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

I take this opportunity to associate myself with the comments of the previous debate and congratulate the member for Brisbane for bringing this important international issue to the attention of the House. I thank the speakers who contributed to the debate.

In my opening remarks, can I firstly say that for each of us as federal members there is an element of integrity that each of us try and uphold. Each of us has family members; each of us has those we try and protect to the best of our abilities in the course of our duties. I take this opportunity in the appropriations debate to condemn the Australian Labor Party for its attacks this week on the family of the Prime Minister. I suggest that they were repugnant. I suggest that they were uncalled for. I would suggest that as members of this House we do everything in our power to protect those people we love. In setting a benchmark, I would hope that in my political career, in whatever time is left available to me, I never fall to such a level where I find myself with such a lack of material that I am limited to attacking the family members of those who I oppose.

I was very fortunate to have a physical career playing contact sport. Whilst you are on the paddock, the intention is to play as hard as you can to achieve victory for your side. On occasion in contact sport your intent is to limit the movement of your opposition. But, nevertheless, the sporting field is a great place. You can go to the dressing shed of your opposition and share a cleansing ale in victory or loss. There are rules. So I take the opportunity to distance myself from the attack on the family of the Prime Minister and offer my sincere apologies. I hope that as ladies and gentlemen of this House we do not see a repeat performance of that.

Coming back closer to the appropriations bill, to properly and contextually discuss the budget you must start at the beginning. I will start with what we inherited—a mess that was left behind—and the challenges that we faced. We have been left with a situation where our economy is sluggish. We currently have an upward trend in our unemployment stats. The economy is transitioning from growth, led by investment in our resources projects, to economic activity driven from the services sector. This is underway at a time when the economy is growing below trend. More recently the Westpac-Melbourne Institute leading index, which indicates the likely pace of economic activity three to nine months into the future, fell for a second month in a row in February. It was down 0.72 percentage points, taking us to minus 0.09 per cent, indicating below trend economic growth. Gross GDP remains sluggish at 2.7 per cent in 2014. Since October last year, a Washington based institute has downgraded its Australian growth forecast to 2.6 per cent in 2014 and 2.7 per cent in 2015. It had previously expected growth of 2.8 per cent and 2.9 per cent in those years respectively. The downgrading of Australia's expected growth is a nail in the coffin for our increasing unemployment rate. The unemployment rate has been rising—from 4.9 per cent in 2011 to around 5.6 per cent this year. The economy needs to grow by more than three per cent a year to keep unemployment in check.

It is paramount that when we do our forecasts these assumptions are calculated on accurate growth rates. We need an economy that tracks at around three per cent for us to maintain suitable growth in our forecasts. It is irresponsible for outlook years to forecast rates in excess of those—3.9 per cent is unsustainable. It distorts assumptions and the forecast. I will come later in the speech to Labor's track record on their capacity to forecast.

We were left with a snowballing economic outlook as a result of the falling terms of trade. Commodity prices peaked in 2011. However, as they declined, the speed of the decline was even more rapid than many expected. In the September quarter of 2011, the terms of trade peaked, hitting a level of some 105 per cent above those prevailing around 2001-02. We were left with an economic perfect storm. We were left with a budget that was out of control. We were left with tough decisions to make in order to get our nation's books back on track. We were left with a fiscal situation where, quite frankly, the government of the day was spending more than they earned. They were borrowing from future generations to try to win favour and hearts in the political arena. They were shamefully spending money that was supposed to be generated by taxes that never generated anywhere near the revenue they suspected they would.

Labor failed to make the tough decisions during their six years in charge. They chose to make unaffordable promises, spending like drunken sailors and ignoring significant economic warnings. Labor delivered five record deficits. Labor had a habit of overpromising and underdelivering when it came to the budget. In the 2011-12 budget, Labor promised a deficit of $22.6 billion for the budget year and they ended up delivering a budget deficit of $43.4 billion. It was not a bad effort but they missed it by about $20 billion. In the 2012-13 budget they promised a surplus of $1.5 billion. They promised a surplus but in reality delivered an $18.8 billion deficit. Again, they missed it by about $20 billion. This opposition could not hit the side of a barn with an economic forecast. In the 2013-14 budget, which I have been prompted to speak about, Labor promised a deficit of $18 billion for the year and they came in at around $50 billion.

We are comfortable in managing the books because most of us on this side of the House come from business backgrounds whilst those on the other side come predominantly from union backgrounds. For the very few people on the other side of the House who have had businesses, I say to them that, in the majority, we are as confident managing the book as those on the other side are at manning picket lines.

Howard adopted from Labor a 17.5 per cent interest rate, 9.3 per cent inflation and 11 per cent unemployment. Successive budget deficits exceeded $10 billion per annum and government debt was at $96 billion. As a testament to our ability to run a safe set of books, Rudd adopted from Howard a 6.75 per cent interest rate, three per cent inflation, 4.4 per cent unemployment and a record surplus, around $20 billion, plus $60 billion put aside in the Future Fund. That is all gone. Labor left us looking at a budget deficit of $123 billion in four years and debt rising to $667 billion. They will try to distance themselves from their poor economic management and skill sets, but the figures will not lie, and they do not. Rising debt and a generational sacrifice means that we are going to have to make tough decisions to pay back the debt. In the words of the Grattan Institute, persistent budget deficits 'incur interest payments and limit future borrowings … they can unfairly shift costs between generations, and reduce flexibility in a crisis.' In Europe, the global financial crisis morphed into a sovereign debt crisis and demonstrated the pain that comes from persistent budget deficits. This budget seeks to correct our nation's deficits so that we do not find ourselves in a situation similar to that of our Northern Hemisphere brothers and sisters.

Labor left us with no surplus in sight. They will claim that they had the budget back on track, but I can assure you that the history books tell us that their forecasts were continually $12 billion to $20 billion out. Labor claim that there was no budget emergency. Irrespective of how you look at it, whether or not you want to claim that there is no budget emergency, we are now servicing an interest payment of $1 billion each month and climbing. A lot of what Labor claim should not be taken at face value. They claim that this budget rips money from health.

The budget papers clearly show that there is no cut to hospital funding in this budget, quite the opposite. In 2015-16 it increases by nine per cent or $1.4 billion a year. In 2016-17 it increases by another nine per cent or $1.5 billion a year. In 2017-18 over the forward estimates it increases by another six per cent or $1.1 billion a year. In this budget hospital funding increases by over $5 billion or around 40 per cent over four years. Those on the other side of the House will go into the out years and into the never-never because that is where they find solitude; that is where they find sanctuary. The real numbers presented in the budget show a 40 per cent increase over four years. The government will provide total hospital funding to the states of almost $70 billion over the four years to 2017-18.

In typical fashion, Labor made big promises to increase hospital and schools funding out into the future, promises that could never be funded. They could never be funded because Labor's forecasts were based on growth rates well in excess of what the trends dictate. Labor claimed that they would increase hospital funding by over 10 per cent a year. That would have seen health funding skyrocket from $15 billion a year to around $40 billion a year within just a decade. The fact is that that was never sensible or affordable. It was a pipedream promised by a Labor government that never expected to have to deliver it.

Labor are claiming this budget rips money from education. The coalition is taking school funding to record highs. We are investing record recurrent funding of $64.5 billion in government and non-government schools over the next four years. This is $1.2 billion more than the previous government would have spent over the forward estimates to ensure that schools in all states and territories receive extra funding. From 2013-14 to 2017-18 total Commonwealth funding to all schools in Australia, as outlined in the 2014-15 budget papers, will have increased by 37 per cent or $4.6 billion.

Earlier today, the Leader of the Opposition came into the House and spoke about education, commenting that it was the right of every child to have a good education. Let us look at Labor's track record on education. Yes, while we have got some new tuckshops and some new school halls, when we measure our educational outputs against those of our international partners, since that capital investment—the education revolution, which was going to transform the Australian education economy—we have gone backwards by international standards. Can I suggest that throwing more money at the problem is not the answer. It is about spending the money that we have more wisely.

There are claims that this budget rips money from pensioners. The government promised before the election that there would be no cuts or changes to pensions during this term of government. This budget confirms this commitment. Current and future pensioners will not experience any decrease in their pension payments. I repeat: there will be no decrease in their pension payments. Pensions will continue to increase after the changes come in. The changes to payments represent forgone gains, not a reduction in dollar benefits—payments will still go up but will just be indexed differently.

Labor is now standing in the way of nearly $40 billion of budget savings. Labor has already stood in the way of nearly $20 billion of savings over the forward estimates period, including around $5 billion of savings Labor themselves proposed before the last election. A member opposite spoke in the press about the introduction of co-payments but will dare to stand and oppose co-payments. The savings Labor proposed but are now opposing or have opposed are: $1.1 billion of research and development tax changes, $2.3 billion of higher education savings, $1.5 billion from the cancellation of the 2015-16 tax cuts linked to the carbon tax, and a $106 million childcare rebate saving resulting from extending the pause of the indexation of the childcare rebate for a further three years.

In the time remaining to me I will say that the co-payment is not a new phenomenon. There is evidence, going back to the Hawke and Keating days, where Labor actually introduced a co-payment. So whether you voted for the coalition or for Labor, I assure you that this opposition has a track record. I have no doubt that whether we were voted in or whether they were voted in, co-payments would have been introduced somewhere in the budget. Dr Leigh, a member opposite, wrote in a newspaper:

But there's a better way of operating a health system, and the change should hardly hurt at all. As economists have shown, the ideal model involves a small co-payment—not enough to put a dent in your weekly budget, but enough to make you think twice before you call the doc. And the idea is hardly radical.

(Time expired)

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a budget which is unravelling before our very eyes from a government which is united in its disunity as it tries to sell this atrocious budget. It is a budget which has been comprehensively rejected right across the country, and I am sure coalition members, in the week that just passed as they went back to their electorates, got the message loud and clear from their electorates just how bad this budget is for the people they represent. It is now up to them to stand up for the people they represent. Instead of giving a speech like the one we just heard, the member for Wright could actually have represented his electorate and stood up for his pensioners. Instead of claiming, falsely, that there are no cuts to the pension, he could stand up for the pensioners in his electorate, as all members opposite could. He could stand up for the schools and hospitals in his electorate which have had cuts. The Premier of Queensland knows they have had cuts, but the honourable member opposite seems incapable of realising they have suffered cuts in this budget—schools and hospitals. There have been cuts to family payments. People have been frozen out of Newstart, creating an underclass in this country.

These are the measures which are being comprehensively rejected around the country, along with the trashing of the fundamental principles of Medicare, one of the great institutions of this nation, which Labor created and Labor will fight to defend. It is all very well for the member for Wright and other members opposite to say that $7 is not much for people in his electorate and around the country to pay to see a doctor. But the universality of Medicare, the universality of health care, is a fundamental principle which members right across the country should be defending and which members on this side of the House will defend. We will defend it in this House and in the other place and we will defend it right around the country.

Members on the other side have a choice: they can come in here and stand up for their electorates, stand up for people's right to see a doctor, to take their children to a doctor free of charge, or they can stand up for their Prime Minister and their Treasurer. They cannot do both. They must decide. Are you for the people in your electorate or are you for your government? Because your government is launching an attack on the people in your electorates. We have seen the government, and we saw another example just then, scrambling to defend this budget, scrambling in an Orwellian attempt to deny that these fundamental changes in the budget are not broken promises—verbal gymnastics that we see from the Treasurer in particular, trying to say that this budget does not represent a fundamental breach of commitment to the Australian people.

There are two big problems with this budget. One is that it shows that this government was elected on a web of wilful and consistent and systematic deceit, making false promises to the Australian people about the cost of living, false promises to the Australian people about the state of the budget and being able to return the budget to surplus without new taxes and without spending cuts over and above those which had been previously identified. It is a web of deceit in which the Liberal and National parties engaged up until and including the September election which has now been exposed by this budget. The other is that it is a fundamentally unfair manifesto.

We saw the Treasurer's spin at work again on the weekend, with the leaking of Treasury analysis which apparently showed the impact on families was not that great; it was not that big. '"Nothing to see here," Treasury told us,' according to the spin from the Treasurer over the weekend. There is only one little problem with that: it was not Treasury analysis at all. It was not Treasury analysis at all. This is a Treasurer who said, when he came into office, 'I will never leak Treasury advice to defend my position; I will always stand up for myself.' I have to give him that; he has not done that. He has invented Treasury analysis. He has not leaked the real stuff; he has leaked false Treasury analysis, because it does not exist.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I ask the member for McMahon to withdraw that accusation.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On what basis, Mr Deputy Speaker?

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a reflection on a member. I would ask the member to assist the House and withdraw.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw. The fact of the matter is that there is no such document in existence. There is no 'Treasury analysis'. It does not exist. The allegation that this document which has been released to the media is Treasury analysis is patiently false. It does not exist. That is a statement of fact.

There is a pattern of behaviour here from this Treasurer. He sneakily releases these documents and claims they are Treasury analysis. Then, when further questions are asked, it turns out they were written in his office or the Prime Minister's office, not down at the Treasury. The Treasury should not be politicised in this way. The Treasury is a fine institution which has served the people of Australia well for 114 years. It is not the political plaything of this Treasurer, and he should not politicise its name in an attempt to justify his atrocious policies. If he wants to defend his policies, he should stand up for them, not claim that he has Treasury analysis which does not exist. If the government want to do little spreadsheets on the back of an envelope in their offices and work out little false calculations and then release them, that is up to them. But stand up for them. Admit to the Australian people what you are doing.

The fact of the matter is that there is analysis of this budget, and it is by NATSEM, a respected modelling outfit. They have actually been referred to by the Prime Minister as one of the most respected economic modelling outfits in this country. The evidence from them is stark: over 100,000 families in the lowest quintile will see $43 cut from their weekly budgets every week. If this is your idea of cost-of-living relief, next time, don't bother, I say to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker Kelly. Remember, the Prime Minister stood at the dispatch box and said they were 'riding to the rescue' of the Australian people. Well, don't turn up next time! This is what happens when those opposite ride to the rescue of the Australian people. A sole parent with an income of $55,000, with two kids, one in primary school and one in high school, will face a $20,000 hit to their budget. By just 2015, this family will face a 10 per cent annual hit to their current family income, or more than $5,700 a year. A couple on a single income of $75,000, with two kids, one not yet in school and one in primary school, will face a $2,000 decline in annual family income in 2015. By 2017-18, this family will have $7,400 less income than they would have had prior to this budget.

They are the facts. I do not need to leak Treasury analysis which does not exist, as the Treasurer needs to do. I am happy to stand at this dispatch box and defend the analysis which has been commissioned by the opposition from a respected modeller. We will do that—and the Treasurer should have the courage to do the same, instead of leaking analysis which does not exist. Ben Phillips from NATSEM has stated:

We'd estimate around 1.2 million families that would be on average around $3,000 a year worse off by 2017-18, whereas the top income groups—so the top 20 per cent of households—would have either no impact or a very small positive impact—

a very small positive impact. That is what the independent analysis shows. That is what the documents that we are prepared to stand behind show, documents that have been released publicly and transparently. Let the Treasurer pick a hole in them. Let the Treasurer come in here and find an error, and let him argue that out with NATSEM, those respected modellers. He is not prepared to do so. What he does do is engage in Orwellian rhetoric and release to newspapers documents which are claimed to be Treasury analysis, which are clearly not.

As I said, this is a budget which has been rejected right across the country not only by people in communities, but by premiers and state treasurers who are outraged, rightly, at their treatment by this government, the arrogant treatment of this Prime Minister and this Treasurer of the elected premiers of the states. I do not have universally positive views of all the premiers but they are people of accomplishment and they do not deserve to be treated this way, and the states they represent do not deserve to be treated in this arrogant and offhand way by this Prime Minister, who says they should be 'grown-ups'. That is an insult to the state premiers and to the states they represent.

Mike Keating, a respected former bureaucrat who has had to deal with some very difficult issues and deliver very difficult policies in his time, said:

This Government has cut the bottom rungs of the ladder of opportunity.

And of course he is right about that. This a fundamentally unfair document which the Treasurer and the Prime Minister do not even understand. They do not understand their own policy. Last week we saw the Prime Minister in a public relations triumph going out and blitzing talkback radio right across the country, getting basic facts wrong and telling university students that the cuts would not apply to them, when they clearly do. He said that because they were going to start university next year, the cuts would not apply to them. But they clearly do apply to them. We saw the Treasurer claim that the GP tax would not be paid by people with chronic illness. Wrong, just plain wrong. If the Prime Minister and the Treasurer do not understand the policies they are introducing, why should the Australian people pay for them?

Then the Treasurer in the budget papers did not include the tables, which have traditionally been included in every single budget since 2005, on the impact of their changes on families with different incomes, showing how fair the budget is or otherwise. Peter Costello did it. Wayne Swan did it. Certainly in economic statements under treasurers since 2005 those things have been included—and in budgets in particular. But it did not occur in this budget. When the Treasurer was asked about this he said, 'That is just not right. You cannot believe everything you read in the Sydney Morning Herald.' The Sydney Morning Herald is not the one with the credibility problem here. It is the Treasurer who has misled the Australian people here. It is the Treasurer who has produced a budget which very conveniently does not include those tables in the budget documents, because they would show just how unfair this budget is.

We just heard again from the member for Wright saying that Australians should make these contributions and these tough decisions and these payments—for example, the GP tax—to get the budget back on an even footing, to get it fiscally healthy and sound. There is only one problem with that, apart from the fact that it is fundamentally unfair and a trashing of the principle of universal health care.

Mr Buchholz interjecting—

The $7 GP tax does not even go to the budget bottom line; it goes to a new fund. Such is the budget emergency, they can trash the universality of Medicare and not even use the money to return the budget to surplus. They want to create a new fund to finance health and medical research. Who would disagree with more money for health and medical research? Nobody would. But the cures of today should not be paid for by taxing the sick of today, nor should the cures of tomorrow.

Mr Buchholz interjecting—

The member for Wright and other honourable members should recognise that this GP tax is not being used to return the budget to surplus at all. These are the priorities and the value judgements of this government.

The other thing they are doing of course is introducing an expensive and extravagant an unfair paid parental leave scheme, sending cheques of $50,000 to people, who may be millionaires, to have babies. Budgets are about priorities and this is the priority of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. They are saying to people, 'If you are under 30, we cannot afford to put you on Newstart. If you are a pensioner, we cannot afford to index your pension fairly. If you are a family, we cannot afford to let you go to the doctor for free. If you are a family on a low income or a single income, we need to take money from you. But if you are a millionaire, we can send you a cheque for $50,000 if you have a baby.' These are the priorities of this government. This is what this Prime Minister and this Treasurer are foisting on the Australian people and, I suspect, foisting on all those members opposite who do not actually support this policy but do not have the courage to stand up against this extravagant policy. It shows the warped and twisted priorities of this government. A budget is about choices and this government has made the choice to harm Australia's pensioners and, despite the protestations of the member for Wright, to take money from them. If you introduce unfair indexation, you are taking money from Australia's pensioners. You are saying to Australia's families, 'We will take money from you because we are going to charge you to go to the doctor.' You are saying to Australians, 'We are going to take money from you by forcing an underclass of those people under 30 and denying them any benefit when it comes to Newstart.' These are the priorities and values of this government, whilst sending cheques out for $50,000, taking money away from single-income families across Australia's cities and regions and rural areas.

I know there are members opposite who know the impact of this. They know the impact of the family tax benefit changes and how bad they will be right across the country and in rural and regional areas as well, and what are they doing about it? They can do something about it. They can come and sit on this side of the chamber and vote accordingly. They can actually have the courage of their convictions if they have got them and stand up for their constituents. They can stand up against this government and this Prime Minister. They can roll them on the paid parental leave scheme. They can sit on this side and do the heavy lifting with this side of the House when it comes to defending Australians who deserve a better budget and a better government than the one they have got.

The Australian people have seen the values of this government over the last fortnight since the budget was delivered and they do not like them. They do not like the values of this government. It is not the government they were promised and it is not the government they deserve. They deserve so much better. Fundamentally, they deserve a government that is honest with them, that is upfront with them, which tells them before the election how much money they are going to take from them, instead of the false and misleading systematic campaign that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer masterminded before the election and the fundamentally unfair manifesto which is this budget, which takes from people and gives to others, which gives $50,000 cheques to some but takes away $20,000 over the next four years from others. These are values which the government is welcome to defend, but we will fight. We will fight in this place and the other place and across the community because it is an unfair budget.

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week I travelled from one end of my electorate to the other, from Bundaberg to Hervey Bay, stopping in Childers, Woodgate, Burrum Heads and Howard. I wanted to give Hinkler residents an opportunity to speak to me directly after the release of the coalition's first budget. I thought that if any electorate was going to be critical of the budget it would be mine. Hinkler has the fourth-highest unemployment rate in the country, we have more age pensioners than any other federal electorate and Bundaberg has the highest rate of disability in Queensland. And we also have amongst the highest rates of smoking and obesity.

Before the budget was released, the member for Maribyrnong, Bill Shorten, shamelessly targeted my electorate of Hinkler—just like Chicken Little scaring the vulnerable, by telling them that the coalition wanted to cut pensions. Let me assure the residents of my electorate that the sky is not falling. We promised not to change age pensions in this term of parliament and we have not. At the 2013 election we promised to get the budget under control and to grow the economy, and that is exactly what we are doing.

There is no doubt that this is a tough budget, but those difficult choices will reduce Labor's deficits by $43 billion and debt will be $275 billion lower over the decade. This is because governments, like households and businesses, must live within their means. Small business people know better than most that if you are going to borrow money to expand your operation or invest in capital that you need a plan to pay that money back. When you start borrowing money to pay the staff and keep the lights on that is when you are in real trouble.

Likewise, it is ill-advised for households to spend money on luxuries they cannot afford. But that is exactly what the former Labor government did. Did they forget that at some point the credit card would have to be paid off? Or did they just not care? Labor had no plan to repair the budget when it was in government. Labor has no plan now. They offer no alternatives; just rhetoric and scaremongering. After six years of Labor, what did Australians get? We got the bill!

In his budget reply speech, the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said that this budget was drawn up by people who have never lived from pay cheque to pay cheque. I take great offence at remarks like that, and Labor's constant insistence that coalition members are out of touch with working families. I am a tradesperson. I did a four-year electrical apprenticeship at Fairymead Sugar Mill. I am a farmer: my wife and I own two cane farms, and my parents continue to operate a harvesting business. I am university educated: at the age of 22 I worked part time as a lifeguard to support myself through an engineering degree at the Queensland University of Technology. I have established a small business that employed up to 15 people at any one time. It delivered vocational training and consultancy services to industrial workplaces.

I have three children, and my wife works part-time as a radiographer at one of the local hospitals. But the member for Maribyrnong, Bill Shorten, is private-school educated, studied arts and law at university and has since worked as a union bureaucrat and a politician. I would be interested to know how many times Mr Shorten has lived from pay cheque to pay cheque.

I can tell you there are plenty of people in my electorate of Hinkler who do live pay cheque to pay cheque every single fortnight. Some of them have been in my office this past week, deeply concerned about how the budget will affect them. But when you explain the detail, many realise just how much misinformation is being peddled by those opposite. Pensioners and children under 16 will pay no more than $70 per calendar year for medical treatment under the proposed $7 medical co-contribution. And the indexation of the fuel excise will add less than one cent per litre to the cost of petrol. The funds raised through these budget measures will go towards a medical research fund and road infrastructure.

To make matters worse, some media reports have been very one-sided or scant on detail. To promote my post-budget tour across the electorate last week, one local TV journalist asked if she and her cameraman could accompany me on a street walk. The three people I approached understood that tackling Labor's debt would require everyone to play a part, and that our current situation was unsustainable. However, the journalist overlooked all three of these supportive constituents, and instead ran grabs she later obtained from people who were unhappy with the budget. I am grateful to those Hinkler constituents who have read the detail for themselves—those who have contacted my office or approached me directly to seek answers to their questions. My door is always open.

There is no doubt this is a tough budget: And it is only fair that everyone contributes to the repair task. Australians earning over $180,000 a year—who already pay significant taxes—will be required to pay a temporary budget repair levy of two per cent for three years. We have frozen politicians' pay and we will put an end to the gold pass travel entitlements.

Each year, the government spends more on welfare than it does on the education of our children and the health of our people. The government is tightening the eligibility for family payments to ensure it supports those most in need of assistance because without policy changes the cost of the age pension is projected to increase by 70 per cent over the next decade, from almost $40 billion a year currently. The previous government increased the pension age to 67, and we are further increasing that age to 70 by 1 July 2035. Australians will still be able to retire at whatever age they choose, but those born after 1966 will have to be 70 before they can receive the age pension.

The government will introduce incentives of up to $10,000 to encourage businesses to employ people who are over the age of 50 who have been on unemployment benefits or the disability support pension for six months. From September 2017, pensions will be indexed to the CPI rather than wages. This way we can ensure that our pension system remains sustainable while pensions keep up with the cost of living. The family home will continue to be excluded from the social security means test.

This government recognises the contribution self-funded retirees make to the community, including saving the nation considerable pension costs. From 20 September 2014, the income thresholds for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card will be indexed annually to the CPI, enabling up to 27,000 additional people to qualify for the card over the next four years. Indexing the current income thresholds will mean more self-funded retirees will not lose out on entitlements because of changes in their income, giving them more freedom to actively contribute to their community.

Seniors Health Card holders will no longer receive the seniors supplement. However, they will continue to receive a range of concessional benefits, including lower co-payments for medicines on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and access to the lower threshold for the extended Medicare Safety Net. Changes to the PBS will increase the cost of prescriptions for concessional patients by 80 cents to $6.90, and after 60 prescriptions it will be free for the rest of the calendar year.

But the budget contains plenty of good news too! This budget delivers on every one of my election commitments to the people of Hinkler:    $4.75 million for Old Toogoom Road and River Heads Road; $350,000 for the Hervey Bay Hockey Association to install synthetic turf; $500,000 for upgrades at the Hervey Bay and Bundaberg surf lifesaving clubs; $93,000 for Bundaberg Regional Council to install surf safety surveillance cameras at the Elliott River Mouth, Palmers Creek, Innes Park and Mon Repos; and, of course, $125,000 for the Centenary of Anzac Local Grants program across Hinkler

After repeated calls from local community groups, we have committed $245.3 million over four years to continue the National School Chaplaincy program. The coalition is delivering more than $12 billion in overall funding to the veteran community, including honouring our election commitment to deliver fair indexation for military superannuants.

Even after the carbon tax is repealed to save average households $550 per year, the associated tax breaks and energy supplements will remain in place to provide cost-of-living relief. Much to the relief of Hinkler farmers and commercial fishers, the diesel fuel rebate has been retained. The rebate will be indexed at the same rate as the fuel excise, meaning there will be no net increase in the cost of diesel for those who receive the rebate. The reintroduction of indexation on the fuel excise will cost an additional $24 per year for someone who uses 50 litres of fuel per week. As I previously mentioned, money raised from the indexation of the fuel excise will be spent on roads, bringing the government's infrastructure budget to a record $50 billion.

The coalition understands that well-planned infrastructure, delivered in a timely manner, is vital to our economy. It also facilitates service delivery to regional Australia and provides long-term employment and opportunities for training and development. That is why $13.4 billion will be spent in Queensland, including $6.7 billion on the ailing Bruce Highway. We are delivering a $1 billion National Stronger Regions Fund. Councils and community groups will be able to apply for grants for capital works projects that will regenerate communities with high unemployment. There is $300 million for the new bridges renewal program and $100 million to address mobile telephone black spots

I understand that transport infrastructure is not the only hurdle that regional businesses have to overcome. Here in Australia, regulation is high, input costs are high, labour costs are high, the Australian dollar is high and profits are low. We are working to change that. We are cutting the company tax rate by 1½ per cent to help around 800,000 businesses. Repealing the carbon tax will help business flourish because the electricity costs incurred through irrigation and refrigerant gases, for example, skyrocketed with the introduction of the tax. We are cutting red and green tape to save businesses time and money, which will lift productivity and boost economic growth.

Building on the free trade agreements we recently signed with South Korea and Japan, the government will provide $15 million to help small exporters. There is $9 million to support our recreational and commercial fishing bodies, $100 million extra for agricultural research and development and $20 million to build a stronger biosecurity and quarantine system.

Let me tell you why we are trying to make it easier, not harder, to do business in Australia. It is business that grows our economy. It is business that creates jobs. Small businesses are the backbone of regional Australia. They employ 50 per cent of all Australians working in the private sector. Jobs are sorely needed in my electorate of Hinkler. Unemployment is our single biggest issue. Unemployment is often a contributing factor in cases of marital breakdown, domestic violence, criminal activity, poor nutrition, health problems and declining school attendance. Employment gives people the ability to pay their own way and provide for their families. The people of this great nation should be able to depend on their elected representatives, but that does not mean we should be building a nation of dependants. Under the Rudd and Gillard governments, unemployment in the Hinkler electorate increased from six per cent in the September 2007 quarter to 9.6 per cent in the June 2013 quarter. That compares to an unemployment rate of 5.4 per cent for the nation or six per cent in Queensland.

As promised, we are revitalising the Work for the Dole program to give people routine, structure, presentation skills and access to potential employers. Young people will now be required to earn, learn or work for the dole. We are fortunate to live in a country where this government provides a safety net to those who find themselves without employment. Requiring Australians to work for the dole ensures that that obligation is mutual. I recently spoke to the state member for Hervey Bay, Ted Sorensen, about the reintroduction of the Howard government's Work for the Dole program. When Ted was the local mayor, Work for the Dole participants helped construct all the walkways and bike paths along the esplanade. Ted cannot speak highly enough of the program. He says it built self-confidence and gave participants a sense of achievement. Many went on to gain long-term employment as a direct result of their involvement in Work for Dole.

Financial incentives will be provided to employers and employees to get young people into the workforce. Long-term unemployed Hinkler residents aged between 18 and 30 will receive $2,500 if they hold a job for a continuous period of 12 months and a further bonus of $4,000 when they attain 24 months of service. For the first time, those undertaking an apprenticeship will be able to apply for concessional loans of up to $20,000 in a scheme similar to HECS. Students with low socioeconomic backgrounds or from regional areas will have access to a new Commonwealth scholarship scheme.

In the past eight months, seven federal ministers, three parliamentary secretaries and four coalition senators have visited the Hinkler electorate to hear about the issues impacting local residents and businesses. I also hosted the first Nationals party room meeting for 2014 in Bundaberg. Born and bred in the Bundaberg district, I take every opportunity to advocate on behalf of Hinkler residents. With this budget it will be no different. Constituents can rest assured that I will take their grievances to the relevant minister.

In closing, gone is the unstable Labor government that in a very short time gave us two prime ministers, two Treasurers and five Assistant Treasurers. Australians have elected a coalition government to repair the budget and build the stronger, more prosperous country that we all want. This budget starts that process. I commend the bills to the House.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a budget of broken promises. It is a bad budget for Australia and it is a bad budget for Australians. The broken promises of this budget reveal a government with a serious deficit—a values deficit. The budget's broken promises will hit low- and middle-income families and the elderly. The poorest will suffer the most, but everyone suffers. Before the election the Prime Minister said there would be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS. Every single one of those promises is broken in this budget.

Australians expect their government to run a strong economy, but that is just the start of what we expect. We expect the government to have a vision for the future of our country and a plan to get there. Australians value our egalitarian society. We want a society where hard work is rewarded but where a little bit of bad luck does not mean the end of the world; a society where no-one is left behind. This budget fails that fairness test. It hits the poorest the hardest. It makes life harder for millions of ordinary Australians struggling to balance their family budget. This budget makes it harder for people when they fill up at the petrol pump, when they go to the doctor, when they buy medicines. For that reason Labor will fight the unfair measures in this budget every step of the way.

The budget shows how starkly the differences between the two sides of politics play out. What kind of government would deliver a budget that will reduce the income of a couple who have a combined income of $95,000 and two kids by almost $5,000 a year?

How do those members go back to their electorates and tell those families that this government is taking $5,000 a year from them? What kind of the government would deliver a budget that will reduce the income of a sole parent with two kids, earning $55,000 a year, by $6,000 a year? These are not our numbers—these are figures provided by NATSEM.

What has really surprised me, though, about the public anger in response to this budget is that people are not just angry about the broken promises and attacks on their own family budgets; they are angry about what is happening to other people. Parents with young kids who have lost the family tax benefit and the schoolkids bonus are not just talking to me about their family budget—they are talking to me about how unfair it is that pensioners who have worked hard all their lives are being told that their pensions will be cut. Pensioners who have never had a chance to go to university themselves are talking to me about their grandkids—and not even their own grandkids, but kids that age—who now have to choose between getting a decent university education and buying a home of their own one day. Young Australians, who are set to be slugged with these mind-boggling student debts, are talking to me about how it makes the decision to go to university much harder, but that is not all they are talking to me about. They are concerned about the $7.6 billion that this government is cutting from the aid budget, cuts made on the back of the world's poorest.

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

Hear, hear!

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'Hear, hear!' says the member for Herbert up there. These young people are concerned, too, about the cuts to the climate change programs that would mean Australia was contributing to reducing the likelihood of global warming passing that critical two degree benchmark that scientists tell us is so important. So, despite what the Treasurer says, the angry reaction to this budget is not because Australians are selfish: it is the exact opposite. Of course they are concerned for their own family budgets, but they are concerned for all of the people who are hit hardest by this budget as well. They do not want to see Australia become a two-tier system—a user-pays, American-style, 'you're fine if you're wealthy but God help you if you're not' style system. We will have a system that condemns kids who are born poor to grow up poor and to be sent to school in second-rate schools. We will have a health system that is world-class if you are wealthy and unattainable if you are not. Australians do not want a society of haves and have-nots. They value our way of life and that is why, while they want a strong economy, they want a fair society too. This budget fails on both counts.

I have had so many individual constituents stop me in the street to talk to me about the issues that will affect them. There are hundreds of little changes, as they come out over coming days and weeks, that will really impact them. A woman with cerebral palsy, who has managed to get back into the workforce with the help of the disability support pension, is terrified about what the changes mean for her in the future. A 23-year-old who has been saving up for his first home, using a first home saver account, says he feels cheated that the scheme has been cut. What is really scary about this is that it is not clear whether the members opposite really know what this budget is doing. You would think the Prime Minister would know, but we have had the Prime Minister say on Melbourne radio recently that an average person would only have to pay the $7 GP co-payment the first 10 times they went to the doctor: uh-uh! There is a safety net for people who are concession card holders and children but there is no safety net for ordinary working people, so mum's and dad's family budget will be under pressure. You know who will not be going to the doctor. You would think the Minister for Education would know: uh-uh! He said that the new arrangements for HECS debts and deregulated fees apply only for new students enrolling from 1 January 2016, but it seems the budget papers say the changes apply to all students enrolling from 14 May 2014 who will be studying in 2016, and to all people with a current HECS or HELP debt. It is not very reassuring, is it? The cuts are so deep and so brutal but the people who are supposed to be coming up with them and implementing them do not actually understand them.

As well as the values deficit, the economic arguments of this budget just do not stack up. The coalition's hysteria is built on a confected budget emergency. They hope that if they say often enough that the end is nigh, people will come to believe it. The most astonishing thing, given this hysteria around the confected budget emergency, is that they have actually managed to deliver bigger deficits. They have done a deal with the Greens for 'debt unlimited'. The deficits in the first three years, from 2014-15, are actually larger than the ones that were predicted in the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook statement—which was prepared not by us but by Treasury and Finance, before the election. It is worth reminding people that this Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook is a Peter Costello, Charter of Budget Honesty innovation and sets the benchmark for each party's election commitments going into the election. Why has that happened? Because they have added $68 billion to the deficit in just a few months by giving almost $9 billion—unasked for and unneeded—to the Reserve Bank by changing a number of economic parameters and by spending.

If there is a budget emergency, what should we do? Should we find $22 billion for a gold-plated paid parental leave scheme? It just shows how wrong the priorities of this budget are. Pensioners who are surviving on around $22,000 a year get a cut so people who are earning $200,000, $300,000, $400,000 or $1,000,000 a year can get $50,000 to have a baby. They cut superannuation support for low- and middle-income workers so that they could leave in place measures that allow the highest-income workers to benefit most from super tax concessions. They will bring back petrol taxes that will hit everyone who drives but will hit those living in outer suburbs and in regional areas the worst. They are going to hit them with petrol taxes and then float the notion of a higher or broader GST at the same time as knocking back corporate tax avoidance and profit-shifting prevention measures that would have raised $1.1 billion. How on earth can anyone justify these priorities?

Then there is the abolition of the carbon tax and the minerals resource rent tax in favour of taxes that hit the family budget. There is the $80 billion cut from education and health. I always knew that many on those benches opposite were big supporters of outsourcing; well, they have really done well in this instance. They have outsourced $80 billion of hospital and education cuts to the states. They are not prepared to do it themselves. They have just snatched that money from the states. It is extraordinary to just say that the states can deal with it—'This thing that has always been a shared responsibility is no longer a shared responsibility. We are just going to shove it onto the states and they can deal with the longer waiting lists for elective surgery, they can deal with the longer waiting times in emergency departments and they can deal with the cuts to our schools.'

We met the budget rule of keeping real average spending growth to less than two per cent a year—the lowest four-year result in 23 years. We saved 200,000 jobs during the global financial crisis. We prevented Australia from falling into recession and we did it in a way that saw Australia coming back to surplus over the economic cycle because we agree that it is important that over time we do that. We delivered $180 billion in savings while we were in government. In fact, as health minister I delivered billions of dollars in savings but I did it by means testing the private health insurance rebate—opposed by those opposite—and by finding savings in the cost of generic medicines, by paying less for medicines as they came off patents. There were billions of dollars of savings that were opposed by those opposite.

The government's cuts to the health budget make no sense. Why would you cut prevention programs if you want to keep people out of hospital, where it is expensive to look after them? Why cut prevention when the greatest health challenges—smoking, obesity and excessive alcohol consumption—cost us so much as a community? How does it make sense to cut health costs by reducing access to the cheapest part of the health system, general practice, knowing that the outcome will be sicker people and more strain on the hospital system? These are health cuts designed by someone who does not care about patients, just about short-term cuts. They will cost us all in the long run. You can cut costs in the health system by keeping people healthy and out of hospital or you can cut costs by rationing the access that sick people have to medical treatment. Guess which this government has chosen?

I spoke earlier today about the massive cuts to foreign aid and what they will mean to the world's poorest people. I think it is so important to say that again that is a stark example of just how different our values are. John Howard knew that Australia should be a nation of lifters not leaners when it came to international development assistance. John Howard knew that, but Tony Abbott does not. It is worth saying also that, if you are talking about our role in the world community, nations everywhere are looking at us now and asking: 'Why are you cutting an effective and cost-effective program to reduce air pollution, carbon pollution? Why are you cutting, for example, billions of dollars from environmental programs while finding $2.6 billion to pay big polluters to keep polluting? Why are you cutting from grassroots environmental programs, CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and renewable energy initiatives?' Then there is the broken promise on Landcare funding, ripping $483 million out of Landcare and conservation programs; the $2.8 million cut from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority; the scrapping of climate change research across government agencies; and the abolition of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which actually makes money for the government. The world community is asking, 'Why are you doing these things at a time when everybody else is moving in the other direction, moving to tackle climate change?'

There is another broken promise on Landcare and another broken promise on the ABC and SBS. There are cuts of $43.5 billion over four years to the ABC and SBS and a cut of almost $200 million to the Australia Network. This is a budget of broken promises. It is a budget of wrong priorities. It is a budget that hurts the poorest the most. It is a budget that shows very clearly the values deficit of this government.

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

I have just listened to the shadow Treasurer and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition for 30 minutes on these appropriation bills and there was not one solution proffered. There was 30 minutes of whingeing, moaning and carrying on. There was not one solution offered, so go back to the glory days.

First and foremost I would like to pass on my personal best wishes and congratulations to the Treasurer, Joe B Hockey, and the leadership group of the coalition government for the job that they have done here. This budget lays the foundations for our nation to be more productive, more affluent and more inclusive. In September last year, just after Mr Hockey was made Treasurer, he gave a speech that has always stuck with me. He said we have to do three things: first, we have to tell the people what the problem was; second, we have to tell the people what we are going to do about it; and, third and most importantly, we have to take the people with us when we are working.

So what was the problem? I have got only 15 minutes to go through the problems that we encountered over the last six years, but I will go as quickly as possible. Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister, has always said there is nothing new in politics, so it will not surprise anyone that in 1996 the then Howard coalition government faced a $96 billion gross debt problem and a $10 billion black hole. In 1996, because the previous Labor government reformed the way we did business in Australia and the way we acted as a government—and that was accepted in a bipartisan way—we had rising terms of trade. But the Howard government was still a government that made tough decisions.

Australia faced the Asian financial crisis in those days. This was very local and we were very exposed. It was a very worrying time in the auction industry, in which I was employed, and in the finance industry. Yet the Howard government went into deficit for one year only. We acted, supported and then corrected. Fast forward to the economic conservatism of the Rudd-Gillard era, when the GFC hit they acted and supported but they did not correct. When Andrew Robb, the member for Goldstein, was the shadow finance spokesperson he gave a speech in here in which he said that what happens in the GFC is sort of like when you are doing your house. You pay your mortgage and you have a set number of expenses then one year you decide you are going to do a renovation. So for that year your expenses, your outgoings, go up. But the next year, because you are no longer doing the renovations, your expenses come down to roughly what they were. What the Labor government did under Rudd and Gillard was raise expenses and that was the new floor. That was the problem we encountered. That was the new starting point so that was the problem.

When people come to me and say, 'I don't know what to believe', and 'Everyone can do projections', and 'Anyone can point the finger'—we have just seen how wonderful the Labor Party was in the last two speeches made by those members opposite, and yet we won 90 seats in the last election. I say to them: whether you believe our projections about gross debt going up to $667 billion is completely up to you. What no-one can deny is that over the past six years we had budget deficits totalling $191.5 billion, with the major expenses still to come on health, education, NBN and NDIS and no plan to pay for them. No-one can dispute those figures. So even if you accept those base figures, we are still left with a massive task quite similar to what was faced by the Howard government in 1996.

We are borrowing $1 billion per month to pay the interest on the debt at the moment. What do we do about it? This budget brings our gross figure down from the projected $667 billion by nearly $300 billion to $389 billion. This budget addresses the issues of the ageing population. Even the opposition leader in his speech, when he referred to taxpayers and pensioners, said that when he was at school there were 7.5 taxpayers per pensioner and today there are five taxpayers per pensioner. By 2050 there will be 2.5 taxpayers per person over the age of 65 and 70. That is not a shrinking workforce; that is a growing ageing population with challenges that have to be faced.

This budget attempts to make the support the taxpayer extends to the community more sustainable, whether it be the pension, Medicare, health in general, education, defence: the lot has to be paid for by the taxpayers and the taxpayers' dollars. The Howard government did it before and was able to hand the benefits back to those who did the heavy lifting. Family tax benefit part B was initially installed by the Howard government because from 1996 through to 2001 the families of Australia did the heavy lifting. They paid off Labor's debt, and the then Prime Minister said, 'You deserve to be helped'. We are borrowing money to support a lifestyle. We cannot continue to do that. No-one likes losing a benefit, but when people sit down and actually start to think about it they understand why we are doing it.

What we said we would do in the last election—every day for three years the now Prime Minister said at every opportunity and every press conference that we would axe the carbon tax, we would stop the boats, we would build the roads of the 21st century and we would fix the budget. The boats: well and truly over 150 days since a successful arrival. Check: we have done it, and saved $2.5 billion by closing down detention centres inside Australia. As a first order of business in this place, we axed the carbon tax in this House of Representatives; it is sitting over there. Those opposite will sit there and tell you they are concerned about people's cost of living, and yet the average family is saving $550 per year, going up again on 1 July because the carbon tax will be extended again on 1 July this year. It is still sitting over there; it can be passed today if members opposite choose to do so. The carbon tax repeal has been passed by us in this place, so that is a check.

Roads: we have $50 billion worth of infrastructure projects—$25 billion worth of roads—approved under this government. There is $220 million alone on road projects in Townsville. The member for Grayndler will probably come in here and tell us that he actually turned the first sod on all of those, that was all done, all paid for previously. So we get down to fixing the budget. We went to the last election saying that we would extend a levy to the biggest companies to pay for a fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme. We went to the last election saying we would raise a levy and support a raised levy to support the NDIS, so this notion about no new taxes—what do members opposite actually think we are going to do, win lotto? That we are going to take a system 25 each week and that is how we are going to get the budget back into order?

We need to take the people with us. I have concerns in relation to the way Australia is going, and I share the concerns of some people in this House. There are conversations we have to have in relation to where this country is going. The NDIS is an idea whose time has come, but we must make it affordable. We cannot afford to live in a country where someone is walking down the street and a man is mowing his lawn in an NDIS T-shirt and no-one knows what it stands for. I worry that we have parents still talking about the people that they love the most, their children with a disability, and that they still have to describe them in the worst possible way to get the help they need. I truly believe that Senator Fifield is the right man for the job and I truly believe that this place is bipartisan in its approach. But I cannot help but think that we are still going to be heading down that same track, where parents are still going to be dreadfully exposed in the way they are going to have to explain themselves to get the help they need. I will know that that is fixed when parents can come to me and tell me that they are happy with the way it is going.

I also share the concern about the timing of deregulation fees for the university sector. I have no problems with deregulation itself. I think that is a very healthy thing and I think the way we are going about it—extending it to TAFE students and to subdegree things and trade support loans to another 80,000 people—is a great idea. But you have third parties coming into the system now and they must be watched. We must make sure that we control not only the organisations but also the organisations that participate in that sector. We must have a very strong and effective authority. We cannot afford to see what happened in the VET sector—we saw an explosion of RTOs to more than 4,600 but more than 90 per cent of the results are still produced by less than 100 organisations—happen in our higher education sector. Again, I believe that Minister Pyne is the right person at the right time to take this debate forward. I believe that he is truly consultative with Universities Australia and with the education sector in general.

I want to see the white papers on taxation and the Federation happen as quickly as possible, and I want the discussions to be as open and frank and free as possible. We have a chance in this place to fundamentally change our country for a long time. We are a vastly different place to what we were in 1901. I see kids up there behind the glass and they are watching us here. When you are older, I want to make sure that you are living in an Australia which is inclusive, I want to make sure that you are living in an Australia which is affordable, and I want to make sure that you are living in an Australia where you are not paying for the mistakes of my generation—where you are not paying for the profligacy of previous governments, because you kids deserve better.

So I want to make sure we have those open and frank conversations and I want to make sure that we do the right thing by people. I want to see the red tape reduction practices undertaken by this government to be the catalyst for freeing up business and industry and not an exercise in cost-shifting to other forms of government. The Townsville City Council in my electorate of Herbert—which I sometimes have a fractious relationship with—have seen many areas of regulation cut from other levels of government and simply had the cost of compliance and the cost of regulation lumped onto them with no benefit. This red tape reduction must be driven through COAG so we do not see one level of government reducing costs and another level rising. We must make sure this is a coordinated approach.

I want to see work done to the tender process for all government projects to make sure they support local government, local contractors and local communities. When Senator Arthur Sinodinos was in Charters Towers with me recently we heard a story about a local council out west of Charters Towers. The Flinders Shire Council had costed out a road at $9 million. It had to go to national tender. The cost came in at $27 million. The contractor who won it flew in their team, their workers, the camp—everything. They did the work and not one cent of stayed in the local community. We cannot have a tender process where we are doing major jobs in places like Townsville where the only beneficiaries are McDonald's and the pie van. We want to make sure that our local contractors, our local people, are being looked after. We want to make sure that the money is going through the community.

I want to see an aviation hub in Townsville. I want to see the C27J turboprop replaced with the Caribou based at RAAF Base Garbutt. It makes sense. I want to see the cost of production spread away from Defence and into the private sector.

We talk a lot about Northern Australia and the white paper is to be handed down. I copped a bit of flak in Townsville because there wasn't any projects in the white paper. We must get the foundations right and that means getting a baseline science right. That means backing CSIRO and backing James Cook University to make sure that we are looking at our freshwater options. Once we get the macro right, once we get the picture right, we can then develop. What I will not cop is being held accountable for some dodgy deal done between the member for Lilley and some Independent over a project that was absolutely stone motherless dead in 2011 and was still being kept in the federal budget for two years so they could throw a sling at the member for Herbert.

I want to see us have a better relationship and continue to grow our relationship with Papua New Guinea. Prime Minister Peter O'Neill spoke in Cairns just last week and he said, 'Suddenly we are back on the map with Australia. It is great to see. Funnily enough, Papua New Guinea was visited by no less than three different prime ministers inside 12 months.' He said, 'I don't think we'll ever see that time again.' He understands the need for trade and he understands the need to grow it organically. I think we can learn a lot from Papua New Guinea. They are in the 14th year of economic growth. Their economy is expected to grow at 15 per cent. There is some serious business being done up there. We must be more proactive in getting them to participate in the development of Northern Australia. Townsville is the perfect place for it.

I do want refer to the credibility argument that has been thrown down by others opposite. Last year in the budget reply speech, Tony Abbott, the then opposition leader, stared down the barrel of the camera and told people that we were axing the things from the mining tax—that there were things that would have to go because they were not affordable; that we would not be able to keep on spending the way we had. He told the people of Australia that we had to make some tough decisions, and we have. You have the opposition Treasury now saying approximately 392 times that it was an unfair budget but he says nothing about what he's going to do!

Can I tell you finally, Deputy Speaker Mitchell, when I walk down the street there are a lot of people concerned about the budget but not one person has said to me, 'You know, I want to go back to the glory days of the Rudd-Gillard government.' No-one is saying that ever. I thank the House.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2014-2015 and cognate bills representing the Abbott government's federal budget. This is indeed a budget of broken promises and, in my area of health, one that launches fundamental attack on the fabric of Medicare. The Prime Minister promised before the election that there would be no cuts to health. He didn't just say it once; he said it many, many times. He promised before the election that there would be no new taxes. At no time during the election campaign did the Prime Minister telling the Australian people that they would be paying more to see a doctor, more from their medicines, more to access a specialist and that he would gut funding for public hospitals, for prevention and for dental care. But that is exactly what the Abbott government has done in this budget. This is what this budget delivers to the Australian people—cuts to public hospitals, cuts to prevention programs, cuts to dental care, a GP tax and more expensive medicines. When the population is ageing and the rate of chronic illness is increasing, it is inconceivable that the government would want to make the changes that it does, particularly those putting a barrier in the way of people accessing general practitioners. Medicare has served Australia well for the past 30 years, but this government appears to want erode its very fabric—universal access.

When Bob Hawke as Prime Minister introduced Medicare all those decades ago, he warned that without it more than two million Australians faced potential financial ruin in the event of a major illness. Today that is not the case, because every Australian can rely on our universal health system, a universal insurance scheme that everybody contributes to according to their means, and that means that people can access health care on the basis of their need and not on the basis of their means to pay for it. If this Prime Minister gets his way he will be taking Australia back decades and putting millions of Australians in the same perilous position that was the case of pre-Medicare.

I want to take each of the cuts within this appropriation bill in turn, starting with public hospitals. The first we saw was the ripping up of Labor's historic agreements that were reached with the states and territories in health, agreements which had largely ended the blame game when it came to the Commonwealth and states, and which had started to wind back the erosion of the Commonwealth's contribution to public hospital funding that had occurred under the Liberals. In fact, the Abbott government's own election policy document, a document that was very scant on detail in any case, did promise that a coalition government would support the transition to the Commonwealth providing 50 per cent of growth funding of the efficient price of the hospital services as proposed. This was part of the coalition's election documentation.

What did we see after the election? Well, you will not find that promise on the coalition's website anymore. Amazingly, it has suddenly disappeared. So embarrassed is the coalition by this broken promise in health that it has taken its election policy off its website. And so ashamed is it of how badly it has broken this pre-election promise that, instead of providing the growth funding that was promised to the Australian public and promised to the states to run the public hospitals, this budget of broken promises cuts a whopping $50 billion from Australia's public hospitals. And it is no wonder that the Prime Minister is too embarrassed to meet with his state counterparts after this promise was so comprehensively broken. These are cuts that commence in just 35 days' time, on 1 July this year.

Only last fortnight, the Treasurer told Australians: the fact is we are honouring the four years of the agreements in both hospitals and schools that we said we would honour; we are doing that. That is simply untrue. The Treasurer does not even know what is in his own budget.

The cuts to hospitals start this financial year, and we know that that will put services at jeopardy. States are already talking about hospital bed closures. We know that there will be changes in emergency department waiting times, that there will be changes and blow-outs in elective surgery times, that there are hospital beds that will close and that nurses and doctors will not be employed or will be employed less. At every point in the system we see that this government plans to cut funding and to break its promises.

In preventative health, the government is to rip up the $367-million agreement on preventive health funding. States and territories that entered into contracts for programs that are to start shortly are suddenly now finding themselves with a shortfall. This is coming at the same time as many states across the country have started to withdraw funding for preventive health programs as well, saying that they believe it is the role of the Commonwealth to engage in prevention. We have now seen with this budget that the Commonwealth is largely abdicating the field when it comes to health prevention. The National Partnership Agreement on Preventative Health is gone. Preventative health funding for programs to tackle obesity, alcohol abuse and smoking have been cut. We know the government does not care about preventive health because it is also planning to cut some $2.9 million from the national tobacco campaign. It is also axing, in a separate bill, the Australian National Preventive Health Agency, the agency charged with making sure preventive health is a priority. It works with states and territories to ensure that we do not duplicate effort, that we have a combined partnership agreement in order to get the maximum benefit for our preventative health dollar and that as a country we are actually tackling conditions that are preventable like diabetes and heart disease. The government does not seem to believe in these things. It is ripping down the preventative health website and the health star rating system and shutting down organisations like the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council. And I suspect there is a whole lot more to come in health space. These are short-sighted policy decisions that will take Australia's health system back decades.

And of course then there are the government's plans to introduce the GP tax. The government wants to basically put a significant barrier, a pay wall, in the way of people accessing their GPs. So flawed is this policy, the Treasurer and Prime Minister do not actually understand how it works. Last week, during interviews, the Prime Minister and Treasurer both said to the Australian public that if you have chronic disease you will not pay this tax; it will not apply to you. It was a plainly wrong and incorrect statement. No-one is exempt from the government's GP tax. The facts the Treasurer relied upon to introduce this tax are also wrong. A fortnight ago, the Treasurer was out there again on ABC's Q&A saying that, on average, Australians visit the doctor 11 times a year. This is simply not true. In fact, Australia is bang-on the OECD average and the correct number is fewer than seven times.

This is a tax based on a broken promise that no health policy expert has said is a good idea. The Australian Medical Association has said this is a very bad idea and is very bad policy. They Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association, the Royal Australian College of Emergency Physicians, the Royal Australian College of GPs—not necessarily known for radical campaigning—have actually started a #CoPayNoWay campaign, a significant campaign that is seeing hundreds of emails arrive in my inbox each day absolutely opposed to this government trying to put a barrier in the way of people accessing a doctor.

The Consumer Health Forum, a not-for-profit organisation that is charged with representing consumers and advocating for consumers, has very clearly said this policy will impact very significantly on those with chronic conditions, those who are on low and middle incomes and on some of the most vulnerable Australians in the country. I went and visited an Aboriginal medical service just recently. The staff there told me that they cannot possibly charge this tax and that will mean that, for their service delivery, they will have to find an extra $350,000 each year just to continue to employ doctors to meet the demand they have within their service. It is a cost they will have to absorb within their own system. They are very concerned about what that will mean for services right the way across their community.

All of these bodies have advised this government against this policy yet the government has determined that they will proceed with it. Not only will they proceed with the GP tax but they are also intending to tell states and territories that they should also impose a tax when people go to emergency departments. We have seen only one state to date, Western Australia, say that they would entertain such a thing.

These are changes that the former vice president of the Australian Medical Association has said will take Australia's health system back more than 50 years. I think he knows something about it. He absolutely knows something about the health system which unfortunately this government appears not to. Not only will healthcare be less affordable and less accessible, the government is also ripping $270 million—

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. The honourable member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.