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

I rise to lend some comment on the government's budget and associated appropriation bills. I think it is generous to conclude that the bills show that Labor's financial and budget management at best are in complete and utter chaos. The budget does nothing for Australian families to deal with the rising cost of living. It does nothing to improve services. It delivers more debt, it delivers more deficit, it has more broken promises, it has greater taxes and there is more uncertainty.

This is now six years—this is the sixth budget I have spoken on—of chaos, debt and the associated spin that the Labor Party puts on it. Australians have had a gutful and they deserve a stable and a competent government, and this budget has failed. It delivers a gross debt that will breach the $300 billion ceiling within the forward estimates. This is its fifth record deficit in five years and there are two more deficits to come. Indeed, the nation's largest deficits in history have all been on this Treasurer's watch.

There is no credible path to surplus. Even Labor's much promised surplus in three years time is based on carbon price assumptions that are patently ridiculous—that the carbon price will be $25 a tonne in 2017-18, though it is linked to the European scheme, which is currently five bucks. So a 500 per cent increase is how this government is hoping to get back into surplus. The member for North Sydney was right: the member for Lilley, the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, will never deliver a surplus. Labor will never deliver a surplus. It has not delivered one since 1989, since the member for Longman, Wyatt Roy, was born. It will not deliver a surplus, and we are kidding ourselves to think it may. Tax cuts have been scrapped, family payments have been scrapped, there is $25 billion in higher taxes and there is $100 million of spending on government advertising. The hubris, considering the 2007 election commitment on government advertising, is something to truly behold.

Last year the Treasurer forecast an underlying surplus of $1.5 billion, and what did he deliver? A deficit of $19.4 billion. Next financial year, 2013-14, a deficit of $18 billion is projected. Every single Labor budget is a massive deficit. It simply cannot be believed. Their surplus coming out to 2015-16 of $800 million is simply and utterly farcical. With gross debt heading towards a third of a trillion dollars and borrowings at almost $50 million a day, it is little wonder that Australians are sick and tired of the mismanagement of this government.

The government would have us believe that the situation is parlous because revenues have collapsed by $17 billion. If that were the case—and it is not, but if it were—with a $19.4 billion deficit, you would still be in deficit. The issue is not that revenues have collapsed. The issue is that this government cannot stop spending. Revenue in 2013-14 is $80 billion more than it was in the last year of the coalition government—a fact beyond dispute. The problem is that the spending is $120 billion more. The last budget of the coalition government actually had a $20 billion surplus. This government is delivering almost a $20 billion deficit. The issue is not revenue—$80 billion more revenue. The issue is the government's poor spending—poorly targeted spending, poorly outlined spending. The government cannot stop spending money that frankly it does not have. Spending as a percentage of GDP remains higher than in the last two years of the coalition government, as it has every year under Labor. It is not a revenue problem; it is a spending problem.

The government is not proceeding with family tax benefit A, which it announced in the budget, worth $2.5 billion. Its promised tax cuts have been abolished, reminiscent of the tax cuts under Keating that were l-a-w law—I think we all remember that. The mining tax was supposed to share the benefits of the boom, yet the most poorly designed tax in the history of Christendom has raised literally nothing. Company tax cuts that were to commence in 2012-13 have been cancelled. The blow-out in our borders is legion—blow-out costs of at least $4.7 billion since the last budget, with costs now approaching $10 billion—because this government found a solution and created a problem. Over 40,000 illegal entrants—that is, people who have come without a visa—have arrived because this government has put the sugar on the table. And of course the cost of living, which is killing families, is carbon tax driven in many cases. It is a legacy that the nation is not proud of. It is a legacy that the nation is ashamed of.

If we look in my area, defence, the story is no better. The budget committed $25.434 billion to defence next financial year, which is an increase in CPI of 2.25 per cent, up from $24.482 billion. You will forgive me if I do not share the enthusiasm of commentators who go, 'This is great for defence.' No, you have just kept it at CPI. What happened to the much-vaunted phrase that Labor would guarantee a three per cent real increase? Gone, all gone. That they would guarantee two per cent of GDP? All gone.

There are modest, at best, increases to DMO's acquisition and sustainment budgets: $400 million to the acquisition budget, and the sustainment budget has gone from $5.095 billion in 2012-13 to $5.63 billion in 2013-14, an increase of $600 million. But, in terms of both acquisition and sustainment, the government has stated in the budget papers that funding will rise by $1 billion for acquisition and $1.7 billion for sustainment by 2016-17.

Yet prior to this budget, prior to this small increase in line with CPI, this Labor government, as a statement of fact, has cut upwards of $25 billion from defence in the last five years. I expect that number may increase when Mark Thomson from ASPI brings down his much-anticipated, indeed relied upon, defence budget analysis document. By my calculations, the cuts that this Labor government has made defence endure will be at least $28 billion. It is staggering to think that our national security would be cut by that extreme level. This financial year we are in now has the lowest expenditure in defence in GDP terms since 1938, since prewar, at 1.56 per cent of GDP. It is a national and utter disgrace. DSTO's funding remains relatively flat, with funding next year reducing before going back up again—a major theme in Labor's budget, can I just say.

Defence is now in a position where much of its force is hollowed out; where individual units and formations are receiving cuts of up to 30 per cent; where reserve forces do not have enough days to make the minimum mandatory amount of 20 days; and where, for cadets, the single most important youth development activity in the country, cadet instructor days are being cut by 30 per cent. It is a disgrace.

The centrepiece of the government's budget, announced in the white paper which preceded the budget by a few weeks, was the acquisition of 12 Growler aircraft. It was hilarious to watch the Prime Minister and the Minister for Defence release the defence white paper out at Fairbairn in the hangar. They spent over $150,000 flying in some C17 with some gear on board and some fighters so the setting looked grand—there is nothing like a PM behind a lectern with war-fighting equipment behind it. They cannot find the money to fund it, but they can find the money for a PR stunt—pathetic! The centrepiece was 12 electronic attack Growler aircraft, Super Hornets configured for electronic attack. The budget papers reveal that those aircraft will cost $2.9 billion over nine years. So you would expect the budget to show how that will be paid for—wrong.

Do not listen to what this miserable government say; look at what they fund. If you are not talking dollars you are not talking strategy. There is $2.9 billion over nine years and there is an equity injection of $200 million in 2014-15. Where is the other $2.7 billion coming from? Absorbed costs—another way of saying cuts. Defence will have to cut by $2.7 billion to absorb this new capability. To put this point beyond any reasonable doubt, the budget papers themselves state:

That is a direct quote from budget paper No. 2, page 288. Defence is being cut by $2.7 billion. That is what this Labor government does. Don't look at what they say; look at what they do—$2.7 billion in cuts, again.

What is particularly vexing, what annoys me about this miserable bunch, is that before the 2007 and the 2010 elections they promised there would be free health care for ADF dependants: their spouses and kids, ostensibly wives and husbands, and children that get moved around the country in defence of our nation. Yet it was delayed and deferred last financial year. Nowhere is ADF health care discussed in the budget. Nowhere can I find it in the budget papers. But this morning we find an announcement on the ADF healthcare website saying that that trial has been delayed until December 2013. It is just appalling. You are never going to do it—never. You made a promise to ADF spouses and their kids that you would look after them in terms of free access to health care and you are never going to do it, and you did not even have the courage to come out and say it. You hid it on the Defence health care website. You did not have the courage in the budget. You did not have the courage in media releases. You hid it on the website. It is completely and utterly appalling.

There is a better way. In four months time, the Australian people will have the opportunity to exercise their democratic vote for a better way, on a way that does not cut health care for ADF dependants and their spouses, a way that provides certainty in terms of our defence budget and our national security. In a little over 100 days time Australians will have their say on abolishing the carbon tax, on getting rid of a mining tax that does nothing except introduce sovereign risk into our country and on getting substantial relief from costs of living by getting rid of that miserable carbon tax.

Australians will have their say in just over 100 days on having income tax cuts without a carbon tax. They will have the choice between a government that cuts, wastes, spends, cannot be trusted and is reckless and a coalition that is promising stability, no surprises, no nastiness and income tax cuts without a carbon tax. Those are fully funded commitments. The offset reductions were announced in the Leader of the Opposition's budget in reply speech. Australians will have the opportunity to have their say. The question will be: do you want a government that is taking you towards a third of a trillion dollars in gross debt or do you want an incoming coalition government that will increase productivity, that will get rid of a billion dollars of red tape and green tape every year, that will get the nation working again, that will increase productivity, and that will begin to get the budget back into surplus and to pay off the crippling debt that Labor has left it. That is the opportunity Australians will have in a little over 100 days. They will have the choice between a strong, prosperous economy and the present economy, where companies and small business are just hanging on.

They will have a choice between a government that continues to recklessly spend versus one that will have a commission of audit to look at all the unnecessary expenditure; a government that is addicted to public servants compared to a coalition that will reduce the Public Service by 12,000 personnel through natural attrition. They will have the choice, in 100 days, between a government that is recklessly spending and indebting versus a coalition that is prudent, sensible and growing. Bring on the next 100 days.

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the appropriations bills. These appropriations bills are the formal bills which underpin the 2013-14 budget. They are standard supply bills which allow for the appropriation of amounts from the Consolidated Revenue Fund to the services and programs of government and all of its agencies. These three bills, Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014, Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014 and Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014, will be considered together as a whole, part of a cognate debate.

Everyone in this House comes to this place with the best of intentions—everyone does—and I do not believe that anyone in this House is intentionally dishonest. I truly put my hand on my heart and say I do not think that is the case. For me, I believe that the budget of this nation is the most important part of the electoral cycle annually. Outside an election, the budget is what gives a government credibility. It is what you hang your hat on. It is the report card on how you have managed the nation. Colleagues of mine will come to this debate and deliver an absolute bollocking to the government for the way that they have managed the budget. Many of them will say that there are components of this budget that we will keep. As a coalition, we will not oppose this supply measure. We committed early in the parliamentary cycle to not blocking supply. We are true to our word—in this world, sometimes all you have as a human being is what comes out of your mouth: your word and intent.

So, for me this bill is about trust and about how the Australian people see this government and the way that they have been treated under this budget. This election will be about trust and, again, I do not believe that this government is dishonest. Is it incompetent? Yes. Is it inept? Yes, it is; it is lacking the basic underlying principles of sound, responsible fiscal management in every quarter. But is it dishonest? No, it is not. I really do not believe this government is dishonest; it is not. It just lacks the machinations of budgeting and the pivotal good that this part of the process can achieve. In saying that, there are parts of the budget which, due to the budget emergency, we will adopt. We need to live within our means in the future moving forward.

Anyone can get up and say what they are going to do—but do not judge us by what we say; judge us by what we do. Look at the era of the Howard government. We inherited a $97 billion deficit and we paid that down. We left money in the bank. We paid that down by selling off an asset, a small asset that we had called Telstra. It raised $45 billion. In anticipation of trying to write down the approximately $200 billion of debt, we do not have any big assets on the balance sheet at the moment to draw down. So the task in front of us is somewhat more difficult moving forward. It concerns me when the government says the debt is not high compared to other countries. That is a real concern for me because, when we left government, there was money in the bank. Now, over the forward estimates, we are looking at an interest component of around $37 billion. In economic terms, there is an opportunity cost of having that interest. That means: what would we spend that $37 billion on that, historically, we did not have as a cost item in our budget?

What services are we going to go without? What is our nation going to have to sacrifice in order to balance our books? We should not have been surprised that this was coming when we accepted our $900 cheques as part of the stimulus program. It comes back to me that we always get nothing for nothing. There is always a sting in the tail and, giddy-up, this is the sting in the tail. It is the debt-laden government policies which will haunt not only this generation but the next generation and possibly, if we do not turn the ship around quickly enough, the generation after that because of the amount of money that has to be repaid.

The government would have you believe that revenue was down. Forecasted assumptions out into the forward estimates were based on terms of trade at record highs. The government would have you believe that the revenue was down. The reality is that their forecasts were incorrect. Revenue was actually up. Evidence for that is in the budget papers for 2013-14, in the appendix. Our receipts were $350 billion, up from $329 billion last year, and our expenditure this year was $367 billion. You just need to look for yourself when you hear that the revenue was down. I looked no further than the revenue papers, the very papers that this government would have you believe are incorrect. The other thing that it is always somebody else's fault—it is Treasury's fault; it is somebody else's fault. What has happened in real terms today is that Labor's spending has increased. That is the problem with this government: they are spending more than they are earning. They are struggling to live within their means. The coalition commit that we will live within our means.

As a nation, we have transitioned from structural surpluses—structural surpluses are when you get them in a row: surplus, surplus, surplus, surplus—to structural deficits: deficit, deficit, deficit, deficit. I will help you to get your head around how big these deficits have been. Since Federation we have seen a number of crises. From 1929 to 1932 we had the Great Depression, a scar on the Australian landscape. The last six deficits that we have incurred have been greater than the deficits in that period of time. The Labor Party will try to blame the GFC. They will also blame the Australian dollar: 'It's too high.' Do you know that there were periods in Australian history when the dollar has been at $1.20 against the US dollar, much higher than the exchange rate at the moment? And yet we have businesses today going broke a great rate of knots.

This government has written up the biggest deficits—the biggest deficit, the second-biggest deficit, the third-biggest deficit, the fourth-biggest deficit and the fifth-biggest deficit, totalling $191 billion. And guess what. It is not their fault. This government is not dishonest. It is not their fault, they claim. They say it is a revenue thing. I remember when the Treasurer came out and said, 'There's been a $7.5 billion write-down in our revenue.' As he is the Treasurer, you believe him. He is not dishonest. Then a couple of days later the Prime Minister trotted out and said: 'Wayne's wrong. It's not $7.5 billion. It's actually a $12 billion write-down. Because of the economic fallout from the global financial crisis, five years ago'—this is three days after the previous announcement—'our numbers have changed. It's now $12 billion.' They are not dishonest. Then, a week after that, Senator Wong, the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, trotted out and said: 'No, no. The Prime Minister was wrong. The Treasurer was wrong. Treasury was wrong. The write-down now is $17 billion.' It is everybody else's fault. This government is not dishonest.

Was this an isolated incident? If it were, it could be forgiven as just a really ugly part of the history of the government's ability to run the books. I thought, 'If it were just the first time that these blokes have made a mistake, you could let them get away with it.' So I went and had a look at last year's forecasts.

The easiest way to look at the integrity of the four-year forecasts from a government is to go back four years and see what was budgeted for four years ago and measure it against the real figures today. That was not an isolated incident. Last year's deficit, which was one of those record high ones I spoke about, was $44 billion. Two years prior to that the government forecast that there was going to be an $8-billion deficit in the budget papers. Six months later the revised MYEFO figures forecast it was going to be a deficit of $22 billion. They said, 'We should be able to pull it up there 12 months out.' The MYEFO, six months from the budget, forecast a $6-billion and they delivered a $44 billion deficit. Am I the only one that is starting to see a track record emerging from the incompetence of this government when it comes to dealing with the nation's finances?

It would appear at face value if you look at a graph how far these guys are out. They are continually out by about $20 billion. Just think what that money could buy. As a parliament, I think we too easily go from using the word 'million' to using the word 'billion'. It just rolls off the tongue. I really challenge you to stop and think what $20 billion can buy. I hope on the trajectory that we are on at the moment that we do not make the same mistake as the government in adopting the word 'trillion'.

We left money in the bank. Our gross debt or credit card limit in 2008 was $75 billion. That was our capped rate. The government said, 'That will get us through the Global Financial Crisis. We will not need any more.' The very next year they said, 'Oh jingos, we have totally underestimated the incompetence of our own selves. We had better bump this out to $200 billion.' A couple of years later in 2012 they were back begging to have this thing bumped out to $250 billion. Today we live under a cap of $300 billion with every chance in the forward estimates period that we will get closer to $400 billion than $300 billion. It scares me as a father, it scares me as a businessman and it scares me as a politician that we are pushing the debt and the hard decisions of today onto the next generation because it is a lot easier to do that than to muscle up and make the hard decisions now.

I remind you of the integrity of those on the other side when it comes to managing the fiscal budget. Who will ever forget 'come hell or high water we will deliver a surplus'—the very words uttered by our Treasurer. Just in case that was an isolated incident, the Prime Minister then came out and said, 'If you cannot manage the budget you cannot manage the country.' There have been other comments such as:

This was a government boasting about a surplus when they had no idea that they had not even reached a surplus yet. They stuck on the $44-billion deficit. The Treasurer also said:

It sickens me. I do not believe this government. It is dishonest. It is inept and lacks the credibility to manage this country's finances.

A government should inspire a nation. It is our job to inspire this country to be better tomorrow than what it was today. We need to instil our families with hope. We need to drive a sense of confidence into our business sector so that it will invest and employ people and stimulate the economy. We need to encourage and foster investment into our nation from overseas and internally. To do that you need a robust, sound government that takes away the issues of sovereign risk that hover over the investment sector at the moment. We need to invest in sound infrastructure that gives our nation a return. We need to invest in ports and roads. History will be the judge of the investment decisions of this government.

We need to inspire our nation with reference to our agricultural sector so that in future we can produce food and fibre not only to feed ourselves but to feed the globe. We need to make sure that we have a buoyant tourism sector and that we can share the benefits of the resources sector. In closing, this has probably been the single most disappointing part of the budget for this government. They sold the perception that the resources sector was about sharing the boom. It does nothing other than share the debt and discomfort and deceit of this government.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For the past three years the government and the Treasurer pinned their credibility on the claim that they would return the budget to surplus this year. We learnt just before Christmas that they would not do so for the current 2012-13 financial year; instead of the long promised return to the black, Labor would deliver its fifth successive deficit. And then on budget night May 2014 we learnt that not only will this year's budget be in deficit by $19.4 billion, the fifth largest dollar deficit in our history, but barely less emphatic deficits of $18 billion and $10.9 billion are now forecast for the next two years. Altogether over those three fiscal years, where an aggregate surplus of $9 billion had been forecast a year ago, we now see this Labor government predicting it will run deficits of $48 billion.

The Prime Minister and the Treasurer claim the reason for this is a shortfall of revenue. Indeed, revenues are now not predicted to grow as quickly over the current year and the period immediately ahead as had been projected and as in previous periods immediately after a recession or slowdown. The reasons for that slow growth in revenue had been widely canvassed. Capital gains tax receipts were at a historically high level prior to the global financial crisis and they are unlikely to recover in the foreseeable future to those levels, particularly given some of the paper losses racked up during the GFC. The high level of corporate tax collections we saw prior to the GFC, which relied heavily on big profits in the resources sector, will now not be matched for some time because of commodity prices which are now significantly below their 2011 peak and the very large depreciation in investment related write-offs against taxable income that were arising in the resources sector due to the $320 billion or so of investment in new projects and new capacity between 2010 and 2014.

Of course, the high Australian dollar, off its peak, has nonetheless been a factor in reducing tax collections. Exporters revenues, measured in Australian dollars, are reduced even if the contract currency revenues, typically in US dollars, have remained the same. And of course the Australian dollar cost of exporters, whether of minerals, manufactures or services like tourism and education, cannot be passed on. And finally there is the impact of higher household savings, which since 2006 has been around 10 per cent of GDP, up from negligible levels of net savings in the early 2000s. That is a very welcome development in that it implicitly recognises the level of consumer spending of a decade ago was unsustainable and underpinned by a rising level of net debt. But it has also reduced indirect tax collections and, most of all, the collection of GST.

Despite all of this however, revenues in 2013-14 are forecast to be $103 billion higher than in Peter Costello's final 2007-08 budget. That is an increase of 38 per cent in nominal terms, or about 12 per cent in real terms, and that despite the impact of the GFC. The real problem is that spending has surged by $138 billion since Labor came to power in November 2007. That is an increase of 55 per cent in nominal terms, or 25 per cent in real terms. Profligate spending and a habitual disregard for the responsible use of taxpayers' funds has become ingrained. The government says that it has a revenue problem. Saying that the government has a revenue problem is as stupid as saying a person who is a spendthrift and regularly maxes out his credit card has a revenue problem. The government, like any spendthrift, has a spending problem; in other words, it cannot live within its means. Little wonder that almost a quarter of a century has elapsed since Labor's last surplus was delivered by Paul Keating in 1989-90 before the birth of the youngest member of the parliament.

The parlous situation that the budget is left in and that we will inherit if the people of Australia give the coalition the reins of government in September is far from being a proud legacy for the Rudd and Gillard governments. It is a shameful legacy for the current Treasurer who will have presided over the six years with the most favourable terms of trade in our modern history and delivered six successive deficits in those years including the five largest dollar shortfalls since Federation. Yet in recent weeks—and particularly since Treasury and the Parliamentary Budget Office last week published their respective opinions regarding the path over recent years of the structural budget balance—there has been a lot of finger-pointing at the Howard government as having contributed to the current state of the budget. By the structural fiscal balance, we mean the position of the budget once the effects of the economic cycle—such as an increase in unemployment benefits when the cycle slows or the offsetting decrease when growth in output and employment are rapid—are abstracted away and other one-time influences—such as the pre-GFC bubble in capital gains tax collections or the temporary fiscal stimulus measures of 2009—are also removed.

Let me state unambiguously that, had the Howard government enjoyed the wisdom of perfect hindsight, granted I might say to none of us, and had known then what we know now about the future course of commodity prices and their impact on revenues, no doubt it would have saved even more in its last four years of office than the already prodigious public sector saving it did undertake between 1996 and 2007. Of course, in that world of perfect hindsight, where you could in 2007 cast yourself forward five years and see what the future held, no doubt the many voices calling for the Howard government to save even less would no doubt have been similarly converted to thrift. The saving of the Howard years, let us recall, included paying off the entire public debt inherited from its predecessor and the establishment of the Future Fund which now has accumulated assets of $85 billion to finance the hitherto unfunded public service pension liabilities. But to somehow try and claim a moral equivalence between the Howard government and the current Labor government in responsibility for the current state of the budget is quite absurd. It is nothing more and nothing less than a framing of the issue entirely directed at getting the current government off the hook—providing it with an excuse for its own incompetence, ill discipline and mendacity about fiscal matters.

What the Parliamentary Budget Office's publication on the structural position of the budget actually shows is that in those years for which the budget balance has been calculated—which is the period since the turn of this century, the midpoint of the Parliamentary Budget Office's estimated range—was in structural surplus in every year of the Howard government except its last and even in the last year it was broadly in balance. In contrast the structural budget balance under Labor, according to the PBO's work, has been in deficit every year and is projected to remain in deficit until 2017. If that is what actually plays out, there will have been a decade of huge to modest structural deficits, all of them through a period when our terms of trade have been higher and will be higher than they have ever been before in modern times. By the end of all of this, $45 billion in cash at the bank left behind by the coalition in November 2007 will have been turned into net public debt of $191 billion.

In reality the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have engineered a permanent increase in the size of government by declining to find offsetting savings for their new programs—some of them no doubt worthy, but all of them costly. Mr Swan and Ms Gillard indulged in this profligacy because they assumed ongoing revenue gains from the resources boom and the record terms of trade of the past few years. But even that rash assumption alone does not excuse their waste and profligacy. We have seen what was plainly going to be a highly-cyclical source of income, namely the mineral resource rent tax, used to justify spreading the benefits of the boom—by which this shambolic government meant locking in a level of structural spending much higher than even the most optimistic projections for the cyclical revenues out of which that spending was supposedly to be funded.

Even that assumed Labor was capable of designing and implementing a mining tax that actually raised some revenue. In truth, we now know that the only Labor politician who can claim to have spread the benefits of the mining boom is not Wayne Swan but rather Eddie Obeid—although to be fair he did not spread to the benefits very far, just to his immediate family and friends.

Recently we have also heard the canard that, because the Howard government cut income taxes and promised further tax cuts if it were re-elected in 2007, this somehow is the reason for the precarious current state of the budget. What nonsense! The income tax cuts that occurred after 2007 were a choice that the current Treasurer, and the government of which he is a part, made. They claimed all credit for them. They did not say, 'Peter Costello made me do it. John Howard had my arms twisted up behind my back.' It was their choice. If they disagreed with those tax cuts—if they thought they were unaffordable—they should have said so in 2007. If the facts changed, such that they no longer were affordable, why did they continue with them? Or, having implemented them, why did they not repeal them?

Every government is responsible for the outcome of its budget. Unlike households that cannot increase their revenue of their own volition, the government can always raise more revenue and reduce spending, so the responsibility must lie with the government of the day; and this government has been presented with terms of trade and economic circumstances that should have seen solid growth in surplus—a rapid return to surplus, given these massive boosts we have had from the terms of trade. But no: they are anxious to blame everyone but themselves. Not only were John Howard and Peter Costello meant to be paragons of fiscal responsibility while they were in power—not only were they apparently meant to have the wisdom of 20/20 vision in both hindsight and foresight while in power, they were apparently supposed to continue to be the adults in the room after they had been voted out of office—by influencing the Labor cabinet in some ethereal manner, no doubt.

This is a total abrogation of responsibility—an admission of weakness and lack of judgement. Governments can borrow more easily than most families or businesses, as we have seen, but they ultimately need to live within their means. That is their responsibility. This government has not lived within its means despite the extraordinary advantages and immensely strong fiscal position it has inherited. We are in a situation where we are in a structural deficit and are likely to remain in a structural deficit for many years to come. The position that was inherited from the Howard years was one of a strong budgetary position and a structural surplus—or, as I noted earlier, in the last year, one that was broadly in balance. No matter how the members of this government and some members of the commentariat attempt to frame the issue otherwise, it will be this lack of fiscal responsibility—this sense that the Labor government does not understand the economy it has the charge of managing—that will in large part dictate how the nation votes on 14 September.

The big issue in this election is not going to be a particular policy—this policy or that policy; overwhelmingly, it is going to be the question of competence. The fact is that the Treasurer has been unable to deliver a surplus, despite one promise after another. He has promised a surplus on hundreds of occasions but he has been unable to deliver one. All that he can offer us is deficits year after year into the future. This underlines the ineptitude, the lack of managerial capacity and the lack of competence of this Labor government.

Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think some of the most significant words spoken during the debate about the government's 2013-14 budget came from the Leader of the Opposition when he said in his reply;

I wholeheartedly concur with that statement. The electorate of Pearce, for example, is a unique microcosm of the diversity of the state of Western Australia. The people are hardworking, enterprising and innovative. The electorate supports wealth-creating enterprises of broadacre wheat and sheep farming, mining, intensive agriculture, fishing, retailing, education, manufacturing and tourism. I have long encountered the enthusiasm that businesspeople have in the region and, in fact, it was that enthusiasm and those can-do altitudes which were the impetus for my move into politics in 1993. Once elected, I had the task of writing the coalition's small business policy as shadow minister. It became one of the key election platforms of the successful 1996 election for the coalition. The messages coming from the business community then were clear, and they are really clear now. That message was: 'Get off your backs, reduce red tape and manage the economy so we do not have to endure the dramatic highs and lows which interfere with our capacity to forward plan for our businesses.'

The Howard government addressed these concerns and freed up business from the shackles of wild swings in the economy, the high interest rates, which were prevalent prior to our taking government, and the credit squeezes and the burgeoning red tape, which had also been features. In fact, as the Leader of the Opposition pointed out in his budget speech,

And further he said:

It was a different era, for sure, but it was nonetheless challenging as the Asian financial crisis threatened a global financial meltdown in 1997. The messages coming from business today, as I said, are not unlike those in 1993. The current administration's profligate spending, increased debt and added burdens of red tape are still causing concern and, indeed, reducing the viability and the profitability of many business enterprises in this country.

While I am not one to slavishly follow a doctrine of laissez faire or a totally free market economy, I recognise the wisdom of minimising the interference of government in the operation of enterprise. This principle is essential to the building of a strong economy. A strong economy is, after all, the foundation of 'a smarter nation and a fairer society'—words the Treasurer used in the title of his budget speech. As we witnessed, it is impossible to deliver these laudable elements in a smarter, fairer nation if the nation's financial strength is compromised. In response to the government's claims that they will deliver a surplus, the Leader of the Opposition makes the observation:

As he pointed out, 'This year's revenue shortfalls went from $7 billion to $12 billion to $17 billion in just two weeks.' So how can ministers possibly predict a decade ahead? My colleague made some mention of this in his speech just now.

There is no doubt that we live in uncertain times, with major changes afoot. The face of retailing, for example, is changing dramatically with the advent of tax-free online trade. Global trade agreements and tariff removal have challenged growers and manufacturers with cheap imports coming from countries that do not pay decent wages, do not have occupational health and safety regulations, do not contribute to employee's superannuation, do not have rigorous rules about what fertilizers and chemicals are put on plants and animals, and do not have strict standards on food handling as those imposed on our Australian producers and manufacturers.

One wonders about the partial policies of propping up a car manufacturing industry in this country to the tune of more than $1 billion per annum for the last 10 years, yet when our farmers and our growers seek assistance they are told they must find ways to become more productive and competitive or get out of the business. And by the way, we have cut the government's contribution to research and development in these important areas of agriculture and horticulture, and made it a user-pays system of levies.

The Leader of the Opposition's commitments to take a more prudent approach to economic management and to cut red tape does resonate for those engaged in the industries and enterprises that make Australia wealthy in more than just an economic sense. As the shadow Treasurer the member for North Sydney said during his recent press club speech following the budget, 'All the coalition's main policies are designed to make it easier for you, the people, to get ahead, and for businesses to be more productive.'

It was refreshing to hear the member for North Sydney's understanding of the difficulties of small businesses when he outlined the deep impact on his cousin, who recently faced a decision to close the doors of his business after 21 years. As the member for North Sydney related:

Dare I add, it has probably paid for some savings for their retirement, as well. My own personal experience is that small business not only adds immeasurably to the strength of our economy but also to the social cohesion within our communities. So I personally look forward to the day when government does all it can to remove the uncertainties for businesses, manages to tame the economic volatility and unpredictability, and develops education and training that facilitates the leap to a brave new world of global online commerce.

In 1999 my former colleague the Hon. Tim Fischer commissioned a series of projects called Putting Australia on the New Silk Road, Driving Forces on the New Silk Road, and Creating a Clearway on the New Silk Road. They were three very significant reports. His work was prescient as he recognised the challenges ahead for Australian businesses in the early moves towards electronic commerce through the internet.

Tim Fischer believed that it presented great opportunities for Australia, including for rural and regional Australia to increase exports and generate well-paying jobs. The series makes for thought-provoking reading. His warning, which has largely gone unheeded, was timely. As he said:

I wholeheartedly agree. Our future relies on people having the skills for the development of the technology, its servicing and its efficient and intelligent use. Yet there is little sign that the current administration has any plans for upskilling the workforce through technical trades and education to meet current needs and future demands. Personally, I would like to see a robust policy to ensure that training and education meet the present and future requirements of our business enterprises so that they have the best chance of succeeding in an increasingly competitive world.

Whatever our plans for the future, it will be a well-managed, low-deficit economy that will underpin our national interest. The coalition has an outstanding record in this regard. The shadow Treasurer outlined some of those issues that will lead us into a stronger and better economy when he said that, although Labor has left the cupboard bare, which will make it difficult, there is a great need for structural reform in our economic management. That is one of the key elements of the coalition's plan for the future of this country.

I conclude by expressing my deep disappointment in the reduction of overseas aid in the budget. Australia does not live in a vacuum. We are a wealthy country in a region that still suffers some terrible poverty. I was pleased to hear Bill Gates yesterday in answering a question here in the Great Hall say that looking after some of the poverty and problems within our own country does not preclude us from looking after people living in deep poverty within the region.

At the time of this announcement by the government I actually had an email from one of my constituents, Phil Lindsay, who is a development effectiveness officer at TEAR Australia. TEAR does some amazing work globally to reduce poverty. Phil Lindsay is currently working in the South Sudan. His email conveys just what an impact a small donation from Australia can have on the lives of village women in the South Sudan. I will read it in his words: 'Nyarike has four children. Recently TEAR, with some AusAID funding, supported the construction of a borehole near her village. Previous to the borehole being drilled she used to get up at 2 am each morning, prepare the day's food and then walk five hours to collect water for the day. She then walked five hours back home again to complete her day's tasks. She used to collect water from a river, which meant that she had problems with Guinea worm and dirty water, so diarrhoea and other diseases were prevalent. Now she has water a few minutes from her home she is able to spend more time cultivating land to improve her family's nutrition. There is much less disease and she is much more healthy herself being able to rest properly at night.'

I have witnessed many aid projects funded by AusAID in places such as Cambodia, the western provinces of China and Tibet and have seen firsthand the profound impact that these relatively small amounts of money have had on the lives of people living in abject poverty. I have seen some of the positive work done by AusAID in these parts of the world, including Pacific countries.

I welcome the coalition's commitment to lift the aid budget to 0.5 per cent of gross national income by 2016-17 once the performance benchmarks that were promised as part of the review into foreign aid programs are established. It is to be hoped that this will be an early achievement should the coalition win the next election.

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

As tempting as it is today to reflect on the budget crisis, I am not going to talk much about the mess that the Labor Party is leaving our nation in. I am going to focus on the strengths and opportunities which are waiting to be developed by any government which shares my passion for the future of regional Australia. The importance of regional Australia to the future of our nation has never been properly grasped by either the Rudd or the Gillard governments. I have argued many times that to truly understand the hopes and aspirations of regional people, you need to live amongst us. It has been an insult to us that not a single cabinet minister actually lives in regional Australia. This has led to some appalling misjudgements and decisions which have devastated regional communities, like the ill-conceived ban on live exports. It has also led to the ridiculous situation where the minister for regional Australia once claimed that spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a Perth airport link road was a regional project because regional people drive on the road! But all of that is in the past. What we need to do today and in the next few months is look to the future and ensure that regional Australia resumes its rightful place, front and centre of every decision that is made by the federal government, whether it be a coalition government or a Labor government.

To start that process we need to have strong voices in the cabinet of the federal government—where the big decisions are made. We need regional voices. We need authentic, regional people prepared to fight for a fair go for regional Australians—for our farmers, for our small-business people, for our children, for our teenagers, for our families, for the elderly and for the Indigenous community. That is one thing the coalition, if elected in the September election, can offer regional Australia on day one,: we can offer regional Australia talented, experienced, senior ministers in cabinet who share our passion for the future of communities outside the capital cities.

I am a hopeless optimist and I recognise that we have a budgetary mess to clean up—but I believe the coalition is up to the job. And I sincerely believe that regional Australia's best days lie ahead of us. We already make an enormous contribution to the wealth and prosperity of our nation. But with a better government—helping and not hindering our performance—we can do even more. We need a concerted effort by the federal government to reinvest in the future of regional Australia. We need the federal government to work in partnership with all other levels of government, to work in partnership with our business and community leaders, and to reinvest in the future of regional Australia. We all have some ideas about how this might happen, but we need more than a just a collection of ideas, plans and concepts that individual MPs or others from across the nation might bring to the negotiating table. I believe that regional Australia needs its own white paper. For the sake of clarity, Deputy Speaker, I must stress that this is not a formal policy position of the coalition. It is an issue that I have raised before within the coalition, within the national party room and within the joint party room, and it is something I have talked about before in the media. I believe we need to have a regional white paper to do something that can make a real difference to the lives of regional Australians.

The development of a regional Australia white paper would allow for a more holistic approach to government policies on regional development and would provide us with a blueprint for the future. It could be used to highlight the current barriers to regional growth, and to highlight the opportunities for regional Australia to play an even bigger role in our nation's future prosperity. Such a white paper would certainly assist regional MPs, whether they be Labor, Liberal-Nationals or Independents, in arguing the case for government investment in our communities. It would be an objective assessment of our strengths and our weaknesses, and of the opportunities and the threats facing regional Australia. It would provide us with a comprehensive road map for the future. Remarkably, in Australia's history there has not been a white paper specifically on the regions. We have never seen a regional white paper. It is time we developed our own blueprint for the future.

We have had the white paper on the Asian century—which depends very heavily on regional Australia making an enormous contribution, but it never actually makes it clear how we are going to overcome some of the challenges facing regional Australia in order to fully integrate it with the Asian century white paper. We need to ask questions—and answer the questions—about how we are going to meet the skills and infrastructure challenges of the future. What can the federal government do to help our regional towns achieve their full potential? Are we ever going to get serious about relieving congestion in our major cities by driving growth in our regional communities through strategic infrastructure upgrades and delivering better services in our towns and our provincial centres? Will we ever drop the one-size-fits-all approach and give regional towns the flexibility to deliver service models that actually work in their own communities? It is about time we trusted the people on the ground in our regional centres to make the right decisions for their community. They are the local experts. We need to invest in the leadership capacity of regional Australia to help young people achieve their full potential and make a long-term contribution to the regional communities where they were born, where they have grown up and where they want to have their future—not be forced to travel away and maybe never return, even though they would prefer to live and work outside our major capitals.

There is a great news story to be told about regional Australia. Too often the stories we see in the media are about floods, about droughts, about fires, about population loss and other grim news. We need to get better at selling the story about the extraordinary opportunities which exist throughout regional Australia, the lifestyle advantages we can offer and the career paths which exist for many young people—way beyond the experience they could ever hope to achieve in a metropolitan environment.

In an era when we have a constant debate about the work-life balance, where we have time-poor parents in the big cities trying to juggle jobs, trying to do the double drop-off to child care, trying to excel in their chosen career and also be the wonder parents of the year, battling to get to work on congested roads and visiting parks where they dare not walk alone after dark, we have a very positive story to tell about regional Australia. That story is about the quality of life, and it is about the work-life balance that we can offer. It is also about the natural beauty of our extraordinary environment. It is about the access, in many cases, to world-class health services and education services in larger regional centres, which I think would surprise many people in metropolitan environments. We can boast of lower levels of crime. We can also boast of the housing affordability benefits of our regional communities.

One of the great things about regional life is of course reconnecting with the community, having a sense that you belong to something bigger than yourself and you are an important part of life through volunteering and other activities. It is about selling the story about the professional opportunities which are often dismissed by city dwellers who have not realised what is available to them in a non-metropolitan environment. There is such an incredible amount of diversity, responsibility and opportunities for rapid promotion in our regional centres that it is sometimes staggering for me to believe that we have a skill shortage in many professions in regional Australia.

As regional Australians, we need to get better at selling that message. We need to explain to industry and commerce throughout Australia that we are open for business and we are welcoming to newcomers from all walks of life. We have a job ahead of us in that regard. But governments also need to lift their game in that respect, and I think it starts with a regional Australia white paper. We need to build the case for further strategic investment in critical infrastructure and the key services to drive growth in our regional areas.

This week I met with the Regional Cities Victoria organisation, and we talked about a report which is titled Implications of population growth on infrastructure and resources in regional cities. It makes pretty much the same case that I am making here today. Investing in infrastructure in regional areas to help support population growth and take the pressure off our metropolitan areas makes sense at every level: at a social level, economically and environmentally. I know I do not need to tell you, Deputy Speaker Cheeseman. You live in a regional provincial centre, and you understand the benefits that come from the significant growth we have already experienced in regions like Geelong. That trend is expected to continue into the future. But, with the right level of investment from governments at all levels and with the right policy framework, I believe that regional areas can play an even bigger role in our nation's future.

We need the bold nation-building initiatives like the Melbourne and Brisbane inland rail. It has been talked about for decades, but we are still waiting for the productivity and the safety improvements it can deliver to our nation. Our regional road network is falling apart, and the local councils throughout Australia are struggling to keep up with the basic maintenance costs, let alone having the capacity to invest in new infrastructure. The NBN bypasses many rural areas, while basic community services in regional Australia vary significantly in quality from state to state and can be a limitation when it comes to attracting skilled professionals. We still have some of the really simple things like mobile phone black spots, and we do not have a policy from the current government to help improve that situation.

I believe that a regional Australia white paper could turbocharge the COAG process. It would provide greater focus and would build on the existing 684-word communique which stands as the collaborative approach at the moment amongst the states and the Commonwealth. We need to take a whole-of-government approach and help provide the business case for that strategic investment I talked about and the public spending on new facilities and services while also examining the opportunities for leveraging off private sector investment.

When I talk about infrastructure investment, of course I am not just talking about roads, bridges, ports and rail—the really heavy infrastructure that we know is required to drive economic growth. There needs to be a greater appreciation in this place about the soft infrastructure: the swimming pools, the walking trails, the cycle paths, the boat ramps and other recreational facilities that contribute significantly to the quality of life and form part of that complete package of life in rural and regional Australia and also part of the attraction for our tourism sector.

Governments are already pouring an enormous amount of public money into facilities in our capital cities—the stadiums, the art galleries, the major events—but can we honestly say that a proportionate amount of public spending is also being delivered to our regional communities? At the moment, many of our major capital cities are hopelessly congested. I would argue that adding a few more lanes on freeways will not solve the problem, while many of our regional centres could actually double in size with little if any impact on the quality of life for many of the residents. Today we are experiencing the productivity losses of people sitting in traffic. We have well-paid employees in traffic jams when they could be contributing to our economy or, perhaps more importantly, relaxing with their own families. I think it is a major concern, and I believe regional Australia is part of the solution.

We must stop looking at regional Australia as if it is a problem and start realising that regional Australia is part of the solution. If our nation is going to prosper and achieve its full potential in the 21st century, there needs to be renewed focus on regional Australia. Various governments have toyed with the idea of decentralisation and I note again that Geelong has experienced the benefit of the TAC relocation from Melbourne. We need to get serious about relocating public service organisations which have no need to be anchored to these city locations. A regional Australia white paper could help make that case as well. It could help us out with our thinking in this area. It may well recommend which departments, or which discrete functions within a department, should be moved out.

As I said, the TAC has been moved to Geelong; ASIC has been established in Traralgon and it has worked. It has worked very well, and it would be interesting to do a cost-benefit analysis of that as part of a regional Australia white paper to assess what other departments may well benefit from a move to a regional location. I think that a regional Australia white paper could also look at incentives for private enterprise to expand into regional areas. I acknowledge, and I think it is very well accepted within regional development circles, that most of our growth in regional communities will come from existing businesses investing more into their operations—

perhaps in partnership, leveraging with government investment; but there may be opportunities to assist other firms to relocate as our cities become too congested and their productivity is jeopardised in the metropolitan environment.

A regional Australia white paper could also help to build the case for decent policies to help regional students achieve their full potential by improving the system of student income support. I note the presence of the member for Grey who has been a tireless advocate on behalf of regional students in his electorate, in ensuring we have a decent system of youth allowance in our nation. We are going to need champions like the member for Grey who is prepared to continue to advocate on behalf of the students in his electorate. I know he has spoken before, and I have continued to speak, about the need for a tertiary access allowance which I believe will provide regional students with a genuine opportunity to achieve their full potential by relieving some of the cost burden which exists for country students travelling away to attend university. I am going to continue to advocate for a tertiary access allowance in the lead-up to this year's election and certainly after the election, regardless of which party wins government. I believe we need to fight for a better deal for regional students and their families. Most importantly, when we send our kids away for university or further vocational training, we need to have a better system of bringing them back. We need to make sure that after they have graduated—once they have those skills or have travelled the world, perhaps—they want to come back and help bring those skills back to our regional centres in the future.

The time is right for change in regional Australia. I acknowledge that regional Australia does face some enormous challenges but we are also blessed with enormous opportunities. We have resources which are the envy of the world, but I would still argue that the greatest asset we have of all is our people. In my maiden speech I talked about the remarkable community spirit, resilience and determination of the people of Gippsland. Over the past five years I have had the opportunity to travel extensively throughout other parts of regional Australia and nothing I have seen in that five years has changed my mind. The resilience and determination I talked about then still exists and is a common bond that seems to link all of our regional communities. This is not something that is unique to Gippsland—it is unique to our regional communities across Australia. We should be very proud, as regional Australians, that throughout our nation's relatively short history we have contributed such an enormous amount to the economic, cultural and social life of the nation.

Many of us in regional Australia are true environmentalists. We are the great environmentalists, the custodians of our land and water reserves. It is regional Australians who join Landcare. It is regional Australians who roll up their sleeves and do the practical environmental work while the inner-city greenies lecture us, pontificate and pretend to care about the environment. It is our people in regional Australia who are the true environmentalists of this nation, not the inner-city Greens.

Regional Australia desperately needs a federal government that will work with us. We need a government that recognises the value of rural and regional communities and is prepared to invest in the future of those communities. We need a government that will trust us. It is an important point: we need a government that will trust us to develop local solutions to local problems rather than tie us down with more red tape and the bureaucratic madness that stifles development and destroys innovation.

We are on the cusp of a great century in regional Australia. All we need is a federal government that will give us a fair go.

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

We have heard a lot over the last couple of weeks about the budget—and there is certainly no hiding the fact that Labor's financial and budgetary management is in total chaos. We have heard all the figures: total gross debt to breach the $300 billion ceiling, record net debt of $192 billion and more than $25 billion in higher taxes over the next four years.

But, as distressing as these figures are, when considering our country's future, today I want to focus on what they will mean to the people of Leichhardt—what they will mean to our frontline services and what they will mean to growth of jobs in Cairns, Cape York and of course in the Torres Strait.

My first area of concern—and I have a number of them to share with you today—is the impact of the budget on education, specifically tertiary education. James Cook University is a world-class facility with campuses split between Townsville and Cairns. The vice-chancellor, Sandra Harding, recently contacted me to outlay exactly how this government's $3.8 billion in cuts will affect universities and student support.

Local students already pay more for their education than those in many other countries—more than 80 per cent of full-time undergraduates have to find a job; around 17 per cent said they regularly went without food and other necessities because they could not afford them. These cuts mean greater hardships for students, particularly those from low-SES backgrounds and regional areas such as Leichhardt, at a time when student finances are already under severe pressure.

In addition, quality is at the very core of Australia's position as a provider of higher education. To compromise quality is to compromise our third-largest export industry at a time when we should be looking at how Australia can cement its position as an educator for the Asia century. This is particularly relevant to Cairns. We are perfectly positioned geographically for a strong relationship with China and, with the start of direct China-Cairns flights last year, we are now firmly on their cultural and tourism radar. Therefore, tertiary education is not an area that can be compromised.

My second concern relates to the controls of our borders. When the coalition left government in 2007—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 12:02 to 12:16

I will continue my contribution on my second concerns, about the control of our borders. When the coalition left government in 2007 we had fixed this problem: there were fewer than half a dozen boats over five years. Under Labor, the number of illegal arrivals by boat has increased to more than 2,000 per month. As of 10 May, more than 23,000 people were either in the detention network or on bridging visas in the community. Not only can Labor not control our borders; they also cannot control the detention centres where they are putting these people. The centres are bursting at the seams because of this failed policy.

You may have heard over the weekend of an escape of seven detainees from the Scherger Immigration Detention Centre, near Weipa on Cape York, in my electorate. These seven detainees, aided and abetted by five other individuals, were able to escape over the fence of the high-security Scherger detention centre. One made his way to Weipa township, where he was arrested. Six were actually able to board a commercial flight from Weipa to Cairns, where they were arrested after they had booked into the local backpackers. It sounds like a movie plot, but in reality it is extremely serious and illustrates the absolute failure of the Gillard government's immigration policy.

On the subject of border security, defence is of course closely tied to it. In the recent defence white paper, Scherger Air Force Base—the site of that detention centre—was identified as being in a prime position to support Joint Strike Fighter operations. It is of little surprise that it was recently revealed that the Department of Defence had vehemently opposed the use of Scherger as a prison farm, if you like.

The white paper also revealed plans to replace the Armidale patrol boats and the Navy's two large replenishment ships, which were touted as projects to save Australia's shipbuilding industry, and identified opportunities for closer relations with our Asian and Pacific neighbours. As with the educational opportunities for foreign students, Cairns is perfectly positioned to fulfil these requirements. We have in HMAS Cairns a well-equipped base with potential for expansion. Its commanding officer and the Chamber of Commerce and Advance Cairns are keen to see these opportunities embraced. Unfortunately, as you would have guessed, Mr Deputy Speaker, there is nothing in the budget for these initiatives. Even more unfortunately, the shipbuilding industry that we actually had in Cairns was destroyed under this government. It had actually built patrol boats and hydrographic ships in the past and had serviced them. It was given a contract in 2007, only to have it revoked. As a consequence our shipbuilding capacity was absolutely decimated.

My fourth issue relates to the National Broadband Network. No policy has been more overpromised and underdelivered than the NBN. Even as Labor boasts its NBN projects, the 2013-14 budget is an admission that the projects are failing. Look at the rollout schedule. Work has started in south Cairns. In the coastal communities to the north of Cairns work is scheduled to start within three years except for the tourism hub of Port Douglas. I say 'scheduled' because there is more than a degree of scepticism in relation to these commitments.

However, the area that has the greatest need of high-speed efficient and reliable broadband, most of Cape York and the Torres Strait, is not even on the schedule. Residents in regional and remote areas of Leichhardt need this. They struggle already with access to reliable telecommunications, radio communications and digital television. Their schools, hospitals and businesses and community groups should not be disadvantaged further compared to their metropolitan counterparts.

The fifth area important to mention relates to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We know that Australian needs a new system of support for people with disability where the individual is at the centre and in charge. I have spoken in favour of the NDIS in this place. However, at the end of the day this is an insurance policy and it needs to be paid for. The coalition has supported the government's proposed increase in the Medicare levy but the government must also outline how the remaining 60 per cent funding shortfall will be provided. This budget fails to achieve that.

We also continue to wait for more detail about the NDIS—for example, the assessment criteria, the differences between inherited and acquired disability, the lack of support for people over the age of 65. The last one is starting to really raise some serious concerns in my electorate. People over the age of 65 are still expected to contribute through their Medicare levy but they cannot expect to get any services. I find it quite amazing that we are discriminating against people at this time and place on the basis of their age.

All these are legitimate questions that currently remain unanswered for people with disability and the organisations that support them. It is interesting that a constituent of mine, Kel Chambers, heard that around 1,000 public servants will be required to administer the scheme from Canberra. Kel is legitimately concerned about the efficiency of this, given the federal government's track record with the home insulation program, better schools program, management of Australia's borders and the like.

As for our agricultural industry, after five long years of neglect and anti-agricultural policies and no vision for the sector, Labor's only solutions are band aids. In my region, the northern cattle producers and the dairy industry are all experiencing major profitability issues. Graziers I have spoken to are facing some very challenging options as a result of Labor's knee-jerk banning of live export trade in 2011, compounded by the drought in regional Queensland. We have something like up to two million head of cattle in limbo that have now become either too heavy to be exported or in some cases too emaciated to be moved as they are starved due to lack of feed. The grass growth is now slowing down as we are coming into the colder months and it will not be too long before the 2013 calf drop which is going to exacerbate the problem even further. We certainly do not want to see these cattle being shot in the paddocks as is already starting to happen. Already this is becoming an animal welfare issue of massive proportions in its own right.

Unfortunately, all Labor can come up with in the budget is farm finance loans and drought assistance, basically robbing Peter to pay Paul with funds sourced from redirected Caring for our Country. There are no initiatives to improve farm profitability. Despite all of the government's rhetoric for the Asian century, there is no initiative in the budget that will help agriculture capitalise on the trade opportunities in our northern neighbours.

Another area that that is highly relevant in my electorate is tourism. You may remember that in last year's budget I was very concerned about the increases in passenger movement charges and the cuts to Customs affecting our visitor processing capacity. We are now seeing the fallout from this. The PMC or tourism departure tax will generate more than a billion dollars a year and nearly 1.4 million visitors will sit in the arrivals hall queue for more than an hour. Is this the way we want to welcome visitors to Cairns international airport? I would have to suggest that the answer would have to be absolutely not.

The Gillard government also promised in 2010 to spend $10 million a year on tourism grants. But they are set to break yet another promise because less than $25 million of the $40 million allocated is to be delivered before the election. How many tourism ventures or accommodation houses in Far North Queensland could have benefited from refurbishment or expansion yet have not been able to get access to these funds? What a waste. We need a new approach to tourism, a government that wants to enable not subsidise, a government that sees the value of the marketing our country overseas and a government that does not push tourism down with excessive bureaucracy or burden operators with a carbon tax.

Finally, these concerns are very close to my heart. I have to highlight a number of issues under the umbrella of health. You have heard me speak many times in this place about the tuberculosis issue. In this budget the government was given the opportunity to provide Queensland Health with the $24 million it owes the Cairns Base Hospital for the treatment of tuberculosis of PNG nationals and to look at reopening the Saibai and Boigu clinics. Unfortunately there is no funding whatsoever to pay their debts in this regard. The fallout from this government's failure to pay these bills is now being seen with the death for weeks ago of an Australian Torres Strait Islander in Cairns Base Hospital. Twenty four million dollars should have been spent on frontline services, recruitment and retention of qualified and experienced staff and on outreach programs in our regional and remote areas. Unfortunately our health services were denied that opportunity, and I hold Minister Plibersek and Senator McLucas responsible for the death of this Mrs Mareta Wosomo—it was totally preventable and should never have happened.

I am also disappointed to see little in the way of support for mental health services. I recently intervened on two occasions where young people with serious mental health challenges were about to be put into a totally inappropriate environment. There is an urgent need for a new approach for the funding and provision of mental health services in Cairns and in Far North Queensland. We have in headspace, Time Out House, the Carers' Hub and the Clubhouse some excellent programs that target different age groups and complement each other perfectly.

Many small businesses and operators that I have spoken to are looking for a game changer that will lessen red tape burdens and boost our economy. The coalition certainly has that plan. The words of opposition leader Tony Abbott in his budget reply were:

The coalition stands ready to end the chaos of Labor and to provide a strong, stable and accountable government that the people of Leichardt need and certainly deserve.

Debate adjourned.