Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker Andrews. It is nice to see you in that chair as opposed to in a helicopter. I would like to be in this place like any member of parliament and happily give away money. No member of parliament really comes to the House and wants to be the person who has to say no.

Ms Hall interjecting—

Let me continue. But my curse, I suppose, is that I do understand economics and I understand that you actually have to have a strong economy in order to attract and be able to build a great society.

Ms Hall interjecting—

In having a strong economy, you have to be able to afford a certain number of things, and how you do it is quite challenging. I hear someone across the chamber here interjecting, but what I can say is this: we need to find the balance between what we invest in and what we spend, and this has been the challenge in this budget. In this budget, we have found some difficult choices.

It needs to be said that for a very long time we have not adjusted the structural flaws in the budget. We have been spending more as a country than we have been getting in in income tax, and that leaves us with two choices. It leaves us with the choice of putting taxes up or finding some savings. We had to find that balance. In working through that balance, there have been some challenges. But I believe we have actually met the challenge very well.

Ms Hall interjecting—

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member will be heard in silence.

Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The challenge is to ensure that businesses can continue to function. Across my electorate, we could have fallen in the trap. We could have removed the diesel fuel rebate. We could have not invested in roads. But instead we have chosen to keep the diesel fuel rebate, which is a recognition of agricultural productivity, and we have also chosen to invest in roads.

I hark back to a great cartoon series that I used to watch when I was a child, and that was The Simpsons. One time, Homer Simpson ran for mayor. Homer Simpson ran for mayor by saying, 'Can't somebody else do it?' As I said at the start, we would love to turn up to this place and give away money, but what defines us as a government compared to the previous government is that we are prepared to make the difficult choices. When Homer Simpson ran for mayor with his slogan of 'Can't somebody else do it?' that very much reflects the budget-in-reply speech that we saw from Bill Shorten, talking about us being mean, talking about us being harsh. But what he essentially was saying was, 'Can't somebody else do it?' And that is us. We have been handed the hard task of running the country and deciding what the hard decisions are.

There have been a lot of lies out there and a lot of discussion out there in the public discourse. Winston Churchill once said, 'A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.'

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

I preferred it when you quoted Simpson!

Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, you will learn something from Churchill, because Churchill was a man—I kid you not—who had the strength of his convictions to make the tough call when the tough call had to be made. And this is a tough call that had to be made. In our current deficit, you will notice that we still have $49.9 billion of loss this year. Our projections next year are $29.8 billion, and even by 2017-18 we will see a deficit of $2.8 billion. So even then we are still only closing the gap, but the tough calls need to be made.

We have made some tough calls, but we have also invested very much in our future. I got emails all last week saying what we can and cannot do, and many of those emails would have us go down the same way as the Argentinian economy, where they put in huge disincentives for people to earn. We have not done that. We have not made that mistake. We have actually invested in building capacity. Cutting company tax rates has been fantastic. That will mean that a small business in my electorate will put on an extra apprentice, and that is what we have to do. If we can get one extra person—

Ms Hall interjecting—

Well, you should listen because you are going to learn something. If you can put on one extra person, that is an extra job in a country community. I did an apprenticeship, and a first-year apprenticeship is very tough to live on. In fact, if you are on a first-year wage, on $200 a week, it is quite a struggle. We have recognised this. We are actually the party for the worker, and we have recognised this. We have given a help scheme for apprentices. I know that as a first-year apprentice it was a very big deal for me to be able to buy the tyres on my car, but with a help scheme there is real recognition of this. For the first time, students who study at Longerenong agricultural college or at SuniTAFE will be able to access a help scheme. This has been an instrumental thing that we have campaigned for for a very long time—a recognition that rural trades are essential to growing our economy and growing our wealth.

We have expanded the research and development in agriculture by $100 million. We have also invested in our roads—our first mile of road. Did you know that the average truck now weighs 60 tonnes? We have to be able to get down that country road. We have added another $350 million for Roads to Recovery and another $300 million overall for Bridges to Recovery. This has been a great investment and real recognition that investing in roads is going to be key.

One of the tough decisions has been to put an excise on fuel and to index that excise. It is easy for the Labor opposition to sit back and say, 'That's a broken promise.' But we are linking the excise to road infrastructure. My electorate makes up one-third of the state of Victoria, and there are a lot of country roads. The people in my electorate say to me that they want to be able to make a phone call and they want to be able to drive a country road. For a very long time we have seen not enough investment in country roads. It has been the coalition, which championed the Roads to Recovery policy, that has boosted that. That is recognition of the fact that boosting our investment in infrastructure lets us enhance our export capacity, which increases our wealth. Even out of my electorate, there is $5.3 billion of economic activity. I would say that there are not many electorates across Australia that have that level of economic activity.

We continue to invest in looking after our land. There is $525 million for the Green Army Program. I am going to have three Green Army projects in my electorate and I am going to try to get some more. The thing I like about the Green Army Program is that it gets young men and women aged 17 to 25 outdoors, breather the fresh country air and get involved in hands-on environmental management. This is how you actually move people away from being armchair environmentalists, of which we have seen too many, to being people who have a passion and an affinity for looking after the land. Not only will those people undertaking Green Army projects be doing something of value that will lift their self-esteem they will also be getting some skills and doing some good environmental work they will help the region. We have $342 million in the Community Development Grants Program. That is money that will go into our communities to help build small infrastructure. Also part of the budget is the national stronger regions fund. That is a $1 billion that will be spent right across Australia to build those small projects that are very important to people.

For my electorate in the budget there is also an additional 3,000 places for the Clontarf Foundation. I met with some of these guys last week. They are young Aboriginal men who use sport as a motivation for getting them back to school and getting them back into learning. One of the key factors about this budget is that, unlike the previous government, which was not prepared to put some tough love into unemployment benefits and in driving people to work, we have introduced and earn or learn program. The earn or learn program will not have people living on $2 noodles for six months, as those opposite would have us believe; it will have some very good programs that will help people get a job. That is what we want.

Mr Acting Deputy Speaker Randall—I think that is the right title. It sounds very regal for you, doesn't it? We want to see people get a job. Getting a job builds your self-esteem. Getting a job builds your self-worth. We do not want people to see themselves as unemployed. We want to see them as employable and looking for work. That is something we need to do right across Australia. In my electorate there are jobs, and a lot of them are currently being filled by Irish and German backpackers. We want our young Australians to get involved in the workforce. That does not mean you start off in the job that you always want. I never started off in the job I always wanted, and I am not sure I am in the job I always wanted now, but here I am. The point is—

Dr Leigh interjecting—

You could try. I think you had a good go but did not quite—I think you polled 17 per cent. Across my electorate we want to have people who are active and take a job. That is going to be very critical, Mr Deputy Speaker Randall. Is that the correct title?

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Correct.

Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Even the senior Australians in my electorate can see the value of what we are doing with the GP co-payment. I have talked to pensioners, and whilst they do not particularly like it they know there is value in their covering some of the hard yards that are ahead, particularly when you tell them that it is going to go into the Medical Research Future Fund. This is a fund that could have huge benefits for Australia, not only in the way it could solve some illnesses that we need research into. One thing I have seen when I have studied extensively overseas is that medical research becomes something that links very much with our universities, and if we can do this right then we can actually have some of our universities, our top research universities, accessing some of these funds and driving not only training but also the research and the cures for the next century.

For people who are over 50, being unemployed is a big challenge. I want to make sure that those people in my electorate are very aware that, if you have been unemployed for six months, we are going to introduce a program that is going to help you get a job. There is nothing that does more for an older person's self-esteem than to see that they are still of value, that they can still get a job and that they can still contribute to the Australian economy and to their own pocket. We are introducing $10,000 over 24 months to help senior Australians get jobs. If you have been on welfare for six months or more, an employer will work with you and get $10,000 over 24 months to employ you. So there is a length of tenure for which you are going to have to stay there—for which they are going to have to keep you on. That measure, I think, will be very well received.

If you do have the chance—and many of you are very busy workers, I understand, as members of parliament—the Queen's Birthday long weekend is a good time to get out and go for a road trip. One of the things that is great about the electorate of Mallee is that it has such fantastic places to visit. We have the Grampians, where you can have a kangaroo bounce up right to your front step. We have the Murray River, where you can take a houseboat.

We want to drive tourism dollars in the Grampians. We want to drive tourism dollars along the Murray River. We understand that tourism is a very important part of the Australian economy. So the budget has a $43 million tourism Demand-Driver Infrastructure Program, with small expenditures right across Australia that will make sure that people get out and experience Australia. I think this is another thing that is a great part of this budget.

We have not shirked our responsibility. When I have been out talking to people across my electorate, they are not saying, 'Woe is me!' What they are saying, without any political spin, is: 'We know that we have been living beyond our means for too long. We are not buying the line that there is no budget emergency. We are not buying the line that the Labor government should have continued the way it had been going for five years previously.' People are telling me that the budget is tough but fair. They are prepared to wear some of the cuts because they know that if they can walk with us we can walk through a few difficult years and there will be light on the other side. We have done it before. Unfortunately, we have been elected to have to do it again. But it is the tough decisions that define members of parliament, not just turning up and whingeing and throwing away money like a drunken sailor. We are prepared to make those tough decisions, and that is something that will define this government.

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

Whether you ask parents, pensioners or conservative premiers, it is pretty clear that this budget is deeply unpopular—perhaps the most unpopular budget since polling began. One of the reasons for this is that it breaks so many promises: in it, pledges of no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts to pensions, no cuts to the ABC and no new taxes are smashed like plates at a Greek wedding. Broken too is the pledge not to cut more than 12,000 public servants, a broken promise which falls particularly hard on my electorate, and the promise not to make further cuts to foreign aid: now Australia will see itself doing less vaccination and building fewer sanitary projects—saving fewer lives. It appears that, when Mr Abbott was sermonising for the previous three years about the need for politicians to keep their word, he was referring to everyone but himself.

The other reason that people are angry about this budget is that it does not reduce the deficit. Let us not compare Hockey 2013 with Hockey 2014. Let us make the only fair comparison. As the Charter of Budget Honesty sets out, the fair comparison is with today's budget and the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook, independently prepared by the secretaries of Treasury and Finance during the caretaker period. By that comparison, this budget has a higher deficit this year, a higher deficit next year, and a higher deficit across the forwards. The PEFO had us returning to surplus in 2016-17; this budget has us returning to surplus in 2017-18. The Treasurer's hyperbole about Australia's deficit levels are out of touch with the international reality, where Australia's debt levels are relatively low. But if the Treasurer were to care about the level of Australia's debt and deficits, he does himself no favours by bringing down a budget which increases them.

But the biggest reason that this budget sent shivers through the community is that it fails the fair go test. So many people in my community and other communities around Australia are asking about the budget, 'How will it make my life harder?' A single parent recently contacted me. She has worked hard all her life supporting herself and her two boys and was to be made redundant this year. As the redundancy date loomed closer she did her best to secure another job to guard against unemployment and to avoid disadvantaging her two boys, who rely on her income. But she struggled. 'I went for interview after interview,' she said. No-one was willing to give her a go. 'Our government is much the same,' she reflected. 'They look after those who are capable and successful and they leave the rest behind.

An age pensioner got in touch. She told me about her life of contribution to the nation, her four working children and her six grandchildren. Throughout her life she has done her best, paying her taxes and raising a family, but now she tells me she feels like a burden on society. She said: 'I am one of those pensioners whose sole income is the pension—no superannuation payments, nothing. I feel sad, depressed and scared for my ability to pay my way when all the cuts start.'

And yet this is a budget which, while it takes away from pensioners, gives to those at the top of the distribution. You heard nothing on budget night about the $50,000 for millionaires parental leave scheme. It is a scheme I know the member for Mitchell has commented on in the past, and he has very astutely pointed to the shortcomings in his speech. I certainly do not want to traduce your impartiality, Deputy Speaker, but when he is in the House the member for Mitchell is a brave speaker on the evident flaws in paid parental leave. I commend him for so doing.

While I am quoting members of the other side of the House it is apposite to mention that today was an opportunity for the Minister for Education to quote from an excellent book, if I do say so: Battlers and Billionaires! I am very happy to continue in the vein that the education minister pursued in question time in making very clear that this is a budget for billionaires, not a budget for battlers.

For six years the non-concessional superannuation cap has stayed at $150,000. In this budget it was raised to $180,000. Let's think for a moment about who benefits from the $40 million of new expenditure over the forwards. Who is putting more than $150,000 a year into superannuation? Say you put 15 per cent of your income into superannuation—a relatively high contribution. That would mean you would need to have more than $1 million income every year to benefit from this measure.

So the talk of heavy lifting rings hollow in a budget which puts aside $40 million for people with seven-figure incomes to benefit and spends $50,000 on the most affluent families to have children. We have, of course, some modelling that has been done on that. How good is the modelling, you would have to ask? I do not want to verify the authority of the modelling; let me go directly to the Prime Minister, who said on 17 August 2010 that NATSEM is 'the most reputable and authoritative modelling organisation in Australia.' So what does NATSEM, the Prime Minister's No. 1 modelling firm, say about this budget? The analysis carried out by Ben Phillips shows very clearly the impact on households in the budget. We will go to 2017-18 and the results of the STINMOD model in that year show that, for couples with children, those in the bottom quintile are losing 6.6 per cent of their disposable income—on average nearly a $3,000 annual hit—while those in the top quintile are getting a benefit of 0.3 per cent, or about $500. Let me also go to single parents. Single parents in the bottom quintile are losing 11 per cent of their income—nearly $4,000 a year.

Overall, the budget is clearly redistributive from the bottom to the top. Those in the bottom quintile in 2017-18 are losing 2.2 per cent of their income, and those in the top quintile are gaining 0.2 per cent of their income. So, on average, there is $991 taken away from the bottom quintile and $316 given to the top quintile. What is the context in which this is being done? It is being done at a time in which we have had an unprecedented rise in inequality.

Over the past generation, earnings for the top 10 per cent have risen three times as fast as earnings for the bottom 10 per cent. The top one per cent income share has doubled. The top 0.1 per cent income share has tripled. The richest three Australians, who could fit in the back seat of a limousine, have more wealth than the poorest one million Australians, which is about the population of Adelaide. Yet this is a budget which seems apparently to have been framed in the expectation that inequality in Australia was falling rather than rising. It is the kind of budget you might expect from a Prime Minister of whom Peter Costello once wrote:

He used to tell me proudly that he had learned all of his economics at the feet of Bob Santamaria. I was horrified.

I had the pleasure last week of visiting the youth and family centre in Devonport with Senator Urquhart and speaking to some of the youth workers there. We were speaking about the overall impact of the budget, but one of the measures that concerns them in particular is the impact on twentysomething young people in Tasmania who lose their job and have to wait six months to get unemployment benefits.

There is a deep concern among these youth workers, who had between them decades of experience, that this will lead to an exacerbation of mental illness and to people sleeping rough in their cars if they have them or on the streets if they do not. It could lead people to turn to crime as a way of simply feeding themselves. The philosophy that underpins the six-month waiting time to receive unemployment benefits is the notion that unemployment is a personal failing. It is not the fault of people in the north-west of Tasmania that jobs are scarce in that part of Australia.

The reason that one in 10 people who want a job cannot find one in north-west Tasmania is not that there has been an outpouring of laziness or a lack of willingness to work; it is the structural factors—the decline of the manufacturing and forestry sector in Tasmania, which has led to this situation. To punish Tasmanians for that is cruel and unnecessary in the extreme. Tasmania, having one of the lowest income levels in the country, will be particularly hard hit by this budget.

The burden of the budget will also fall heavily upon National Party electorates, whose incomes are on average lower than the rest of Australia. So it is quite surprising to me that members of the National Party are lining up to support a budget which is hurting their electors.

Of course, as you transfer resources from the poor to the rich, you effectively transfer resources from spenders to savers. We know this because, if we look at the spending rates by quintile, a recent Reserve Bank working paper estimated that low-income families spend all of their income while high income families save a quarter of their income. The effect of moving $10 billion from the bottom quintile to the top quintile is you are going to decrease spending by $2½ billion. That money is going to go into savings, and you would expect to see a hit on retail trade, and that is precisely what we have seen.

A report in the Financial Review last Friday noted that retail sales fell 5.1 per cent in the seven days after the budget, following a 4.6 per cent drop in the week beforehand according to the Australian Retail Index. The ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence indicator recorded a 3.2 per cent fall in the week ending 18 May, taking the decline in the measure to 14 per cent over the past four weeks. That is the most rapid drop in that index since the global financial crisis.

The Westpac-Melbourne Institute consumer confidence survey has dropped to 92.9, which is nearly a three-year low. Confidence has fallen among Labor voters, where the index is a lousy 74.9. I can tell you a secret, Deputy Speaker, retailers do not care whether the money is coming out of the wallets of Labor voters or coalition voters. So, if you tank the consumer confidence of Labor voters, you will hurt the economy.

We have a Treasurer, who is really a shadow Treasurer in drag, trash-talking the economy at every opportunity. It is showing up not just in the retail sale numbers, not just in the two consumer confidence indicators I have mentioned, but also in a survey of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Fewer than one in three company directors now believes the federal government is having a positive impact on their business decisions and consumer confidence. As it turns out, only eight per cent expressed support for the government's proposed unfair paid parental leave scheme at last year's election. The member for Mitchell is with 92 per cent of company directors—a better place to be than both the Treasurer and the Prime Minister, who are with just eight per cent of company directors. The result of this is that we have a government which is not speaking proudly about the economy in the national stage. When the Prime Minister went to Davos he did not speak about the two decades of uninterrupted growth and the bipartisan reforms which have underpinned that. Instead he trash-talked his own nation on the world stage. As political scientist Judith Brett wrote recently, the government is behaving like 'a bunch of winners taking it out on the losers'. She said: 'It all feels a bit like student politics in its short term point scoring, its payback and its intense personal antagonisms.'

The Abbott-Hockey budget is not only breaks promises and fails to address the deficit; it is deeply unfair and, because of that, it is hurting consumer confidence. The impact of this will continue to be felt until the Prime Minister and the Treasurer step out of the role of attacking the economy and step into the role of supporting the economy—recognising that although, in government, they have made Australian debt levels worse, they remain relatively low by international standards. Maybe talking about a budget emergency is the member for North Sydney's way of boosting his numbers in the coalition party room, but it is having a detrimental effect on economic confidence. Unnecessary talk of emergencies is one of the factors that is driving down retail sales and hurting consumer confidence. This government should govern for all Australians, not pursue measures which in effect take from the most vulnerable to give to the most affluent. This is an unfair budget and Australia can do better. (Time expired)

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on these appropriation bills which will start to set the course to get Australia back into a good position. Oh for the days of being elected as a new government in 2007 facing the budget that they inherited! Here we are as an incoming government that has been given a financial mess—not one we created—to clean up. Listening to lectures by the economic academics on the other side on how wrong this budget is defies belief. To think that they actually put these thoughts into books—I am worried about the education of young people who may pick them up and actually believe in them! It is well known and well documented that, when Labor came to power, they inherited a $20 billion surplus, they inherited cash in the bank. What have we received? It is deja vu 1996—budget black holes, debt. I want to remind people of their track record while they were in power. In 2008-09 they promised a $21.7 billion surplus. It would not have been too hard considering the fact that they had already inherited a $20 billion surplus and $50 billion in the bank. But what did they deliver? A $27 billion deficit. In fact, that is a $48.7 billion turnaround in just one year. To show you the enormity of that, in 1996, when we were elected, the whole of the deficit was only $96 billion.

In 2009-10, they promised a $57.6 billion deficit, so perhaps they were starting to speak about the true Labor ways of deficit, and still only delivered a $54.5 billion deficit. They improved their bottom line by $3.1 billion. In 2010-11, they promised a $40.8 billion deficit and blew that out by $6.7 billion to a $47.5 billion deficit. In 2011-12, they promised a $22.6 billion deficit and delivered a $43.4 billion deficit, a blow-out of $20.8 billion. And the cracker is 2012-13, from these great economic minds. They promised the Australian people a $1.5 billion surplus. They had the economy under control; they knew what they were doing; the GFC had finished. Instead, what did they deliver? They delivered an $18.8 billion deficit, a turnaround of $20.3 billion.

So to stand in this House and listen to Labor lecture the coalition on economic management defies belief. In fact, they could not even lie straight in bed if they intended to. They made all these promises and all these inferences. They knew what they were doing. The thing that really galls me is that they based everything on the global financial crisis. The global financial crisis did not run for six or seven years; in fact, the main part occurred in northern Europe and the US, in the Northern Hemisphere, and the effect of that was only over months. But this Labor Party, when in government, used it as the excuse to spend, spend, spend. It is as though they believed in Mark Latham's magic pudding.

As I said right at the very outset, we did not create this economic mess, but we have been charged with the responsibility to address it and to fix it. Wishful thinking will not fix the problem. No amount of rhetoric will address the issue. Only by addressing the core fundamentals of economic management can we get this economy onto a pathway to recovery. I say this: through the MYEFO period, we were to have a deficit accumulation of $667,000 million—$667 billion. Through the measures that have been implemented by this government, it has been able to be reduced to $389 billion. The problem is not fixed; it has just been reduced. I give all credit to the Treasurer and the financial team of Mathias Cormann for being able to get it down far.

I do not like delivering a budget where people feel pain, because when I was here during the Howard government we had the budget under so much control with growth and prosperity that we were able to hand out tax cuts and cheques and still deliver budget surpluses. This mob opposite destroyed the confidence of the Australian people, overspent, overreached and were never apologetic for it. In fact, they thought it was their God given right to continue to spend, spend and spend. If they had kept going, my great-great-great-great grandchildren, who have not even been thought of—I am not even a grandfather yet—would be paying off their debt. They would have entrenched it so hard that there would be no way of recovery. It is only when you do the hard yards and the heavy lifting as a government that you can turn it around.

One of the other areas that concerns me is the fact that we are paying in excess of $12,000 million each and every year in interest—$1 billion a month. At the same time, the Labor opposition criticised the government in relation to health, in relation to Gonski and in relation to the NDIS. The interest bill alone, per annum, is more than the cost of Gonski and NDIS together. I would like to think what $1,000 million a month would do for much-needed roadworks.

The other thing I take great umbrage at is when members opposite get up and deliberately mislead the House when they say we are cutting funding for health. The facts in the budget are that New South Wales hospital funding will increase each year, from $4.6 billion in 2014-15 up to $5.9 billion in 2017-18, and hospital funding for New South Wales will increase from $4.2 billion this financial year to $4.6 billion on 1 July in the 2014-15 year. So I ask myself the question. I thought that when you actually increased, when the numbers went up, that was more money going out. But I can understand the comments of those opposite, because they actually believe that their deficits are surpluses. They told us on so many occasions that budgets would keep returning to surplus. But do you know what? They had no intention at all.

There is confusion out there. It is not like me to make negative comments on my state colleagues in the New South Wales parliament. I say this of my New South Wales colleagues because I want to be honest in relation to this budget. The fear that is being whipped up amongst our pensioners and concession cardholders is palpable. The fact is that the Commonwealth will provide—no adjustment to it—twice a year pension increases by the CPI. This year the CPI will be the highest form of measurement. So that is the benefit to our seniors. We are not cutting their pensions. All of the Commonwealth government concessions stay there. They stay there for pensioner concession cardholders, they stay there for Commonwealth health care cardholders and they stay there for Commonwealth senior cardholders. They stay there.

According to some of the numbers in relation to the New South Wales concessions, and to the New South Wales Treasury analysis on the information provided to me, over the next four years, or the forward estimates, $732 million in public transport concessions, $323 million in council rate discounts, $643 million in water bill exemptions, $881 million in electricity rebates, and $1.2 billion in fee exemptions for drivers licence tests and mobility parking schemes were to be paid out to pensioners over the next four years. The federal contribution to the New South Wales government is but $107 million from 1 July this year and $450 million through the forward estimates. So if you work out that, of the $807 million that New South Wales will be paying this year, we are paying $107 million. If all of these concessions are to go, I do not think it is actually the federal government's funding that is cutting these concessions. I think that the state government should be a little bit more honest, if it intends to cut concessions, as to whose budget it is playing with—because it is not the federal budget. As I said, those concessions are primarily the responsibility of the state government. The state should be honest enough—not just New South Wales; other states have jumped in on this—to fess up to the people of where and why the cuts are coming. They are not coming because of cuts made by the federal budget.

There are a couple of key reasons I support this budget. First and foremost, it starts to get our economy back under control, reduces the deficit and therefore reduces interest bills. Also, there are particular aspects of this budget and appropriation which will help work with mobile telephone blackspots in my electorate and the rollout of NBN in my electorate in particular, as I now have three more towers going up for fixed wireless networking in my electorate. As you would know, Deputy Speaker, as you have been up in my area a number of times, the geographic and topographic restrictions in my area and the spread of the population means that the broad land mass of my electorate will not receive cable to the home under any form of government. So fixed wireless installations are the answer, and they are getting underway.

Addressing mobile phone black spots is part of the $100 million package put up by the coalition prior to the election and is now in our budget. One that is particularly impressive is the money that will be spent with our defence forces. After $30 billion worth of cutbacks in defence, we are starting to catch up. There is the allocation not just for the acquisition of the joint strike fighter but also for the support services, of which $986 million will be spent at Williamtown RAAF base, upgrading facilities for them to come, making sure that our national interest and our national security is protected by the best platforms available.

Making sure that the men and women of our nation have the best possible assets and face the minimum personal risk to themselves is paramount for any government. The decision by the coalition to invest in the air warfare destroyers, the LHDs, and now the joint strike fighters as a continuation of that, shows we are providing the best assets for our people. I look forward to that investment at Williamtown, because the base upgrade will mean jobs for local people, as contractors engaged to upgrade runways and build new buildings, but also the employment aspect because Lockheed Martin will be engaging a lot of people to work in a private capacity through contractors as a part of the project. There will also be flow-on effects to local companies such as Varley, to name but one, that will be manufacturing parts for the joint strike fighter in and around my region.

I also welcome the road funding aspect of the budget. I congratulate the Prime Minister and also the Deputy Prime Minister for wanting this government to be known as an infrastructure building government. For too long we heard the Labor Party, in particular the member for Hunter, bang on about things like the Scone bypass. There were many years of rhetoric, but we have put the money in place and work is commencing. We have put up the hard cash in the budget—it is a line item, not just a rhetorical promise days before an election. The money is there. The former Deputy Prime Minister in the days before an election promised there would be money for the Tourle Street bridge, but it was not in their budget. There were all the promises by the former Labor member for Newcastle but they never amounted to anything. The money is there now and work is beginning. My colleague and friend to the north, the member for Lyne, will appreciate the $16 million for Bucketts Way. That is great funding, although it should come down into my patch a little bit more. He has been doing a tremendous job up there.

We are starting to see a greater rollout of roads of importance that will fix traffic congestion. We are starting to build the infrastructure of the future. Upgrades on the now M1, which used to be the F3, and the important piece of infrastructure, the connection between the M1 and the M2, so people no longer have to battle with traffic lights all the way through to get on the M1 and M2, are critically important. The best and brightest minds in the Labor Party lecture us when it comes to the economy, but I say to my constituents, and to the Australian community: have a look at their track record. They could not even get their projections right, let alone the outcome. They promised surpluses umpteen times, and delivered only deficits in the entire period they were in government. (Time expired)

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For all the bluster, for all the wannabe Churchillian posturing we have seen in the past couple of weeks, this is fundamentally a government that lacks the courage of its convictions. The budget makes this clear—sadly, with devastating effects for our society. It presents a deeply ideological agenda, shrinking our sense of the public good, suggesting it is something that somehow arises out of necessity—but this simply is not so. The rationale underpinning this budget of broken promises is that there is an emergency. However, there seems to be some confusion, to say the least, amongst members opposite about the exact nature of this supposed emergency. We have heard the Prime Minister claim the house was on fire and then, confusingly, that Labor itself was the fire. On the other hand, we have heard the Treasurer downgrading the fire, saying it was just the kitchen, not the house, on fire. This is a government that cannot get its metaphors straight, let alone give a true account of its actions and purpose. Since then we have heard the Prime Minister say:

You see, we had a fire, and the budget is the fire brigade. And sure, sometimes the fire brigade knocks over a few fences in order to put out the fire.

'A few fences'? What the Prime Minister refers to as a few fences being knocked over are in fact people, families, communities, neighbourhoods—all of whom quite reasonably expected their government to be on their side and not to be using dehumanising rhetoric to justify knocking them over.

Of course, there is no fire, no emergency. The notion of an emergency is one that has been refuted by every economist in the country and, I might add, in other countries too. Even the National Commission of Audit chairman, Tony Shepherd, says so. If the government cannot convince one of the budget's architects that there is an emergency, then the argument is running threadbare, to say the least. The only crisis here is in the government's credibility and it is telling that they will not directly say what they mean, but they want to divide Australia and divide Australians, to take us back to the future, before Medicare, before higher education was opened up and before modern Australia.

There are, however, some clues as to what is meant. In his second reading speech, the Treasurer said, invoking Menzies, that we are a nation of lifters, not leaners. In this budget it is the most vulnerable Australians who are doing most of the lifting. The Treasurer spoke also of fairness and intergenerational responsibility, and yet young people will bear the brunt of this government's cruelty. The National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling found that low-income couples, children and single parents will lose up to 15 per cent of their disposable income when these measures are fully implemented. NATSEM Principle Research Fellow, Ben Phillips, told Emma Griffiths from ABC News that around 1.2 million families would be, on average, around $3,000 a year worse off by 2017-18. An unemployed single parent of two school aged children would lose over $4,000 a year, or nearly 15 per cent of their disposable income, by 2017. This parent would still lose this amount if they found a job that paid $40,000. A couple with two school aged children who both work to bring in a combined income of $60,000 would lose $6,000 a year of their disposable income. Even if their annual income climbed to $90,000, the loss would remain the same. Mr Phillips described this as 'a substantial hit and these are of course to the families who are already in the most precarious positions'. I am inclined to stronger language. It is taking the most from those who have the least.

In addition, research by the Crawford School of Public Policy at the ANU has found that those receiving government benefits do the heavy lifting, as the Treasurer would say, in this budget. This research found that an unemployed single parent with an eight-year-old child would lose $54 a week, 12 per cent of their disposable income. The GP tax, which is another broken promise, whatever members opposite might say, will also hit the most vulnerable the hardest, tearing down a signal Australian achievement—universal health care—and undermining great steps forward that have been taken in terms of preventative health. The Scullin electorate has the highest rate of bulk-billing in Victoria and I would like to keep it this way. Those opposite have other ideas. We have seen the Prime Minister and the Treasurer mislead the public about who would have to pay the GP tax. The coalition have also been repeating the canard that people are seeing a GP too often, using an inaccurate and an inflated figure. Surely a general practitioner is better qualified than a right-wing ideologue in assessing someone's medical condition or someone's health needs. The sick are doing the lifting in this budget.

The Treasurer has spoken about values being more important than figures in this budget—and I am sure that is true; I agree with him on that—but these are the wrong values that inform these budget decisions. The values message here is all too clear: if you are poor, then do not get sick. Or, more starkly: do not be poor—or young, for that matter. And the government's message to motorists, most of us, is just as blunt: if you drive, you will pay more. If you want to get public transport in the outer suburbs, good luck, because the coalition is ideologically opposed to investing in public transport infrastructure, much to the frustration of state colleagues in Victoria, at least. People in Scullin are crying out for public transport infrastructure investment because they have no choice but to drive all too often, and now they will pay at the pump for this government's broken promise on the petrol tax and its refusal to invest in Melbourne Metro and other public transport infrastructure projects. People in Scullin see through the accountancy tricks of this self-described infrastructure Prime Minister. They see no vision to keep our cities productive and liveable.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 17:39 to 17:53

Finally, I note the biggest lifters of all in this budget are the world's most vulnerable, as 21 per cent in budget savings come from our foreign aid budget. The cruellest cuts of all fall on those who are unable to defend themselves or even be heard here, those who rely on us the most. That is perhaps the most shameful aspect of this budget.

The public's instinctive awareness of the unequal distribution of budget pain has been backed up by NATSEM research, which found that the temporary two per cent income tax increase for the nation's top earners would have a token impact. As Mr Phillips stated:

If you're on $200,000 … your impact would be around $400 per year, and that compares to a single-earner family … who may be losing $3,000 to $4,000 per year by 2017-18 … the top income groups - so the top 20 per cent of households - would have either no impact or a very small positive impact.

A key difference between the government's debt tax and the attacks on low- and middle-income earners is that the debt tax is temporary. The cuts to family payments and other cuts are permanent. It is also worth mentioning, and it is quite interesting, that these figures would have been included in previous budget papers but in this budget they were missing—funny that.

I want to touch briefly on the impact this budget will have on young Australians, on our future. Firstly, I regard spending on education as investment not some dead-weight cost like those opposite seem to treat it. Investing in our young and sometimes our not so young through lifelong learning is how we grow our economy in large part. Making education unaffordable by crippling students with large high-interest loans does not help grow our economy. It does not enable us to get the best and brightest into the most productive vocations.

I think of the conversations I have had with constituents in recent days. One constituent was fearful and angry at the government's proposal to allow for an increase in university fees and the impact this would have on his two daughters—one at university and another aspiring to study medicine at the University of Melbourne—and on the community in general. He was of the view that, as a country, we need to ensure at least that if people apply themselves, then they have the same opportunities no matter their economic background. I could not agree more with my constituent but I am disappointed that I was unable to assure him that this government would hold to that maxim.

Prior to the election, when asked about increasing university fees, the minister, the member for Sturt, said:

…we have no plans to increase fees …

And after the election he said:

I'm not even considering it because we promised that we wouldn't.

So much for that: another broken promise, another callous disregard and breach of faith with the Australian community.

Secondly, in terms of young people, I note the complete cut-off of any form of support for those under 30 is simply unconscionable in a society such as ours. The Treasurer and Prime Minister insist with robotic insistence that young people will simply find a job, even though Australia's youth unemployment rate is persistently at 12 per cent. The budget projections offer no prospect of this falling in the near future. Where are the jobs to come from, let alone the investment in these young Australians?

The government has also cut programs like Youth Connections which helped young people remain engaged in education and training, and to find work. Why would the government make education more expensive, shut down youth employment programs and then cut off the safety net—any safety net—for young people? It is difficult not to arrive at the conclusion that this government just wants to hurt young, vulnerable Australians. So much for the rhetoric of intergenerational fairness and responsibility.

Last week, I spoke with members of the Whittlesea and District Greek Elderly Club about the budget—or rather, they spoke to me. I did most of the listening as they told me in heartbreaking detail how difficult their lives would become because of decisions contained in this budget. They wanted to know why, if there was supposedly a budget emergency, there were still tax concessions for the wealthy to contribute to their superannuation and, in particular, how there could be $50,000 cheques sent to millionaires. They wanted to know how a one-off pay freeze to politicians pay was fair compared to a permanent cut to the pension. I had—and I have—no answer to these basic questions of fairness, because this budget is fundamentally unjust. It is also dishonest in its pretence at fairness when there is none. Constituents I hear from are in disbelief and anger about what this government is seeking to do, and this is compounded by the words of the member for Higgins, who unselfconsciously writes today in the Australian Financial Reviewthat:

Selfishness has taken over from self-reliance. For our children's sake, we need to reverse the trend.

This budget entrenches and embodies selfishness. And for our children's sake, I am seeking to reverse this trend—the trend of the government's making.

I don't think people want to get into a mathematical debate about the price of everything, but people are right to be concerned with the standard and quality of living. It is no accident that in recent weeks inequality has become a hot topic right across the developed world. Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century has shone the light on intergenerational inequality—something much spoken about by this government but little attended to. And yet this government seems determined to return Australia to a gilded age of inequality, whereby if you are not born into wealth, the game of life is rigged against you.

As Piketty writes:

The history of inequality is shaped by the way economic, social and political actors what is just and what is not, as well as by the relative power of those actors and the collective choices that result …

This budget before us is an enactment of the excesses of wealth and power over the poor and vulnerable. It is unjust, and the Labor Party chooses to stand against these excesses.

The Prime Minister promised—I think this was a solemn promise—that this would be a 'no surprises, no excuses' government. On Melbourne radio, the day before the election, the Prime Minister said: 'The fact is the most important thing I can do for our country in the coming months is to ensure that it is possible once more to have faith in your polity, to have faith in your government and that means keeping commitments.' I could not agree more with the then opposition leader and now Prime Minister. But, sadly, the months since that day show that the people of Australia can have no faith whatever in this government, a government that treats the promises it made before the election as mere statements of puffery which can be walked away from, if not openly laughed at, as the Minister for Education seemed to do in the chamber today.

I am holding them to account for the broken promises of their government. The Treasurer of Australia described this process as 'silly populist games'. Treasurer, let me say this: keeping your promises is not a silly populist game. It is how elected officials keep faith with the Australian people. It is fundamental to the operation of our democratic system.

The Prime Minister said that he would be prepared to take a hit in the polls for the country. How terribly noble of him! But families, students, the poor and so many others in our society are taking a hit already, a hit much larger and with a considerably more painful impact than this government's decline in polling—a decline that I am sure will continue.

The premiers and chief ministers—most of them conservative—were clearly labouring under the delusion the Abbott government would keep its promises. I think they have learned their lesson now. The Prime Minister attempted to muddy the waters in this regard, claiming this government's $80 billion cuts to the health and education budgets of states and territories would not take effect for years. It turns out, of course, they will start taking effect on 1 July. As with cuts in other areas, there is no plan for how schools and hospitals are meant to cope with these cuts. They are expected to simply find efficiencies. Only the coalition could regard a hospital as more efficient when it closes beds or a school more efficient as it sacks teachers.

While the people of Scullin will pay the price for this government's broken promises, this government will wear this budget like a crown of thorns at the next election—as it should. I was inspired by the Leader of the Opposition's rousing budget reply. It captured the real mood of the nation. I look forward to prosecuting the case against this government. But, more importantly, I look forward to making the case for a better, more inclusive government, one that keeps faith with the Australian people and one the Australian people can have faith in.

This is a cruel budget that rests on a false premise, but it is so much worse than that. It is narrow, unfair, bereft of vision or competence and deeply, dishonestly ideological. It has already defined this government, and Labor will ensure that it does not confine Australia's future.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There comes a time when you have to stand up and be counted, when all of us have to make serious decisions about our future. In particular, governments should do what they believe is right for the nation and not necessarily what they believe will be popular in the short term. That is the point we are at at the moment. I have always said that we as elected members are sent to this place not to agree with every whim of every constituent who comes to see us each day. We are sent here because we are considered to be well-rounded individuals who will make well-informed decisions on behalf of our electorates. That is what governments should do as well.

I turn to the budget. Is the budget today in crisis? There have been great discussions about that throughout the media and other places in Australia. This budget, the sixth one by Wayne Swan, that was left to us by the Labor government is $49 billion in the red. Is that a crisis? Could we as an incoming government have kicked the can down the road for a couple more years? Perhaps so. But by then the remedies would be more painful.

I am worried that the civilised democracies of the world are in some way failing. They are still, as Winston Churchill said, the worst form of government except for all the rest. But, in fact, it seems to be increasingly difficult in advanced democracies for governments to give people what they need rather than what they want. If governments give people what they need and the constituency turns to another party that says it will give them what they want, which is the easy way out, then those who have the strength to deliver what they need are never in power. I see this right across the democracies of the Western world. And that is why it is so important to act earlier rather than later, before the problem becomes insurmountable—and we do have enough of a problem at the moment.

Those who say that our debt is nothing to worry about, that it is not even to the average of the OECD nations, demonstrate to me that they have very little experience in managing debt and managing business debt. I was a farmer before I got to this place. Farmers say, 'We understand that there's good debt and there's bad debt.' Good debt for a farmer means that you might be expanding your agricultural operation. You might be buying the neighbour's farm, or you might be investing in land improvement. You might be investing in new machinery that will make you more efficient and grow a better crop. That is good debt because you are borrowing to grow a bigger pie. Bad debt is if you go and spend it on things like machinery you do not need, for instance, or overseas holidays, boats or beach shacks. Now, there is nothing wrong with any of those things, and many of my friends have them, but I strongly suggest that they do not borrow money to achieve those outcomes.

In a national sense, examples of good debt are when governments borrow to build roads, rail and new ports and make the nation a more prosperous place. Bad debt, but not necessarily bad spending, is when we borrow and borrow increasing amounts to deal with the day-to-day expenses of government—things like pensions, health and education. And especially bad debt—I will put in another category here—is when government borrows money and wastes it. We have seen a bit of that in the recent past: pink batts, overpriced school halls, hopelessly run low-cost-housing initiatives for the homeless and an NBN plan drawn up on the back of a coaster. Since I am probably at risk of getting completely off the subject, enough said on that particular subject at the moment.

But how have we come to be where we are? After six years of Labor government, we have total deficits of $191 billion and another $123 billion more in the pipeline. Treasury says that, without change, Australia faces deficits until 2024, and the Commission of Audit indicates that, without serious changes, they will not end then either. With no change in policy, we know that Australia would reach a peak debt of $667 billion. Remember Prime Minister Rudd's pronouncement—and he is a good friend, I am sure, of the member opposite, the member for Bruce. Mr Rudd said, 'We will be a government committed to surpluses.' But then, when he became elected and we had the GFC, he qualified that statement and said, 'We are a government that is committed to surpluses over the economic cycle.' Sixteen years plus—I just wonder: how long is that economic cycle? We are left in this mess because Labor has no plan but the fairy plan. That means that the fairies down at the bottom of the garden will do the job.

We already pay $1 billion a month in interest on the borrowings, and in another six or seven years, without change, that would double to $2 billion a month. Perhaps those who think that is manageable should consider where our economy is at the moment. Interest rates could very well double in a period like six or seven years. We are at the low end of a cycle on interest rates. Two-thirds of our debt is held overseas and so is subject to the vagaries of international exchange rates, and we, as an exporting nation, are very susceptible to volatile commodity prices. In only the last few weeks we have seen iron ore, for instance, drop below $100 a tonne, down from $130 less than six months ago. Those types of shocks for the Australian economy are very real and could happen at any stage. That is why we need to be more conservative than other nations.

We have known many of the problems facing the Australian economy for quite some time. Peter Costello's 2003 Intergenerational report laid it out on the table. We have an ageing population and a bulge which is going to put demands on our economy that we have never seen before. Costello, to his credit, is the only Treasurer up until Joe Hockey to actually have a go at trying to do something about it. It is all very new age to dump on Peter Costello now and say, He didn't do enough with the mining boom. Why didn't they save more money?' But at the time my memory was that there was plenty of pressure going around saying, 'Why are you taking all our taxes and running a $20 billion surplus?' So Peter Costello wisely invested in the Future Fund, around about $70 billion. That is now $88 billion. Since Costello left the Treasury, since we lost the election in 2007, what has been contributed to the Future Fund from government funds? Nothing, not another cent. Yet it was meant to target $140 billion, and that is just to meet the superannuation costs of public servants. Yes, the budget has some firm measures but none of us should believe any of the hyperbole predicting the end of the world as we know it from the usual suspects. What else can they say? Largely we are where we are now because of them.

Take, for instance, the higher education reforms. Last year I was privileged to be part of a Liberal Party working group on online education. It was an eye-opener. The advent of the massive online open courses has been a revolution across the online world. Increasingly quality universities around the world are focusing their resources into developing quality degrees online. In the future you will see students in Australia being able to log onto their online course 24 hours a day for advice. They will have computer systems which will adapt to their learning ability, that will build new work programs around the student reflecting their weaknesses and their strengths. This will be a revolution. So instead of shopping down the end of the street at the local university for your degree, you will be able to have your degree from the very best universities in the world wherever they may be.

We know that Australian universities, like our schools unfortunately, are slipping down the pecking order. The people who make the loudest noise would have us believe that everything is working now. It is not working now. We have got problems in the system now that we need to address. Unless we do something we are heading for a slow train wreck because much of the money that sustains our higher education system at the moment is coming from overseas students, chiefly out of Asia. If we keep slipping down that pecking order we will not have those students because increasingly they have better universities and they will have that online opportunity to get quality degrees at a reasonable price. We have to allow our universities the flexibility to adapt into this new marketplace and we really do need to have a number of quality universities in the top 20 and in the top 100 so that we can market brand Australia as an education destination.

Let us have a quick look at Medicare and the co-payment. Ten years ago we were spending $8 billion on Medicare; now it is $19 billion, more than double. The Australian population in 2004 was 20 million; now it is 23 million, an increase of 15 per cent. So we have doubled expenditure on Medicare while our population has only gone up 15 per cent. If we do nothing, by 2024 it will be $34 billion, or almost double again. I do not have to tell you the population will not be doubled by then. Clearly that is not sustainable. That is why we need to make a stand now and start to pull the budget back into order.

I have been saying throughout my electorate that the budget has something that everybody does not like and I think that is probably an indication that we are trying to spread the load across the electorate. On that basis I have been recommending to Australians that we all have to bear a bit of pain and all have to do our bit for the nation. That is why I say they should consider the budget as a down payment on Australia's future. However, on the basis that we should spread the pain equally across Australia and the states and electorates, I must register my disappointment at the loss of the supplementary roads program to South Australian councils, one that cuts particularly close to home. This supplementary road program has been in place since 2004. It was recognised by John Howard and Peter Costello in those times that South Australia was the victim of a faulty formula in the distribution of the identified local roads funding program. In 2004, the government funded a three-year program to address this shortfall. In 2007, it extended it for another three years. In 2010, the then Rudd government gave it two more years and, in 2013, just one more year. You would have to think that that was just to get it past the election. To my mind, there is no way that, had the Labor Party been returned, we would ever have seen the program funded again on that basis—because it was not in the forward estimates.

Even though I understand that, in that case, it would be a new funding program for this government, I do not think we have got it right. The perception that the formula is flawed is held widely throughout South Australia. It has been in place since the early 1990s and I think that, if we are not to have the funding, at the very least we should have a review of this situation—and it should be done urgently. So I am calling on my colleagues in government to move towards that position, to fix a wrong that has existed for some time. If the South Australian councils have the opportunity to have their say and their case is found wanting, at least we can then move on from that conflict and say, 'That is behind us—you have had your opportunity and we have found that the formula is correct, so let's put up with it.' If, on the other hand, it is found to be deficient, then of course as a government interested in fairness we should do something about it.

Without taking us too far off track, in the 35 seconds I have left I would like to look briefly at what happened in Greece. While I do not liken Australia's debt situation to that of Greece, but let me say that when we talk about Australian government debt we are only talking about 50 per cent of it. Fifty per cent of it is held by the states. For those that compare us to other OECD countries, they do not necessarily have state debt. In about 25 years, Greece went from not much debt to an absolute cot case and they had to cut the pension by over 60 per cent. (Time expired)

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For many months now, I have been bracing myself for the impact of this budget. I knew that this budget would be bad for Canberra and I warned my constituents accordingly—so much so, in fact, that the Liberal senator for the ACT accused me of scaremongering on more than one occasion. However, not even I was prepared for just how bad this budget turned out to be. The Abbott government made absolutely no attempt to hide its disdain for Canberra and for the Public Service. I knew that cuts to the Public Service were coming but, that said, I had not expected the cuts to be so harsh—some 16½ thousand jobs cut plus an increase in the efficiency dividend of 0.25 per cent. There are over 7,000 Public Service jobs to go in the next year alone.

The impacts of this budget on Canberra will be even worse than I had feared. I have had constituents tell me that they think it could even be worse than 1996—and I will just remind those opposite of what happened to my city in 1996. In 1996, the Howard government was elected on a supposed promise to get rid of 2½ thousand public servants through natural attrition. That ended up being 15,000 public servants here in Canberra alone and 30,000 nationally. What was the impact on my town? House prices plummeted and we went through an economic slump for five years. We had two quarters of negative growth; people left town; the local shops closed down; businesses went under; bankruptcies, both non-business and business, went up. It had a huge impact not just on Canberra but on the entire capital region—Yass, Griffith, Queanbeyan, down at the South Coast and all around. It had an enormous impact, an enormous ripple effect, and it lasted for five years before we came out of that hole. So when I am accused by Liberal senators for the ACT of scaremongering, I say to them: 'All I'm doing is reading the budget out loud.'

In addition to the public service job cuts, Canberra was hit with funding cuts to the ANU, the University of Canberra, NICTA and the CSIRO. Canberra's world-class cultural institutions were hit with cuts that will lead to the loss of specialised and skilled staff. And in the first budget of the self-proclaimed infrastructure Prime Minister there was a distinct lack of the infrastructure investment in the national capital.

This was the worst possible version of the attack on Canberra for which I had been bracing. In fact, as I said, some people have said that it is even worse than 1996 and what happened to this town then. However, what I had not expected was that this budget would also be a blatant and outrageous attack on the youth of Australia. I also did not expect a Prime Minister who had said that there is no greater friend of Medicare than him to destroy the fundamental principles of the universality of Medicare. I did not expect a Prime Minister who was a former health minister and knows full well the benefits of preventive and primary health to completely undermine the principles of preventive and primary health that exist throughout the MBS and PBS. And I did not expect a Prime Minister who said he would be the Prime Minister for Indigenous affairs to rip hundreds of millions of dollars of funding from Indigenous health. I attended a crisis meeting last week with the Indigenous community health service provider in my electorate, Winnunga Nimmityjah. They provide a fantastic service to between 30 and 50 per cent of the region for everything from diabetes control to immunisation, child and neonatal health, GP services, dental health, physio, psychology and psychiatry—you name it. Winnunga provide a fantastic service to the Indigenous members of our community in Canberra and the capital region. At this crisis meeting they called of people not just in Canberra but from around the country I was told by those Indigenous health leaders that, through the cuts that will happen as a result of the Abbott government budget, the gap will not close but widen.

I did not expect a Prime Minister who promised prior to the election that he would make no changes to the age pension to rip funding from pensioners by lowering the indexation rate for that pension. I did not expect a government that had spent the last six years in opposition speaking about cost of living and framing every single debate around cost of living, to introduce at the first chance a budget that dramatically increases the cost of living for Australian families. Perhaps what I least expected was a government that said it wanted to fix the budget being a government that in fact created a false budget emergency so that it could be seen to be fixing the budget and not just reduce the deficit. Instead, this budget was full of new spending initiatives such as the gold plated parental leave, an $8 billion gift to the Reserve Bank and a new medical research fund.

Even though I went into this budget fearing the worst, I had obviously overestimated the Abbott government. The Australian people have seen this budget for what it is: grossly unfair, based on lies and bad for our country. If those opposite will not listen to me perhaps they will listen to my constituents. The letters I am about to read out are just some of the dozens of emails, letters and phone calls I have received over the past two weeks from Canberrans outraged by the Abbott government's budget of broken promises. The first reads:

Hi Gai

I live in Kambah and have two sons studying at a school in Canberra, one currently completing Year 12 and the other in Year 10.

Two weeks before Christmas last year I lost my job via a "Voluntary" redundancy (which of course wasn't really voluntary at all). I had been a dedicated and efficient public servant for the past 25 years. I have been unemployed since and although I've applied for many jobs, I have been unsuccessful in being able to obtain one (even just an interview). I am 46 years old so it will be quite some time before I can draw a superannuation pension therefore I have to work.

Before the Election, my two sons both had apprenticeships lined up. However, since and because of the Budget, both offers of apprenticeships have been withdrawn by their potential employers. This has really upset them and I worry greatly for their futures.

I don't know how we are going to survive. Really, I am so terribly worried about our future. In my 25 years as a public servant, I've never seen it this bad in Canberra.

Please FIGHT and fight hard for us against this budget and this destructive Government. They have gone in too hard, too fast and hit the people who can least afford it. I ask that you strongly oppose this Budget with all your might and trigger another Election."

The next one reads:

Dear Ms Brodtmann,

I am an expat Australian living in Asia. I was devastated to hear that the government has axed the Australian Network. I watch it almost every evening, and the AFL football on the weekend. It is my life line to home: the news, the drama series (world class) and of course the footy. I encourage my English language students to view the free language lessons available. Most importantly, it is 'Australia's presence' in the region, one of the G20, more powerful than a military base. The status it gives us, the prestige it bestows(most countries cannot have a global network), is uncountable, and surely worth more than the meagre millions being redirected. Please raise this matter with the government—Australians living and working o/s are collectively gutted! thank you for your time.

This letter reads:

Dear Gai,

What a nightmare the budget is! I understand that we, as a country, need to make changes to reduce our deficit and plan for the increase in cost of some areas of the future, but we are so disappointed that this budget is just so unimaginative and base.

The policy that distresses us most at the moment is the deregulation of the University fee structure and the resultant higher fees. Our son is current in his second year at the University of Sydney, so he will be less affected than younger people yet to start out.

Please Gai we need you and your colleagues to do something about this terrible policy. What amendments can you propose, what parts can you block? How will our young people ever be able to afford to buy houses when they will be saddled with an $80K debt? How will they afford higher degrees and what will it do to their general spending power, none of this can be good for the economy.

We want to commend and encourage you in your fight for the best for this country.

Another letter reads:

I am an ACT resident so I write to you all as representatives with a feeling of desperation for common sense and decency in this country.

I find it hard to stomach seeing our current government present and then defend their proposed budget that targets the less well off in the country while providing what is effectively a handout to big business.

I've been unemployed here in Canberra for 12 months. So all these young people will now have to wait with zero income and then only get 6 months cover before plunging back to zero income. Sure there will always be ways to improve targeting but can the government please see and acknowledge that crime rates will be affected for instance, severe hardship will be imposed on families, depression rates increase? I have always looked to the government and paid my taxes all my life in the belief that the money is a fair contribution to society and those on the margins and should always be there. You don't balance a budget by kicking unemployed people in the guts and handing big sums in a Paid Parental Leave scheme that no-one else but Tony Abbot was calling for!

Another one reads:

This is the first time I have written to a politician since I was at university—a long time ago—but I feel I have a moral duty to say something now. As a sixth generation Australian I am appalled at what the government has done.

I see a government for the top 3 % in our society looking for the best possible way to fund reductions in their private and corporate income tax by reducing support for the most vulnerable in our society. The measures the government has announced are designed to create an underclass denied the long term health, education and social benefits we, as citizens of one of the wealthiest countries in the world, should make available to everyone.

How can it benefit our future to create an underclass of the chronically ill, under educated and disaffected? In this technological society there is and will continue to be fewer and fewer places for the unskilled. Why create more of them and how will these people work into their 70s? This budget will end any ambition that Australia might become 'the clever country'. It certainly would have ensured that I, as a policeman's daughter in the 1970s, would never have got to university. I am perfectly cognisant of the fact that we have an aging and longer living population but dumping half of them on a scrap heap of need doesn't seem to be a moral response. The ridiculous levy will be felt by few and paid by less.

These changes won't affect me much but they will affect my view of my country. Any society is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members. The Prime Minister has cast his attempt to change the nature of this country as an 'act of political courage'. Maybe, but it is not an intelligent act nor a goodhearted one. I would prefer to describe it as an 'act of political bastardry'. As my elected representative I am requesting that you do everything in your power to prevent these appalling assaults on our social fabric—even if that means we end up going to the polls again this year.

And another reads:

Hi Gai,

I'm not normally one to write to politicians, however I feel in this case I need to express my concern with the way the country is being managed.

I am 28 years old, single with no children, earn around 100K per year with the federal APS and have private health insurance. I pay my fair share of taxes, contribute to the community through volunteer work and actively represent the Australian culture by being fair and equal to others.

However, I am greatly concerned with the recent federal budget and the impact it is going to have on me and the Canberra community.

Firstly, I am concerned with the large-scale public sector cuts being disproportionately thrown at the Canberra community. I am worried about the flow on effect this will have on the local economy including retail and hospitality, as well as the housing market, thus creating a mass exodus of locals finding greater stability in other areas of the country. I am so sick of having to defend my profession when I speak to non-locals, or continually view the Liberal Party's smearing of the public sector as lazy fat cats who sit ripe on high incomes. That 100K I'm earning—do you know how many Christmas's I have spent away from family, or holidays I have sacrificed to meet the government's policy objectives, or the late nights spent worrying about a deadline. I can assure you that I'm definitely not sitting around, smoking a cigar enjoying the so called lazy fat cat lifestyle of the public service.

Secondly, I am concerned about the federal government's withdrawal of $80 billion in state/territory funding for health and education, and the possibility that this may position the state and territories in a situation where they request an increase in the GST. Thankfully I am earning quite a nice salary, especially for my age, however how do you expect the general population to survive in this country when gas and electricity is going up, fuel prices continue to rise (especially in Canberra), healthy food is too expensive for a single income let alone a family, and on top of that the GST may rise.

Gai, how are people supposed to survive?

Lastly, I am concerned with the increase to the fuel excise in a city that heavily relies on cars because of an inadequate public transport system. Will the light rail project continue now that the ACT economy is going to lose funding?

I am very concerned about the way Canberra has been hit with this budget, and as a member of the voting public—a taxpayer and contributing member to the Canberra community—I want to ensure that my concerns are heard and acknowledged, and represented as necessary.

To those opposite, I implore you: if you will not listen to me, listen to the people of Canberra and of Australia. The people who have contacted me are not necessarily Labor supporters; they are not necessarily political. They are just ordinary Australians, ordinary Canberrans, who have been outraged by this budget, who have been betrayed by a Prime Minister who promised that he would be true to his word.

This is not only a budget of broken promises but a budget of broken dreams. It is a budget that will both entrench and widen the gap between the rich and the poor. It is a budget that is unfair and, to quote one of my constituents: 'devastating for Canberra and is a budget that asks Canberrans to do the heavy lifting for the nation'. (Time expired)

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a tough budget; it had to be. To make an analogy of the mortgage on an Australian house: the house had been paid for, the mortgage had been paid off. We had savings in the bank but, in the space of six years, slowly, we as a nation had all our savings spent for us. The house had been remortgaged, then mortgaged again for another five years so that the mortgage was greater than the value of the house. The then government mortgaged it a bit more and started paying off the bill with a credit card. That is such a good analogy. That is the situation we are in. That is why this budget had to be tough.

The coalition promised to stop the boats and to end the waste. We promised to build the roads of the 21st century and, most importantly, we promised to get the budget back under control. We have introduced and implemented policies necessary to stop the boats. We have not had any arrivals for over five months. We have begun investing in Australia's biggest infrastructure program, with $50 billion to be spent up to 2019. We are cutting red tape and getting rid of the waste. Earlier in this parliament we introduced measures to cut over $700 million in federal red tape costs. We are getting the budget back under control.

The reality is, if we had continued on that spending binge, wasting money on things like school hall rip-offs, broken-down laptops and with billions of dollars in deficit, our gross debt at the end of 2024, just 10 years in the future, would have reached $667 billion. The interest rate on our current debt equates to $12 billion a year, and that is rising. That is an amazing amount of money.

In the last three governments of Rudd, Gillard and Rudd, the millions, which were often quoted as huge amounts of money, slowly rolled into billions. People have got blase about debt. But what could we have done with $12 billion? We could have been building a four-lane divided highway from Sydney to Brisbane every year. We could have built 40 state-of-the-art regional base hospitals. Better still, over the last six years we could have established two or three of the Medical Research Future Fund that we are creating.

There are short-term measures which have changed the situation for the nation, but they had to be made so that there can be long-term repair. We want to be back on track to being a competitive nation, capable of tackling the challenges that the world throws up. We are dependent, to a large degree, on China's economy. What would happen to our economy if there was turmoil in China? There was the Arab Spring. What would happen to our economy if there was a 'Chinese Spring'? Who knows what could happen? We are building infrastructure that will deliver long-term productivity gains. It will create employment, with a run-off in associated industries. We will be in a much better situation to cope with any international economic shocks.

Contrary to Labor's misinformation campaign, pensions will continue to rise. They will go up twice a year for the term of this parliament according to the current indexation. Then they will go up according to CPI. Education spending will increase over the term of this parliament. To put things in perspective, annual assistance to the states for public hospitals will increase by more than nine per cent each year over the next three years and then four per cent in the fourth year. That is a massive increase of state expenditure. The funding for public hospitals will increase by more than $5 billion, from $13.8 billion this year to $18.9 billion in 2017-18. Overall health spending will increase by $10 billion or 16 per cent from $64.5 billion to $74.8 billion in 2017-18. Plus, we will have created the Medical Research Future Fund, which will itself deliver great efficiencies in the way we deliver health care. Medical research is where all the medical advances that we take for granted come from.

Also, contrary to the misinformation campaign that has hit the airwaves since the budget was released, there will be a record recurrent funding investment of $64.5 billion in schools over the next four years from the federal government. As I mentioned, the pension is not being reduced. It will increase again this September. Age pensioners will be better off as well because, by cutting the carbon tax, that annual cost of $550 for every household will be reduced. The energy supplement will continue. The pension supplement will continue.

The demographics of the nation are changing. By 2035, one in three of us will live to be 100. By that time, there will be a 400 per cent increase in those over 85 years of age. We have to make things sustainable. The pension age was already changed to 67 by the previous government for future years, from 2023. But we are giving a whole generation of people the chance to plan for their pension eligibility age by 2035. The reason for that is that there will be twice as many of us who are in the state of requiring government support. At the moment 80 per cent of people over 65 end up relying on a pension. If that doubles with the increases over time it would simply not be sustainable. The previous government recognised this and governments overseas have realised this. We have to take the hard decisions now.

The other thing is that just in this four-year term our debt—and I have mentioned the 10-year debt projections—if we sat back and did nothing, which some members on the other side of the House have recommended we do, we would be left with another $123 billion on top of the $200 billion we already owe. By means of this budget and the tough decisions, that $123 billion projected debt will be halved to $60 billion, and the 10-year debt will be down to $389 billion.

These are massive amounts of debt, and if we do not address these changes we will be in the situation of Greece, Ireland, Spain and all those nations that for the last 20 or 30 years have been living off the credit card. Most of these nations have got to the stage with a debt is so great that it is beyond the means of any nation to get rid of. So they are committed to paying massive amounts of interest on the international borrowings, virtually forever. Nevertheless, all those nations that I have mentioned have redressed this and are trying to get their debt under control.

It is the same in the UK; they were in a situation where they realised that things had to change. People should not be afraid of change if they realise it is for their long-term sustainability. We, as a generation, cannot saddle our children and our children's children with paying perpetual amounts of the annual budget of the nation in interest payments.

The infrastructure spend that I have mentioned is a massive bill. Just in my electorate of Lyne, we will have $1.129 billion spent on the Pacific Highway dual lane expansion. That will deliver at least 1,000 direct jobs and probably the same number again in indirect jobs. It will bring our part of the mid-North Coast closer to the Brisbane market. Transport costs will shrink because all the produce that we bring into the region, all the product that we get out and our tourism products all rely on the Pacific Highway, so it will be a massive benefit.

The Bucketts Way, the artery of commerce in the south-west of the electorate, has been so long ignored by the last government. They made all sorts of pronouncements about improving it, but we are actually delivering $17.8 million, including GST, to the Gloucester council and the Greater Taree City Council in the term of this government.

We have announced increases to black spots and Roads to Recovery funding, which are essential. When you see the state of some of the roads in the regions, they no longer have a bitumen surface; they are collection—a mosaic—of patches for stretches of hundreds and hundreds of metres, with only a clean sheet every now and then, rather than the other way round, where there should be the odd patch every now and again. And that leads to road safety improvement. Financial assistance grants are quarantined to councils, so they will continue.

The deregulation of the higher education centre will mean that there is an expansion of the demand-driven system and, with the budget estimates and education assessments, hopefully that will lead to another 80,000 students being enrolled in education beyond school. The deregulation and the changes the budget bring in mean that it will be delivered through alternative pathways into universities.

Colleges with diplomas, associate diplomas and associate degrees, of which there are several in my region, will have students who can access Commonwealth supported places because we have expanded the number of institutions that attract Commonwealth funding. As well, the existing institutions that have the ability to raise fees will be putting into their own funds for Commonwealth scholarships. One dollar in five of the money they raise from the deregulation will go into that. So people with low socioeconomic capability and standing will have another fund to enhance their entry into higher education.

Contributions from the savings from the co-payment will be delivered into the medical research future fund. What a great initiative. Medical research is something that Australian scientists are really good at. If that can be used in some of the existing programs, the research can be sped up. New avenues of research can be developed. There is so much intellectual capital in the scientific, particularly in the biomedical and the medical space. This will be an area of growth. If you look at all the medical scientists in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, the major centres, the spin-off to the economy is staggering. Talk about growing. The best business to grow in your own region are those that are already there. People look for these magic new industries, and they do come along all the time, but the quickest way to expand things is to do what you do now and expand it. That is what that medical research future fund will do.

There are many challenges that the nation faces, but this budget is addressing them. All the social good and every program that Australians rely on will come into question. Can you imagine if we do not make the tough decisions now? Can you imagine if we did, as one of the previous members mentioned, kick the problem down the road, which countries overseas have done for decades? Their chickens have come home to roost. We have to make the tough decisions, and that is what this budget does. But they have been responsible, they have been measured and they are necessary. I commend these bills to the House.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly let me say to the previous member that I have been an observer of budgets since I first came into this place in 1987, and this budget perpetrates the greatest fraud on the Australian community of any budget I have witnessed or known of. New members into this place need to really understand what a fraud this budget is. It is based on lies as a result of announcements made by the Prime Minister before the election that there would be no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts to pensions and no plans to increase university fees, and that Tony Abbott would be the infrastructure Prime Minister and the Prime Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Nothing could be further from the truth. All this budget does is perpetrate a fraud upon the Australian community.

Australians are rightly, as the Leader of the Opposition said, shocked and angry—shocked by the brutality of the government's attack on our way of life and angry at a Prime Minister who pretended to be on our side. We just need to look at the various items in the budget to get a really good appreciation of what that means. Health should not be determined by your wealth. However, a GP tax or more expensive medicines will put more pressure on families struggling to make ends meet. If people do not go to the doctor because of this tax, the health of people will fail, with more acute presentations. PBS medicines will also incur, of course, a co-payment.

Let me be very clear. We already know that people have taken the decision, as a result of the budget announcement, not to go to the doctors. We have heard this from doctors in Western Sydney. We know it from doctors in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health services. This is what is happening. People have been scared by this announcement. If the sickest and poorest of Australians do not see a doctor, that means the sickest and poorest Australians will die early. That is what will happen as a direct result of this budget. This government has failed one of its prime responsibilities, to care for its people, and it will of course cost us more in the long run.

Hospitals servicing the people of Lingiari will also face a $2.8 billion cut over five years. These hospitals are already bursting at the seams and struggling within their own budgets. The Northern Territory government has cut funding in health and education at the same time as this government has done the same thing. The Prime Minister lied to voters before the election, and his lies will now hurt poorer families and the most disadvantaged.

Lingiari schools will face cuts of up to $181.7 million over the next five years. From 2018, schools will be further handicapped by reduced indexation payments. University student loans will have to be repaid earlier with a substantial increase of interest payments from a current 2.25 per cent, and they will be asked to cough up 60 per cent of the cost of going to university.

Let us be very clear about this. People who come from regional Australia, from remote Australia, from my electorate—all of the Northern Territory except Darwin and Palmerston, including Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands, 1.34 million square kilometres, a very dispersed population—will be the most disadvantaged by these hideous attacks upon their livelihood and upon the way of life that they experience. University will become less of an attractive option, and regional universities such as Charles Darwin University will suffer as a result of the announcements which have been made in this budget. The result for young people in Lingiari will almost certainly mean a decline in the numbers of those interested in pursuing a tertiary education at Charles Darwin University or other universities around the country.

Lingiari pensioners, of course, will be hit as every other pensioner in Australia will be hit as a result of the announcements made in this budget. Now they will have to work longer and then receive a pension, if they are lucky, which is significantly reduced due to a change in the indexation system from the current 27.7 per cent of average male weekly earnings to a new, lesser, CPI index. Over time, that will cause a dramatic hit to their pocket, and they know it. This government is trying again to perpetuate a lie that somehow or another, because it will index pensions continually and move the CPI, it will not make a difference. The government knows it makes a difference. Old-age pensioners in this country know it makes a difference. Any reasonable Australian will understand that it will make a difference.

And of course the government have perpetrated the same hideous attack upon service pensioners. I cannot believe what the government have done, yet they have the hide to say that they are a friend of Australian Defence Force personnel and veterans. They are far from that.

Indeed, when we look at job seekers, we see people with no income support for six months. What will job seekers under 30 years old do with no income or support for six months? Who is going to support them in a place like Lingiari with dispersed populations, overcrowded houses, no jobs and no training opportunities? Who is going to do this? The mind boggles at the inane way in which this government has formulated this budget, because it has attacked the most vulnerable and, as the Leader of the Opposition said, it will create an underclass. And, of course, under-25-year-olds will lose their Newstart allowance to go onto the much lower youth allowance. This will put enormous pressure upon families not only in Lingiari but across this country.

Then we heard today about infrastructure. We heard the Deputy Prime Minister get up in question time today and pout on about how he had done such magnificent things in the seat of Lingiari as a result of this budget. The only infrastructure money of any substance for my electorate of Lingiari appears to be $45 million for six strategic bush roads. These were announcements which I made previously and which were accounted for in the forward estimates from the former Labor budgets. There were no new announcements—no new announcements—made for Lingiari. Overall, the Territory, with a sixth of the Australian landmass, will receive for infrastructure around $670 million over 10 years—$67 million a year—out of a national budget of $126 billion. Even the ACT will get $700 million, more than the Northern Territory. Have an understanding, Prime Minister, of the infrastructure needs of remote and regional Australia. You clearly do not, and certainly the Deputy Prime Minister has no idea.

Aboriginal people of Lingiari make up 40 per cent of the electorate's population. They have been particularly let down by this budget and by their own senator and minister, Senator Scullion. He is responsible as a senator and a cabinet minister for advocating for the Territory and its interests at the cabinet table. He has failed miserably. Senator Scullion sat by and watched $534 million be ripped out of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs budget? How can you be serious about closing the gap when you rip $534 million of program money from these budgets? $160 million over three years has been ripped out of the Aboriginal health budget. They have put that money into their health future fund. If you were going to take this money out because you thought you could find some efficiencies, you would invest the money back into front-line services. That is not what this government have done. They have abandoned Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians through these hideous cuts. Cuts to child care, arts centres, drug, alcohol and tobacco education and mental health programs will have an enormous impact on Australia's first peoples. In addition, Aboriginal legal services will have to endure cuts of $13 million over four years, which will result in more Aborigines going to jail for what will likely be trivial offences like nonpayment of fines. What a shame. Shame on Senator Scullion and shame on the Prime Minister and the Treasurer.

Indigenous health is something I know something about. I know a lot about some things, but this is something I know a particular amount about. The Abbott government need to come clean about the real impacts of these deep cuts to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health. They have clearly failed to appreciate the serious repercussions of the cuts they have made and of the new taxes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health outcomes.

The evidence is undisputed. Smoking contributes to a four-year difference in the life expectancy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Smoking contributes to 20 per cent of deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. It directly causes a third of the burden of cardiovascular disease and cancer in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Yet this government, through this budget, is cutting funding to the anti-tobacco campaigns in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

We know already that in cutting the Preventive Health Agency they are making a mockery of their supposed concern for the lives of ordinary Australians let alone Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. They have made it very, very clear that this fundamental, very important and essential part of our health infrastructure—the Preventive Health Agency—has no place in their future. We all know about the tsunami of diabetes which is confronting us. This organisation is very important, yet it is nothing to this government. They know that chronic disease will only be improved by encouraging people to seek treatment, get health checks and access preventative health services such as these smoking education campaigns.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health service will have to absorb the massive cost of the co-payments. Many will be unable to cover the cost of vital health services, such as pathology, imaging and a range of specialist services that are often required with complex health issues. The people who will suffer are the sickest and poorest people in this country, and those are the people for whom we are saying we want to close the gap on life expectancy. They are going to be hit hard by these proposals. We know that they are less likely to seek assistance through health services.

Let me talk about petrol for a moment. Constituents in my electorate pay on average more than 22c per litre for fuel than the national average bowser price. That is if you live in a city like Alice or Katherine. If you live in a remote community like Numbulwar or Alpurrurulam, before this heartless budget you would have expected to pay more than $2.55 a litre. This price will increase rapidly over the next four years because of the indexation arrangements for petrol they are going to reintroduce—and there will be no relief from this government. Again, the people who most need assistance in our community are going to be disadvantaged.

The majority of businesses in Lingiari are small businesses and they will not benefit from any of the company tax cuts the Prime Minister has made for his mates at the big end of town. Lingiari small businesses will simply see their business inputs, in particular fuel prices, continue to rise.

Then there is the hit to families. The Prime Minister said in May 2011:

A dumb way—

to cut spending—

would be to threaten family benefits or means test them further.

What has he done in this budget? In this budget of cruel surprises it is no real surprise that he has slugged family payments big time. We know what this means. The cut in family tax benefit end-of-year supplement will result in up to $306 per year less to spend at that important time for families when expenses mount up for Christmas. Lingiari Aboriginal families have over 20 per cent more 0-14-year-olds than the national average. They will be the hardest hit. Yet he has got billions of dollars to spend on the really subversive Paid Parental Leave scheme. What a way to spend your money. What a priority this government has got: feed the pockets of millionaires and don't look after families who are most in need. That is clearly what this budget is designed to do. It will create an underclass.

Lingiari will also feel the pain caused by cuts to local government from Regional Development Australia funding. In particular I am disappointed with the defunding of a project partnership between the Katherine Town Council and Godinymayin Yijard Rivers Arts and Cultural Centre to deliver stage 2 of the centre in the Katherine cultural precinct. This project was going to provide increased opportunities for income generation, community engagement, employment and training. You just cannot continue to perpetuate this fraud upon the Australian community. You promise one thing before the election and do entirely the opposite after it.

Let me talk about veterans' affairs for a moment. The Prime Minister and the current Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Senator Ronaldson, have stated many times that our veterans deserve to be recognised for their unique contribution to Australia. I agree wholeheartedly. Yet what he has done in this budget is cut the veterans' affairs budget by more than $100 million, down from Labor's record $12.5 billion in our 2013-14 budget. The coalition will scrap the senior supplement for veterans who hold a Commonwealth seniors card or gold card, which helps pay for energy costs, telephone and internet costs and water and sewerage expenses. In another blow to veterans military and other untaxed superannuation income will be counted as income when applying for a Commonwealth seniors card and the deeming rate thresholds will be moved, hitting the part pension of some veterans with small amounts of assets.

You cannot continue to tell these fibs. The people of Lingiari are reeling after this budget. We need to understand that this parliament and this government have an obligation that we should never forget the fair go, we should never forget that Australia is a country where all can share and none should be left behind. But that is precisely what this government does. It will leave people behind, it will create a new underclass. It is a shame on this government, and every member of the government should be most concerned about what this budget will do to the way of life of so many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Australians.

Karen McNamara (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 5 December 2013 I had the privilege of speaking in this place for the first time. On behalf of the people of Dobell I outlined my vision for a future with hope, reward and opportunity. I spoke of the need for the stable jobs that provide meaningful work essential to allowing us to take out long-term investments in our homes and our future. A stronger economy is the key to almost everything we wish for as a community. This government's first budget corrects our nation's course, setting of us on a path towards more jobs, higher wages, better services and a stronger and more cohesive community. These objectives drive our economic action strategy. We must repair the budget and build a strong and prosperous economy for all Australians.

In my maiden speech I spoke about my desire to see Dobell prosper, my desire for a region home to a vibrant and healthy community well supported and connected through coordinated services and infrastructure, a region with more local employment and quality investment, a region where residents have choice. This budget forms the foundation upon which a stronger Dobell will be built. This government is getting on with the job of building a stronger economy so that everyone can get ahead. This means abolishing the carbon tax, ending the waste, stopping the boats and building the roads of the 21st century. But we must never forget why we were elected to do this. Labor's legacy to Australians is 200,000 more unemployed, gross debt projected to rise to $667 billion, $123 billion in cumulative deficits, more than 50,000 illegal arrivals by boat, the world's biggest carbon tax and a $1 billion per month interest bill. We simply could not continue as we were when Labor and the Greens were in charge. We could not afford to continue paying the mortgage on the credit card to the tune of $1 billion per month. We are doing what we said we would do.

The budget calls on everyone to contribute, to join and grow the workforce, to boost productivity and to help build a stronger economy with more investment. The government is making a historic investment in the 2014-15 budget to get on with building Australia's infrastructure. A core element of the government's Economic Action Strategy is the commitment of an additional $11.6 billion for the Infrastructure Growth Package. By 2019-20 the Commonwealth's total investment in infrastructure will be $50 billion.

The people of Dobell and the Central Coast have long been calling for their fair share of infrastructure funding. For too long our needs were ignored. For six long years under Labor, the people of Dobell were neglected. Dobell will benefit from this government's commitment to build the infrastructure of the 21st century with $7.15 million for local infrastructure projects. Importantly, this investment will be geared towards enhancing our local economy, driving jobs growth and greater private investment in our region.

As per our election commitment, we are providing $1 million to commence the Tuggerah Sports Precinct—a project that will deliver economic benefits to the Central Coast through increased sports tourism and, importantly, more jobs. The Tuggerah Sports Precinct will not only enable the hosting of regional and national sporting events; it will also provide local sporting clubs access to high quality sports fields and facilities for local competitions. Our investment has been welcomed by local sporting organisations. Mr Ian Robilliard, Managing Director of the Central Coast Academy of Sport, welcomed our commitment, stating: 'The Tuggerah Sports Precinct is a much needed facility for the region and is well over due.' Country Rugby League Infrastructure and Game Development Officer, Mr Graham Boland, endorsed this project stating: 'The development of this facility will allow for large scale events and add immeasurably to the economic, social and health benefits of the Central Coast Community.'

As the member for Dobell, this investment will help realise my determination for Dobell to become the sports tourism capital of New South Wales.

In addition to supporting sports tourism, it is vital that we invest in and enhance existing infrastructure to support our local economy. The Norah Head Boat Ramp is Dobell's only sea access boat ramp. The boat ramp plays a vital role in supporting our tourist economy, drawing locals and visitors alike to our magnificent beaches and coastline. Our $700,000 investment will enable Wyong Shire Council to complete necessary repair work on this $3.25 million project. The Mayor of Wyong Shire Council, Councillor Doug Eaton, recently congratulated the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, Jamie Briggs, for visiting Norah Head in April to sign the funding agreement. The fact that the minister was able to observe firsthand the difference this money will make to the community, who will now be able to enjoy a safe, accessible and functioning boat ramp, was invaluable.

Investment in infrastructure is key to addressing our future growth needs. It is anticipated that the Central Coast will grow by an additional 100,000 people by 2031, requiring 45,000 new local jobs. The growth area largely falls within the Dobell electorate; therefore, as a government, it is crucial that we work with state and local governments to effectively meet growth in infrastructure demands. Our growth plan for the Central Coast addresses this need by providing funding for the Ridgeway and Jensens roads—two roads under pressure as a result of our rapid population growth. Our $2.75 million investment will enhance the safety and quality of these roads, affording motorists with safer access to the growth suburbs of Lisarow and Ourimbah via the Ridgeway, and the lakeside suburbs of Tuggerawong and Wyongah via Jensens Road. Investment in Central Coast roads are part of this government's commitment to provide necessary infrastructure to support commuter access to employment.

In addition to these local road projects, the government will deliver substantial investment to ease the commute for the 30,000-plus Central Coast residents who travel daily outside the region for employment. After years of talk, this government will build the NorthConnex, delivering the missing link between the M1 and M2. NorthConnex is a significant project for the Central Coast and for the people of Dobell. But this is about more than reducing travel times; this is also importantly about investment and jobs. The budget commits $195.8 million for the M1 Productivity Package. This funding includes the widening of the Ml to six lanes between the Tuggerah and Doyalson interchanges.

Together with the NorthConnex, these measures will deliver shorter and safer travelling options for Central Coast commuters, meaning they spend less time in traffic and more time with their families.

While this infrastructure assists those who commute for work, we must remain steadfast in our determination to strengthen the local economy and provide a broader range of job opportunities in Dobell. For too long our region has suffered an unemployment rate well above the national average. Coupled with low school completion rates and under-representation in tertiary education, it is crucial that we encourage and assist people to earn or learn. This government is delivering on its commitment of $2.7 million towards the development of skills and training facilities in Dobell to enable our young people to learn in order to earn. Changes to welfare payment eligibility will strengthen the incentive for young unemployed people to work or pursue education and training opportunities.

Mature job seekers will also benefit from this government's initiatives to encourage workforce participation. Restart aims at assisting those over 50 who have been receiving income support for over six months. Employers will receive a $10,000 incentive to employ a person aged 50 and over for up to two years. Potentially, this could benefit approximately 1,100 people in Dobell.

Together with the government's Job Commitment Bonus and Relocation Assistance to Take Up A Job, jobseekers should feel secure in pursuing employment opportunities. The best form of welfare is work and, where people are able to work, they should be encouraged and supported to do so.

The higher education initiatives outlined in the budget support alternative pathways to higher education by providing direct financial support to all students studying diplomas, advanced diplomas and associate degree courses. For young people in Dobell this means, for the first time, those studying a diploma through TAFE will receive the same financial assistance from the government as a student studying a bachelor degree at university.

The government will establish a Commonwealth scholarship scheme to assist disadvantaged students by providing support and encouragement to undertake tertiary education. Undergraduate students will no longer have to pay fees to access FEE-HELP and VET FEE-HELP.

I acknowledge that not all young people choose to study at university and those who chose to undertake an apprenticeship should equally be supported. The introduction of Trade Support Loans for apprentices will encourage more young people to undertake a trade and importantly complete their trade. Apprentices will have access to $20, 000 over the entire period of their training. Apprentices who successfully complete their training will be rewarded with a 20 per cent reduction from the total of their loan. Like the HELP loans for tertiary students, the loans will be repayable once apprentices are earning a sustainable income. This is real support for apprentices which will provide a stronger incentive for young Australians to complete their apprenticeship and for many the opportunity to start their own business.

Small business is the backbone of the Dobell economy: collectively, they are our largest employer. Therefore support for small business is essential in enhancing local job opportunities. The budget contains a series of measures that will assist small business operators, including the establishment of the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman will act as a one-stop-shop for small business when dealing with the federal government thus reducing compliance costs and red tape. This enables small businesses to get on with the job of attending to their customers, to improve their productivity and to grow, generating greater job opportunities.

The former Labor government failed Australian small business, inter alia imposing the world's biggest carbon tax, which drove up costs and destroyed jobs. We are providing real assistance to small business. We are abolishing the carbon tax and reducing the burden of unnecessary red tape and we demonstrated through this parliament's first-ever regulation repeal day which we held on 26 March this year. Small businesses will play a key part in the Abbott government's Economic Action Strategy to build a strong and prosperous economy and a safe and secure Australia.

Above all else, this budget delivers on our election commitments. In Dobell this includes $3.3 million to clean up and improve water quality of Tuggerah Lakes. The Tuggerah Lakes Estuary Management Plan will receive this funding over three years to improve water quality by expanding the upgrade of stormwater treatment zones, including the removal of sediment and other organic matter and the upgrading of gross pollutant traps.

The main aim of this plan is to provide direction for the ongoing management of Tuggerah Lakes and its catchment in order to ensure the sustainability of its ecological systems. The people of Dobell care about Tuggerah Lakes, and this funding is an important part of this government's commitment to a healthier environment.

Dobell will directly benefit from the Green Army program. In Dobell, the program will improve our local environment by providing funds for dune restoration and rehabilitation at The Entrance North, along with practical environmental works to clean up the Tuggerah Lakes foreshore and enhance the Central Coast wetlands. In addition to providing support for our natural environment, the Green Army program supports Dobell job seekers through providing opportunities for young people to gain training and experience in areas of environmental and heritage conservation, and to explore careers in conservation management. The Green Army will be Australia's largest-ever team supporting environmental action across the country, building to 15,000 young Australians by 2018.

We have the plan to fix Labor's debt and deficit disaster. While this has been a tough budget, it is also a visionary budget which delivers on the commitments we took to the Australian people at the last election. First and foremost, we said that we would get the budget back on track, invest in job-creating infrastructure, and support local small business and job creation. We are doing what we said we would do, and we are doing it because it is absolutely necessary for the long-term welfare of our great nation. This budget lays the foundation for a stronger economy by reducing projected debt by almost $300 billion over the next decade. Our economic action strategy will build a strong, prosperous economy and a safe, secure Australia. This budget delivers for Australia and it delivers for Dobell. This budget is building a strong foundation for all Australians to get ahead. As I stated in my maiden speech, a stronger economy is the key to almost everything we wish for as a community. I am pleased to be delivering on our election commitments to build a more prosperous Dobell and a more prosperous Australia.

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In thinking about what I would say about this budget in the debate on the appropriation bills, I did not really know where to start because it is just all so bad. But I want to stand up for the people of my electorate of Franklin and for the people of Tasmania. This budget is a terrible list of broken promises and wrong priorities. In fact, it is built on broken promises. It is asking the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our communities to do the heavy lifting.

The budget emergency touted by those opposite is not real. They doubled the deficit in their first six months in office. And it is about wrong priorities, because they have also got their rolled-gold Paid Parental Leave Scheme—which, admittedly, they have watered down a bit, but which is still there and is $50,000 for wealthy people in our community.

Those opposite have manufactured their own budget crisis with this budget because people out there are frightened and scared, and they are not spending money and they are not going to the GP, and they are not doing these things because they have been frightened by this budget and the harsh cuts that will affect pensioners, families, young people, students—all of them on low incomes; many of them vulnerable and disadvantaged. Australia has a AAA credit rating, which we heard the Prime Minister actually admit to today, and we have low levels of debt compared to other countries. So there is no real budget emergency, other than the one that those opposite have confected.

The priorities are so wrong in this budget. The Prime Minister promised before the election that there would be: 'No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.' He also promised no new taxes and no tax increases. And of course all of those promises have been broken.

Particularly frightening for my home state of Tasmania are the cuts to health and education. In the budget papers, page 7 of the glossy says that $80 billion in savings will be made. They will be taken away from Australian schools and hospitals over the next 10 years. We have even heard that this money is not real. But it is actually in their budget papers, so I am assuming it was real if they are making it a saving. Tasmania's share of this is more than $1.6 billion. The Tasmanian state budget is around $5 billion per annum. I am not quite sure where the Prime Minister expects Tasmania to find $1.6 billion or more over the next decade. There is $676 million in cuts to education—the Gonski reforms that were going to happen in years 5 and 6. That is money ripped out of every school in Tasmania and many schools in regional parts of my state. There is over $1 billion in health being cut. This will impact on hospitals in Tasmania.

Some of these cuts of course start on 1 July this year and it will indeed hurt many Tasmanians. In fact, this budget is so bad for Tasmania that it has actually made many of the front pages. It has even made editorials. When you have newspapers in Tasmania saying things like 'The states face the ugly political prospect of savagely cutting health and education services or looking for more revenue, and the most obvious revenue stream for states and territories is to increase the GST or to broaden its base' you know the states are in trouble. Of course, we heard 'No changes to the GST' from the Prime Minister as well. Tasmania would be severely impacted if there was a change to the distribution of the GST to the tune of more than $700 million each and every year.

The Premier of Tasmania, Will Hodgman, has said in response that if there are increased demands placed on the state of Tasmania there will need to be commensurate support services provided. Of course there will not be any. The Treasurer and the Prime Minister have simply said: 'That's it. The states can deal with it on their own as they should.' But where exactly will the money come from? Are the states and territories going to have to make cuts to health and education right across the country? They have not only broken a promise that there would be no cuts to health and education; they have also left a real funding dilemma for the state. It is in fact a massive problem right across the country.

Then of course there is the GP tax—$7 to visit a GP, $7 to get a blood test, $7 if you need an X-ray, $7 to vaccinate each of your kids each time they need it and prescriptions for medicines are going up as well. This is after we heard, 'No cuts to health, no cuts to education and no changes to pensions'. They have broken their promise to Tasmanians and they have broken their promise to Australians. To say one thing before an election and do a different thing afterwards, of course we have heard it before, should not occur and now Tasmanians are paying the price for this. The budget will be way too much pain for Tasmanians and very little gain for the state. In fact, there is nothing new in this budget for Tasmania. All I can find is a $100 million cut to the funding of the Midland Highway. Under Labor there was $500 million over 10 years and now there is only $400 million. That is a cut of $100 million in infrastructure for Tasmania. There are no new announcements just reannouncements, as we saw from the Prime Minister when he was in the state last week.

Of course, we did hear something else from the Prime Minister when he was in Tasmania last week. We heard him say, 'It would not be the worst outcome in the world if young unemployed Tasmanians have to leave state.' Also from him, 'I don't think we should be necessarily heartbroken just because some people choose to leave.' So in Tasmania it has become learn, earn or leave. Apparently, it is okay that there are no jobs for Tasmanians in Tasmania and we really should not be heartbroken about it. Interestingly, the federal Department of Employment predicts there will be 11,400 new jobs in Tasmania by 2017. In that same period, 21,000 students are expected to leave school. That is 21,000 students for 11,400 new jobs. So the jobs are not there. We need places in training for them. Are there places available in TAFE? Are there places available in the university in regional Tasmania? We have heard the Minister for Employment, who happens to be a Tasmanian, Senator Abetz, say,' Of course, they could go and pick fruit.' Actually what he said was:

There are many examples of jobs in my home state of Tasmania, for example fruit picking …

Interestingly, the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association do not really like that idea and they are going to take it up with the minister. They have said:

If the Government wants us to be babysitters and to run these social welfare programs we will have a conversation about what's involved in that, but it won't be as a part of a commercial offering.

The youth unemployment rate in Tasmania is 17 per cent. Up on the north-west coast it is 22 per cent. There are no jobs for these people, and to expect them to live on fresh air for six months every year that they do not have a job is cruel and heartless and will increase poverty and homelessness in Tasmania. To have the Prime Minister simply come down and say, 'Well, you can leave,' is not okay. There is supposed to be a $100 million jobs and growth program with 31 projects for 2½ thousand jobs that was announced by Labor and that was supposed to be committed by the new government. Only five of those projects have received the funding. There was $100 million over four years. Where is the rest of the money? Where are the plans to create jobs in Tasmania? There are none. Instead, we are attacking the most vulnerable. We are taking $100 million out of infrastructure and we are not going to deliver jobs and growth plan, but that is all right: Tasmanians can just leave.

People are not going to leave Tasmania. People all over the country are not going to leave regional Australia and move to the cities. Labor supports the regions, even if the current government does not. We would invest in the regions and we did under the regional development fund. We have seen that program gutted as well. We have seen the indexation of financial assistance grants taken from councils. That is a $1 billion cut over four years. Councils will have to absorb these cuts. They had not budgeted for the loss of indexation over the four years. This will be an ongoing cut to councils in regional Australia. My home state of Tasmania will be hit hard by these.

There is so much in this budget that needs addressing that, as I said at the beginning, it is hard to know where to start. The coalition kept saying there would be no changes to pensions. We heard those opposite say today in the parliament: 'Pensions will continue to go up under us. There's nothing to worry about.' Why do the budget papers include a saving for pensions in the out years? There is a saving because they are changing the indexation, which is a cut in real terms to pensions.

We also see that from 1 July this year the concessions that are paid to the states to deliver concessions on water, electricity, local council rates and transport are being cut. In my home state of Tasmania that is $9 million from 1 July that the state government does not have and has not said whether it will make up. Councils are about to send out rates notices. Do they include a concession for ratepayers when those notices go out in two weeks? Who would know? It is not my problem, says the Treasurer; it is up to the states. It is a problem for the pensioners. He is the Treasurer of this country and he should be taking notice, because these pensioners are frightened. They have been frightened by this budget and by the actions of this government.

It is not fair. I think that is the overwhelming theme of this budget: it is not fair. It is not fair because the wealthy are doing less of the lifting and those people on low incomes are doing the majority of the lifting. When you have somebody on $200,000 a year actually committing $400 in an extra debt tax and you have people on $60,000 with two kids giving up over $6,000 a year in family payments, you know something is not right. We heard today that families will be affected by changes to family tax benefit. In fact, 1.5 million children will be affected by this government's changes.

It does not stop there. The changes to the pension include having to work until you are 70. I wonder whether they ever actually asked people what they thought of this—whether they asked the tradesmen or the nurses or the brickies labourer. I do not think they would have, because they cannot work until they are 70. They cannot work until they are 70 because they are in heavy labour jobs. Perhaps they should just retrain and do something else. I am sure that will be the answer that comes from those opposite.

We have also seen savage cuts to the public sector in this budget. Tasmania does have a number of public sector jobs, particularly in the science areas of CSIRO and the Australian Antarctic Division. CSIRO are particularly concerned about cuts that might be coming their way. Of course there is the ABC, who have the one per cent efficiency dividend coming off them. That will mean cuts in regional Australia and in my home state of Tasmania.

So all we in Tasmania hear with this budget is cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts. There is nothing new. There is no extra funding. In fact, if it gets bad enough you can do what the Prime Minister says: 'Just leave.' That is the only solution we have had from the new government. There is absolutely nothing in this budget for Tasmania.

Labor will be opposing these measures. We will be opposing changes to pensions, we will be opposing changes to family payments and, of course, we will be opposing the fuel excise increase as well. That was another nice surprise for people which they knew nothing about! No new taxes before the election; an increase in tax after the election. Who would have thought that that would occur? I want to read an email from one of my constituents. I will not name of that you will get the general gist from the email about how Tasmanians are feeling about this budget:

I am writing you to encourage you to stand up against the threats to the most vulnerable members of our community by the plans outlined in the Abbott government's budget. Why are we buying new .jet fighters and giving tax breaks to big business while making it more and more difficult for the poorest to have the basic necessities of life? Cutting bulk-billing for children and pensioners is not just a $7 impost. I am a pensioner.

Recently I went to the doctor, who sent me for blood tests and then called me back because of some abnormalities, which led to new blood tests and an ultrasound. Then I had to go back to the doctor to get the results. These changes would have meant an extra $42 for me within a two-week period. I would not have spent that $42 on a beer, a cigarette or a cigar. It probably would have gone towards my power bill or on food. I am however more concerned that children will not receive the medical care they need because some parents must decide between food or medical treatment.

In Tasmania there is great youth unemployment, but maybe some do not want to work. However, most cannot find work. With no Newstart until they reach 30 we are going to see a rise in the number of youth homelessness. Surely the lucky country can do better than this.

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

It is a pleasure to rise to speak in support of the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) and cognate bills. It is a shame that all the previous speaker said is that all Tasmanians are hearing is cuts, cuts, cuts. Perhaps that is because she is the one out there spreading that message, rather than some of the good things in the budget for Tasmania, particularly the nearly $40 million for the Hobart International Airport runway extension and also the numerous tourism projects that will be happening throughout Tasmania. I note that they criticised some of the tourism projects—for instance, the one to extend the tours of the Cadbury factory.

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

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

You certainly did criticise it. You claimed it was a rort and all the rest of. The reality is that that was a tourism benefit for Tasmania which the Labor Party were opposed to, so shame on them. I want to speak on the appropriation bill and the associated bills. These bills are really the mop and bucket that we have with this budget. They are the broom, the scrubbing brush and the dustpan which are required to clean up the mess left behind by six years of Labor waste and incompetence.

There is a well-established political cycle in this country. A Labor government comes in and takes a perfectly good economy and a perfectly good budget and goes about trashing them. That is what we saw throughout the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd debacle—waste and incompetence, throwing money around, hoping that if they gave away enough free money they would have more people voting for them. Eventually people saw through that. They saw that Labor was breaking the bank, trashing the house and booking of the bills to a debit that would be paid by the next generation. The Australian people took out some of the trash on election night. It was a pretty full wheelie bin that night. We all know that even after the wheelie bin was emptied by the electoral garbage truck, that the house would still be left in somewhat of a mess. That is why the Liberal-National government made sombre commitments to the Australian people before the election.

We promised we would stop the boats, a problem created by Labor and the Greens when they were in office. We have fixed it already with our policies, which Labor and the Greens said would not work. We are stopping the boats, even though the rudderless Leader of the Opposition cannot bring himself to admit it.

We promised we would axe the carbon tax. That is an easy promise we thought we would be able to achieve by now. You would think we would be able to achieve it, particularly given that the Labor Party—and we have members of the Labor Party opposite smiling and laughing about it—promised themselves in their flyers that they were going to scrap the carbon tax. In fact, they said it had been scrapped. But now, no, they are voting against scrapping it. They are clinging onto the carbon tax in the Senate like a one-year-old clinging onto its gran's security blanket.

Most importantly, we promised that we would clean up Labor's mess by getting the budget back under control. That is what we are doing, even though Labor is doing its best to hamper the clean-up crew. We promised that we were going to build the roads and infrastructure of the 21st century. Of all of the measures outlined in this budget, the unprecedented investment in infrastructure is what will help my electorate the most. Of all the feedback that I have ever received as a member of parliament, through emails, phone calls, letters and talking to people face-to-face in the street and at different events, by far the biggest issue and the most raised issue is the Bruce Highway, followed closely by the local roads in general.

Queensland is a very large state. Our road network is critical—particularly, the new 1,700 kilometres of the Bruce Highway, which is a major arterial road connecting all the coastal regions. The Bruce Highway package, the $6.7 billion that we are going to invest—and a lot of that funding is contained over the forward estimates as outlined in the budget—includes projects like the Mackay ring road. The Mackay ring road is an interesting infrastructure piece because Labor talked about it a lot when they were in power but they never did anything about it. They actually tried to tell the public that it was in the budget, but when we went through the figures it was not. In fact, that was exposed in Senate estimates at the end of the Gillard road, when Senator Ian MacDonald actually questioned the head of Regional Development Australia about it and what was there for it. We found out that nothing was actually allocated to the Mackay ring road. This budget includes the dollars—over half a billion dollars—and it includes the dates. In 2016 we are going to start construction. That is what people want to know.

We have $20 million from the federal government and another $5 million from the states to do the detailed planning and preservation. There is actually $11 million in the budget for 2014-15. We have $428 million that is going to go to that $540 million total, with some state funds, to do the construction of stage 1 of the Mackay ring road. That is going to be vitally important for the Mackay area. It is going to be the largest piece of infrastructure we have ever seen in that area, and it is going to lift the local economy in leaps and bounds. We have had a downturn in the mining sector—thank you very much, Labor Party, partly because of your carbon tax and your mining tax—but now, on the back of that downturn, we are able to offer this big infrastructure project and get all the construction jobs flowing from that.

In the northern part of my electorate, the Sandy Gully Bridge is another important piece of infrastructure. It floods every time we get a bit of rain in the Bowen area. There is a $46 million federal contribution to that $57 million project that is going to get some state funds as well. This year there is $2.5 million dollars allocated for the detailed design work. Yellow Gin Creek Bridge, also in the north of my electorate, will get a $36 million federal contribution, along with some state funds. There will be up to $45 million to upgrade that bridge and flood-proof it. Again, for the detailed design work there is $4 million in this federal budget for 2014-15. The rest of it for both those projects, Sandy Gully and Yellow Gin, will be in the outlying years of the forward estimates.

Also completing work in this coming financial year is the Vantassel Street to Cluden duplication in the Townsville end of my electorate, and a minor upgrade to the Burdekin Bridge, which is definitely something that is needed. There will be continuing funds for fixing up black spots and increasing overtaking lanes. That is vitally important but there are also other local projects that the Liberal-National government is delivering on in my electorate.

We are shifting the junior soccer grounds and assisting in that exercise with a $1 million contribution. It is a million dollars that the Labor Party promised back in 2010—2010, and yet it never, ever happened. Guess what? We are now delivering it, because the program that they were going to fund it out of had wound up, so we have gone and found additional money in the budget to keep that project alive.

The Mackay gymnastics centre will be given an upgrade, creating a new extension to their existing premises with $750,000. We will have mobile CCTV units given to the local council with assistance of $200,000. We are going to light up some of the inner city car parks with an extra $200,000 to make them safer for late-night shoppers and workers who leave at night. There are Green Army projects that are doing excellent work with the Eco Barge in the Whitsundays and also work on the Don River.

North Queensland is the economic engine room of this country. We make a major contribution to the economy through agriculture, tourism, and mining. Regional centres like Mackay service the mining projects of Central Queensland, in particular the Bowen Basin. Skills training and education are an important part of providing that service through trades learning and through universities.

While the 400-kilometre long electorate of Dawson does not technically include a university at this stage, we do have many full-time students as residents. CQ University's Mackay campus is only a few 100 metres from the southern boundary of the electorate and James Cook University is only a few hundred metres from our northern boundary. And students in North Queensland, who are probably less exposed to the lies, deceit and the exaggeration in the southern media, are scratching their heads when they see Bill Shorten's protégés in the far left movement bashing police and squealing into a microphone about how no one will be able to afford to go to university anymore.

The students who actually took the time to educate themselves, instead of just printing out the union lines, listening to the Leader of the Opposition and then taking to the streets to chant the misinformation to the TV cameras, know that anyone can afford to go to university. No-one has to pay their portion of university expenses

up-front—although they do have to pay their compulsory union fees up-front, which the other side brought in. No-one has to start repaying their student loans until they start earning more than $50,000 a year. That is pretty fair. That has got to be fair in anyone's books.

When you take into consideration the higher incomes earned by university graduates—around 75 per cent more than a nongraduate—paying half the course fees is a pretty darn good investment. You don't have to put your money down until the investment starts paying dividends.

The 'I want everything for free' sense of entitlement from the students we see revolting in the streets must come across as even more revolting to the hairdressers, the waitresses, the mechanics, and all the other non-university graduates who have to contribute through their tax dollars to university education. The protesting students are not happy about only half of their university fees area being paid by those lower-paid workers.

This budget does not stop anyone from going to university. In fact, it encourages more people to take on further education through subbachelor training by giving them access to the same system of student loans as university systems. Further, education providers will be required to divert 20 per cent of any additional revenue they receive from deregulation for student places to Commonwealth scholarships and other support for disadvantaged students.

Those Commonwealth scholarships will create major new support for regional students to go to university. I am proud to say students in North Queensland have not been led astray by the hype and hysteria propagated by the opposition leader. All the bleating in the world will not turn Labor's scurrilous lies about education, health, and pensioners into reality.

Hysteria about cuts from those opposite could easily have been hosed down by reading the budget. Even comparing it with Labor's last budget in forward estimates this budget, represented by these bills, actually increases school funding to record highs. This Liberal-National budget invests record recurrent funding of $64½ billion in government and non-government schools over the next four years—that is, $1.2 billion more than the previous government would have spent over the forward estimates—to ensure schools in all states and territories receive extra funding.

It is a similar story in health, where the campaign of deceit from the Labor Party runs contrary to the facts. The facts, which show that funding to states for hospital services increases by more than nine per cent, or $1.3 billion a year, next year; in 2015-16, by more than nine per cent, or $1.4 billion, a year; in 2016-17, by more than nine per cent, or $1½ billion, a year. In 2017-18, it goes up by more than six per cent, or $1.1 billion, a year. In Queensland, hospital funding will increase each year, from $3.1 billion in 2014-15, to $3.8 billion in 2017-18.

So even more scurrilous are the lies that have been told about pension cuts. Those opposite should hang their heads in shame for the way they have scared pensioners with their alarmist campaign of deceit. The pension will continue to rise twice a year every year. Poor old pensioners are being wheeled out and taken for a ride by all those opposite. The way that Labor and the Greens kick the pensioners around like a political football says a lot about how they treat the generation that created the wealth that Labor squandered. None of those opposite—not one—has mentioned the fact that they are blocking the repeal of the carbon tax, which is the most unnecessary impost on every household and family, including pensioners. This campaign of deceit and lies about the budget has scared pensioners, it has incited violence amongst the students and it has distracted people from what is really important: getting this budget back under control while we still actually can. This bill and this budget delivers on that most important promise we made to the Australian people. I commend the bill to the House.

Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Cuts, cuts, cuts! That is all you see when you read through these appropriation bills. In fact, I tallied the number of cuts in these appropriation bills that we are debating tonight, Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2014-15 and cognate bills—126 government programs receive funding cuts from this government. It is a series of broken election commitments. The Prime Minister said a couple of days before the election, 'No cuts to health or education, no changes to pensions, no cuts to the ABC or SBS.' Here we have it in the first budget of the Abbott government, completely breaking that promise that was made to the Australian public—a complete breach of faith and trust with the Australian community on one of the most important objects of government, the delivery of a budget. These bills absolutely decimate and destroy all those commitments, a complete breach of trust with the Australian people. More importantly, they make life tougher, harder for families, pensioners, single mums and students living in my community.

In respect of these bills, Labor will not vote against them. Unlike those opposite, we respect the conventions of the Australian Constitution, in particular, that oppositions should not block supply. It is not the fault of public servants throughout Australia, who have mortgages and families to feed, that this lousy budget is presented to the parliament. They should not suffer by an opposition blocking supply and refusing payments for the ordinary appropriations of government, most notably ensuring that public servants get paid. But we will point out the gross inequalities, the deficiencies and the unfairness of this budget when it comes to pensioners, families, students and single mums.

In education, $60 million in federal grants will be cut by these appropriation bills, part of $236 million worth of cuts overall—programs such as the Digital Education Revolution, providing laptops and computer access for kids in schools; more support for students with disabilities, a program that very importantly provides that much-needed in-classroom assistance for kids with disabilities. Two weeks ago, I met a young family in my community that had two kids with disabilities—two kids in primary school with disabilities. They were in a very small public school that has a 60 per cent Indigenous population. I just thought to myself—and it keeps me up at night to think—about what that poor family is going to have to go through because of this government's cuts to the education portfolio.

We all know, and we have all seen the studies, about how important early intervention is in ensuring that students with disabilities get the best start on an education and the best start at the ability to participate in society. To cut funding for a particular program, the More Support for Students with Disabilities program, which is a $100 million cut, and not replace it with the Gonski loadings for kids with disabilities is almost criminal. It is an absolute disgrace.

David Gonski made a very important point in a very important speech last week criticising the government for the approach that they are taking in the funding of schools. The point that David Gonski made was that it is not just the level of funding in school education that is important. What is also very important is where the funding is going and what the funding is targeted towards. In Australia at the moment we are seeing students fall further and further behind in international comparisons. Why? It is not because of the students at the high end. Our very talented students in wealthy schools are doing very well. They are above, or at, international comparisons. It is our kids in low socioeconomic areas, our kids that are from an Indigenous background, our kids with disabilities, our kids who are from non-English speaking backgrounds who are the ones struggling in schools. They are the ones who the Gonski funding would specifically target. That is the point that David Gonski was making. It is not simply about the overall amount of the pie but it is about where the pie is allocated. This budget is a dud because it does not fund the Gonski reforms in the fifth and sixth years.

A $38.4 million cut for an online diagnostic tool program, to help teachers assess the learning and assessment outcomes under NAPLAN, has been cut under these bills. It comes on top of the Schoolkids Bonus being cut, a with vital support for families on family tax benefits to ensure that their kids can meet the costs of going to school. These are unfair outcomes in education. They are unfair and will leave our kids, particularly some in my community, much worse off.

The Prime Minister made a commitment a couple days before the election that there would be no cuts to the ABC or SBS budgets. But that is exactly what we have seen in these appropriation bills—$43.5 million cut from the ABC and from SBS and the abolition of the Australia Network, representing a $196.8 million cut. People in my electorate are particularly angry about this cut to funding for the ABC and SBS, particularly because of the commitment that was given by the Prime Minister a couple of days before the election. Close to 9,000 constituents in my community have signed a petition opposing the cuts to the ABC and SBS because they believe in a well-funded, independent public broadcaster as the hallmark of a modern, healthy democracy. The ABC Managing Director, Mark Scott, has pointed out this week that, unfortunately, because of these funding cuts there will be redundancies and there will be closure of services. That will affect rural and regional communities. That will mean that the broadcasting services that are delivered to rural and regional Australia will be cut by this government's callous approach to communications.

In the arts budget, $87.1 million has been cut from arts programs—in particular, funding for the Australia Council and Screen Australia. Some may not believe that arts funding is important. But I do. Arts is the carrier of Australian culture. Arts is the way we tell the story about who we are—about our history, our heritage, our place in the world and the sort of society we live in. To callously cut this particular element of the budget through these appropriation bills is not in our nation's interest.

In the environment, $483 million is being cut from Landcare initiatives, putting the future of Landcare at risk. What will this mean for Landcare? What will it mean for people who have been employed under that wonderful program that has achieved so much in conservation for communities such as mine—particularly along the coastline—over many, many years? We do not know, because that funding cut has put the lives and welfare of many of those employees at risk.

In overseas development aid, these appropriation bills foreshadow $7.6 billion in cuts over the forward estimates to Australia's overseas development aid commitment. I recently travelled around the Pacific with the foreign minister, Julie Bishop. She gave a clear commitment to the leaders of the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Nauru: no cuts to the overseas development aid budget for our friends in the Pacific. Then MYEFO was released, and then the budget was released, and what do we find? That is exactly what has occurred under this government. They have cut funding for overseas development aid. Funding that funds programs such as the Vanuatu Women's Centre that I visited with the foreign minister, which is providing important support for women living with domestic violence, important support for education and important support for immunisation and health outcomes in those communities.

We do not know where those cuts are going to come from. We do not know which particular programs are going to be cut. I call on the foreign minister and the Prime Minister to at least have the decency—at least have the gumption—to outline to our friends in the Pacific which of their programs that are importantly funded and supported by Australian aid are going to be cut. Are any of those programs going to be health programs? Are they going to be education programs? Are they going to be programs such as Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development? The leaders of those nations and the people of our friends in the Pacific deserve to know.

In climate change, this government has taken a disgraceful approach to international climate change initiatives. It is one of the key and most pressing issues facing the world economy, and what is Australia's view? We will pull out of all international climate change initiatives. What we are saying, particularly to the Asia-Pacific community, where we are a leading economy and a leading society, is that climate change does not matter; that climate change initiatives and clean energy initiatives do not matter. What sort of a message does that send to our friends in the Pacific and Asia about this nation's approach to climate change?

In the Pacific, climate change is not a looming threat. It is a present danger, and we are seeing already the effects on communities, particularly in low-lying states such as Kiribati, Vanuatu, Nauru and the Marshall Islands. We are seeing people being displaced because of climate change already, and what is Australia's approach? We have pulled out of those international initiatives. Recently, the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands, Tony De Brum, said this about Australia and its government:

Australia has always been our friend, but the change in their government last year has resulted in problems.

That is extraordinary. That is the view of the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands. In diplomacy, words such as that are very powerful.

That is the view that our friends in the Pacific have of the Australian nation—that we have let them down and ignored them when it comes to the crises they are facing relating to climate change. We are ignoring that their crops are drying up, their infrastructure is being inundated, they are not receiving any rain anymore in particular regions and, importantly, they cannot feed themselves. We are sending the wrong message, and it is enshrined in these bills that we are taking the wrong approach when it comes to overseas development aid. We will continue to hold the government to account for the disgraceful approach that they have taken on overseas development aid.

All of these measures have been put in the budget on the basis of a confected budget emergency. The government is out there campaigning and scaring the public into believing that there is a budget crisis in Australia. I pose this question to the government: how on earth does a nation achieve three AAA credit ratings from independent ratings agencies when you have a budget crisis? We are one of only 10 nations throughout the world that have a AAA credit rating and I do not see any of those other nine nations having newspaper headlines or discussions within their national parliaments about a budget crisis. There simply is not one in Australia, and for this government to go out and claim that there is, to add $68 billion worth of expenditure to government programs and then claim that there is a budget emergency and have to cut to the bone on programs such as Medicare, health and education, on programs such as pensions, is an absolute disgrace. It is the wrong approach to be taking with the Australian public.

Labor have said that we understand the need to ensure that the budget is sustainable. When in government we took an approach that ensured that our budget was sustainable and met the Charter of Budget Honesty commitments to run surpluses over the medium to long term. We did that by ensuring that we had sufficient revenue coming into the budget, and that meant that there was a minerals resource rent tax, that meant there was a price on carbon, that meant that we means-tested the private health insurance rebate, that meant that we were proposing to tax people with whopping superannuation accounts of more than $2 million earning more than $100,000 a year. It also meant that we were not undertaking outrageous expenditure like an overrated paid parental leave scheme, like direct action, which has got no funding source at all in the provision of subsidies to polluting companies and like some of the changes to veterans' pensions being introduced by this government. Labor had a plan for sustainability in our budget and it did not involve the cuts that are being undertaken in these appropriation bills. It is a disgrace that this government has put them forward in this budget.

Debate interrupted.