last year. We still need to do more for those people who are continuing to miss out on much needed mental health care—men, young people and those people living in rural and remote areas, as the member for Dawson would know; as well as those in areas of low socioeconomic disadvantage. These people stand out in all the statistics I see and I am sure that you also see, Madam Deputy Speaker.

It is also vital that we focus our efforts on getting the right care to the most vulnerable in our society, including those at greatest risk of suicide—young people, Indigenous Australians and those with severe and persistent conditions. The outlines in the budget certainly go in that direction. Mental health reform is a key priority of this Labor government in its second term. This is why the Prime Minister has asked the minister to establish an expert advisory group on mental health. The group has already started to provide ideas for real improvement in mental health services that are achievable and make best possible use of the government's resources.

The Better Access evaluation is important to help inform the government's reform efforts and to ensure the balance of services across the spectrum of mental illness. The Gillard government is committed through its reform efforts to ensure that mental health services are coordinated, cost efficient and fundamentally targeted to those people most in need.

In addition to Better Access, the government is investing $120.7 million between 2010 and 2014 in the Access to Allied Psychological Services, ATAPS, program, which delivers psychological services at low or no cost to patients and targets hard-to-reach groups. The government is also investing $64.2 million between 2010 and 2014 in mental health services in rural and remote areas under the Mental Health Services in Rural and Remote Areas program.

There is also a program—the government's flexible care packages—for people with severe mental illness or illnesses. In the 2010-11 budget, $58.5 million was allocated in funding for flexible care packages to provide clinical and case coordination services to better support people with severe mental illness in the community, delivered through Medicare Locals. These are all new initiatives in this budget. Clinical services include psychological therapy provided by specially trained providers such as psychologists and social workers, who will be encouraged to link patients to other services in the community for people with severe illness. Flexible care packages will allow Medicare Locals to purchase the services people with a severe mental illness need to keep them well in the community and out of hospital. Consultations across the nation, including in regional areas, have been conducted on the design and implementation of these flexible care packages. More than 70 written submissions were received. These consultations have shown that there is strong support for the implementation of the flexible care packages, including from GPs, who are central to supporting and finding referral pathways to other services for their patients with a severe mental illness. There is also a desire to see them implemented in a considered and staged way, with a clear and consistent process to ensure appropriate targeting to people with severe illness and with support for a development phase to enable essential service links and quality assurance to be arranged at a local level, before services start to roll out.

The government has listened to the sector and based on the feedback received will implement the flexible care packages in a staged approach to coincide with the establishment of the first 15 Medicare Locals. From now until 1 July clinical governance, service delivery and quality assurance issues will be determined in consultation with relevant stakeholders. From 1 July, the first 15 Medicare Locals will become eligible for funding to provide additional services to consumers through flexible care packages. Work will also be done to ensure Medicare Locals are provided with funding for development and planning, before service delivery starts.

The roll-out of these flexible care packages demonstrates the government's commitment to ongoing mental health reform. The government will continue to work with the sector to deliver mental health reform and ensure the best delivery of services for people with a severe mental illness.

Many people will remember the service in my electorate of Lyons, Rural Alive and Well, which was set up during the terrible drought times to try and bring back some hope to many farmers who were in despair of losing their animals and their properties. This too falls into the area of mental health. These community-developed programs are vital for keeping an eye on the mental health of our farmers and rural workers, and make up the many approaches to deal with mental health problems that have emerged in recent years. There is a community-based approach, and this is taking place in areas such as forestry in Tasmania, with a lot of contractors and forest workers being laid off. There is a person dealing with those issues using a community-based approach, referring the people concerned to professional assistance if that is needed.

Mental health issues have offered a real challenge to many ordinary health services. I am sure there are many other instances around Australia where mental health have been put into the too-hard basket. It with a great relief that I see that the budget has been able to provide a priority weighting to mental health issues. This will allow the local health services to provide primary services that have links to referral services for those who have been touched with a mental illness. It gives me great joy to see so much emphasis being put on mental health in this most recent budget.

I would also like to touch on education. I continue to have the honour of opening BER projects in my electorate. I opened one on Friday in the historical township of Evandale. If you have flown into Launceston Airport, Evandale is the village at the end of the runway. It has spent, very well, a lot of money to improve the school, renewing the school hall and making it larger. Many classrooms and playground areas have been improved as well. I was at the opening at Oatlands District High School the week before that. The principal of Oatlands high school described the money that came through from the Commonwealth government as 'a fairytale'. She said it was like a fairytale that they received the money; they could do so many things that they wanted to do to the school. It has enhanced their program so much. That is a great thing to see happen, and, as I said, I am always honoured to do that. It is enhancing the educational opportunities for young people in Tasmania.

We have also had the opportunity in this budget to continue the flow of money to Tasmania for irrigation projects which are set to rejuvenate the farming community of Tasmania. The Whitemore scheme was opened earlier this month, with 40 kilometres of pipeline delivering about 5,500 megalitres over about 12,000 hectares. Of course, we will be going to the Midlands scheme very shortly. That will take a couple of years to get on stream as the biggest irrigation project in the electorate of Lyons, and that will revitalise and create a lot of economic activity that will enhance us into the future. This budget has been very good for Australia and very good for Tasmania, and I have a great deal of pleasure in supporting these bills through the parliament.

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Primary Healthcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What can we say? This is another Labor budget, another deficit budget, another budget which adds to growing government debt. Despite all the government's rhetoric, this was not a tough budget. It is a budget that has all of the wrong priorities for Australia. Constantly saying that it was a tough budget, constantly repeating those words to the public, will not make it true. The Prime Minister was right when she described it as a traditional Labor budget. It is. It is a budget with big deficit, big debt and more taxes. It is a traditional Labor budget. It is another deficit budget.

The Labor Party, incredibly, have not delivered a budget in surplus in the last 21 years. We even have a member of this House who has never seen a Labor budget surplus in his lifetime. The Labor Party have not delivered a budget surplus since the Hawke-Keating government did in 1989-90. It requires a special sort of genius to deliver four deficit budgets in a row during a time of a resources boom and during a time when the economy has been growing. The deficit for 2010-11 will be almost $50 billion. Net debt will now peak at $107 billion. What this country needs is a safe pair of hands guiding our nation's finances. The Treasurer has broken another record. We should give him a medal. He has managed to beat Keating's debt record of $96 billion in 1996. Debt will peak at $107 billion.

The coalition paid off Labor's debt last time and will pay it off again. This government is borrowing $135 million a day, and its interest alone will be $7 billion a year. The total interest paid on that debt over the next four years will be $26 billion. That is $26 billion we do not have to spend. How many hospitals could $26 billion have funded? How much infrastructure could have been bought for $26 billion? The worst part is that the carbon tax is not even included in this budget, so this budget is built on a false premise. The carbon tax is expected to add $11½ billion to household budgets, which is going to add further to pressure on the cost of living.

There are a couple of points in this budget that I want to focus on—first of all, the government's attempts to wind back the private health insurance rebate. In every one of the four budgets delivered by the Labor Party so far, they have attacked private health insurance and those who hold private health cover, and they are persisting with their plan to wind back private health insurance. The private health insurance rebate was originally introduced by the coalition government in 1999. Labor's proposals to means test the rebate has been twice rejected by the Senate and yet the government are introducing it again. They just cannot let this go. The Labor Party hate private health care. They are pursuing this as an ideological argument. They have not really thought about this at all. The importance of private health insurance is that it takes pressure off the public system. It provides people with choice but importantly it takes pressure off the public healthcare system. Within five years, this move will be budget negative and within five years it will be costing more than it saves.

Recently, the Australian Health Insurance Association commissioned a report by Deloitte which shows that the cost due to increased public healthcare system demand will be $2.4 billion over the next four years. It is going to end up costing everyone. Private health insurance premiums are estimated to rise more than 10 per cent over and above the annual premium rises. This is on top of the 15 per cent, 30 per cent and 45 per cent cuts in the rebates for people on different incomes. In the electorate of Boothby more than 70,000 residents have private health insurance. More than 73 per cent of households in my electorate of Boothby hold private health insurance. This is a budget which is no good for them. This budget measure is an attack on every single one of those households.

Mental health is an important priority. It has been really good that mental health has been at the centre of the debate in federal parliament. That is in no small part due to the leadership shown by the Liberal Party on this issue. It was the $1.9 billion package announced in the 2006 budget when the Leader of the Opposition was the health minister which led to improvements in the way that GPs and psychologists were rewarded for spending time with their patients with mental health problems. And through Pat McGorry and John Mendoza, the opposition developed a very good mental health policy, which we took to the 2010 election. The Labor Party's policy at that election was appalling. They showed complete neglect of mental health.

This is an issue where the Liberal and National parties have made the running. We have put up good ideas and the government have responded. But their mental health budget measures are really an illusion. It is like a lot of things with this government: it looks good but by the time you kick the tyres and have a look under the bonnet, you find out it is another lemon. When you look into the budget papers, you realise that what was described is not what you end up with.

In 2011-12, the Gillard government are providing $47.3 million in new funding for mental health. But, unfortunately, in that same year they are also cutting $62.8 million from existing mental health programs. In year 1, giving with one hand and pulling back with the other, there is actually a drop of $15½ million dollars in funding for mental health. This is hardly following through on the Prime Minister's promise that mental health would be a priority in their second term of government. Unfortunately, over the next four years of the forward estimates, after taking into account the budget cuts there is only $583 million in new money. It is nowhere near what was announced in the budget. The majority of their big spend on mental health is old money rebadged with a new name. It is about a third of what the coalition promised for the same period. Their truthful commitment is hardly the $2.2 billion dollar headline figure that the Minister for Health and Ageing has been putting about. The worst part is that the majority of the mental health funding is promised not now, not next year, but in five years time. This is towards the end of the next government's term. The coalition committed $1.5 billion at the 2010 election, and we announced another $430 million more recently.

There is another aspect of the funding for mental health which I think is very short-sighted. These are cuts to general practitioner funding for mental health. Anyone who knows anything about mental health will realise the importance of having it dealt with by a general practitioner in the first instance. A lot of mental health can be dealt with very adequately by a GP. Budget day was a sad day for patient care in general practice because what the government did was rip $580 million over four years out of mental health programs coordinated by GPs. General practice is the universal access point for health care nationally. Most people have a medical home which is their GP, and it is very important for continuity of care that people do have a medical home and that they do have one GP who can coordinate their health care. GPs are best placed to identify and work with patients due to their recurring contact and due to the fact that they have known a patient often over the life and perhaps are caring for the whole family as well. Dr Pesce, the former president of the AMA, has agreed with this position. He said, 'Family doctors are the preferred entry point for mental health care.' The government has dramatically devalued the role of the family doctor in managing community mental health. The RACGP have stated that around 70 per cent of patients will consult with their GP when they are first noticing problems with their mental health. To date 17,000 GPs across the country have undertaken additional mental health skills training.

The MBS rebates for GP mental health plans have been cut by half. This measure alone will strip $405.9 million away from GPs over five years. Under the new budget measures, the rebates will be reduced from the current $163.35 to $85.92 for consultations lasting between 20 and 40 minutes for those practitioners who have completed mental health training. This rebate will be dropped to $67.65 for GPs who have not completed the mental health training.

The government have also slashed the number of allied health treatment services available to patients under the Better Access initiative. This measure strips $174.6 million over the next five years. Under this reduced initiative, patients are only allowed to access up to six subsidised mental health services through the MBS, with an additional four subsidised services for those who need it. This is down from a total possible of 18, a cut of almost half. The majority of the funding for mental health is to now be distributed by Medicare Locals. It is still unknown how effective this will be.

GPs are still unsure how these bodies will operate or how effective they will be. I urge the government on this issue to properly consult with the general practice organisations, the RACGP, the AMA, the AGPN and GP Registrars Australia, before the implementation of these damaging cuts to mental health funding provided by general practitioners. It will be detrimental to patients. It is something which has worked very well, I think, since the Better Access program was introduced in 2006. This is a very short-term and short-sighted measure by the government.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to talk generally about the budget and the budget priorities and the government's handling of this, particularly over the last four years since the federal Labor Party came to government. One of the things that I always find rather puzzling is the view put, particularly by the coalition, that only they can manage the economy and only they can manage the government. Yet, if you read the history of budgets, of macro and microeconomic reform and of federal governments in Australia, you will see that that is simply not true; it is not borne out by the facts. The major reforms to our economy actually started in modern times during the period of the Hawke-Keating governments. But I have to say that, at the time, there were a few more 'yeses' from the then coalition opposition than we hear now. All we hear now from the opposition is 'no, no, no'—whatever it is. It is almost like a case of 'cut off your nose to spite your face'. They do not know when to say yes. A measure of an effective and credible opposition is knowing when to say yes.

What I want to talk about is this Labor government's budget. It builds on that history of reform, and it has done so since coming to government in 2007—and each budget thereafter, including this budget, reflects that. This budget reflects two essential things. One is keeping the economy strong—strengthening it where it needs to. That is necessary if you want to spend, and we need to spend because of the priorities that have to be funded in the electorates. I know that governments, whoever they are, have every backbencher at them wanting some of that money spent in their electorates. I am no different; I always want my share. But for a government to spend across the nation you need a strong economy. You also need—and this is the second essential thing and the essence of the Labor Party and what it does in government—to inculcate a fair go. That is inherent in this budget and in the way that the budget spend is prioritised. But this also means that there have to be savings; it has to be a responsible budget.

One thing that I have always said is that I am not in parliament to help the Mr Packers, the Mr Palmers, the Mr Forrests and the Ms Rineharts. It is nothing personal. Many of these people do big things and some do it more than others in terms of their sense of corporate social responsibility, which is a key—

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

Some of them have it, some of them don't.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And some of them do it and some of them do not. However, I do not think they need my representation—I am sure they do not even know who I am. I am here to represent those without much voice, like people on wages, pensioners, my mum and a whole lot of other people in my electorate, such as people without jobs living at or below the poverty line as it is set in Australia, people living with mental illness, people basically in need and people suffering oppression and injustice wherever they are. Budgets—and Labor budgets more so—are one way of representing the people that I am talking about, and this budget shows that.

My seat of Page is not a rich seat; yet we do not feel poor. Ours is a rural and coastal area. We have a larger than average number of senior citizens. The aged care industry is one of 11 industries in my seat. In terms of numbers, we have twice the national average of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in the area. In fact, 10 per cent of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population live within the strip from the Hunter up to the Tweed. My seat sits within that strip. So when we talk about closing the gap and Indigenous Australia, we are talking about a large proportion of that population living in my seat and in the broader coastal framework.

I feel quite honoured to be on the expert panel for constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians. This is something that we are approaching in a multipartisan way. I am on the expert panel with the honourable member for Hasluck, the honourable member for Lyne and Senator Rachel Siewert, so we have a broad political representation. This is something that we are talking about at the moment. Closing the Gap is an important policy way of incorporating a fair go. God knows that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have not had a fair go throughout our history in Australia, and it behoves all of us to try to give them a fair go. Is it complex? Yes. Is it complex for people in need? Yes. But we still have to do it.

On the evening of the budget, I put out a statement on what it meant for me and the people locally in my seat of Page. In the lead-up to the budget, I had speculated as much as anybody else. People spend weeks speculating about what is going to be in and what is going to be out. It is one of those times when people think that backbenchers will have some particular information or knowledge. Those who are in government or who have been in government know that that is not quite true. What we see in the media is what we know. But that did not stop me speculating and being in the media, as it did not stop everybody else! On the day after the budget, I did eight or nine interviews in the media about it. So I have actually covered a lot of the things in the budget that impacted on us locally. Two of the general areas I went through were health and mental health.

I have always said that, if I have a key priority, it is health. I continue to make sure that I am knocking on the doors all the time on health. There were some good things in the budget in terms of health. Up to about $1.8 billion had been available in the Health and Hospitals Fund, and there is $475 million allocated to it but not yet spent. That means that some people can get a second go. I have said that in our area we can have a second go at trying to get some of that. That $475 million is national, so there will be a lot of people knocking at the door trying to get some of it, but we have got to get in and try. There were some other good things in the budget. One was the permanent funding for the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program, something that I and other members had lobbied for. I commend the Minister for Health and Ageing for that.

I also commend the minister for the $2.2 billion for mental health services. That is a historic investment in services for those with mental illness. My comments around mental illness over a long period of time have been that none of us have got it quite right. There is a lot more that needs to be done, but this is a good start. The fact that we actually went to an election with mental health as an issue was really important, because often it never gets into elections as a seminal issue. But there is still a lot more to do in terms of how we engage, people and engage them early, and some of the strategies in the mental health framework. It is a 10-year plan and it needs to be ongoing about how we respond to people with mental illness.

I listened to some of the speeches in this place about how GPs are our first port of call. They are for most things, but there are a lot of people who do not get access to mental health services through GPs being their first port of call. It is an issue I have been engaged in for a long time as a mental health advocate, and it is something that I am currently engaged in through personal family circumstances and experience. I share that with lots of families around Australia. It is another complex area to be formulating policy around, and it is one of those areas where it is better if we can do it in a bipartisan way. The people who suffer from mental illness deserve that. Another area of the budget that I want to talk about is regional spending and development. There has been record investment in our region for transport, water—infrastructure, which covers health as well—and education of over $4.4 billion. The previous government was elected in 1996, and in 1997 that government axed the whole department of regional development as well as a lot of regional development programs. I thought that was a rather odd thing to do, particularly when it was a coalition and one part of that coalition was the National Party, which says it is the natural party of the country or the bush. We reintroduced those programs and did a lot more in regional Australia.

That brings me to a report issued recently called Investing in regions: making a difference. We called it the Grattan report as it was put out by the Grattan Institute.It hit the headlines because it said regional investment fails to make a difference. It just seemed absolute nonsense. At my university—Southern Cross University—the vice chancellor, Peter Lee, entered the public debate and said, 'It's fundamentally flawed.' He went through the report critiquing the methodology. One of the measures the report used, which I found intriguing, was the number of patents that come from regions. I found that a rather odd measure. Regions that have small to medium businesses may never generate a patent—unlike my region, which, with someone like Rick Richardson, generates a lot of patents. He is an inventor with a national and international reputation. It just seemed an odd measure. My husband is a retired academic who chaired some regional economic development forums. He has a PhD in this area, and when talking to me at home about this issue he has been rather exercised. I keep saying, 'Get out and publish something on it because you know the issue better than most.'

The report also said basically that having a university in your region does not make a difference to a regional economy. What nonsense! We have figures that quantify that and it is really clear that it does make a difference, even with the jobs alone. It does make a difference with people from regions going to universities. Just having one there is a symbol; it appeals to that aspiration to go to university. I know it has done that in my area and in other regions across Australia. I would be surprised if any member here were able to agree with that report and the general approach that it took to regional development right across Australia.

In closing, I am happy to support this budget—it is responsible and will get us back into the black.

John Forrest (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no doubt that the budget is the principal policy opportunity for the government of the day. This is my 18th budget, the first three in opposition, 11 from government and now four again from opposition. It is an opportunity for the government to set its priorities, where its priorities are going to be. I have to say, contrary to what was said by the previous speaker, the member for Page, that from my constituency's point of view I feel as though on their behalf they have been completely let down. For example, and I will give plenty more in the 15 minutes of this contribution, this budget in the middle of Australia's biggest flood crisis has elected to withdraw exceptional circumstances assistance to my farming communities at the time of their greatest need. It is completely inappropriate. EC money could have been viewed as a stimulatory expenditure we needed to kick-start these important regional economies. Without EC the job will be much harder. In fact, there will be much more pain for my families struggling to save their businesses.

I have been interested to listen to the contributions from government members focusing on expenditure; bold statements that this is the largest level of expenditure on infrastructure that there has ever been. Opposition conservative contributions have been more about where this huge amount of money has come from that is borrowed and reminding their own constituents it has to be paid for. Money does not grow on trees. The ideological differences are remarkable. There seems to be a thought from the government that it does not matter that a nation can transfer, intergenerationally, its debt responsibility to a new generation. I have been raised from a conservative point of view. I support the concept that you borrow, you mortgage to buy your modest home and then you extend that to perhaps borrow again to develop your business, but you keep it at a level that you know you can manage knowing full well that you need to put away for the rainy day. The disaster is going to come. In my experience it was either frost in the dried vine fruit industry or it was hail, and you knew that when you got the good year you did not spend it all but you put it away as one in every seven at least would be a disaster year. I do not believe that a nation should be any different in the way it manages the money it has got custodianship of, which belongs to taxpayers. But that is just the ideological difference between the two arguments I have been listening to for the last week or so as people make their contributions with regard to this budget.

My constituency tell me they feel very badly let down. I think the budget has failed to pick up on the importance of our rural powerhouse, that it has the capacity to make a major contribution to our national economy. It has done so for years and will continue to do so. It just needs a little bit of support as we get through the disasters that it has endured, from Queensland through New South Wales all the way to Victoria. In fact, the Victorian flood circumstances astounded everybody, particularly when you think of the arid nature of the Mallee constituency I represent. It has a notional annual rainfall of 10 inches in the year in the old measurements, 250 millimetres. There was that amount of rainfall in two or three days. At Mildura on 9 March there was 250 millimetres in eight hours. It has completely devastated the viticultural industry there and it is an ongoing struggle. So to have that exceptional circumstance removed at that time was hard. I was corresponding with the relevant minister and, yes, it is an awkward position to be in to have exceptional circumstance financial support for a drought outcome but the implications of the opposite, a flood, are just the same: financial pain and financial insecurity. In my Mallee constituency 183 agricultural constituents reported loss and damage of more than $250,000 each and 400 had losses of more than $100,000 each. This gives a staggering total in the order of $350 million in losses at the farm gate—figures supported by the Victorian Farmers Federation and the Department of Primary Industries in Victoria. And this does not allow for the much higher value-added amount after processing, mostly into food but also into fibre.

I have some of the best farmers and horticulturalists in my constituency, but their balance sheets have been crippled by a decade of drought. Just when they thought that El Dorado was upon them, an opportunity to get them out of trouble with their banks, down came the worst meteorological disaster that the region has probably ever seen. I wrote to the minister on 11 February 2011 imploring him not to abandon EC and to find another option, knowing it was going to finish on 31 March—as recommended by the National Rural Advisory Council. But their advice was put to the minister's office before the rainfall. To this day, I have not had a response to my correspondence—very disappointing. My intention was to provide early advice, not knowing then but suspecting that meteorological outcomes of the nature that were showing up in the Pacific due to the El Nino. My prophecy came to fruition, sadly. Fruit, vegetables, melon and nut crops were all affected. As well, the viticultural and the dried vine fruit sectors were affected. Wine grape growers were already struggling but I thought table grapes in the Murray Valley was one commodity that had the capacity to allow horticulture to carry on, especially after getting formal access to China after many years. But the weather conditions wrecked the crop. The fruit rotted and it got downy mildew, a fungal growth that develops in the bunch because of the high humidity. It was very disappointing. I had hoped that this budget would offer something more to my constituents, but it did not.

Eight out of the nine municipalities in the electorate of Mallee have experienced severe flooding, particularly in January. The community of Charlton was flooded three times in six months, to the extent that 80 per cent of the township was inundated with water up to the height of my chest. The hospital, the aged-care facility and the doctor's surgery were all in one complex which was inundated.

The Charlton community are still struggling to recover from that. Those people are in despair as they try to sleep in this cold weather with no carpets on their floors and the gyprock removed from their walls up to chest height. They are waiting for their insurers to respond positively and honour their claims. I put those insurance companies on notice: if I do not get some positive responses from them in accepting claim responsibilities in Donald and Charlton then I will come into this place and name and shame. If people do not want to insure that is fine, but do not leave those who had insurance hanging by a hook not knowing where to go from here. One of those people is the doctor in Charlton. He is not in a good frame of mind. When you have young children and you cannot live comfortably in your own home, the pressure on a family is devastating. That is the Buloke Shire. Donald also lost its aged-care facility in the flood. Equally as devastating was the news in Queensland but down south they were a little disappointed because whilst no-one was injured and no lives were lost the outcome was the same. The 30 residents at the aged-care facility in Donald had to be relocated across the region. This has created enormous uncertainty and will lead to very poor outcomes from a health point of view. That is why I am so disappointed that this budget will see the closure of the Medicare access facilities in those vital towns spread across the north-west of Victoria in my constituency.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 6.30 pm, in accordance with standing order 192 the debate is interrupted. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.