Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Last week, the Treasurer told Australians that the Abbott budget was 'fair' and that welfare spending was unsustainable. Today, the Melbourne Institute revealed that over the last decade there has been a 4.5 per cent reduction in the number of working-age people receiving welfare payments. Now that the government's claims of a welfare crisis have been exposed as false, why do the Prime Minister and his Treasurer is still believe it is fair to cut pensions and family tax benefits?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Again, members of the opposition are spreading untruths. It is as simple as that. The member who asked the question has said something about pensions which is simply are true, because pensions will go up every six months of every year. Back in March, the single pension increased by $14 a fortnight. The married rate increased by, I think, $11 for each member of a married couple. Increases of this order will take place later this year, twice next year and twice the year after that. Every six months the pension goes up. What has happened is that the government will, over time, somewhat reduce the rate of growth—the reason being that we do need to address the debt and deficit disaster that members opposite left us.

This is the problem. The problem is that we are paying $1 billion a month in interest—that is $1 billion in dead money—because of the debt and deficit disaster that members opposite left us. We have a plan to fix this; all Labor has is a complaint. Once upon at a time, we had serious people in the Labor Party. When the Labor Party was led by people like Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, they had some serious answers for our country. They were prepared to take some tough decisions to reform our nation and to help set up the prosperity of the future. I regret to say: how a mighty party has fallen. This government will do what is necessary to put our future on a sound and sustainable basis—because that is exactly what the people of Australia elected us to do. We will not shirk the task.

Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister explain how the government is increasing support for medical research—research like the excellent work of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in my electorate? What support has the government received for these reforms?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Brisbane for her question and acknowledge the significant support she provides to the QIMR and many other medical research bodies within the electorate of Brisbane. It is true that, right around the country, we are blessed with a number of institutes and universities that house the best researchers in the world. Over the course of the last 12 months, we have provided about $750 million as a country to medical research. It is incredibly important that we increase that investment.

In 2011 the then Treasurer, the member for Lilley, sought to take $400 million out of medical research. With young researchers around the country, we fought against that change and we made sure that we kept money in medical research. In the most recent budget, we said that we wanted to set up a $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund. It is incredibly important—not just so that we can employ those young researchers to try to find better ways to deal with diseases and to find world-leading medicines but also so that we can export that expertise. It is of incredible medical benefit to our country, but the economic benefit is significant as well, including in states like South Australia, where the Prime Minister and I were only a couple of weeks ago. We talked to the young researchers at SAHMRI about how by 2022-23, out of this medical research fund, we can provide an additional billion dollars a year for medical research.

It is important, as was pointed out by Simon McKeon. People will know that Simon McKeon was engaged by the Rudd and Gillard governments to do a report on medical research. He came up with the solution. In his report he very tellingly said that the cost of health care at the moment is unsustainable. The person—the independent expert—commissioned by the Labor Party came back to the Labor Party, while they were in government, and said that the way we were spending in health was unsustainable. Simon McKeon spoke at the National Press Club only last week. He said:

… I think quite correctly, that if we don't do anything to our broader health system, it is unsustainable … I think it's going to be a good thing if 20-odd million Australians feel that they're actually directly part of the research effort by that payment … It would be a tragedy if this fund did not happen, simply because the funding mechanism was not agreed to in Parliament.

As the Prime Minister said before, former Prime Minister Hawke had the guts to stand up and say that we needed a co-payment in the PBS—a policy that the Labor Party supported for 50 years. Mr Hawke said at the time that the Medicare system was unsustainable without an equal co-payment being applied to the MBS. This government in this budget not only boosts the money for medical research but also provides support for a sustainable health system—and we stand by it. (Time expired)

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Last week the Treasurer told Australians that the Abbott budget was fair. Today the Melbourne Institute revealed that, over the past decade, the share of incomes provided by government benefits has dropped from 25.4 per cent to 21.3 per cent. Now that the government's claims of a welfare crisis have been exposed as false, why does the Prime Minister and his Treasurer still believe it is fair to cut pensions and to cut family tax benefits?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Every time members opposite make untrue statements, it is an opportunity for the government to repeat the truth. The truth is that pensions go up now, they will continue to go up in the future and they will always go up. They will always go up under this government. What will not continue to go up under this government is debt and deficit. The reason we needed to make the changes we have made in this budget is that, as things were—with the debt and deficit disaster that members opposite had bequeathed this nation—so much that we cherish, so much that we value and so much that makes us special as a country was becoming unsustainable. It was simply becoming unsustainable.

When you are borrowing $1 billion every single month just to pay the interest on Labor's borrowings, you have to make some tough decisions. That is what this government was elected to do. We have not shirked the tough decisions. We have done precisely what the people of Australia asked us to do—to put this country back onto a sustainable path to a surplus.