Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to continue the discussion which I had begun to outline before we had two very moving speeches from the Prime Minister and the opposition leader to mark the tragedy which occurred a year ago today. I also acknowledge that and the people who have been here in the gallery and add my respects as well.

I was in the process of discussing the context in which we now have a situation where the Victorian government is seriously considering legislating to remove compensation that would be payable if they tore up the East West Link contracts. I was pointing out that this East West Link idea has been on the table now for almost nine years, since the commissioning of the Eddington report, the tabling of that report and the warm endorsement that the key recommendations got, of which the East West Link was one. Following that, the Baillieu and Napthine governments put money towards the planning, development and, subsequently, contracting of it.

There was then a change in government and we are now in the position today where the Daniel Andrews Labor government is threatening to take the action I have outlined. The Andrews government, given the context, has three options available to it. The first option is that Mr Andrews could honour the contract that was signed by the Victorian government. This is the most sensible course of action and it perfectly aligns with the firm commitments that he gave pre-election. The pre-election commitment he gave was, 'Sovereign risk is sovereign risk. A contract is a contract.' This was said by Daniel Andrews on 13 August 2014.

Ms Burke interjecting—

The member for Chisholm may want to listen to what he said pre-election. He said:

"A responsible government—a government that actually values our state's reputation and good name—doesn't rip up contracts."

That is what Daniel Andrews said pre-election. He made a firm commitment to the Australian people that he would not rip up contracts. Tim Pallas, the then shadow Treasurer, said similar things.

It is the standard way that governments operate. Regardless of what a government might think of a contract made by the previous government, it is the strong convention that contracts are honoured. That is the strong convention. People know that. Daniel Andrews knew that. Bill Shorten knows that. He has said so himself. Chris Bowen knows that. He has said so himself. No doubt even the member for Chisholm, who has been interjecting—and I would have thought her constituents would support this project—acknowledges that the standard convention in a country like Australia is that if a contract is signed by the government of the day it is a contract which is honoured even if there is a change of government subsequently.

Ms Burke interjecting—

Mr Mitchell interjecting—

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

The parliamentary secretary is entitled to be heard in silence.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If Mr Andrews does go ahead and honour the contract and build the road he will have overwhelming support from Victorians. Every single poll has indicated that. By honouring the contract, the road would be built. That would mean 7,000 jobs. It would mean a road that would finally link the Eastern Freeway to the Western Ring Road and the Tullamarine Freeway. It would take pressure off the Monash in the process.

The roads in Melbourne are not getting less congested. In fact, our population is growing very rapidly. It is growing by something like 100,000 people per year. The projections are that by 2030 there will be twice as many heavy vehicles on the road as there are today. So this is a project that is not just for today; it is to build for the future as well. We know what the population projections are. We know what the heavy vehicle projections are. People are not going to be riding their bicycles, as Daniel Andrews might suggest, to and from Ringwood or Wantirna or the member for McEwen's electorate. They are still going to be relying upon their cars and increasingly public transport as well to get around.

That is the first option—to actually honour the contract. His second option is to breach the contract and pay the compensation for this breach. Again, this option is a poor one, because the compensation itself will come to something like $1.2 billion. That has to be kept in mind, because the overall state contribution was only ever going to be $1.5 billion. It would seem bordering on insanity to throw $1.2 billion on the scrap heap in compensation when for $1.5 billion he could get the road built, 7,000 jobs created and a piece of infrastructure which will last for absolute decades.

The final option is the one that is under active consideration now and that I have mentioned—that is, to legislate away any compensation payable for breaching the contract. This is the catastrophic option for Victoria and Australia. It would mean, as I said at the outset, uncertainty for every single infrastructure project agreed to in the future. Uncertainty leads to higher costs as companies factor in risk premiums. In some cases, businesses will just not bid, because they believe it not worth their while. One national company CEO has already mentioned to me that his global board will not fund projects in Victoria, because of the risk of industrial militancy. This proposal would just add to that risk in Victoria.

The principle of honouring contacts, or having certainty about compensatory clauses if contracts are breached, goes to the heart of what makes countries wealthy. Every single developmental economist will tell you this. They say that two key ingredients absolutely underpin economic growth: one is property rights, and the other is enforceable contracts. Those two preconditions are so important and one of the reasons that developed countries are wealthy today.

It is very rare for infrastructure projects to be cancelled in First World countries. It is even rarer in democracies for a contract to be retrospectively annulled by a legislative instrument. It is, unfortunately, not uncommon in developing countries. The World Bank, in a report that they have produced, notes that this does occur much more often in developing countries. Many of those developing countries are struggling with their economic growth, in part because they cannot rely upon contracts which have been signed and cannot rely that they will be delivered upon. We do not want to join with those developing countries. We should honour contracts that are signed and we should get on with actually delivering them, and that is what Daniel Andrews should do.

Let me finish by mentioning the position of the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten. Mr Shorten today is being a brother in arms with Daniel Andrews in threatening to destroy Victoria's sovereign risk profile. He did not always have that position, by the way. When he was the AWU leader, he strongly supported the East West Link. He said that it was absolutely vitally important for the economic growth of our state. He also said that when he was a member of parliament—along with many other members of parliament, including Julia Gillard, expressing their very strong support for the East West Link project. Even as recently as 2014 it was mentioned by Chris Bowen, the shadow Treasurer. He said:

Bill Shorten and I are of one mind, Labor honours contracts. Labor in Government honours contracts entered into by previous governments. Even if we don't like them for issues of sovereign risk Labor honours contracts in office signed by previous governments.

That was Chris Bowen on 11 September 2014. We are now in the position, though, unfortunately, where Bill Shorten has been asked at least five times whether he supports Daniel Andrews' proposals to tear up the contact and potentially legislate to remove any compensation. He is just squibbing it now. He is squibbing it. He should stand up for Victorians, and he should stand up for what he has said in the past—that is, honouring contracts and building the East West Link, because that is the best course of action for Victorians.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill, Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2014-2015, deal with appropriations for the Mid-Year Fiscal and Economic Outlook, which is established under the Charter of Budget Honesty. Today we also have the release of the fourth Intergenerational report, which is part of that framework, and in a couple of months we will have this government's second budget. All of these events go to the core of the Charter of Budget Honesty. These things are happening at a time when we have depressed business and consumer confidence and that depressed confidence is pushing up unemployment and smothering economic growth. The fact that Australia has an unemployment rate with a six in front of it for the first time in a decade is a product of a government that is out of its depth and out of touch and whose strict adherence to ideology over evidence-based policy is now producing chronic political instability and further economic uncertainty.

Today's IGR will add another sorry chapter to their trash talking of the Australian economy, their trash talking of Australia's economic prospects and their trashing of key economic institutions that go to the core of the Charter of Budget Honesty and their forecast. In particular, I think what is most sad about what we are seeing is the debasing of our Treasury, which has had a degree of independence and respect here and globally, and that is being lost. The Intergenerational report is meant to be an independent long-term planning report. But, to save their own jobs and to play politics, that has all been debased. Essentially with this IGR today and also with what they have done with previous forecasts—including the very sacking of the Treasury secretary for the first time in 114 years—this government has put a wrecking ball through the Charter of Budget Honesty and, in the process, has degraded the independence and the professionalism of the Australian Treasury.

I want to step back and have a look at economic conditions over the last six or seven years. The global economic conditions which now prevail—and have prevailed since the coalition was elected 16 months ago—are a sea of tranquillity compared to the global economic conditions that our Labor government faced over almost six years

The global economy and international financial markets have regained a degree of stability which was lost during the global financial crisis and the aftershocks that followed it, for around five or six years. This period of relative calm should have provided this new government with the perfect opportunity to consolidate the transition from mining sources of growth to non-mining sources of growth.

At the end of 2013, Australia was in a sound position for consolidation and transition precisely because of the very big decisions that the Labor government took to ensure that Australia did not experience a profound recession, which is what occurred elsewhere in the global economy. We made decisive and significant calls which meant we did not see the capital destruction and the prolonged and high levels of unemployment that characterised most other developed economies. Our intervention to secure the Australian economy, to secure almost one million jobs over six years, was one of the most significant structural interventions that a government has taken in this country's history or indeed in the history of many other developed economies.

That is why our economy, at the end of 2013 and in early 2014, was 15 per cent bigger than it was at the end of 2007—something that no other country came within cooee of. Many countries are still struggling to get back to where they were at the end of 2007 or have just got back past that mark. One of those countries, for example, is the United Kingdom. So, when Labor left office, we had an economy that had grown strongly and was set for a transition from mining sources of growth to non-mining sources of growth.

Under the Charter of Budget Honesty, the benchmark for the fiscal position of the country is the benchmark set out in PEFO, the Pre-Election Fiscal Outlook. The deficit in the Pre-Election Fiscal Outlook, determined independently by the departments of Treasury and Finance with no reference at all to either side of politics, was $30.1 billion for 2013-14, forecast to be back in balance by 2016-17. That is the independent benchmark by which this Liberal government can be judged in terms of its stewardship of the finances of our economy. That $30 billion deficit represented a deficit of just 1.9 per cent of GDP. Our net debt was $184 billion, or 11.7 per cent of GDP, one of the lowest in the developed world. Our unemployment rate had a five at the front, and confidence was higher then that it is now.

Despite the headwinds that Labor had experienced for all that period, despite the fact that Australia was in such a strong position, why do we now face an outlook where the unemployment rate has a six at the front and confidence is through the floor? Why, when we were head and shoulders above the rest of the developed world and set to make the transition from mining sources of growth to non-mining sources of growth, have we ended up in such a terrible position?

It is essentially because we have a government that, for political reasons, in a triumph of politics over policy—politics over evidence based policy—decided to talk down our economy. Consumer confidence is 16 per cent below where it was at the last election. What the government have done is exaggerate deficit and debt for the political purpose of demonising the Labor Party and so they can justify their harsh Tea Party agenda for savage cuts to health and education, and the dismantling of the social safety net. At the core of the erosion of confidence is this government's rhetoric about an economic emergency and a budget crisis.

Last week, in Senate estimates, we heard the new head of Treasury say there was no economic emergency, no budget crisis. That is an inconvenient truth for this government because last year's failed budget was built around a deficit and debt falsehood. The government, in its desire to demonise the previous, Labor government and to punish the Treasury for the independence it had shown during the period of our government, sacked the previous Treasury secretary—the first time that has happened in 114 years. Since that time, the government has proudly walked around the country and boasted that it is fiddling the forecasts, that they are not Treasury forecasts—that the forecasts in the MYEFO of 2013, in the budget of 2014 and in the IGR, the latest of which will be published today, are all the work of the government, not the work of the independent Treasury. This government has simply ripped up the Charter of Budget Honesty. It has tainted its own budget papers.

Now, why have the government done this? They have done this because they have to get the figures manipulated to the point that the outcomes actually match their bloated rhetoric about deficit and debt. And why have they done that? They have done that because, very simply, they want to justify an agenda that they were not game to 'fess up to before the last election but that had been hidden within their plans for the future for a very long time.

If we go right back to the 2013 MYEFO, we can see this political strategy. The first thing they did in that MYEFO was to double the deficits over the forward estimates. They doubled them through decisions that they took, such as giving $9 billion to the Reserve Bank which was not asked for or required. That was completely stupid—but it was political. That was one of the first acts that really shook confidence in our economy amongst prominent businesspeople. So, in their first economic statement under the Charter of Budget Honesty, we saw a deliberate doubling of the deficit.

They then went forward to the 2014 budget. They had made significant cuts across the forward estimates; but guess what? None of that money actually went to paying off debt. The cuts they made across the forward estimates in the 2014 budget were simply allocated to new decisions, and in fact net debt went up, so debt was growing. The accumulated deficits forecast in the 2014 budget and the 2014 MYEFO continued to grow, and it is true that some of that was caused by further revenue write-downs, which is a challenge this government has and was a challenge that our government had as well.

We do have to be vigilant about making sure that our expenditure is under control, that it is sustainable and that our money is spent efficiently. We, in our time in office, over five budgets, made budget savings of a structural nature of up to $180 billion, and $300 billion right through to 2021. That is the nature of the savings exercises we engaged in, and they got bigger as the revenue write-downs got bigger. But, when you are dealing with budgets, you have to look at both the spending side of the budget and the revenue side of the budget.

The government claims that we left it a spending problem. In last year's budget the Abbott government was planning on spending an average of 24.9 per cent of GDP over the forward estimates. In the last three years of the Labor government our spending averaged 24.6 per cent, less than this government is planning on spending over the next three years. This history is quite important.

Australia does not have a spending problem as much as it has a revenue problem. That revenue problem is substantial. In our period in office we lost $160 billion in revenue. By comparison, the Howard-Costello government enjoyed revenue flows that were revised up by $334 billion, of which they managed to spend $314 billion. If Labor had taxed Australian families and businesses at the same rate as Costello did in his last budget, the budget would have been around balance in 2012-13. Australia has a substantial challenge with its revenue. It is both a structural challenge and a cyclical challenge, and it is hitting this government as it hit our government. But what this government seeks to do is deny the nature of that problem and exaggerate the spending so it can get on with its very harsh agenda of ripping up the social safety net and putting in place very savage cuts to health and education. Australia does have a revenue problem of some size, but it also has a problem with an ideological government that is hostile to the very nature of the Australian settlement that has made this country so prosperous and fair over such a long period of time.

That bring us to the Intergenerational report, which was released today. The key to this government and its approach to politics and economics was contained in the last budget. It had language in it talking about the lifters and leaners in the Australian economy, and was effectively defining most Australians as leaners. The lifters, in the government's view, are senior business people and probably people in the government and the rest of us are leaners. In the government's view, you do not necessarily create wealth if you clean the halls here early in the morning or if you go and teach a class. In it's world, wealth creators are just a few people with a lot of capital. It's whole agenda is simply about taking the burden of government and slashing it, shifting the tax burden in Australia onto working families away from particular vested interests and corporates. That is the agenda of the government and that drives its every act. It is that motivation more than any other that is behind the rigged Intergenerational report that is published today and that seeks to demonise for political reasons the record of a Labor government that took responsible steps to support our economy during a global recession and understood the nature of the revenue challenge and the spending challenge. The problem is that as it goes through these political manoeuvres—this triumph of politics over policy; this triumph of politics over evidence based policies—all it succeeds in doing is further hitting consumer confidence and business confidence, and that will be the tragedy of what has occurred today.

As the Treasury secretary said in estimates last week, this Intergenerational report is not a Treasury document; it is a government document. For the first time in history, it has its own dedicated Liberal Party chapter, produced at public expense. It has a chapter devoted to politics, to political point-scoring. That is why I said at the beginning of my remarks that what we have actually seen in Australia since this government came to power is the trashing of the Charter of Budget Honesty put in place by the Liberals, by Peter Costello. The purpose of it is to demonise their political opponents. The practical effect of it is to hit confidence. We on this side of the House will continue to fight for decent economic policy which creates jobs, and which ensures that the benefits of growth are shared fairly across our community, and we will continue to fight this attempt to hijack the Australian settlement by the liberal government.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise to speak about the appropriation bills following the release of the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook report. Listening to the man who was the Treasurer of Australia for six years, the member for Lilley, Wayne Swan, made it impossible not to reflect momentarily on a few things from our recent and not so recent past. I think it is well known that, historically, Labor governments spend well beyond our means and it is up to coalition governments to fix the books and refocus the way in which we look after infrastructure and those things that contribute to Australia's ability to pay the taxes that are needed. Not only did Labor increase spending they increased it on things that did not return to the taxpayer or the Treasury the money to keep spending. I think history bears that out quite well. The Whitlam government was pretty good at spending and had every intention of borrowing money from overseas—from rather dubious sources, as I recall—which would have put us in far greater debt than we otherwise were. The coalition had to sort that out.

The best Labor government of my memory was probably the Hawke-Keating one, and even that was unable to avoid leaving us a $96 billion debt. I once did some calculations on what the interest of those years added up to. It would have built a lot of infrastructure around Australia. It took us 10 years, just about spot on, to pay that back. As I say, that was probably the best Labor government that I have seen, and even it took 14 years to run up a bill of $96 billion.

The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, on the other hand, ran up a huge debt in a mere six years—actually, it was far less than that because they kind of had a year's grace in which they had about a $60 billion surplus, with a positive budget and what we left in the bank, so to speak. When we came to office, one of the first things we had to do was lift Australia's credit limit above $300 billion. Imagine starting off in the black by about $60 billion and, in a very short space of time, causing our credit limit to have to be lifted above $300 billion. It is a well-known figure now, and that is projected to go to $650 billion. In other words, we are now paying $1 billion a month, or $12 billion a year, in interest and it is actually projected to go to three times that. I look at our coalition. We have to be far more pragmatic about the way we sit down with those members of the Senate who are not Labor and not Greens and get the bills through that will allow that to happen. What we have done has certainly had an enormous effect, far more than anyone on the side of the chamber on which I, unfortunately, sit—we have been too successful at the ballot box—would like to concede.

I want to talk for a minute about some things that we have done and are doing for the nation, but first I want to touch on how some of those things are working for the electorate of Calare—which I repeat, as I quite often do, is the oldest part of Australia. It is what they first discovered after European settlement. Outside the Sydney Basin, we are the oldest part of regional Australia as far as modern times are concerned. It is where agriculture and mining first got going in a serious sense. The first thing I want to talk about is the $50 billion infrastructure program, which prior to the last election we said we would introduce and which we are doing, including at Forty Bends, which, strangely enough, is just about where Wentworth, Blaxland and Lawson got to 200 years ago in May 1813, when they crossed the mountains. Forty Bends is an example of what that infrastructure program is doing. We turned the sod, or started the bulldozers, for works on a $96 million safety package upgrade for the Great Western Highway on the Sydney side of Lithgow. That is part of a $250 million investment in safety upgrades between Katoomba and Lithgow, probably the most dangerous part of the Great Western Highway. It is high time that this was done and we are only able to do it because of that program. It is an area that has had fatalities and more than 30 accidents in the past few years. It is high time it was done, and it was relief to be able to visit there with the member for Bathurst, Paul Toole, and the mayor, Marie Statham, to kick that off. We have made an election commitment, which we are fulfilling, to provide safety upgrades at this notoriously dangerous stretch of road. We are delivering. We are upgrading the existing two- and thee-lane undivided road to a three-lane divided highway. These are the sorts of things we would like to do everywhere, and we have to get the books in order to be able to continue to do them.

Locally, Calare is benefiting hugely from the change of government and the fact that we know that Australia very much needs us to get those books in order. The Business Enterprise Centre for Cabonne, Orange and Blayney recently received $660,000 as part of the small business advisory service from last year's round. It is a vital program. They do a very good job. They help small businesses improve and grow their business. They show them how to look at their work from a more business oriented point of view, how to join the digital economy, as it were, how use IT in a modern way, how to improve their managerial skills and how to improve their relationships and include their staff in what they do. It is a great program and that particular BEC does a great job. Cabonne Council received nearly $1 million to fix a notoriously bad bridge from the Bridges Renewal Program. From the heavy vehicle safety program, Calare received nearly $3 million recently.

I mentioned earlier that we are the oldest part of regional Australia in European times. I am very happy to say that, in May this year, Bathurst will celebrate 200 years since Governor Macquarie stood there on the banks of the Macquarie and made it into an actual town. It is the oldest city in Australia outside of Sydney and Hobart. I might have to throw Parramatta in there as well, but it is older than Brisbane, I can assure you. It is older than Melbourne, older than Perth and older than Adelaide. However, we do not want to get anyone stirred up about all that. The point is that, for regional Australia, its 200th anniversary is a very big deal, and we are all delighted that the Commonwealth was able to contribute to making sure that that is a wonderful time and that it will be a longstanding memorial to regional Australia on the banks of the Macquarie.

Regarding the NBN, the previous government dreamt this up. I am sure they watched The Hollowmen too often and one day thought, 'That's a great idea.' I remember the episode where they had this wonderful idea—they were going to spend $100 billion, but they never actually worked out what it was going to be spent on. I think that is where the previous government got NBN idea in its original format from. We had to come into government and make it affordable and doable and, from regional Australia's point of view, make it happen—because regional Australia and certainly Calare were not actually on the map to be in it.

I can proudly say that Calare would probably have more fixed-wireless towers than any electorate in New South Wales, though I cannot speak for Queensland. We have suddenly refocused this program and made it relevant to those people with the worst receptions, and that is where we have put the dollars. Dubbo, which is obviously in the electorate of Parkes—the electorate of my colleague Mr Coulton—Orange and Bathurst are all going to be on fixed-line over the next two or three years, as indeed they need to be. We have concentrated on those areas with the worst reception. As I said, we were not even on the map as far as the rollout of the NBN until this government got into office.

It is not just locally that the coalition is making things work. Getting rid of the carbon tax and the mining tax was big for Australia but it was even bigger for regional Australia. What I think most people overlook is that those of us who live away from the coast and away from the capital cities actually use far more power in a household and living sense, because we live in areas with such bigger varieties of temperature. We get colder and we get hotter, and we need more energy to both cool and make life liveable. It is the same for our small businesses. It costs them more to ensure that their staff and the people who work with them can do so while giving it their all. So getting rid of the carbon tax was a very big thing for regional Australia. It was worth far more to them than the $540 it was believed it was worth per family nationally.

While mining might be the biggest export for Australia, it is a very, very big activity in regional Australia. It is where the people are who actually do it; so it is an even bigger thing for regional Australia than for Australia nationally. We had to restore the confidence of foreign companies, because there is nothing as global as mining in the world today—perhaps the arms race might be. Let me tell you, mining is extraordinarily global and we cannot shut ourselves out of it. We have to send the right signals to those who would partner with us. In my electorate I have mining that is owned by Malaysians, Chinese and Australians, and we are very thankful that they want to invest in us.

Nationally, I think the most popular program of any government has been Roads to Recovery. I remember it well. I think it was 1996 when it was first launched or it might have been 1997. It was so popular that Labor were not even game to change its name, as much as they wanted to, because it was recognised for what it was and appreciated so well. There is $2.1 billion for that program and a further $565 million to fix troublesome black spot areas, including some in my own electorate and around Australia. I chair the New South Wales Black Spot Consultative Panel. In the last few years funding for black spots has gone from $20 million to $51 million per year over the next two years, and obviously that makes a heck of a difference.

I am extraordinarily passionate about agriculture. I have to say that I do not think anything that has happened in recent times has ensured the wellbeing and the future of agriculture. Whether it be in the north of Queensland, in western New South Wales or in Western Australia, we must ensure over the next year or so that our companies and our farmers take advantage of the free trade deals that have been done recently with Korea, Japan and China and the free trade deal with the USA that we did last time we were in government.

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

It is a pleasure to speak on the appropriation bills but it is also a fact that they are very important. They are very important in setting out a government's agenda about its priorities and where it wants to spend its money. Debate on these bills also gives everyone in this place an opportunity to highlight what a remarkably short-sighted government we have with the current Liberal government and what a remarkably antibusiness government the Abbott government is. While it mouths and pretends to be the best friend of business, what it does in fact is something quite different. It is very easy to say something, but it is much more difficult to actually deliver it.

Today, I particularly want to focus on superannuation. At a time when there is a big debate in the community about superannuation, I think everyone should take a very cautious and long-term view. My own view on superannuation is that the debate and the policy and decision making ought to be taken out of the political cycle and ought to be taken out of the budget cycle, for it to be truly sustainable and deliver on its objective, which is to ensure that ordinary Australians can be more independent in retirement—and hopefully completely independent from the age pension—and also to make a difference to the budget. Currently the difference to the budget, through Labor introducing the superannuation guarantee, is a saving of around $7 billion every single year. I do not want to make too big a deal of this, but $7 billion is bit of money and it is pretty important.

You need to remember the context of this. Everyone now agrees that superannuation in Australia is such an important factor when it comes to the national health of our economy. Yet the Liberals—particularly the Prime Minister and other people—fought tooth and nail to prevent it ever coming in and have had a lifelong ambition to kill it off. Let there be no mistake in this place: that is on the record; it has been repeated over and over, not just at the time of introduction but consistently. But yesterday we heard a different story from the Prime Minister. If you can believe him, he has finally changed his mind—but there were at least 39 good reasons in his own party as to why he might have changed his mind.

Let me tell you a story about how good superannuation is for our economy. Right now there is a little bit over $1.9 trillion in national savings, which puts us at about fourth in the world for funds under management. You can imagine a small-population country like Australia, with the fourth largest funds under management in the world and what that has done in terms of growing our financial services sector, our banking system and our financial system. The fact is that it is one of the best in the world.

APRA, the prudential regulator, released some figures recently. The average balance of accounts is quite low. We are still working on them; they need to be much higher. The average account balance in an industry fund is $28,172; in retail funds—banks and for-profits—it is about $29,300; in public sector funds it is around $77,000; and in corporate funds it is around $120,000. That is average, so it does not give you a great picture. The picture it does give you is that it is low and small. We need to keep building on that base. One of the ways you do that is by making sure that superannuation guarantee contributions continue to increase, from nine per cent to 9.5 per cent, from 9.5 per cent to 10 per cent over time, and eventually to 12 per cent, which everybody in the superannuation sector agrees is where we need to be—all except this forward-thinking government here! Their idea of forward-thinking is to look in the rear-vision mirror of the car and say: 'Where have we been in the past? That is where we ought to go in the future.' They are the ones who have stopped the increase in the superannuation guarantee. Who gets to miss out? Ordinary Australian workers. But who really misses out, particularly when we start talking about gender equality and average balances? It is women. About two-thirds of women who work in Australia are the greatest losers under an Abbott government. They are the ones who lose the most, because they also happen to be some of the lowest paid workers in this country.

Labor did a lot of good things, but we did two very big things. One is to ensure that superannuation would go from nine per cent to 12 per cent over time and the other is a tax fix of the inequitable treatment of superannuation contributions for people whose taxable income is less than $37,000 year. That is not a lot of money. But those people paid a higher effective tax rate on their superannuation contributions than everybody else. Most of those people are women. We acknowledged that inequity and we fixed it. One of the first things that this Liberal government did was take it away. That is their commitment to superannuation, their commitment to women, their commitment to gender equality, their commitment to the national economy. That is their commitment to our national savings pool that underpins this country. When we talk about fairness, equity, sustainability, gender imbalance—when we talk about the big things Australia has to do, not in the next five minutes but something that is going to sustain our economy in 20 years time—then it is Labor that stands up and does it. If those opposite just disagreed, I would give them that. I would say, 'It is just a disagreement.' But they do not just disagree; they unwind it, undo it and take it away. They are not taking away from the Labor Party; they are taking away from you—from ordinary people, from women, from people who earn less than $37,000 a year.

Just to put that into some context, the average superannuation balance across all accounts is about $82,000 for men but only $56,000 for women. Across all accounts, on retirement there is a $92,000 difference. If we are going to get serious about the debate and serious about sustainability in the long term, this is one of the areas we have to work on. So not only have those opposite paused the superannuation guarantee and gotten rid of the low-income superannuation contribution; they find more and more ways to disadvantage ordinary people and to have a massive impact. Look at what that represents in dollar terms for those people by 2025, which a little while ago seemed far away but today seems a little bit closer, particularly since the Intergenerational report is being released today—a very important document, which I will come to in a moment. It will mean $150 billion less for those people in their accounts, in their savings. That is the fact, and that is a tragedy. The numbers are not argued by anyone. It is not as if I am giving numbers that are contested—they are not. The policy cannot be contested, because it is the first thing that the Liberals did when they came into government. So, when it comes to superannuation, we see no fairness.

But the Liberals did do one thing. On the one hand, the Liberals talk about sustainability of budgets: 'We have got to look to the long-term. We cannot just spend, spend, spend.' Yes, fine words. What did they do when Labor put in place serious tax measures through two bills in 2013, one on multinational tax avoidance and the other on multinational profit shifting? They voted against it, got rid of it. There is no way they are going to have that—they do not want their mates to pay more tax. We thought they should pay at least fair tax. Australian companies have to pay it; why shouldn't foreign companies as well? We see that in a whole range of areas, and I do not have enough time to cover those. To me there is enough evidence—in fact, a litany of evidence. What we get from the Liberals is consistent; I will at least give them that. It is the nudge-nudge, wink-wink business: 'We are on your side. We are the best friend of Medicare.' That is at the same time as they have been trying to stab it in the belly, if you remember, for a lifetime. There is a solid commitment for you!

Just as recently as yesterday, apparently the best way to help people with their medical bills was a GP tax—more tax, another broken promise. That is how we will fix things. We will just tax the lowest end; we will tax people on low incomes. Labor has a view, and I think it is an important one. We think that it should not be your credit card that matters when it comes to health; it should be your Medicare card. It is the same as with education. We think it is your merit and your hard work that should get you into higher education, whether it is TAFE, college, a degree—wherever it is. It should be that that determines your entry, not how much money you have to buy a degree, like they do in other parts of the world. If there is a cost to this country, it is not a real cost in the sense that the Liberals want to make out; it is a contribution to our economy, because we know that educating people, higher education, whether it be finishing year 12, college, TAFE, university, contributes massively. The return to our economy and to every single taxpayer is enormous and should never be overlooked. When it comes to this Liberal government, they are not particularly interested in the facts. It is the nudge-nudge, wink-wink government, to small business in particular.

I feel pretty sad for small business, because they were promised a lot, but this is what they were delivered: a wholesale getting rid of every program that was designed specifically to help small business—entrepreneurial programs, skills and education programs—programs that directly assisted small business to grow and thrive. They just wiped the whole lot out. There is this view that it is all just red tape. The baby goes out with the bathwater—rather than picking through and getting rid of certain things. If they want to make things a bit leaner that is fine, but do not through everything out. Do not throw the whole lot out. Do not throw the good stuff out—the really good stuff that actually helps small business. They went further than that. This is what amazes me. If you added it all up across small business, they took away around about $7 billion of assistance—around $5 billion of direct assistance. They will say to you, 'How can we afford this?' I say to you, how can we not afford this? How can we not afford to help small business to employ people, to grow, to innovate—because at the same time that they are doing this the Liberals will come in here and ask you, 'Where are the jobs of tomorrow going to come from?' They are not going to come from the Liberal Party; we know that already.

Before the last election Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister, repeatedly made a solemn pledge—a promise, hand on heart—'I will deliver a million new jobs,' he said. Well, start counting because right now the metre is going backwards. Unemployment is now 6.4 per cent. That is a tragedy for this country. It represents the highest unemployment since 2002. So, I thought I would just check—like the Treasurer does and says. I asked myself a question. What was the answer to that question? I went and had a look. I asked Treasury a question: in 2002, who was the employment minister that got unemployment up so high? You guessed it—it was Tony Abbott, the now Prime Minister.

They talk about being the friends of small business—and I think I have worked something else out as well—whenever they say they are 'the best friend of', watch out. Best friend of Medicare? Knifed through the belly—that means a new tax for Medicare. Best friend of education? Students knifed through the belly—$100,000 fees. Best friend of small business? Through the belly—just knifing them. What do they do? They take away $5 billion of direct assistance. The instant asset tax write-off—a real tax break for small business, that genuinely actually helps them, is not a handout. It actually means that if they invest, we will co-invest. It means that if they do something, we will do something with them. If they employ someone, if they buy an asset or a piece of equipment, we will be there with them standing shoulder to shoulder.

Labor's record on small business stands as a record of positive assistance, of making sure that though the world's biggest global financial crisis our industries did not fall over, that our small business people did not find themselves on the scrap heap, and that they did not lose their homes, which they had mortgaged to start their businesses. You will hear the Liberals talk a lot about how small business people make sacrifices. And they do. But how do we support them in that sacrifice? We do not rip away their very lifeline for growth and for continuing to do good things. You should actually support them. What the Liberals do instead, though, is very simple. They take it away. They took away the tax loss carry-back for small business. They took away the special depreciation rules for small business. They took away the research and development tax incentives—where if you invest, we will invest with you. And when it comes to red tape, I am just offended. And I think a lot of small businesses are, because they would rightfully ask themselves right now, 'Has my bottom line changed since we had the bonfire of red tape from the Liberals?' This big let's all have a day off national red tape day—I am sure some of you might remember it. We are just going to burn thousands of pages, which, if you actually look carefully—and I will just show some people in the gallery—

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Props are disorderly.

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

This is what was contained on most of the 18,000 pages: they were blank. They got rid of stuff that made no difference to anybody. If I were to ask small business now, 'Does your bottom line in your business look better today or worse than before we had the bonfire on red tape?' Most of them, I think, if they did the sums, would find no difference. This is the problem: no difference. It sounds good and looks good—nudge nudge, wink wink, we are on your side—it just does not add up to anything real. This is the problem: nothing real. Nothing for the future, nothing about sustainability—nothing that actually makes a real difference.

In the less than a minute that I have left, I want to touch on the Intergenerational Report, because it is a very important report. It has always been a bipartisan report. It has been a report that is really not about the politics. It is really about what will look like in 2055, but unfortunately it has become a work of fiction. It is now no longer Treasury's report. In fact, the head of Treasury has walked away from it and said it is not ours. It is owned by Joe Hockey. It is his report, not the Treasury's. The head of the fiscal group, when he was asked, said 'It is not ours, it is Joe Hockey's report. It is the Treasurer's report.' They are all walking away from it because it has been politicised, it has been delayed, and there has been fudging on the migration numbers. In fact, it is so fudged it still contains the GP tax measures, which do not exist anymore. Shame on the Liberal government for always attacking the economy and small business.

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the additional estimates appropriation bills today, because it gives me an opportunity to talk about the work our coalition government is doing for all Australians. As a big country, we are faced with many challenges of a geographic nature. This includes vast distances; transport and freight logistics; road networks; telecommunications; and extreme natural disasters such as bushfires, floods, and, of course, as my electorate of Capricornia has recently witnessed, category 5 cyclones.

Today, I want to focus particularly on rural and regional Australia. We often hear so much about big cities in this House. Yet city people may not realise that the most important export goods created in this country stem from rural and regional Australia. Industries such as agriculture and mining contribute the most wealth to our national GDP. In rural and regional Australia, our Liberal-National government is helping communities in the bush to obtain better roads, better mobile telephone reception and significant infrastructure projects, that firstly create construction jobs and are then followed by the opportunity for other new ongoing jobs.

Some of the programs to which I refer, that we are budgeting for, include: our Roads to Recovery program, helping local councils to fix up local streets and roads; our $500 million roads Black Spot Program, fixing up dangerous blacks spots to reduce road accidents and deaths; our Bridges Renewal Program, funding 50 per cent of the cost to replace old bridges in regional areas; our Stronger Regions fund, providing $1 billion over four years to help rebuild infrastructure and create jobs in regional Australia; our $100 million Mobile Black Spot Program, to fix up telecommunication blackspots; a $300 million drought assistance package to support people doing it tough in the bush; and our promise to spend $6.5 billion to fix the Bruce Highway, our main transport and freight corridor. This important highway runs the full length of Queensland's coastline, linking Cairns to Brisbane via Rockhampton. Many of these programs are costed in our federal budget.

Where is the evidence that these things are being successfully rolled out to help regional Australia? I can tell you that, in my electorate of Capricornia in Central Queensland, there are many examples. Capricornia takes in a vast area from the Great Barrier Reef to the inland beef and coalfields. In our 91,000 square kilometres, we have big distances to cover. Therefore, our roads are important infrastructure. While working hard in this electorate in a short 15-month period, I have overseen the following benefits for our road network: $166 million to fix up the notorious Eton Range section of the Peak Downs Highway, which leads into the Central Queensland coalfields west of Mackay; $8.5 million for overtaking lanes on the Bruce Highway between Sarina and Koumala; and $296 million for stage 2 of the Yeppen South flood plain project on the Bruce Highway south of Rockhampton. This impressive project elevates parts of the highway, effectively creating the second longest bridge in Queensland. Its aim is to keep the city open in times of flood, thus keeping the state's freight and economy flowing through to North Queensland.

Our government is spending wisely to make our roads safer. We have recently completed three new overtaking lanes, and extended a fourth, along the Bruce Highway between Marlborough and Rockhampton and between Rockhampton and Gladstone. This project was worth $15.5 million. In our budget, we will supply $30 million to five regional shires in Capricornia to help fix local council roads and streets. This comes under our five-year Roads to Recovery program for the bush. The $30 million is being shared between my local councils of Isaac, Mackay, Rockhampton, Whitsunday and Livingstone, and payments have already started being rolled out.

But it does not stop there. The Liberal-National coalition has just committed $35 million to the Isaac-Mackay area under our Bridges Renewal program. The money will replace four bridges on the Peak Downs Highway between Nebo and Mackay in my electorate of Capricornia. People who regularly travel the Peak Downs Highway to work in the mines or to provide service and maintenance will appreciate a safer and more reliable highway. Dangerous intersections in local towns are also being fixed-up, thanks to help from our federal Roads Black Spots program. Motorists in places like Rockhampton, Mackay and Yeppoon will be better off due to safer traffic conditions. Under this Liberal-National program we have paid $850,000 to install a roundabout at Kent Street and Denham Street in Rockhampton; $260,000 to install traffic signals with a pedestrian crossing on Thozet and Rockonia roads in Koongal; $55,000 to relocate a pedestrian crossing further north and provide kerb extensions, additional lighting and a median strip at Fitzroy and East streets in Rockhampton's CBD; $166,000 to fix Murray and Derby streets in Rockhampton, with improved visibility at this intersection; $108,000 for the notorious Caroline and Davis streets intersection at Allenstown in Rockhampton; and $102,500 to make Bolsover and Stanley streets safer in Rockhampton.

Under this program we have also committed over $1 million to fix up two notorious black spots at Yeppoon. This includes $550,000 to install a roundabout on Queen and Mary streets and $500,000 to install traffic lights at Vaughan Street and Appleton Drive in Yeppoon. We can add to this more important road works in the city of Rockhampton: The federal government poured much-needed money into improving the George and Albert streets highway intersection on the south side of Rockhampton's CBD. This was thanks to a $9.2 million federal contribution. The project, in fact, came in under budget and improved an extremely congested city intersection that sees almost 35,000 cars and heavy vehicles go by each day.

Rural and regional Australia was forgotten by the Labor Party. Our government will provide opportunities for new infrastructure Our $1 billion Stronger Regions Fund aims to help rebuild infrastructure and create jobs in regional Australia over the next four years. In my electorate of Capricornia, applications have already been submitted for a contribution towards a new emergency headquarters for the Capricorn Coast Helicopter Rescue Service; a contribution towards a $50 million convention centre in Rockhampton; a contribution to rejuvenate the Fitzroy River precinct to create a new economic and visitor hub in the heart of Rockhampton; and a contribution towards stage 4 of the Yeppoon Foreshore Master Plan, worth about $13 million. If such projects get up, they will create construction jobs and then ongoing opportunities for small businesses to grow our local economy and spur new jobs.

Rockhampton and Yeppoon were devastated two weeks ago by Tropical Cyclone Marcia. I call on the federal government to bring forward further funding opportunities in the pipeline from the Stronger Regions Fund so that Capricornia can rebuild and rise from the ashes to create new and vibrant economic opportunities and work for local people. I will be pushing this idea forward in the coming weeks with my ministerial colleagues.

To cement a future in regional Australia, we also need vital water infrastructure projects. Projects such as dams and weirs will create opportunities for new agricultural and mining development. Such schemes need bipartisan support from all sides and forms of government. In Capricornia I am pushing for the Connors River Dam between Sarina and Moranbah; the Fitzroy Corridor's Eden Bann and Rookwood weirs near Rockhampton; and the Urannah Dam, which would benefit the struggling town of Collinsville. These three concepts are among 27 water projects listed as priority projects in the recent green paper on agricultural competitiveness and the green paper on Northern Australia.

I mentioned that telecommunications was an issue in the bush. Our government's $100 million mobile phone black spots program aims to give bush communities better access to mobile coverage. I have been lobbying hard for the small community of Clarke Creek, near Marlborough, for funding under this initiative. Poor quality internet and mobile phone services at Clark Creek impacts on schooling and community safety. In fact, while on a visit there I made the point that you can make mobile call from the middle of Africa but not from Clarke Creek. We are currently awaiting the outcome of this application, but the federal government's $100 million mobile black spots funding program itself offers regional Australia the chance to have access to the same mobile services that city people take for granted.

Communities form the heart of rural and regional Australia, and our Liberal-National government continues to budget and approve funding for many important community projects. These include $300,000 for Rockhampton Meals on Wheels to help build a new kitchen, a vital service to our senior citizens; over $322,000 towards $1 million of refurbishment of St Anne's Catholic Primary School in Sarina; and over $700,000 towards new facilities at St Joseph's Catholic Primary School, North Rockhampton, which forms part of a $1.5 million building project. Such projects boost education and support local jobs.

Our Liberal-National government is also budgeting for smaller grants that are vitally important to smaller groups in our community—such as $5,000 to allow the Yeppoon Surf Life Saving Club to buy new training and safety equipment, and over $1,300 to help the men's shed at Sarina undertake first aid training. Both of these groups are fantastic, and I have been fortunate enough to visit them. Near Rockhampton we are also providing $61,000 to the Fitzroy Basin Association to revegetate endangered vine thickets near Mount Etna, under our $20 million trees program. This is one of many examples of our conservation projects.

At the end of the day, all of these things could only be funded when there is responsible fiscal management, and that is what we are trying to achieve through the bills we are discussing today. Today's bills on the budget mean a lot to all Australians. We inherited a budget black hole thanks to Labor, and we must get it back on track so that we can provide even more benefits to regional Australia in the future.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is fortuitous that I be here to follow the member for Capricornia and to deal with some of the propositions that she has put forward. I say this very clearly to the Nationals and members of the Liberal Party who represent rural and regional seats: it takes more in our electorates than rebadging Labor's spending priorities and spending them as your own.

You never hear government members talk about all the money that was flowing to rural and regional Australia, which now does not flow because of the early decisions of the coalition government. Regional Development Australia funding is the perfect example. I can cite the case in my own electorate of $7 million that should have gone to the refurbishment of the Maitland mall as an example. That was set in stone by the former Labor government. It went through a cabinet process—I was part of that process—and it was determined on the basis of recommendations of the department. Yet it was not honoured by the incoming Abbott government.

Every time Minister Truss approaches the despatch box during question time, much to the ire of the member for Grayndler, the former minister for transport, he cites projects the Nationals or the coalition is rolling out in rural and regional Australia, in terms of roads in particular. These are projects Minister Truss takes credit for, but which were selected, determined and funded by the former, Labor government. The truth is that this coalition government has not spent one additional cent on any of those projects—not one cent which was not already planned to be spent by the former, Labor government, and fully budgeted for by the former, Labor government. So let us not hear the rebadging. Please let us hear the coalition plan for rural and regional Australia. Where is their vision for rural and regional Australia? Where is their strategy to ensure that rural and regional Australia receives a fair amount of attention as compared to our cities when it comes to the priorities of this government?

Let's talk about some of the more bizarre decisions that have been made recently by this coalition government, which run contrary to the interests of rural and regional Australia. Let's go through all those budget measures. There have been cuts in education, cuts in health and GP co-payments, which seem to have gone away for the moment, but we will see where that goes. I suspect there is another hit coming on patients, which will only be rebranded and will come in a different form. There have been fuel increases on motorists in rural and regional Australia. All these budget measures impact adversely and disproportionately on people living in rural and regional Australia, including those who live in my electorate of Hunter.

Let's take the recent decision or proposals to lower the thresholds of the Foreign Investment Review Board. This is populist politics at its worst. We know that there is concern—particularly in rural and regional Australia—about the growing levels of foreign investment in our agricultural land and our agricultural investment. The secret to this is to build public confidence in foreign investment, because we know from the Greener pastures report—thanks to one of the other side's own members—that by 2050 we will need about $500 billion in agriculture investment to fully capitalise on the opportunities presented by what I call the dining boom. I am talking of the ever-increasing demand for high-quality, clean, green food in Asia.

Let's say, that the Greener pastures report was not all that robust. Let's accept, for a moment, that it will not be $500 billion but it will be $250 billion by 2050. It is axiomatic that, as a small island continent with 23 million people with a limited savings capacity, that most of those funds will, by necessity, come from foreign sources, as has always been the case in Australia. Our country is built on foreign capital, effectively—iconic projects like the Sydney Harbour Bridge being the perfect example.

So we should be welcoming of foreign investment in agriculture and in agricultural business. We desperately need that foreign capital. And we need to put that 'we are open for business' sign out. Otherwise—thanks to the member for Hume, was it?—we will have a shortfall; we will not be in a position to capitalise on those opportunities in Asia. Instead of building public confidence in foreign investment, as we first proposed to do with a register—which would allow people everywhere to see who was investing in what and where, and how much they were investing, so that people could have confidence in the system—those opposite went out and fiddled with the thresholds. They have taken the thresholds from a quarter of a million dollars to $15 million, in the case of agricultural land. We still do not know what the agribusiness threshold will be, because they have not guesstimated that yet. They have not been able to agree on that. I suspect coalition members are still arguing. The dries in the cabinet want one figure and the more progressive, I will call them—I think they would like that term—want another figure.

So they make the announcement but say: 'Don't worry; we will work out the figure for agribusiness somewhere in the future.' Meanwhile, investors in Asia and elsewhere are saying: 'What the?' They do not know what the rules are. And, by the way, there is no legislation. There is no law. It will be retrospective, though, I am told, when the law comes into this place. But, in the meantime, investors right around the world—in a world where competition for global capital is intense—do not know what the rules are in Australia. So guess what? They are looking at South Africa; they are looking at South America; they are looking at Australia. They all have great potential to provide yields well beyond what an investor might get domestically in, say, China. They are looking at the three opportunities and they are going: 'Australia—eh-eh.'

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The hicks are in control.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'Eh-eh. Australia is no good to me—I don't know what the rules are. The thresholds are ridiculous.' They are saying: 'We've had a look. The government hasn't provided any additional resources to Treasury to deal with this flood of applications Treasury is now going to receive as a result of these threshold reductions, so it is just all too hard. We will go to South America instead.'

I challenge the member for Hume, Angus Taylor, to come in here today on this appropriation debate and tell us what he thinks of the new foreign investment thresholds, as much as we understand them at this stage. He was the co-author of that report that rang the alarm bell which said: 'We must be inviting foreign capital if we are to properly grow our agriculture businesses to fully capitalise on the dining boom and to allow agriculture to drive wealth in this country in the future.' I suspect the member for Hume will not come in, because he absolutely agrees with me.

Those who understand the FIRB process know this: it is just a board. The FIRB is a board designed to build some public confidence in the system, to allow people to understand that it is not just the Treasury dealing with these matters. There is a board of non-salaried people from all walks of life—and I pay tribute to all of them, including Mr Secker, a former member of this place—that is designed to give people some confidence that other people from the community with some expertise have a role to play. But we all know how these boards work. Once a month they get a list of proposals. Treasury says: 'We've got 20 proposals to put before you.' More often than not—in fact, almost all the time—they say: 'We recommend they all be approved.' It is like going to a council meeting and getting your agenda. Some of us in this place will be familiar with that process. The board rarely challenges Treasury. In any case, well before the board gets its papers, if there is any controversial proposal in there it is already in the newspapers and the Treasurer is already all over it. Ultimately it is the Treasurer who determines these matters if there is any controversy around them whatsoever.

So what is the threshold about? If the Treasurer is concerned about a proposal and if a proposal has sparked concern in Treasury, it does not matter whether it is $1 million dollars or $250 million—the Treasury is on to it, the Treasurer is on to it and the matter will be dealt with appropriately. Hopefully, it will be handled by the Treasurer in a way that maintains and further builds confidence in the system. So the threshold is a stunt. I would not care if it were just a stunt designed to bolster the stocks of a struggling National Party in particular, but it is going to do so much harm.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are in government! Where are you blokes?

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am going to take the interjection from the parliamentary secretary opposite. He says: 'We are in government!' This is the point: there is another mob in government, too—it is called the Baird government. It is another coalition government, and guess what? They are up for election on 28 March. That is why at the moment you are seeing extraordinary backdowns in all ranges of public policy. Minister Hunt goes to the minister for agriculture's electorate last Friday and announces he is stopping the clock on the Shenhua coalmining development, after all this time. I invite the minister for agriculture to come in here right now and debate me on these issues. Minister—are you listening, Minister? Come in! Come on down! Let's have a debate on the Shenhua mine. Let's have a debate on foreign investment in agriculture in this country. Minister Hunt went to the minister's electorate—

Mr McCormack interjecting—

How much money were you putting on that?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will back him every time over you!

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister Hunt accompanied Minister Joyce to his own electorate and said, after all these months, if not years, of debate on the Shenhua mine, three weeks from the state election: 'We're stopping the clock!' They stopped the clock all right—until 29 March. That is when they have stopped the clock until—29 March. So I appreciate the parliamentary secretary's intervention.

At the moment we are seeing extraordinary admissions of fault and backdowns and stunts from this government for one primary purpose—to save Mike Baird in New South Wales. And we know that Mike Baird—as he knows—that, despite his very significant margin in the Legislative Assembly in New South Wales, is in all sorts of trouble. He is in all sorts of trouble in all sorts of places. None the least—and members need to listen carefully, because they will not believe what I am about to say—not the least in Upper Hunter.

Guess what the relationship is between Upper Hunter and the Minister for Agriculture? They share the area.

Mr McCormack interjecting—

The Minister for Agriculture is very, very nervous about where Upper Hunter is leading. The parliamentary secretary says, 'Oh, Michael Johnsen will win.' He, for the benefit of those listening, is the National Party candidate. He is also the bloke that has three times run against me and three times lost. As a reward, he is being given a safe state seat, where my very good friend George Souris is retiring. But—guess what, Mr Deputy Speaker—it did not quite turn out that way. It appears that Upper Hunter is not so safe after all. That is why they are spending so much money. That is why they are sending their young guns in to campaign. And that is why Minister Hunt was in Barnaby Joyce's electorate and the electorate of Upper Hunter last week: they are worried.

The Labor Party has an excellent candidate by the name of Martin Rush. He is the Mayor of Muswellbrook and has been since, I think, 2008. He is a champion guy doing good things in his local community.

The National Party are on the run, just like they are on the run right around this country. They are on the run for two reasons. Country Caucus has got them on the run: the Labor Party is putting forward good policies in rural and regional Australia and holding them to account for the way they have walked away from what they would describe as their natural constituencies. And they are on the run due to their own failings and incompetencies.

This is a dysfunctional government. It is having an effect most in rural and regional Australia. It is catching up with the National Party, and I can promise them one thing: we are going to hunt them all the way to the next federal election.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a load of nonsense. What a load of hot air we have just heard from the member for Hunter. I was sitting here wondering why he would be going on about things completely irrelevant to the debate on the appropriations bills before us here today, and I began to realise that I know why. We today have released the Intergenerationalreport. It is funny; back in 2010, the Labor Party released the 2010 Intergenerational report, and Wayne Swan had this to say about it on radio:

The first thing we need to do is to make sure we invest in the drivers of productivity so we can grow our economy faster and have the revenue that comes with that to support an ageing population, and also … we need to have Budget discipline.

He then proceeded to deliver a deficit of $47.5 billion. So the member for Hunter has come in here and talked about everything else other than appropriations because the Labor Party had no record in government to be able to discuss this. That is why we heard that diatribe. I say to the member for Hunter: if you want to hunt us down in the lead-up to the next election on regional and rural issues, you had better come up with some policies because you have no track record to speak of when it comes to delivering for regional and rural Australia—no track record at all. As a matter of fact, the only record you have is one of debacle.

I could spend my 15 minutes talking about how unfit Labor is to govern, especially for regional and rural Australia, but I do not want to do that. I actually want to talk about what the coalition government is doing for my electorate and then for the nation. I want to start by talking about what the government has been able to do through its fiscal management to deliver for the electorate of Wannon.

In the 2013 election campaign, I made some significant commitments to the electorate of Wannon. Through our first budget, those commitments are being delivered upon. I want to just detail a few of those here today. We have $25 million for the Great Ocean Road upgrade. I know that the member for Corangamite—the Great Ocean Road runs through her electorate as well—has also been a beneficiary of this. That $25 million is already being rolled out to improve that road.

We have the integrated cancer care centre for south-west Victoria. Ten million dollars was given by the federal government to combine with $15 million from the state government and $5 million, in a remarkable fundraising effort, from the local community to build this $30 million integrated cancer care centre. Planning for that is underway, and the first sod should be turned this year.

We have the Cobden Technical School and trade training centre, with $4.4 million delivered. That is already beginning. The foundations are being laid for that new trade training centre, which will be spread around Cobden Technical School, Camperdown College, Derrinallum P-12 College, the Hampden Specialist School and the Terang College campus.

We have the Condah-Hotspur road, with $2.5 million. That money is already available to the Glenelg Shire Council to deliver on improving that bit of road. We will then reduce the freight task, especially when it comes to delivering timber to one of our most important mills and then on to the Port of Portland.

We have the Maryborough Education Centre trade training centre, another $1 million commitment to go into Maryborough to make sure our young people get the necessary skills they need to go on and be job ready.

We have $125,000 for the Melville Oval lights. I must say that I was incredibly privileged to be at Melville Oval last week with the new president of the footy club, Johnny Pepper, a terrific fellow, to announce that the lights should be built and be ready by the middle of the year. There are two fantastic outcomes from that investment. The first is that our footballers and netballers will be able to train at night in safety. The lights there were in such poor condition that there were serious worries about OH&S issues in the conditions for them training at night, especially in the winter. So it will be much safer for them to train. But also we will now be able to have special events under lights, whether it be on Anzac Day or finals played on a Friday night under lights, which will just be terrific for the local community.

We have CCTV cameras which are going into Maryborough in the main street. That is a $100,000 commitment to help keep that community safe and to fight crime in a very effective way.

We have some significant environmental initiatives that we are rolling out as well. We have the Whale Trail going into Portland, with $25,000 committed by the Minister for the Environment—a great initiative. We will have the National Whale Trail right up the eastern seaboard of Australia. Portland was one of the first sights to be named to be part of the National Whale Trail.

We also have some great Green Army initiatives being rolled out. We have one in Corangamite shire involving a community trail and reserve, which will be upgraded. We have the Heytesbury District Landcare Network with their biofund application and we have the Basalt to Bay Landcare Network. I have already been down to see some of the outstanding work that Basalt to Bay have been doing with their Green Army. Not only have they been improving some wonderful national park areas; they have also discovered two insects, which up until now no-one knew existed in south-west Victoria. There have been some significant findings as part of the Green Army project that Basalt to Bay have been overseeing. And we have a Green Army project for the Goldfields Employment and Learning Centre, which has been delivered and I am looking forward to seeing it implemented in the coming months.

We have very good fiscal management which is leading to very good outcomes on the ground in my electorate of Wannon. I have mentioned a couple of road funding initiatives, but there are a couple of other significant ones which I want to highlight as well. We have the Western Highway duplication, which will involve $505 million in total duplicating the Western Highway from Ballarat through to Stawell, with $404 million of that being committed by the federal government. Last week, I was very privileged to be there for the opening of a brand new section of 23 kilometres of duplicated road on the Western Highway near Beaufort. It was wonderful to be there with the community for the opening because we had local school kids and mums and dads there. They understand the importance of proper road infrastructure for country areas and what it means not only for safety but also for increasing productivity.

We have also seen a significant increase in the Roads to Recovery funding. I know all regional and rural members in this place understand the importance of Roads to Recovery funding. I have been privileged to announce that we have just had an additional $55.9 million for my electorate, which will be distributed around local shires. I know that that will be welcome because keeping and maintaining the road networks in regional and rural areas is one of our biggest challenges. I say this to the member for Hunter: in your deliberations of putting policies together for the next election, understand how much you hurt our road networks last time you were in government. You did not care about regional and rural Australia, especially about delivering road funding for them. If you are going to be serious, make sure that your policy delivers when it comes to road infrastructure for regional and rural areas. The coalition are doing that and we are doing that significantly. Roads to Recovery funding next financial year will double. That is how important the coalition recognise that road funding is for our nation. We will see the Roads to Recovery funding double next financial year.

We have also seen the Bridges Renewal Program implemented. This is a new initiative of the coalition. Already, $2.23 million has been allocated to my electorate to restore two bridges that needed repair. One of those, the Castle Cary Road bridge, has been waiting for an investment like this for a very long time. It is fantastic to see $2.23 million already delivered to my electorate as part of this Bridges Renewal Program.

We are delivering when it comes to road funding. There is $1 million for the Princes Highway for Dartmoor rest areas and also $1 million for upgrades to the Terang intersection. There are another two important initiatives to help with the Princes Highway—$1 million near Dartmoor, $1 million for a key intersection in Terang. The coalition government are delivering when it comes to road funding across Australia and across the electorate of Wannon. Nothing makes me prouder than delivering road funding into my electorate. The importance of it can never, ever be underestimated.

The coalition also have a vision for regional and rural Australia, and the nation, which goes beyond individual electorates. While I am here, I would like to take the time to once again commend the Minister for Trade for what he has delivered for our areas—a trifecta of free trade agreements, the legacy of which will deliver for this nation for years to come. Importantly, it will deliver for regional and rural areas because agriculture and agricultural access has been one of the hardest parts of trying to liberalist markets globally. It will also deliver for the growth areas in our economy, in particular the services sector.

We have put in place three, almost, nation-changing free trade agreements. I look forward, especially when it comes to the China FAT, for the member for Hunter saying at the dispatch, loud and clear, his side's support for these free trade agreements. They have been a little silent on the China FAT. If they were serious about delivering for regional and rural Australia, they would know that that agreement, especially when it comes to the dairy sector, is vitally important. They seem to be a little quiet in that area and I am not quite sure what is going on behind the scenes. But I do look forward to the member for Hunter coming out as their agricultural spokesperson and saying, 'We've got to deliver on this because it is so important for regional and rural Australia.'

We have also delivered when it comes to fixing the budget. As we have seen through the Intergenerational report, we have started to seriously address Labor's mess. Everyone knows, particularly those in regional and rural areas, that, ultimately, whether you are a family or a business, you have to live within your means. This is what the government has started to do. It has started to address the financial mess which it has been left with. It will mean that in future years we will have the capability to continually invest in road funding, in health, in education and in the types of programs that will lead to young people being able to have the pathways to employment. We will have the capacity to deliver those much-needed services into communities, which are vital for those who are disabled or who are elderly. We will deliver where government is needed to step in and pave the way to make sure that everyone in this country receives the standard of living that they deserve and that we enjoy today. If we do not get our budget repair done then it will not happen. We recognise this. We have already acted in the first 16-17 months of government. And, as we will see in the lead-up to the next budget, we will continue to create the pathway to put the nation on a stable financial footing.

I am proud to be able to speak on this bill today because this government is not only delivering for the electorate of Wannon in significant ways, with significant initiatives; it is also delivering for the nation. It is setting the nation back on the right track, on the right course, to make sure that we will continue to grow in the right way—the way that benefits every single community across Australia.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2014-2015 and related bills is a white flag that has been hoisted up on a retreat from idiocy. Those opposite have basically presided over a fool's adventure of a budget. And now we are seeing them move away from it as fast as they possibly can, because so much of that budget was basically driven by a pack mentality. These were ideological mongrels who made decisions about the future of the nation not on practical, commonsensical propositions but rather on pursuing advice. We have heard all sorts of things about whether or not this budget was framed based on an ACCI note that was drawn up by the member for Eden-Monaro, who was supposedly suggesting all sorts of cuts and other things that should be done, and these guys opposite went through it and decided that they would frame the budget in that way.

Let us look at some of those propositions: a GP tax. We were told that medical costs were unsustainable and that something needed to be done, so they put forward a GP tax. These are the people who rallied against the carbon price as a price signal, and now they wanted to put a price signal on families when it came to medical costs—medical costs that, when compared to other parts of the world, the PBO said, were sustainable. There was no emergency in medical costs. What were they planning to do? At the same time as they were cutting research within universities—and we have today Universities Australia writing an open letter to the Prime Minister saying that the national public research infrastructure is preparing for shut down as a result of budget decisions contained in this debate—they said that they would provide this GP tax that would then be funnelled into some sort of magical research fund. This would fund medical research as they are cutting, as they are hacking, at research in other areas. This was all about short-term gain for long-term pain, because the people who did not turn up to doctors would eventually end up in the emergency departments of our hospital system, which would at the same time be facing massive cuts as a result of what was contained in this budget—$80 billion worth of cuts to hospitals and schools. And that is the GP tax.

Let us talk about education: enter the education minister, who was preparing to preside over billions of dollars' worth of cuts to higher education. The government would do a double whammy. They would cut the amount of funding provided to universities and, at the same time, say, 'Feel free to charge what you want for degrees.' The effect of that for members of parliament who represent the region of Western Sydney, like the member for McMahon here at the table, me and my other colleagues, is that we would see the people that we represent—and they are young—denied the opportunity to be able to build their talent—

Mr Ruddock interjecting—

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

Phil is claiming Western Sydney.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I apologise. The Father of the House also represents Western Sydney, but he would have been part of a government that was happy to see the children of low- and middle-income earners denied the opportunity to go to university. We would then only have the well-heeled who would have the chance to further their skills. This is outrageous!

Mr Simpkins interjecting—

Why don't you direct your anger to your party room?

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

He has!

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You tried once but you did not do the job properly—just like this government can't do the job properly. Look at the decisions. They run counter to each other. You have the education minister who wants to deny university to low- and middle-income people and then you have the Foreign Minister lauding the New Colombo Plan—on paper a great idea. But when the people going to university are not able to go to university anymore and it is only the well-heeled who are able to go to university, what is the education minister doing? The education minister is turning the Foreign Minister's Colombo Plan into something that is equivalent to a kon tiki tour for the young rich. You will not have low- and middle-income earners—

Mr Simpkins interjecting—

You should settle down, member for Cowan. You are going to blow a gasket, my friend. Why don't you look at the member for Bennelong? He is zen like sitting next there to you, as you are exploding. You should be upset about what your government is doing to this country. That is what you should be upset about

Mr Simpkins interjecting—

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, member for Cowan!

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks for the help, deputy chair.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Carry on.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Look at employment. They wanted to do a six-month delay with young people being able to access Newstart. This even shocked corporate Australia. Corporate Australia was already worried about the impact of higher education reform. They said it was unsustainable, that there was a problem in delaying the extension of Newstart payments to young people—people under 30—for six months. Then the government had this great idea of 40 job applications. You would have to submit 40 job applications to businesses if you were on unemployment benefits. This was seen as a massive burden on business. Even corporate Australia had problems with all these changes that were being put forward. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate interrupted.