Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable the Leader of the Opposition proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

“The Government’s Budget of broken promises and wrong priorities hurting Australians”.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was a year ago today that the Prime Minister, the then opposition leader, visited Rooty Hill and he made a promise to Australians—what will go down as one of the most outrageous and egregious lies in Australian political history—where he said, 'No cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts or changes to pensions.'

A year on we know and, more importantly, Australians know that the leader of the Liberal Party misled Australians at the last election. The Prime Minister got up here in high dudgeon in question time, outraged, and he said, 'Stop going around, Opposition, and scaring Australians.' We do not scare Australians; we tell them the truth of their unfair budget. And the budget scares Australians.

Then I listened to that blowhard of Australian politics, the puffed-up Treasurer, saying, 'Everything we do is good for Australia.' Oh no, it isn't, Treasurer, not by a long shot. To remind the people of Australia, because this mob sitting opposite us have stopped listening to people a long time ago, the government have in the last 12 months broken promise after promise. They have a pathology for breaking promises and the victims of their broken promises are legion. They talk about taking the pressure off the cost of living, so then they cut child care, family support and increase the cost of petrol. Of course Tony Abbott is all against putting a price on carbon in Australia, but he is sitting down with President Obama, saying, 'Oh yes, Mr President, we've got a carbon tax, because we are putting up the price of petrol.'

The government said there will be no new and increased taxes. There is the GP tax and the higher cost of medicine. They say they do not want to cut health. But $50 billion has gone from health. No cuts to education, they say. No-one believes them. We see $30 billion gone, $1 billion from schools and $5 billion from universities. Look at this self-satisfied mob opposite me. They think that if they repeat the lie long enough, people will believe them. Do not underestimate the wit and wisdom of the Australian people. They will certainly remember your lies at the time of accounting.

The coalition talk about jobs. They say they are going to create one million new jobs and yet they have now given us North American unemployment rates. They have done nothing to defend shipbuilding, the aluminium sector or a whole range of manufacturing jobs. They do nothing at all. They almost seem to dislike blue-collar manufacturing jobs. But it is not only in the big issues that they are a mean government. The government are addicted to random acts of parsimony and small gestures of random meanness. The bar can never be too low for this lot. They are petty and there is no group that they do not go out of their way to lie to, mislead and deceive.

What about the cleaners in Parliament House? Remember Tony Abbott saying, 'I'm the best friend the cleaners in Parliament House have? He was gracious enough to remember a couple of their first names, as if that is enough. That is a regal way from the Prime Minister and a cheerio from the green benches of parliament. That does not put bread and butter on the table. Cutting their wages is the real judge of someone's words.

Look at the ABC. What did the ABC ever do to the government except occasionally criticise them? They attack the national broadcaster. No-one struck home.

Who else does this government not talk about? We waited all question time this week for one question from the government to the Prime Minister about the budget. We did not wait for two questions or three. Even one question would have done. A cursory survey of the government questions to the Prime Minister shows that this brave bunch say nothing about the budget to the Prime Minister. I am sure they leak about it to other journalists. I am sure that perhaps in the dark of the night, as they sit there wondering what is to become of their parliamentary careers, they realise this unfair budget is indeed deeply unpopular.

Mr Sukkar interjecting—

I would not laugh, Member for Deakin. Take it from me: I would not laugh. But when we look at other acts of random meanness, this MPI is important because there are other groups who never get the attention of this government. What did the full-time Disability Commissioner in Australia, Graeme Innes—a distinguished Australian, who has done more for people with disabilities than this mob combined together ever did—do wrong? They got rid of him.

Then we look at the War Memorial. I love what the government said today about the War Memorial. They said, 'Labor promised $10 million for Anzac. That gets us off the hook for breaking our promises.' Oh no, it doesn't. When Brendan Nelson is criticising cuts to the War Memorial, this Prime Minister, who lives in a sufficiently parallel universe, says, 'The War Memorial does not know if they are being cut—what would they know'? His own minister, Minister Ronaldson, says, 'Yes, it's a cut,' but not this Prime Minister. This Prime Minister is very good at denying the truth in front of him.

This travelling exhibition, which the Prime Minister says can be replaced in one year by a Centenary of Anzac, is a map of Australia—3.8 million Australians have seen it over 17 years. What John Howard started, Tony Abbott has ended.

Then we go to another area, which I vow on behalf of the Labor Party we will ensure every coalition member lives to regret. It is the privatisation of Australian Hearing services. There are nearly 500 outlets of Australian Hearing services. We asked a question this week of the Treasurer: 'Why are you privatising Australian Hearing; why are you doing this to families in regional Australia?' He got up, as he loves to do, and gave a pious speech. He said, 'How dare you criticise my credentials? I was a good minister for Human Services.' Certainly, he might have been better at that than at being Treasurer!

There are good minded people over there on that side. There are people who care about the profoundly deaf. What I say to them is: it is time that you awaken. It is time that you stand up for families in regional Australia. I love getting a lecture about the bush by Comrade Turnbull from the eastern front of Sydney! What about all the Australian Hearing Services centres in the bush? What about in regional Australia? The fact of the matter is that families are contacting Labor and asking, 'Is it really the case that this government will privatise Australian Hearing Services?' And we say, 'We're afraid that's right.' Then we get this B-grade acting—this ham acting—from the wannabe poor man's Hamlet of treasurers, 'Woe unto me,' and then he says that it is a good thing.

Please, I ask the government—and I will even use the word 'please'—please reconsider the privatisation of Australian Hearing Services; 450,000 kids use this service, as well as adults. Why on earth do you want to wreck something that is working so well? You know, and there are good National Party members here sometimes—I do not mean to make eye contact with a couple of them—but I say this: do not sell out the bush and let the city based people privatise Australian Hearing Services, because it is your voters who will miss out most of all.

But it is not just Australian Hearing Services, it is not just the War Memorial and it is not just many other small voices. Today, Labor wants to put on the record here the attack on legal services in this country in this unfair budget. What does this government have against advocates? They got rid of the disability commissioner—well, that is a shame. They are going after Indigenous legal—

Mrs Wicks interjecting—

Half these people over here, including the member interjecting—I do not know if she has ever been to an Indigenous legal service—let me tell you, you are weakening the protections for ordinary Australians by cutting the funding to legal services, including Indigenous legal services.

There are topics which do not make the front page of the newspapers of this country. There are pockets of misery which you are inflicting upon ordinary Australians. We give you fair notice—fair notice—that we will fight you on all of these measures, not because we wish to fight you but because we cannot let you wreck a whole lot of good services and the lives of a whole lot of ordinary people because they do not come up to be represented by the mob on the frontbench.

The Prime Minister quoted Ben Chifley in some words earlier today. Let me remind this party about a term that Robert Menzies coined—'forgotten people'. Your unfair budget has many forgotten people. You are unfair budget robs people of aspiration, it robs people of opportunity and it takes away the mobility in this country. You are a party who seek to punish the many for the few. I love looking at the outraged eyebrows being raised by coalition members, saying, 'How dare he say that!' Well, how dare you give this budget to Australia! I cannot wait until you are defeated on your reforms in higher education. I cannot wait until you bury that GP tax—I am sure some of you cannot wait either! I cannot wait until we defeat the unfair taxes that you are imposing.

I look forward to you on the other side saying one day, after the battle has been had, after the pensioners' indexation rates are not cut, I look forward to you saying— (Time expired)

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Once again we see the extraordinary hypocrisy of the Australian Labor Party. Once again we see the man who is meant to be the alternative Prime Minister of this country stand at the dispatch box and make comments about what he believes to be fair and unfair, and to slander those on this side of the chamber.

And for what purpose? For the single purpose that the Australian Labor Party is unwilling to confront the truth about their legacy. We on this side of the chamber understand Labor's legacy. We on this side of the chamber perhaps are more willing to be up-front with the Australian people about the challenges that we as a nation face. But not the Australian Labor Party. They want to bury their legacy underneath the carpet. They want to pretend that the problems that they bequeathed not only to this government but also to future generations of Australians do not exist and, in fact, possibly the person with the most invested in the betrayal of the Australian people is none other than the opposition leader.

That is why we see the Australian Labor Party stand up and rail about the unfairness of the budget. The fact is, there is no bigger unfairness on the national debate across the country right now than the unfairness of the Australian Labor Party, which says, 'We would rather leave to future generations of Australian children all the problems of paying back the multi-billion dollars of debt and deficit than we would face up to the reality .' We as a government are proud of this budget. We are proud of this budget because this budget actually does have the right priorities, because they are anchored around one central tenet. That central tenet is that we can only afford to do what we can afford to achieve in terms of our fiscal priorities. We can only undertake reforms if we can pay for them. We can only undertake policy spending if we can pay for it. We can only engage in new initiatives if there is a way to pay for them. And if there is no ability to raise the money necessary it is not appropriate to say that it is good enough to kick the can down the road. It is not appropriate to say to Australian children, 'We don't care what the impact is going to be on you; we're going to undertake this particular proposal because we think there are a few votes in it.' That is Labor's approach.

That is not the coalition approach. That is not our approach, and we will stand in this chamber each and every day and defend decisions that we know are not the most popular decisions. We did not undertake this budget reform process because we thought it was going to make us 55-45 in the polls. No. We undertook these decisions because these are decisions that are in the national interest. We undertook these decisions because these are decisions that are financially sustainable. We undertook these decisions because we know in the long term that the Australian people can see through the salesmanship of the Australian Labor Party—they can see through the falseness of the confected outrage that we see from Labor members opposite. And they fundamentally know this: that no promise from the Australian Labor Party is worth anything if they cannot afford to pay for it.

That is why as a government, to tackle the fact that we have an ageing population and to address the fact that we have a tax base that is getting smaller relative to the size of the population, we have said that one of our very top priorities must be investment in infrastructure. And the Prime Minister has made it clear that he wants to be remembered as an infrastructure Prime Minister—and he will be. He will be, because the government, together with the private sector and state government partners, will allocate $125 billion for productive infrastructure for this nation.

Compare the coalition's approach to infrastructure with that of the previous, Labor government. There has been $125 billion put into productive infrastructure across the nation, including the East-West Link, the Gateway duplication, the expansion on the northern side of the Gateway Bridge in Brisbane, and the freight route in Perth—a whole host of projects. Compare that to Labor's grand infrastructure projects. Perhaps none was more grand than Building the Education Revolution. Who could forget Labor's $16 billion Building the Education Revolution vision, which saw school halls and covered out-door learning centres rolled out across the country. Sure, there were a couple of examples where schools already had one and they did not want another one, but that did not matter because it got in the way of Labor's grand vision. Sure, there were a couple of examples where the Australian Labor Party, through their haste to roll out this program, where paying two or three times the going rate, but that did not matter; it was just taxpayers money! They did not need to worry about that!

We have seen the Australian Labor Party's approach with their $900 cash splash. Labor said, 'There's some wastage, sure, but don't worry about it; it's necessary.' But the fact is that it has been left to this generation and future generations to pay back all of that spending. And when Labor says that they are opposed to this government making reforms around, for example, pensions, they are actually saying, 'We will sacrifice future generations of Australians and make them pay that debt for decades in order to secure ourselves a couple of extra votes today.' That is Labor's central massage.

As a government we will not stand idly by, so I say to the Australian Labor Party, on behalf of the coalition, 'We will stare you down in every single debate, because there is one thing that we know about—and that is good fiscal governance.' We know that we do it better than Labor. And if you ever want an example of that, look no further than the facts. The Australian Labor Party is very big on rhetoric but very poor on actions. We know that they promised over 500 times to deliver a budget surplus. How many did they deliver?—not one.

We know that the former Treasurer in the Labor government, the member for Lilley, stood here at this very dispatch box, in 2012, and said, 'The four years of surplus I announce tonight…' only to deliver four more years of deficit. Labor's legacy is $123 billion of deficit and $667 billion of gross debt. And all of the huffing and puffing from the Leader of the Opposition and from Labor members opposite will never undo one fundamental fact: that that debt trajectory—the fastest growing level of spending in the 17 developed nations monitored by the IMF; the fastest growth rate of debt, basically, on the face of the planet—was Labor's legacy at a time when our terms of trade were among some of the best this nation has ever seen.

With the policies that Labor continues to espouse today, they would sacrifice the future by ensuring that we have another four years of budget deficits, which would mean that, as a nation, we have had 10 years of budget deficits—the longest single period of budget deficits in over 45 years, since budget records were kept in 1971. That is Labor's approach, and that is why, as a coalition government, we are committed to economic reform, productive infrastructure and to being upfront and frank with the Australian people in saying, 'We know that not everything we say is good news but—do you know what?—it is the truth.

We will always level with the Australian people and tell them what we can afford and what we cannot afford. And the only thing that Labor's shonky approach—the snake-oil-salesman approach that says, 'Don't worry about it; we'll kick the can down the road'—will bequeath is a situation where Australian kids are poorer tomorrow than they are today. It might be acceptable for the Australian Labor Party to say: 'We don't care about $25,000 of debt for every man, woman and child. We don't care that an Australian family of four will have a starting point of being $100,000 in debt thanks to Labor's policies.'

But in the coalition we do care, and we will not stand by and allow that failed Labor Party approach to continue. We saw the consequences of six years of Labor ineptitude when it comes to good governance. As a coalition government we may not always do what is popular but we will always do what is right. And in the fullness of time I would rather go to the electorate every day of every week and look the constituents in the eye and say to them, 'We make decisions because they're the right decisions in the national interests, and we prioritise the right kinds of spending, and not the cash splashes which might, in the short term, be a nice little sugar hit.' Those things might, in the short term garner a couple of extra votes for the Australian Labor Party but in the long term they will betray the single most important trust the Australian people put in us—the future of their children.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Everybody loves an anniversary, except maybe the one today, because on this day last year, at Rooty Hill, Tony Abbott made a very big promise to Australians. He stood up there, looked people squarely in the eye, and said:

No cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts or changes to pensions …

We have heard a diatribe coming from the other side about making tough choices. They say they are all about caring and sharing and they will do the right thing by Australians, but they are just words. The evidence of what happens in practice is completely at odds with the words—just words, written on a bit of paper and regurgitated. But if the truth is thrown right in front of you, how can you deny it? Maybe the Prime Minister can continue to deny it but Australians are not fooled. A year later we all know that all those promises that were made 12 months ago—and the promises that continue to be made—were just lies. It just was not true. It is as simple as that—they were uncaring, calculated lies.

We have heard from members opposite that it is not about popularity. They say things like, 'I'd rather stand in front of the people,' and 'We'll march until we take the beaches,' and other types of garbage, but none of it was about tough choices

Think back to 12 months ago. It was not about making a tough, hard choice. It was just about winning votes. It is pretty simple politics—it really is. You do not need to pay someone millions of dollars to consult and give you this advice. It was just about winning votes: 'That is what the focus groups want, that is what people say they want and that is what we will say we will do.' Unfortunately, what they actually do—that is the Liberal Party and this government—is something completely different. In less than a year the Prime Minister has set a new standard of lows, a new standard for dishonesty and a new standard for breaking promises. The Prime Minister has broken, on his own record, more promises than probably any other Prime Minister in history. For example, what happened to the promise of a million new jobs? I see jobs actually going in reverse gear. We just heard the Treasurer admit that is true, but he says, 'It's somebody else's fault.' The Liberal Party promised a million new jobs and it then goes into reverse. Every time they break a promise, it is somebody else's fault. It is the media's fault. It is the ABC's fault. It is probably some of the other ministers' fault. It is always somebody else's fault—but their broken promises stand as broken promises. That is what they have to live with.

This is an unfair budget and there is no question about that. Why is it unfair? It is simple: because people right across the country are telling Labor—I am sure they are telling the Liberal and National parties too—that this is unfair. No-one remembers being promised a new GP tax. I cannot remember that promise. I cannot remember a promise of a new fuel tax. That may have been unpopular, but I would have loved to see you stand up and make those promises. No-one remembers a promise to change pensions and to cut pensions. No-one remembers a promise to cut school funding. In fact, I remember the exact opposite.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The unity ticket!

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, the unity ticket. Tony Abbott and the coalition just will not listen and they will not listen to the Australian people. Why? Because they do not care. Tony Abbott just does not get it. It is as simple as that. You cannot dress up this budget with another three-word slogan. There is no three-word slogan that could get you out of trouble on this one. But I have got one for you: dump this budget. It is no good. It is rotten. No group, big or small, is safe from Tony Abbott's cuts and broken promises. There were promises to take the pressure off the cost of living, and what do we see? We see the exact opposite. The cost of living is going up. The cuts to child support, family support and the increasing cost of petrol—these are called increasing the cost of living and that is not what was promised. You promised no new or increased taxes. What did we get? The GP tax and higher cost of medicines and petrol. You promised no cuts to health, and what did we get? A $50 billion cut to hospitals. What do the states think about this? They are not too happy about this. There were all sorts of promises. The Liberal Party kept saying there was a fire, a budget emergency, a crisis. That is what they say on one day, and then on the next day they say, 'It is actually all okay; the Australian economy is actually in good shape.' In fact, 23 years of uninterrupted economic growth is not too bad at all.

The Labor Party will stand for something. We will stand for families, for fairness, for universal Medicare, for family support, for the aged, for the sick and for all of those people who expect us, as an opposition, to do the right thing by them—because the government will not!

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Oxley has a very short memory, because after six years of the worst government we have ever seen in this country the Australian people delivered a verdict on 7 September. That verdict saw the Labor Party get its lowest vote since 1903, and then when it came back to this place it turned its back on its people's choice and selected the member for Maribyrnong as its leader. Since then we have had negativity and opposition for opposition's sake. When we went to the last election we took three key policies: we were going to stop the boats, and we have done that; we were going to repeal the carbon tax, and we have done that; and, most importantly of all, we were going to repair the finances of this country. Do you know why? Because the legacy that the Labor Party left the Australian people is debt and deficit as far as the eye can see: $667 billion dollars of debt is where we are heading if we do not take corrective action. We are currently spending $1 billion a year on the interest bill just to finance the debt. Do you know what $1 billion a month—$12 billion a year—equates to? That equates to half the defence budget of this country or all the aged-care spending of the Commonwealth. That is just meeting the debt and deficit legacy that Labor left us.

We have to take corrective action. It is not just the Liberal Party and the coalition who are saying that. It is independent players like the Parliamentary Budget Office; it is the IMF, who have pointed out that of 17 advanced economies Australia has the fastest growing level of spending in the world; and it is the Commission of Audit. The Commission of Audit, amongst its many important findings, found that Australia faces a major demographic challenge. That major demographic challenge means that, while today we have five working Australians to every single retired Australian, that ratio will fall to 2.7 to one, and that is a problem.

Government spending in this country as a proportion of GDP has risen from 23.1 per cent in 2007, when we left government, to 25.9 per cent today. Again, if we do not take corrective action, that will go to 26.5 per cent of GDP equivalent to government spending. Why is this a problem? Because the government's tax revenues as a proportion of GDP are only around 22 per cent, so we are in structural deficit. We are spending more money than we are taking as a government, and that needs to stop.

In this budget we do a number of important things. First, there is the fiscal consolidation—paying back about $300 billion of Labor's debt and saving about $16 billion a year in interest over the next 10 years. That is critical. Second, we are putting a record spend on infrastructure, equivalent to about $125 billion a year if you take into account the private sector and the state governments' expenditure on infrastructure, which is stimulated by this budget, including through the Asset Recycling Fund. We are getting more young people and more older people into work than previously has been the case. Our 'earn or learn' strategy for under 30s is vital if we are going to reduce youth unemployment from the stubborn number of around 13 per cent, which continually went up under Labor. For over 50s who have been out of work for more than six months, we will provide an incentive payment to employers to take them on. This is absolutely critical. We are making a record spend investing in education and innovation. The medical research fund—where we are world's best—is now going to be stimulated by up to $20 billion as a result of those initiatives. We are giving real support to apprentices for the first time with a HECS-type loan of up to $20,000. This is making a real difference. Our universities will be unshackled with the deregulation of university fees, allowing them to compete with the world's best. This is what we are doing in this budget and this is critical to Australia's future.

Those opposite are hypocrites because they know that when they were in government under Bob Hawke they supported a Medicare co-payment. They know they support a PBS co-payment. They need to take their heads from under the sand and support our important measures contained in this budget. (Time expired)

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

The member for Kooyong went through a range of promises. He talked about promises; well, I just want to remind him of some other promises that were made 12 months ago by the Prime Minister of today. He promised Australians there would be no cuts to health, no cuts to education and no cuts or changes to pensions.

Perhaps the Prime Minister thought those words were meaningless, or perhaps he thought it was just a throwaway comment that no-one really paid much attention to. I can assure the Prime Minister that Australians believed him—they trusted him and took him at his word. So you can imagine the betrayal felt by millions of Australians when he became the Prime Minister and, through his horror budget, broke each and every one of those promises. He cut health, he cut education and he cut pensions.

Perhaps the worst betrayal was felt by our war veterans—those who have selflessly served our country. The Abbott government has shamefully betrayed our war veterans by slashing Labor's fair indexation system for veterans' pensions, which will impact more than 280,000 for veterans including 140,000 service pensioners and 84,000 war-widow pensioners. Under the Abbott government's cruel budget, veterans' pension indexation will be linked to CPI only from 1 September 2017. The current indexation system, as we all know, links pensions to whichever delivers a higher pension out of the CPI, the MTAWE or male total average weekly earnings, or the pensioner and beneficiary living cost index. This indexation was introduced by the Labor government to reflect the actual daily cost of living for those on veterans' pensions—those who selflessly served our country.

If the Abbott government's indexation system had been in place for the last four years, a veteran on a single pension would be $60 a fortnight worse off. That is $1,560 a year worse off, and that is only over four years. In addition to these cruel cuts to veterans' pensions, veterans will also have to cope with other budget measures including: axing the three months backdating of veterans' disability pensions for new recipients, costing new recipients up to $8,405; scrapping the $870 seniors supplement for some veterans; and cutting $217 in annual payments for the children of war veterans—which is just outrageous. We have seen the response to that in this chamber and right across the nation. They will also be hit with a GP tax, the petrol tax and the increased cost of prescriptions and pathology. Veterans rightly feel betrayed by the Prime Minister's broken promises.

Do not just take it from me: I have had plenty of conversations with veterans over the course of the last five weeks and since this cruel budget was released, and there have been a number of statements made by veterans that show they are not happy. They feel incredibly betrayed.

There was this statement from 26 August—this week. The national spokesman for the Alliance Of Defence Service Organisations, David Jamison, said in his media release that the veterans' disability pension budget is a disaster. He said:

… The leaders of the national veterans' organisations are bewildered by the Government's budget proposal to wind back the level of indexing the Veteran Disability Pensions to the pre 2007 formula of CPI only.

He says in this release that this:

… means that the incomes of our most disabled will no longer keep pace with community income standards.

Jamison says:

… there was no justification for this unfair proposal because after all, the Veteran Disability Pension is a long-recognised compensation entitlement not a social security payment.

He also says he has written to the Prime Minister asking for this proposal to be dropped and calling on all parliamentarians to reject it in the name of fairness for our veterans.

The Vietnam veterans peacekeepers are not happy either. They regard these budget measures as: 'A slap in the face for veterans: pensions under attack'. They say: 'Service pension concessions under attack' and: 'Backdating of pension claims scrapped'. They are so not happy.

They are also very concerned about DVA offices in regional areas and Centrelink services being scrapped. They say: 'Senior supplements scrapped'. 'Is this the thin edge of the wedge?' they ask.

It is unacceptable and shameful that the Abbott government has betrayed those who have served our country. Veterans took the Prime Minister and the Minister for Veterans' Affairs at their word when they promised no cuts to pensions before the election.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The MPI today talks about wrong priorities and I suggest that with the use of that word it conceals at least one accurate observation—that is, that budgets are all about priorities. It recalls to mind some advice that was given to me in preparation for a Treasury role. The advice was tongue-in-cheek, admittedly, but I found it very depressing. The advice was from someone who had experience in this matter. They said it was very easy to be a Treasurer because people knew with particular individual precision exactly what they wanted from government. Firstly, they wanted increased spending on services and infrastructure of every type and secondly, they wanted lower taxes, fees and charges.

I think that is depressing and, in my observation, not entirely true. The reason it is not entirely true, although it may be pithy and perhaps to some amusing, is that, if you accept that no Australian likes paying more in revenue for anything or paying more for a service or receiving less of something than they expected to receive—if you accept that, and it is not difficult to accept—there is a truth that it does not necessarily follow from that that this natural part of human nature somehow seamlessly translates into a situation where people's No. 1 priority in Australia for a federal budget is for it to run at a deficit. Poll after poll reveals this fact: what people want consistently from the federal government, and what they wish for and what they want prioritised in federal finances, is exactly the same thing that they wish to have prioritised in their own household budgets, and that is that they be able to maintain a situation where they earn more than they spend on a consistent basis. That is the single, primary, overarching priority of this Treasurer, and it accords perfectly with the single overarching priority of the Australian people with respect to this budget.

Interestingly, it used to accord with Labor's priority. They promised a surplus 500 times, but why was it that the No. 1 priority for Labor, stated over 500 times, turned into the priority that dare not speak its name? I suspect it was because Labor made a mistake in judgement. They first of all made a mistake in terms of the nature and quantum of the expenditure that they embedded in the budget after the GFC, but then they made the fundamental mistake, which occurred to them as reality only very late in their term of office. That was that it would be somehow straightforward or easy to return that embedded level of overexpenditure to a position of surplus without serious criticisms of unfairness or in a way that was somehow magically popular. That was never going to be the case.

If you look at the Labor position, as far as I can determine what it is, there are two primary problems in the position that they have consistently put in response to the coalition's, in my view, very responsible budget. The first is this: if you label anything by way of a slowing of any growth in any transfer payment or departmental budget as a cut and thereby unfair, you resign yourself to the governmental position that it is impossible to return to surplus by expenditure restraint. You simply say it is impossible to do so. If a little boy stands to be measured next to the kitchen door and expects to grow 3½ centimetres in a year but only grows three centimetres, and you say to him, 'You've shrunk'—if that is your logic—then you say to yourself as a government, 'You cannot restrain expenditure in a manner which is fair at all.' The second major problem is this: if you label any expansion in revenue as unfair on the basis that it is unfair if it represents a high percentage share of a total lower compared to a total higher income—if that is the measure for fairness in any revenue measure—you rule out any broad based revenue measure at all. If you say that 40c a week from a low-income household on the re-indexation of the fuel excise is unfair, then you effectively say no to every single conceivable broad based revenue measure, whether it be re-indexation or an increased fee for service that attaches to all Australians. You rule that out.

So, if you still believe, as seems the case after 500 promises, that you wish to return to surplus, and all expenditure restraint is unfair and any broad based revenue measure is unfair, what does it leave you with? It leaves you with targeted revenue measures against Australia's 'top' income earners—that is, those earning over $70,000. That must be the only thing that Labor can leave in its kitty if it were ever in the position of trying to return Australia to surplus. Before anyone ever contemplates that, they need to realise that we rely now more on income tax than we did in 1950. The top two per cent of taxpayers pay one-quarter of all income tax. The top 10 per cent pay two-thirds. Our effective income tax rate is three per cent higher than Canada, five per cent higher than Sweden and 10 per cent higher than the USA. That is not fair.

Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Twelve months ago, what did the now Prime Minister say? At Rooty Hill, he said:

No cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts or changes to pensions …

To pick up the member for Pearce, it is very much like that child he was talking about, standing in the doorway, focused on how much he was going to grow. Twelve months ago the Prime Minister, in effect, just stood there and said: 'I'm already three centimetres taller. I'm already bigger than I said and it doesn't matter what happens after that.' That is the point.

The very advice that the member for Pearce has given today is the very advice that the Prime Minister should have been following before the last election—but he did not. What he did was indulge in the sort of activity he has been known for over the years. In fact, he has admitted it himself. He said: 'Don't believe what I say; only believe it if it's written down.' The fact is that he knows, as we do, that much of what he says means nothing.

When we go to that question of there being no cuts to health, no cuts to education and no cuts or changes to pensions, I particularly want to focus on the pensions issue. It happened again today, from a number of speakers, including again from the Prime Minister himself. They say: 'What do you mean cuts to pensions? Pensions will increase every six months, as they do now. The difference is only the indexation method.' Again, that does not make sense because it misses the point about what a pension actually is. A pension is an income support payment. It is an income support payment in the context of what we mean what we talk about social security pensions—the age pension et cetera. It is a payment designed to try and give people a chance to live. Of course, we all know, we all accept and we all understand that the cost of living increases over time. When it increases, therefore the cost to live increases. In those circumstances, the situation is that benefits alter accordingly.

The thing about that is that now, all of a sudden, the coalition have discovered CPI—that is the actual way you measure this. That is the way you know what the change is. Funnily enough, only a matter of a few months ago, you passed legislation about fairer indexation of military pensions, where the whole basic premise to it was that CPI was not sufficient. The whole basic premise was that it was not fair. The whole basic premise was that the cost of living was not taken care of by CPI changes on a six-monthly basis. You needed to make it more, and that is what you did. You sat there—in fact, many of you did not sit there; many of you got up and railed about what an unreasonable bunch of so-and-sos we were because we had not done this when we were in government.

The fact is that the very system that you legislated for some military pensioners only a matter of weeks ago is the very system you are now legislating to remove. What it will lead to is a significant cut in what would have been the pension people would have been trying to live on in the years ahead. If you do not get that, maybe have a bit of a think about it; because, when you go out there and say, 'There will be no cuts to pensions,' you are relying on grammatical fallacies. You are relying on untruths and mistruths. You are relying on trying to con and confuse people with regard to the actual changes you are legislating. You need to understand that.

When you go to those senior citizens groups, you need to tell them that the pension value under this system that you will implement is going to be significantly lower in the years ahead. If the same system were in place over the last four years, you are talking about a situation where pensioners would have been something like $1,500 worse off every year. ACOSS has estimated that in about 10 years time a pensioner will be worse off under this system by some $80 a week. That is a lot of money if that is all you have. That is a lot of money if that is what you are relying on to live. As we also know, the Parliamentary Budget Office has come out with figures which have shown that, in terms of the estimated cost of pension benefits into the future, there will be massive loss—billions of dollars gone over time. In fact, as I recall, there will be a cut in 2024-25 from $74.8 billion to $67.9 billion—a cut of $6.9 billion in just that one year. Over the next 10 years you are talking about something like $23 billion out of the hands of those who rely on benefits to live.

The fact is this is unfair. It is completely unfair to the people who really need assistance within this community.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a very interesting topic we are talking about today. A federal budget sets the parameters of our economy, and one of the most important things the federal government can do is make sure the economy is in good shape. The budget is about jobs. The economy is about jobs. It is about cost of living and a lot of other issues that are very dear to everyone's hearts.

This budget is a very important word used by the other side of politics on a lot of different issues: 'sustainable'. We hear a lot of people on the other side of politics talk about other sustainable things, but what we need to hear more about from the other side is the sustainability of this country's finances, and that is what this budget is about.

I was thinking about the different culture or history of different political parties as well. I probably look a lot older, but the first Prime Minister I have a conscious memory of is Gough Whitlam. I am sure Mr Whitlam is a lovely character, but economic management certainly was not part of his repertoire. The history of the Labor Party and the economic management of the Whitlam years are well documented. Our country was in a very bad way at the end of it with the Khamlani Loans Affair and other issues.

When I left university, in 1984 we had the Hawke-Keating governments. I am not going to talk about the physical limitations of either of those gentlemen—other people have been doing that in the last couple of days—but they did many good things. They made some reforms of our country. But, again, when it came to the budget and longer-term economic management, they left this country with 'the recession we had to have' and interest rates at one stage of 18 or 19 per cent. And then they left us with that lovely $96 billion deficit.

So what did a coalition government do for the next 11 years of Howard? As we on this side knew—and it was not easy—long-term sustainability was more important than short-term populism. That is what this debate is about. So we paid back the $96 billion and put $50 billion aside to fund unfunded Commonwealth public servant superannuation. Again, it was all about long-term sustainability.

Part of the word in this somewhere is 'hurting'. I know what hurts Australians and what hurts normal mums and dads. What hurt was that we then had the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd fiasco, which has been well documented again and commented on again today. This side will never mention the debt that they ran up—one of the fastest growing debts in the Western world? What hurt did that cause the normal mums and dads of Australia/ The hurt is the billion dollars that was spent on interest every month. That might just sound like a figure to that side, but what could that billion dollars be spent on? All these wonderful programs that we all love.

There is nothing nicer for a politician than to run around handing out money. We can see around the world the problems that gets you into if you are not doing it sustainably. We can see countries in Europe where they do not have a lot of choice about what they have to do with austerity measures. They are forced upon them because of the short-term populism of handing out money. But, if we were not spending $1 billion a month on interest, there would be a lot of wonderful projects we would love to spend that money on rather than just paying it back on interest—not paying back the debt; just paying back interest on that debt.

It is very easy for politicians to run around and hand out money for short-term popularity, but this budget is about long-term sustainability. And there are a lot of good things in this budget. One that I want to comment on that is very important to my electorate is the duplication of the Pacific Highway. They will not tell you this either, but the Labor Party wanted to withdraw the 80 per cent federal funding of the Pacific Highway and were only committing $3 billion to it. This side of politics said it important, federal funding will remain 80 per cent and we will fund it at $5 billion. That is an extra $2 billion this side is funding for the Pacific Highway when compared to that side, because we know it is important to save lives and we know it is important for the economy such as that in my electorate and in the areas that it goes through. (Time expired)

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government has gone back to the three-word slogans. We are hearing about Operation Budget Repair. I know that the three-word slogans worked a treat in opposition, but they are no way to run a government. But, if it is going to be three-word slogans, how about Operation Cut Unemployment? We now have unemployment at 6.4 per cent nationally, the highest level in 12 years, with 789,000 Australians out of work. In my home state of Victoria unemployment has now reached the quite unacceptable level of seven per cent. Youth unemployment in Victoria is at an even more disturbing 15 per cent.

The Liberal government is undermining young Australians looking for work with its savage cut of $1.2 billion to income support for people under 30. From 1 January next year, job seekers under 30 who need Newstart and youth allowance will be forced to wait six months before receiving any support. As a delegation from the Australian Council of Social Service, who visited me this week, pointed out, 'What will they live on if they cannot find a job?' Requiring job seekers to apply for 40 jobs each month is ludicrous. The jobs simply are not there. It is simply a recipe for red tape for business. This budget risks condemning a generation of young Australians to a vicious cycle of poverty.

If it is going to be all about slogans, how about 'operation keep your word'? They promised to take the pressure off the cost of living, but then they cut child care and increased the cost of pharmaceuticals. They promised no new or increased taxes and then gave us a new GP tax and raised the tax on petrol. They promised no cuts to health and then cut $50 billion from hospitals. They promised no cuts to education and then cut $30 billion from schools, $1 billion from skills and $5 billion from universities. They promised no increase in university fees, but fees are set to double and triple. They promised to create a million new jobs, but unemployment is on the rise and youth unemployment in Victoria is at 15 year highs. The Prime Minister promised to be the Prime Minister for Aboriginal affairs and then cut $500 million from essential health and services. They promised no change to pensions but then cut pensions by $23 billion over the next 10 years—$80 a week from the pockets and purses of pensioners.

On this day last year at Rooty Hill, the then opposition leader, now Prime Minister, promised Australians 'no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts or changes to pensions'. What a difference a year makes. And Education Minister Pyne said in a media release of 26 August last year, just over a year ago:

While we welcome debate over the quality and standards in our universities, we have no plans to increase fees …

What is he saying a year later? Last weekend he said student protesters should 'get some perspective' because the government is 'not exactly asking for their left kidney'. Well, I checked this out, and it turns out to be even worse than that. I looked up the Transplant Australia website. It says the cost of a kidney transplant from a live donor is $75,000 and the cost of a kidney transplant from a deceased donor is $65,000. So getting a new left kidney would be less costly than the debts many graduates are going to pay if this government's budget passes.

Under this budget, university fees are set to double and triple. The government wants to cut funding for undergraduate places by up to 37 per cent, deregulate fee levels and allow universities to charge what they like and, outrageously, introduce a compounding real interest rate of six per cent for all student debts. We will see science degrees increase from the current average of $44,000 up to $170,000 over 20 years; nursing degrees rise from $23,000 to $62,000; and teaching degrees rise from $32,000 up to $87,000.

This is not a government of adults. This is a government of intergenerational warriors taking the under-25s off Newstart and fitting students up with 60 per cent of the cost of their education. It is a shameful way to treat our young people, and this government should be condemned for this unfair, short-sighted, incoherent dog's breakfast of a budget.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am really pleased to speak on this matter of public importance today because, far from what members opposite claim, this budget is one that is not only delivering on our commitments that we took to the last election but also delivering on the right priorities that will benefit our nation for all Australians and for future Australians.

Let me remind members opposite of the size of the task we face—I know other members have also reminded members opposite of this. We borrow $1 billion every single month just to pay the interest on Labor's debt. Members of the Labor Party have no plan. Our budget is the only plan to fix Labor's debt and deficit disaster.

We have already improved the budget by around $15 billion over the forward estimates. In contrast to the assertions made by those opposite, let me state that this is not only a responsible budget but also a budget that is delivering on the commitments and priorities that we took to the people of Australia and that we particularly took to the people of the Central Coast. They are the commitments and priorities that reflect the heartfelt concerns that the tens of thousands of people that I spoke to in the lead-up to the last election asked us to address. Let me restate what we said we would do: we said we would stop the boats; that we would build the roads of 21st century; that we would scrap the carbon tax; and that we would get the budget under control. And we are doing just that.

We are not the party with wrong priorities. We are doing what we were elected to do, and in my electorate of Robertson many of the commitments that we made to the Central Coast are already being delivered in less than 12 months. We are delivering on our growth plan for the Central Coast, and the first priority in that growth plan is local jobs. We are determined to generate more local jobs on the Central Coast because we want to see our region thrive. That is why this government is committed to delivering 600 new jobs in the Gosford CBD, including a purpose-built Commonwealth agency building. The ATO has advised that the building is expected to be completed by the end of 2017. As further evidence of our right priorities, we have recent modelling from Regional Development Australia, Central Coast NSW, indicating that the 600 Commonwealth jobs in Gosford will create an additional 1,400 new jobs on top of that. That is 2,000 new jobs in the heart of Gosford and in the heart of the Central Coast within a few short years. As the Treasurer said when he joined me in Gosford last week, this is what the budget is all about. It is about creating jobs. It is about stimulating growth, and everything we are focused on is about jobs and more prosperity for Australian and future Australians. This government is also building NorthConnex, another key item in the growth plan and the missing link that has been talked about for decades and never built. Now, with $405 million from the federal government, it will be finished by 2019.

With 30,000 to 40,000 commuters leaving their homes early in the morning and returning late at night to their families, these commitments have the potential to be a game-changer for the Central Coast. But it is not all we are doing. There is $675,000 in this budget to help address the accident-prone black spot at Langford Drive and Woy Woy Road in Kariong. There is also $3.5 billion to help make Woy Woy oval a civic centrepiece, with a 600-seat grandstand rather than a crumbling structure for our local sporting heroes and sporting clubs.

Unfortunately, we are seeing more and more just how much Labor failed our region, even on so-called signature policies like the NBN. Despite Labor's great fanfare in Gosford in 2013, despite the big red buttons that the minister and the Labor member liked to push, when we came to government last September only 203 premises were actually connected on the Central Coast. We now have 2,600 premises connected to the NBN, more than 7,000 premises passed and work currently underway to connect an additional 10,200.

Last week, the Minister for Communications Malcolm Turnbull joined me to announce that the NBN will expand its rollout in Umina to pass 54,000 homes in our region in the next 12 months, including in Woy Woy, Umina Beach, Ettalong Beach, Killcare, Kincumber and Saratoga. This is a government that has the right priorities for my electorate of Robertson and the right priorities for Australia. This budget delivers on many of those and it will make the Central Coast a place where I can proudly say we not only live in the best part of the best country in the world but also work in the best part of the best country in the world.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this discussion has now expired.