Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank all those who stood to support me on this occasion. Perhaps they may even like to stay and listen to what I have to say. As the government lurches towards the end of its term Australians are looking for change. Frankly, they have had enough. They have had enough of three years of constant internal warfare which has just left the country with a feeling of despair. Here we are, just two days of parliamentary sittings left and just 80 days away from an election, and the government still has not made up its mind who its leader is going to be when it comes to this election campaign. Will it be the current Prime Minister or are we going to get a re-run of the previous Prime Minister? The facts are that, with all the division, the chaos and the dysfunction, neither is worthy of the Prime Minister's office. The party they purport to lead is not worthy of being entrusted with government. Both have proved that they cannot be trusted by the Australian people.

The coalition is focused on a better future for our country, focused on families and businesses. Labor have forgotten all about the people they purport to represent. They just look inwards. They are fighting amongst themselves. Australia's national interest does not get a look in. Families are forgotten. The people are forgotten. Is it any wonder that so many people look at their lives and wonder how the last three years could have been so wasted? They wonder how the opportunities that our country had, with the best terms of trade that it has enjoyed for ever, could have been squandered by a government that has no direction, knew not where it was going. This government was just being as creative as it possibly could be to develop and invent new taxes that actually hurt the Australian people and have sent our country backwards. Labor has just governed itself for almost six years now, self-obsessed and self-destructive. Around 40 new or higher taxes have been imposed on the Australian people.

Above all, Labor's carbon tax is hurting Australian families. It is costing jobs. It is sending manufacturing overseas, as was just alluded to in the previous debate. Under this government, three manufacturing jobs are being lost every hour. Is that the kind of record a Labor government would want to leave behind? The Treasurer said in his last budget that this budget would be about growth and jobs, except the budget forecasts lower growth and fewer jobs, more unemployment. There was a budget a few years ago that was about jobs, jobs, jobs. But this government has in fact stalled the rate of jobs growth and manufacturing jobs. Indeed, so many other jobs are being sent overseas on a daily basis.

But the carbon tax is slugging all Australian families, particularly those who live in the regions. For most of the last 12 months, the $23 per tonne carbon tax that Australians are paying has been more than five times higher than the rate in Europe. What is worse, our tax is much more comprehensive in its coverage of the economy. The European tax just touches a handful of industries. Many of Europe's key industries—the export industries, the food-processing industries—are exempt. If you go to New Zealand, the food-producing industry is exempt, but the rate is only 75c a tonne.

Australia has the world's biggest carbon tax and it has done the world's biggest damage. It is a tax that is costing jobs and hurting families. But Labor has not yet had enough. Next week the carbon tax goes up. It goes up to $24.15 per tonne, 32 times higher than New Zealand's effective rate of 75c a tonne. Is it any wonder, therefore, that jobs are moving to New Zealand, that the people at SPC, at Simplot and at so many of our processing industries are worried about their jobs going to New Zealand? Indeed, food processing was Australia's largest secondary industry, but it is largely now being exported to other countries, and permanently lost as a result of this government providing an uncompetitive environment in which to operate. Is it any wonder that Australian food producers are moving to New Zealand? Is it any wonder that Australian manufacturers are giving in to competition from Asia? They do not have any of these sorts of taxes to pay. They are not lumbered with these burdens.

People who live in regional communities have to pay over the odds when it comes to the cost of living, and the carbon tax just makes life harder for them. But there is more to come. If Labor are re-elected, the carbon tax will go up again next year, on 1 July 2014. It comes with an extra kick in the guts, especially for regional Australians. If the Rudd-Gillard soap opera gets another run, the carbon tax slug will hit road transport for the first time. The government have not actually legislated for this carbon tax on road transport, although the Prime Minister has reaffirmed again and again and again that they intend to do so. They would save the embarrassment of the members for New England and for Lyne from the magnitude of what they have done in supporting this tax on distance. But if this government is re-elected, there will be an increase in the carbon tax to above $25, and there will be a 7c a litre or thereabouts increase in the price of diesel.

That is going to make it more expensive to move things around our country. Every item on every shelf in every supermarket in the country will be more expensive as a result of the extension of the carbon tax to include transport fuel. That means higher costs of living for families. It means that everyone will have to pay more for the basics in life. If you happen to be unfortunate enough to live outside of a capital city, you will pay even more, because you have to pay more freight on everything that goes to your stores.

The reality is that this is a government that has lost touch with the impact of its policies on Australian families and on their lifestyles. It means that every Australian family lives with an Australian government that no longer cares about the impact on their lives and on their lifestyle. There will be less profits to go home and investments are being put on hold. More jobs are at risk, and the opportunities that have generally been regarded as the birthright of every Australian are disappearing. As a nation, we need to be investing in industries that create Australia's wealth—the mining industry, the farming industry, the manufacturing industry, the electricity generation industry, the tourism industry and small businesses. We should be supporting them, not penalising them. A coalition government will abolish the carbon tax. We will get our industries competitive again. We will give families hope for a better future.

Australians have also suffered from other taxes in Labor's plethora of taxes. What about the mining tax? This is a tax that has undermined investment and cost jobs, but the much promised windfall of revenue simply has not happened. For regional Australia, therefore, the so-called benefits from the regional investment fund have just disappeared—$2 billion simply taken away from that fund in the last budget, because the government recognised the money was not there. They have not earned the money because the tax, personally negotiated by the Prime Minister, has been a debacle. It is the bitter fruit of the secret deal hatched by the canny negotiator, our Prime Minister, with the three big miners. Big miners managed to carve themselves out of the mining tax and to leave the small miners to carry the can and so, not surprisingly, the can is empty.

The Treasurer stripped this $2 billion out of the regional infrastructure fund and moved another amount of money across to try and prop up the roads budget, which has basically been halved in this year's budget. The attempt to prop it up is to try to make the figures look as though they are not as disastrous as they actually are. A coalition government will abolish the mining tax as well. We will restore confidence to our great mining industry, and we will give them the opportunity to invest and to create jobs—jobs for Australian families and opportunities for our country.

Small business has been the backbone of our country for such a long, long time. But Labor's high-tax, high-debt and high-regulation merry-go-round is also undermining the engine room of our country. Under Labor's mismanagement, the engine room of our country has seized up because of a lack of confidence, a lack of optimism. As a nation we have stopped playing to our strengths. We have stopped looking after the engine in our economy. Small businesses are being vilified in the name of green dogma or union power and the tax binges from this government. Their costs are increasing, and the skids are being put under the millions of Australian jobs that they support. The job losses are mounting, and job security is simply a pipe dream, particularly for employers and employees in regional communities. Many of these industries are facing the impact of the carbon tax, which is affecting them not just directly through electricity prices but also through extra costs on things like the gases in their freezers. Shopkeepers are pulling out refrigerators and abattoirs are unable to afford to recharge their freezers because of all of these costs.

When employees and families feel as though their futures are threatened they can no longer afford to go for the holidays they once had, and so our tourism industry suffers. Our new industrial relations climate makes it so difficult for a restaurant to open on a weekend or to serve a cup of coffee after hours, reducing the pleasure of the experience of holidaying in our own country. It also reduces the pleasure for those coming to Australia, who have paid all the extra arrival taxes and so forth that this government has imposed only to be greeted with closed restaurants or special surcharges for weekends because businesses and restaurateurs are simply unable to afford the high costs of labour in this country. That does not make us competitive; that gives us disadvantages. That makes it harder to be successful in this country, and that is, sadly, the record of this government along with its endless regulations, destroying the spirit of somebody who may be wanting to invest in or to propose a new project.

A coalition government will slash red tape, saving at least $1 billion a year. We will reward those who are prepared to invest. We will reward those people who have the willingness to work hard in this country. We are prepared to back them when they back themselves, and to give them a real chance to succeed.

The reality is that this government has lost its way. Its proposed NBN, which is going to save the nation, is years and years behind schedule and tens of billions of dollars over budget. There is virtually no-one signing up and there are more costly delays yet ahead. The wireless network, we are now told, is so far behind that fewer than 10 per cent of the target businesses and homes will be connected by 30 June. And the latest excuse that the NBN has for not being able to get its wireless up and running? They did not realise there were trees in Australia! The tall trees are blocking the signal. This is the whole scheme that never had a business plan, that does not know where it is going, but we certainly know it is not getting there. The reality is that Australians are being left without the services that they were promised. A coalition government will deliver fast broadband sooner and more cheaply, at an affordable rate.

This government has delivered a gross debt that is going to take generations to recover from. This government has left families without hope, without opportunity and in despair for the future of their country. We need a change. We need a new government. We need somebody who believes in our nation and who is prepared to back it, invest in it and make sure things happen—to give Australian families the hope, the reward and the opportunity that they need to build for themselves and for their families.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Higher Education and Skills) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was an interesting story of doom and gloom by the member for Wide Bay. I am pleased that he managed to just fit in his little spiel at the end on the current theme of the opposition. The claim that they are going to deliver for the Australian population has an interesting disconnect between the claim and the reality. That is not an uncommon circumstance in terms of the arguments put forward. I am going to try to encapsulate what was a stab in the dark by the member across a number of portfolio and policy areas, and to address it and respond from the government's perspective.

The member seemed to be progressing an argument that there was a significant problem with the Australian economy. This is a key area in which the member, in his contribution, made a lot of doom-and-gloom claims—a bit of a nightmare bedtime story for people but, I suggest, very little connected to the facts of the situation. Just for his information I indicate that the facts of the economy are quite contrary to the doom and gloom that he outlined, in particular in his story on employment. For the member's interest, since this government came to power there have been over 960,000 jobs created within the context of an international situation that has put a lot of pressure on advanced economies, including ours, and a situation where most advanced economies would be giving their eye teeth to have the outcomes that we have achieved in this nation.

I know that this does not fit the doom-and-gloom story; I understand the political dynamic that is going on on the other side; I understand the standard procedure that rolls out from coalition oppositions—we have seen it in state governments up and down the east coast. In opposition you have to create a sense of crisis. You have to get an argument up that things are terribly difficult, that we are faced with a position that will require, when they come to government, some serious intervention. This then lays the groundwork for some form of audit or review of the circumstance. My colleague would know this very well in Queensland, where the former Treasurer Mr Costello came in and did an audit for the state government. It lays the foundation for an audit, and then they will wring their hands and say, 'It's so terrible, we're going to have to cut to the bone across a whole range of services and, in fact, walk away from a lot of the very investments that this nation will need to create a future of growth and opportunity for the populations of all of our communities.'

In particular I would point out that the member for Wide Bay in his contribution expressed a great deal of concern about jobs and a great deal of concern about families and providing some security for them. However, as some of my colleagues noted in the previous debate when we were talking about the potential to suspend the procedures of this House, the member for Wide Bay indicated that a lot of this problem came down to wages and conditions and things like penalty rates. We well know what this debate means; in fact, it is not even code these days. We are again hearing from those opposite an engagement in a conversation that makes it quite clear what the future for families across this nation will be under a coalition government, and that will be a revisiting of all of those interventions under industrial relations that caused such distress and rejection in the broader community that saw Work Choices profoundly rejected at the 2009 election. Indeed, it led to the current Leader of the Opposition, and other leaders of the opposition that have progressed through this place since that time, saying that the thing was 'dead and buried' and saying, 'We are not going anywhere near it anymore.' Yet suddenly the ghost of Work Choices starts to filter through the contributions in this place. So I think families know very well what the reality will be under those opposite.

The MPI talks about the cost of living for families. It is the case that the most profoundly important contributor to sustainability for families is a job. That is absolutely true. It has been the permanent and ongoing focus of this government to support access to jobs for people, particularly during the time when the international economy went through the global financial crisis. It has not only been our focus; it has been an achievement. As I said at the beginning of my contribution, over 960,000 jobs were created in that period, despite those serious international headwinds for our economy. I know this only too well, as do many of my colleagues, having come from an economy that is in transition and that has a manufacturing, mining and service industry base. We live it every day and we absolutely know it.

But I also know that the reality is that businesses across our communities benefitted from the interventions by this government and the stimuluses that we put in place. There was the immediate short-term stimulus of the cash injection which kept people spending over the Christmas period during the initial impact of the GFC and helped keep open those businesses that the member for Wide Bay talked about—all those small businesses in retail, hospitality and tourism who are, as we know, run on a cyclical yearly income and need that expenditure over the Christmas-New Year period to make their books balance for the year. That initial, short-term cash injection in response to the global financial crisis actually kept open a lot of doors of small businesses over that period of time. I remember those opposite rubbishing it and saying how outrageous it was that people were buying TV sets—and now we are worried that the very small businesses that sell the TV sets might be in trouble. It was a really significant and important intervention to support jobs and to support small businesses.

Of course, off the back of that, there was the more medium-term intervention in terms of the building and construction programs that occurred. As many of us know, the Building the Education Revolution provided facilities that are greatly valued by schools. If you want to talk about cost of living, try being a family buying raffle tickets all the time because the school needs a new hall—and then there is the lamington drive, the chocolate drive and the raffle—as school families try to raise the funds that they need for those facilities. I can assure you that they were profoundly grateful for that injection.

Also, as a result of that building program there were a lot of small and medium building and construction companies in my electorate—and I am sure they were in everybody else's electorate—that got work through that period. I met companies in my area working on BERs who said to me, 'We were within weeks of laying off staff.' That was the reality—and they were not only keeping their staff but also putting on apprentices. One of the really important outcomes—if you want to talk about jobs and security for families—out of the global financial crisis was the fact that apprenticeship commencements were sustained through the global financial crisis at their pre-crisis levels. That is an unprecedented outcome for an economic downturn.

I live in the Illawarra and I well remember the downturn that occurred in the late eighties and early nineties. One of the first things that paid the cost was apprenticeships. During that downturn, there was a massive drop-off in the recruitment of apprentices and the opportunity for young people to get a start in life to get a good quality job for the long-term future and to raise a family off the back of that. The outcome of that, of course, was that as we went through the cycle and the upswing occurred, we had significant skill shortages across this country. The intervention by this government, particularly through the Apprentice Kickstart program, meant that those companies not only had work to do through that period but also had the capacity and support to employ the next generation of young tradespeople on those job sites. It was significantly important, and we will be for the next generation very grateful that we had those skills in place and rolling out across our communities.

Job security and access to jobs are important, and we have been all about that the whole time that we have been in government. I will not go through the extensive interventions that we have made in the education system more broadly to ensure that the jobs that are emerging, the jobs of the future—which of course will require much higher levels of qualifications and skills—are going to be available to the Australian population because we have upped the standards of our preschool teaching, we have upped the standards of our schools, we have upped the standards of our vocational providers and our universities and we have injected into them in significant ways and created new training opportunities.

On top of having access to a job, you also want fair remuneration for your work and reasonable working conditions that make it possible to actually engage with and have a family life as well as financially support your family. The interventions that we have made in getting rid of Work Choices and putting the Fair Work Bill into place and supporting things like the accumulation of superannuation—an historic Labor reform that we are now expanding—and making sure that there is fair pay for all workers have been significant. In particular, for me, the fair pay case that enabled community service workers—many of whom are women—to get some pay equity was a significant outcome. I sat on the House's committee chaired by Sharryn Jackson, a former member, that did the pay equity report. I indicate that it was a bipartisan report.

Mr Neumann interjecting—

That is right—the member was also on the committee. It was a bipartisan report. It acknowledged that there had been an inherent, entrenched discrimination against what was generally termed 'women's work', although there are a lot of really fine men working in the field, of course, too. But it had become an entrenched equity issue in terms of pay and remuneration. As a result of the government's reform, action was able to be taken on that front.

So there have been a number of initiatives over a number of areas by this government to ensure fair remuneration and decent working conditions are in place for Australian families—and they value that very much. That was reflected, I would suggest to those opposite, in the 2007 election. So it is very interesting to see the emergence again on that side of some of those Work Choices type campaigns, particularly, as the member for Wide Bay said, around penalty rates and conditions. So we put the facts on the table.

The other area I want to identify some facts around was the member's contribution on the National Broadband Network. It is astonishing. I think there will be a lot of people sitting on that side of the House who, when their grandchildren say, 'What did you do in parliament? Can I have a look at some of your contributions?', will be directing them to everything but their contribution on the NBN. It is going to be one of those spaces where, as the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport showed today, in another generation they will be reading into the new Hansard the contributions of those opposite in the current Hansard around the NBN and having a good old chuckle about it, because it will seem inconceivable that people who said they had a focus on the future could have made the contributions that they made.

I actually feel a real twinge of sympathy for those on the other side who I know actually get this and actually do understand why it is such significant nation-building infrastructure and would no doubt like to break out of the shackles of the Leader of the Opposition, who will struggle I think to comprehend why that is such a significant future investment for this nation. They would really like to break out of those shackles and say, 'Look, can we just support the government? They are on the right track here.' This is significant and it will make a huge difference, particularly in rural and regional areas, where you know as well as I know that the rollout of telecommunications infrastructure is never as good as what they get in the city. How you could not be getting right behind a platform that rolls out broadband across this nation and provides equity at that access level for the infrastructure? I really don't understand. It is going to be the technology that will create connections across the nation, that will give equity to people wherever they live in accessing services, and that will provide the backbone of a whole lot of new business activity—new small businesses that the member for Wide Bay said he was so concerned about. The reality is that that program is the program of the future, and it is the one that delivers to rural and regional areas. The reality for families under the coalition's policy is that it will come to the end of their street and if they have got $5,000-odd they will be able to connect it to their house. I just think that is an appalling position to be in.

So across all the policy areas that the member for Wide Bay made a contribution about, it is quite clear that they are still living in the past. They want to revisit pre-2007—they want to go back to an outdated NBN program, they want to go back to a rejected industrial relations policy, they want to go back to a world before the GFC and pretend it never happened. Fairy tales do not happen in reality. This government deals with the facts. We deliver the policies that address the future and we will continue to do that in the interests of families.

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing and Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to this matter of public importance debate initiated by the Leader of the National Party. The reality today is that, wherever you go around this country, there is a lack of confidence about economic management and a lack of security about the future. People are concerned about their jobs and they are saving because they are concerned about what might happen next week, next month or next year. If you walk down the high street of any town or suburb in Australia you will see shops that are closed. You know that businesses are not employing people. Indeed, many of them are laying workers off. When people look for some sense of security at the present time all they see here from the leadership of this country is a sense of chaos and confusion.

Three years ago this week the Australian Labor Party was arguing about who should be the leader—who should be the Prime Minister of Australia. Three years on, this week, what is happening? That same Australian Labor Party is arguing about who should be the leader, the Prime Minister of Australia. Of course, the current Prime Minister came to office having removed the previous Prime Minister by saying, 'We had lost our way'—the government had lost its way. Have they found their way since then? We still have the same chaos—still the sense that the only thing that matters for this government is who lives in the Lodge, who has got the job of Prime Minister, rather than the jobs, the future and the security of the people of Australia.

There is no greater impact upon the cost of living of Australians than the introduction of a carbon tax. Remember prior to the last election that famous statement of the Prime Minister—'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.'

Government Member:

A government member interjecting—

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing and Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member opposite can interject all he likes. All that indicates is once again why the people of Australia so distrust this government. Because having made the statement in the dying days of the election campaign that 'there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead'—and this comes to their manic concentration on just the top job—and having failed to secure a majority on the floor of this House, enough members to form a government alone, the Prime Minister was prepared to walk away from that solemn promise to the people of Australia and to introduce a carbon tax. And that carbon tax is having an impact on the cost of living of ordinary Australians.

Let us just look at the increase in the cost of living that people in Australia are bearing, the percentage increase since the ALP came to power from the December quarter of 2007 to the March quarter of 2013, CPI data taken from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Electricity, one of the most basic commodities that Australian households and businesses need, has increased by 93.8 per cent. Water and sewerage have increased by 63.1 per cent. Other utilities have increased by 79.2 per cent. Gas has increased by 61.8 per cent. Insurance has gone up by 45.4 per cent. Education expenses have increased by 38.7 per cent. Rents have increased by 30.2 per cent. Housing costs are up by 29.6 per cent.

Let us just take the period in which this government has supposedly found its way, the period since the current Prime Minister has been the occupant of the Lodge. Over that period, the last three years, since Ms Gillard has been the Prime Minister of Australia, electricity has gone up by 44.7 per cent, water and sewerage have gone up by 26.4 per cent, utilities by 36.9 per cent, gas by 28.6 per cent, insurance by 21.3 per cent and education by 18.8 per cent.

Childcare expenses—something which many families are struggling with in terms of cost of living—alone have gone up by 26 per cent. There are many struggling families today whose childcare costs are so great that it is hardly worth them being able to work. In fact, what I am hearing from childcare centres and operators in my electorate and elsewhere around the country is that the childcare costs are going up by such an amount that it is becoming almost unaffordable for many struggling families to keep their kids in child care.

Rents have gone up by 11 per cent. In Australia today, according to the experts, we have a deficiency of about a quarter of a million dwellings. That means more people are renting if they can get into renting. There are more people that are homeless. There was the famous promise by the previous Prime Minister that he would do something about homelessness. Homelessness has gone up by almost 15,000 to 16,000 in Australia since then and housing has gone up under this Prime Minister by 13 per cent.

What is the only response we get from the government? The only response is a series of excuses. It was the global financial crisis some years ago. What was the government's response to the global financial crisis? To waste more taxpayers' money on things like pink batts in housing roofs causing fires and on a cash-for-clunkers scheme. That was a waste of money. Or they blamed the states or anybody but this government that was in power. The reality is this: when you are elected to occupy those Treasury benches in this place, you are elected to take responsibility for the government of this country. What we have instead of that is chaos and confusion, this internal warfare going on between various factions as to who supports Mr Rudd, who supports Ms Gillard. I suspect a majority support neither of them and would like to get some new leader, but this continues to be played out. All the time what are being forgotten are the people and the families of Australia.

On top of that this government have taken decisions which have cost more for families in this country, whether you are talking about the family tax benefit part A or part B, or the four lots of changes they have made resulting in the abolition of the baby bonus, or the changes they have made about other taxes—the cutting and the capping of the childcare rebate, which was capped to a maximum of $7,500. If it was still being indexed as it was, families would be receiving $700 or more in assistance. Since Ms Gillard became the Prime Minister, childcare costs in this country have increased by 26 per cent. There are the means test on the private health insurance and the changes in the net medical expenses tax offset. We can go on and on.

There are the changes in the means testing of our aged-care system, the parenting payment recipients taken from people who have been moved from a system where they received a much higher parenting payment to the Newstart allowance. The reports I get back from emergency relief centres, not just in my electorate but as I travel around the country, are that we have effectively created a new group of poor parents by simply ripping away those payments from them in every area. This government has been concerned about simply who is going to be the Prime Minister, and how it is going to continue to stay in office, rather than doing the things it was elected for—that is, to provide security to the people of Australia.

No wonder wherever we go around this country people are concerned about the future. People are concerned about whether they will have a job next week or next month or next year. They are certainly concerned about whether their children and their grandchildren will inherit the sort of Australia that they have inherited. I believe it is the aspiration of every Australian to be able to hand on to the next generation—and the generation after that—a better country than they inherited. That is something that is central to our belief, it is central to what we as Australians want, and yet here we have a government which over the last three years has put very much in danger that ability to say, 'We can hand on to the next generation a better Australia than we inherited.' That is a pity, that is a shame on this government. In distinction from that, the coalition have a plan in which we will deliver a prosperous economy and a safe and secure country for the people of this nation.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have heard from those opposite a list of fiction. I am going to give a list of facts in relation to what this government has done to make Australia a stronger and smarter and fairer country. We heard the deputy leader of the coalition, the Leader of the Nationals, talk about wages and labour costs in two speeches in the last hour or so. On each occasion he inferred quite clearly that in fact wages were too high in this country and that we had to drive down wages. This is from a person who voted for Work Choices on more than two dozen occasions.

One of the proudest days I have had in the six years I have been in this place was when we got rid of Work Choices. We know what Work Choices did. It drove down wages and made it more difficult for Australian families to be able to meet their costs of living, pay for the education and health needs of their kids and the recreational pursuits that they wanted for their families. The reality of those opposite is that they brought in Work Choices in this country and the result was that on average women and low-paid earners lost about $115 per week from their wages and salaries.

They bleat in this place about adverse impact on families. I would have more respect for what they had to say if they supported things that actually helped families. For example, we increased the childcare rebate from $4,354 per child to $7,500 and doubled the funding for child care. One of the first acts of the Howard coalition government when they came to power in 1996 was to rip a billion dollars out of the childcare sector in this country. In addition to that we are putting millions of dollars into child care to assist in increasing wages and conditions and making fairer each and every place—whether it is bush kids in my electorate or some other childcare facility in any other place in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane or in any regional part of this country—to make sure that people get a fair go when it comes to the workplaces of this country.

With respect to wages and conditions we have provided $2.8 billion for the social and community sector to fund the equal remuneration order that took place with respect to Fair Work Australia. Those opposite did not support that. It was 150,000 low-paid workers—people who work in childcare centres; in domestic violence facilities, helping women in distress; people working in the tenancy advocacy services—who all got assistance. Of those 150,000 low-paid workers, 120,000 were women. So we are helping Australian families. If those opposite get on the Treasury benches, on average a family with a couple of kids going to school will lose about $15,000 because they will lose their Schoolkids Bonus. What I cannot understand about those opposite is that they supported an education tax refund. We brought the Schoolkids Bonus in to make it easier for families to not have to keep a list on the fridge of all the expenses for computers, uniforms et cetera. Those opposite opposed it and their policy is to rip it away.

Superannuation is a big difference between us and them. They want to impose a $500 tax on low-income earners. If you are earning up to $37,000 a year you will pay $500 more in tax every year under a coalition government. They oppose our increase to the superannuation guarantee from nine per cent to 12 per cent over a number of years. They oppose it again and again because they have never believed in superannuation. The Leader of the Opposition at a press conference on 23 March last year said:

We have always as a Coalition been against compulsory superannuation increases.

They are against families' financial security in retirement. By our superannuation reforms we are boosting by $500 billion the benefit to Australian families by 2037—a $500 billion increase in superannuation to help Australian families. That is government policy on this side helping Australian families, opposed by those opposite. Again and again they voted against superannuation assistance for Australian families. For a 30-year-old on average full-time wages the government's changes will put an additional $127,000 into their superannuation by the time they retire at 67 years of age. That is the difference.

When it comes to telecommunications there is also a big difference. The member for Wide Bay is in a regional seat in Queensland. I am in a regional seat in Queensland as well. What the Liberals and Nationals intend to do to regional Australia is to put them into the technological Neanderthal days. They will make sure that these people will be disadvantaged compared to people who live in Sydney and Melbourne. If you live in, say, Bulimba in Brisbane or Toorak or Vaucluse, you will get access to high-speed broadband and you will have to pay the $5,000 to connect the fibre to your home because they will leave it at the node and will make you pay for the connection to the premises. If you are living in the Lockyer Valley or the Brisbane Valley or Wide Bay region, you will have to pay. It is broadband for the rich and nothing for the poor. That is typical of those opposite when it comes to telecommunications.

It is not just that, it is other areas as well like education. They are opposed to the National Plan for School Improvement. In the last hour or so I had a phone call from the Queensland Times newspaper talking about the study in relation to schools in the Ipswich and West Moreton region and the fact that we were underfunded. I said to the journalist, Peter Foley: 'Listen, if they pass the National Plan for School Improvement and Campbell Newman signs up, we will be in a position where Queensland schools will get an average $2.2 million more.' Barry O'Farrell in New South Wales has had the wit and wisdom to do this—they will get an average $1.6 million more for schools in New South Wales. So Campbell Newman and the Leader of the Opposition in this place believe that a person's state of origin determines their educational outcome. That is exactly their position.

As Peter Doyle, school principal at Springfield Lakes State School in my electorate, said in the Queensland Times recently, teachers are paying thousands of dollars to pay for the education needs in their classrooms. If the Queensland government sign up for the National Plan for School Improvement, schools in my electorate will benefit to the tune of about $184 million, making sure that their families are assisted, so that mums and dads do not have to put their hand in their pocket all the time. It means that schools like Bremer State High School get about $13.9 million more than the current funding for the next six years. Redbank Plains State High School, another big high school in the Ipswich and West Moreton region, would get $12.2 million more. Ipswich state highway would get $10.5 million more. It applies to electorate after electorate across this country, making an impact for families, helping them with their education needs.

The member for Wide Bay talked about infrastructure and the like. He said that we were not doing Regional Development Australia projects around the country. He must be politically blind when it comes to that. I could point him to things in the Lockyer Valley, the Brisbane Valley, Ipswich and other parts of Queensland where Regional Development Australia funding has been rolled out for major community infrastructure, creating jobs and supporting Australian families.

The member for Wide Bay was opposed to the biggest road infrastructure project we had in South-East Queensland in the last six years, the Ipswich Motorway upgrade, with 10,000 jobs being created and sustained. He voted against it and campaigned for three federal elections his opposition to it. He talks about helping Australian families, jobs creation, growth and economic development. Those opposite have been opposed to it again and again. And guess what? We have more than doubled the road and rail funding in Queensland in the last six years. We have done that in the first stage. We have put more money in road, rail and port infrastructure in Queensland than the coalition ever did in their 12 years in office—supporting jobs, growth, development; sustaining jobs during the global financial crisis, creating 960,000 jobs, when those opposite voted against it again and again.

They talk about the car industry and manufacturing, but they would take half a billion dollars out of the car industry, leaving 255,000 jobs in the car industry at risk in the southern parts of Australia. That is what they would do. They do not support jobs; they want to drive down wages. They do not support education reform; they disinvest in health. They take away doctors and health services in this country, making it harder for health services and costs to be met by Australian families. That is the legacy of those opposite. And that is why they should not be on the treasury bench.

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

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance. We have a crisis in this country. If you get out into your electorate and spend some time on the ground, which the previous speaker obviously does not, you will hear the tragedy of living in a country where the costs of doing business, the costs of trying to raise a family, the costs of trying to be educated have grown so high under Labor that, as I began by saying, we are now in a crisis in this country.

I never thought we would have sovereign risk in Australia. It was always our boast that, if you choose or chose to invest in this country, you could expect some stability in the tax regime or a lot of notice would be given if there were going to be changes to the costs of you doing business in this country, including the regulatory environment. But who could forget the shock of the mining sector when they discovered these new taxes—suddenly thrown into their midst without much notice at all and then negotiations with just a couple of the bigger operators. And these taxes have not even raised for the government the revenue they planned for. It is not just a case of the damage to our national and international reputation; so many of the mining companies are now thinking it looks pretty good in Brazil or in the African nations.

Let me talk about the manufacturing sector in this country and the extraordinary costs of energy, including refrigerant gases. If you have the sorts of rises in costs that I am about to enumerate for you, you actually lose jobs. My electorate of Murray has been so hard hit. We have lost half of our dairy farmers as a consequence of the absolutely shocking Murray-Darling Basin Plan, which did not take a triple bottom line approach at all but which was a captured process, with the Greens demanding the biggest possible volume of water to be thrown down the Murray River—and to hell with those who produced food—using their water security. So we lost half of our dairy farmers through the process of water buyback.

On top of that, let me tell you about the price increases of refrigerant gas as a consequence of the so-called equivalent carbon tax. These are real figures from real bills, real accounts from my electorate, which I will seek to table at the end of my remarks. So often when we ask questions at question time of the Prime Minister in particular about these horrendous carbon tax increases, she says: 'No, that's not true. That's about state infrastructure or it's about some other nonsense going on with the companies themselves.' These are actually itemised accounts which give you the carbon tax as a line item and the cost.

I will begin with the refrigerant gases. The R-22 refrigerant gas cost $56 in May 2012, plus GST. It has now gone up to $160. That is a 285 per cent increase. By the way, refrigerant gases are used in the dairy industry to cool the milk after you have milked the cows. These gases are used in cool stores so that fruit does not deteriorate after it is picked. Refrigerant gases are used in shops and supermarkets. These are very commonly used products. R404A is another very commonly used refrigerant gas. In May, it cost $44. After October, it cost $230 per unit. That is a 522 per cent increase. The gas R134A, in May 2012, cost $36. After October, it cost $112. That is a 311 per cent increase in the cost of refrigerant gases which are, as I say, a critical part of food preservation, of manufacturing and of selling products in shops that have not spoiled.

What about the electricity costs that have gone up? Unfortunately, food processing, which used to be the highest employer in this country, is now being decimated with almost a race to export not just the food but the companies themselves to New Zealand and other countries—our competitors. These countries do not have the imposts and costs that we have. Let us look at the electricity bills of the Mulcahy Pastoral estate, which are the biggest dairy farm in my region and, in fact, one of the biggest dairy producers in Australia. They actually value-add to their milk to make it a product they can deliver straight to the customer. This is a one-month electricity account of theirs and they have many such accounts across the enterprise. In August 2012, the cost of electricity for this particular part of their business was $7,069.97. The itemised carbon charge was $1,142.48. That is a 17.77 per cent increase in their electricity bill. Bear in mind that the GST is charged on the sum of their electricity charge, plus the carbon tax. So, for them, that is a 17.77 per cent increase in cost.

I have another bill—and, as I say, I will seek to table these with the itemised account—showing the carbon tax and a 20.06 per cent increase in their electricity charges. How can this pastoral company, this dairy farm, compete? How can it compete with New Zealand, which has a carbon tax equivalent charge of only 75c per tonne? How can we compete when our equivalent is $24.15 or 32 times higher than New Zealand's? And guess what? We compete head-on in the international export markets with their dairy products. How can our dairy producers compete with those costs around their necks? It is not fair. It means a loss of jobs in my part of the world. It means despair for farmers who have worked for generations to build up their herds and to build up the infrastructure on their properties. And what is killing them? Not drought, not pestilence and not plant disease. What is killing them is this Labor government's charges. That is disgusting when, of course, at the end of all of this we know that we not making one iota of difference to the greenhouse emissions around the planet. What a tragedy and what a travesty!

Let us look at child care. A previous speaker mentioned child care. If we do not have affordable child care in Australia, how does a mother return to work or how does a father participate in the workforce if he is sharing the parenting role with his wife. They are seeing their childcare costs rise by 30 or 40 per cent. We are told that with this new legislation, which was debated in the House this morning, we are going to see some $300 million go towards higher wages for some childcare workers, but not all of them. If less than half of the childcare workers are going to get a pay rise in some centres, obviously the rest of the childcare centres are going to have to put up their childcare fees in order to retain their staff. Who is going to pay? The mums and the dads—the single mums and the single dads who are trying to stay in the workforce. They simply cannot cope with higher childcare fees, yet this government brags: 'Hey, we've done a beautiful job in child care. We've brought in the fantastic new national standards accreditation scheme.' But the Australian Childcare Alliance are begging the government to delay the new regulations, which are supposed to begin on 1 January, because they say that, if no more money is provided by the government to parents and as well for more staff to be qualified, the whole system is going to collapse, particularly in the not-for-profit sector. They cannot go on with the sorts of fees and charges that they are trying to extract out of families through parents because the parents are often not paid enough to make it worth their while even to go back to work. I think this is disgusting.

The schools education minister, Peter Garrett, said no independent evidence was around 'to support claims of an impending shortage of early childhood education and care workers or a significant impact on childcare costs'. I suggest the minister had better get out more. He had better go and talk to some parents about the cost—often over $100 a day for child care.

What is blighting our productivity in this country? The fact is we have a very poor return to work rate for women after they have had their children. We have one of the lowest rates of women in the workforce in the developed world and yet we have some of the highest formally educated women of any country in the world. We have a shocking situation in Australia. Magnificent country that we are, we should be the envy of the world. In fact, we are the laughing stock of the world because we are taxing away, through the carbon tax and the carbon equivalent tax and the mining taxes, our natural competitive advantage. We are making our families fearful of the future and, in my area, we are killing an economy that was something to be envied by other parts of the world. It was the food bowl. As I speak there are bulldozers bulldozing hundreds of hectares of magnificent fruit trees because SPC Ardmona cannot compete any longer given their energy costs, their wages bill and the regulatory imposts that are now afflicting them. That is not fair. That is not honest. That is un-Australian. Bring on an election! (Time expired)

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

I rise to speak on the matter of public importance, put forward by the member for Wide Bay, about the adverse impact of government policies on the cost of living. My understanding of the geography is that the member for Wide Bay is actually an MP from Queensland, yet when he stood up and made his speech I thought that perhaps Wide Bay had moved or that maybe it should have been about Jervis Bay in the ACT or Shark Bay in WA or Port Phillip Bay in Victoria because he made no mention of the recent happenings in Queensland. The reality is that under the Liberal National Party government in Queensland and since the last election just 13 months ago families have been paying $1,000 more. Take electricity prices. My understanding is that the federal government does not own any power stations. I have not checked that exhaustively, but my understanding is we do not own any power stations. The Queensland government does own power stations and the other day the Queensland government foreshadowed a 22.6 per cent increase in electricity prices, starting in five days time. In fact, if you were an elderly person living alone, your electricity price cost would go up in five days by 27.9 per cent. So I was quite surprised that the member for Wide Bay—which I am pretty sure is in Queensland—who is a member of the Liberal and National parties coalition, made no mention, in a speech on the cost of living, of this hit to the budget.

My understanding of cost of living is pretty basic: it is about the roof over your head, the taxes you pay, your food and groceries, your electricity and heating, education costs, maybe your internet costs and health costs. So that is about it in terms of the cost of living. Let us unpack some of those things. Insurance was mentioned by the member for Menzies. I was horrified to see in the Queensland state budget that they are increasing the stamp duty on an insurance policy—a policy that actually has GST on it, so you have got a tax on a tax. So that is something that the Queensland government has introduced—but no mention of that by the member for Wide Bay. Let us have a look at the costs. The biggest cost for most households is their mortgage. Let us have a look at where interest rates were when John Howard exited stage left compared to today's. Are the interest rates higher than when John Howard left? No. In fact, most households are saving up to $100 per week—and I will say it again for the benefit of those members opposite who are from Queensland: a $100 per week saving. And it is great to see that people are paying off their mortgages.

Let us have a look at some of the other things. Obviously cost of living is one thing, but it is more important that you actually have a job. That is the best way to keep on top of your cost of living. There have been 960,000 jobs created since we came to power. Is unemployment sky high? Is there a budget emergency with sky-high unemployment like 11.9 per cent in Europe? No. It is 5.5 per cent. In fact, 10 years ago the former Treasurer, Peter Costello, said if you had an unemployment rate of 5.6 it would be a magnificent economic achievement. There is no acknowledgement of that. Let us also note that we have a AAA credit rating and our economy has grown from 15th to 12th biggest. We got through the global financial crisis.

Like anyone, if your economic circumstances change, you make a decision about your economic circumstances and say, 'Maybe we should borrow a bit of money to make sure we look after the household.' That is what a sensible economic manager does. What have those opposite done? Let us have a look. When the economic circumstances changed for the Leader of the Opposition, when he went from being a government minister to being a backbencher, what did he do? Did he do what he suggests and say debt is bad? I found this article by Simon Benson, who had dinner with the Leader of the Opposition the other night. He wrote an article saying:

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott took out a new $710,000 mortgage on his family home shortly after going into Opposition, partly to help fund his family expenses after losing his ministerial salary.

But in what appears to be a breach of the parliamentary rules covering MPs' pecuniary interests, he failed to declare the loans to Parliament for almost two years.

The man who claimed in January 2008 that politicians don't get paid enough took out a new loan on his family home in April 2008, four months after losing the election and halving his salary.

  …   …   …

Mr Abbott has made no secret in the past that he had often found it challenging to make ends meet.

Great to think that you could—

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

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I do not believe the details of a previous member's bank accounts and loans are relevant to this debate.

Ms Anna Burke (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Murray will resume her seat. The member for Moreton has the call. It is the MPI. It is a far-ranging debate, but I would ask him to draw the link to the question before us.

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

We are talking about cost of living and economic management. We are talking about a Leader of the Opposition who is, based on current polling, about to make significant decisions about the government. He said there is a budget emergency. When his budget circumstances changed, he borrowed, yet he condemns the government for having done exactly that. What he says and what he does are completely different. Obviously a sensible economic manager, when times are tough, borrows money.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We saw in question time the government get down into the gutter. Now they are getting into the gutter again.

Ms Anna Burke (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Goldstein will resume his seat. That is an abuse of a point of order. I have just had a discussion with the member about the issue and was trying to accommodate the debate so we could get to the valedictories. I know that is not important to others, but it is to the member and her family with us. The member for Moreton has the call.

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

Thank you. I know the member for Goldstein had been warned during question time, so I am surprised he—

Ms Anna Burke (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member fore Moreton was also called to account.

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

would object to this piece of public information. I am merely showing the difference between what people say and what they do. What people say goes to their character if they do not do it.

The reality is the Australian economy is in sound shape. We borrowed responsibly during a tough economic time. We protected jobs. We are talking about cost of living. As I said, a job is one of the most essential things for people to be able to manage cost of living. Education costs are another one. People are able to borrow money to pay off school fees. If they make a decision to borrow money to do that, that is up to them. I think it is appropriate that we give people money to pay for education costs, because education is a sound investment. It also makes sense to invest in educational and business infrastructure like the NBN.

However, we have a policy from those opposite—the fraudband plan—that will see people paying up to $5,000 to have internet connected to their home. If you are in a block of units, heaven help you, because in Queensland that means you have to get 75 per cent of the people in the unit to agree to have that connection. All you need is someone who is a bit of a Luddite, who thinks broadband is only about sending emails, and if they say no, that means you will not be able to get the NBN connected and will not get all those cost-of-living savings that come with the NBN such as being able to pay your bills from home rather than going to the bank or the post office to pay them, being able to study from home rather than going in to university and all the savings that come to small business when they connect to the NBN.

Let us look at some of the other cost-of-living pressures. CPI is well and truly under control. Health has bulk billing rates at 81.7 per cent. Under the Leader of the Opposition it was at 67 per cent when he was the health minister. I have already touched on taxes, but let us mention those three consecutive rounds of tax cuts taking one million Australians out of the tax system. Those people earning about $50,000 are paying $2,000 less in tax. Let us contrast that with the opposition's plan to hike up the GST, rip away the Schoolkids Bonus and hike superannuation by 15 per cent for low-paid people. We have seen what happens with the Costello stealth approach. You soften up people by talking about budget emergencies and then outsource decision making to the Smirk. We saw it in Queensland. They said, 'Oh, we've got a crisis.' You bring in Peter Costello and then you sell off assets and hike taxes. That is what would happen under those opposite, so do not talk about cost-of-living increases. You have no credibility whatsoever. (Time expired)

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

Madam Speaker I seek to table the documents I referred to in my remarks.

Leave not granted.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the short time left on this matter of public importance introduced by the member for Wide Bay on the cost-of-living pressures, I want to talk to the people in this House who have come to listen to the member for Gilmore. I want to talk to every person who is out in rural and regional Australia. You have a really simple choice to make at this election. If you vote for Labor, you will be voting for a 7c-a-litre increase in heavy diesel fuel. Every single thing that you eat, drink or use is delivered on the back of a truck in this country, and every one of those is going to cost you more courtesy of the Labor government. So be really clear when you have your vote on 14 September. Do not worry about the spin—

Ms Anna Burke (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am actually very clear about how I am voting on 14 September. The use of the word 'you' is inappropriate, I remind the member for Forrest. I get to vote for myself. The member for Forrest has the call.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Speaker. I just wanted to say to every person from a rural and regional electorate and even those in cities, virtually everything that you consume or use comes on the back of a truck. As of next year, 7c a litre is going to be added to the price of diesel for everything that you use. So we are going to see a disproportionate impact on rural and regional Australia—and that is, as we know, almost a calculated attack on rural and regional Australia. We know the distances that are involved in delivering food and goods around Australia. All the trucks you see on the road will have to add an extra 7c a litre to everything they deliver to your town, to your community and to your business. That is the extra cost that you will get if you vote Labor in September—sorry, if people in the areas vote Labor, Madam Speaker.

Ms Anna Burke (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I apologise to the member for Forrest, but I thank her for her assistance in this very important matter. Order! The time allotted for this discussion has now expired.