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

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

The Government’s failure to act in the national interest by protecting Australia’s standard of living.

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

Whilst we have to wait until 7.30 to hear the budget speech, we already know a fair bit about this budget and what Australians can expect. We know that this budget is conceived in desperation. It is conceived by a Prime Minister under pressure and a Treasurer under siege in witness protection. We suspect that Joe Hockey's last budget will be as bad as his first budget. This budget is not about the Australian people. It is about one job; it is about saving Tony Abbott's job. A Mission: Impossible script could not have dreamed up a tougher mission for Tom Cruise than has been dreamed up for poor old Joe Hockey. The mission, should he choose to accept it, is to save Tony Abbott. You can just hear the brains trust of the Liberal Party: 'We know last year was terrible, so we have got nothing to fall back on there.' I feel as though we Australians live in a parallel universe when I hear our Prime Minister say that last year was so successful. If last year was successful, I would hate to see what failure looks like.

They have come up with a plan: they have discovered child care—well, they have sort of discovered child care, as we will unpack. They have put in their big hitter, Scott Morrison. Scott Morrison is the sort of guy you do not want shadowing you, because you know he will be sitting in your seat next. His job is to rescue child care and to rescue Tony Abbott. What is the plan that they have cooked up? It is a ripper. First of all, forget everything Tony Abbott has ever said. We wish we could, but we just cannot. I heard that marvellous piece of contorted grammar from the Prime Minister when he was asked about what he believed. We have a transcript, because we love recording Tony Abbott's first words straightaway. When we asked him how he reconciles his last comment with his current comment—and, goodness knows, with what he will say tomorrow—he said:

… you could go back 10 or 15 years—

actually, it was a lot more recent than that, Prime Minister—

and find some statements that they have made—

that means the Prime Minister—

which were sincerely made and believed then—

as if this bloke has ever sincerely believed anything in his life—

but which are no longer quite believed in exactly the same way.

If it wasn't true it would have won a Logie for comedy.

What they have done with the childcare policy is say, 'All right, we love little children.' So all of a sudden there has been an invasion of coalition ministers at childcare centres around Australia, and then what happens—

An opposition member: Scary!

Yes, just what a three-year-old needs: Scott Morrison beaming down on you to give you a hug! Fair's fair, you have to give points to people for trying, except for NRL analogies. They have worked out that they want to give some parents who have children between two, three and four years of age some money. That sounds all right initially, doesn't it? And they have discovered that they like the idea of women working. That is another breakthrough—sort of. But then we have the detail. These guys on the other side have the disease of trickiness. Even if they get part of a concept correct they always stuff it up with their own trickiness. The way they are going to look after child care in Australia—I do not know why anyone did not think of it beforehand, but when we step it through you will realise why no-one ever did—is that obviously children stop needing to eat, drink, wear a school uniform or do anything after the age of six. What will happen in their childcare fantasyland is that they are going to take away thousands of dollars in family payments, as the member for Hotham pointed out to the Prime Minister, from the parents of children who have reached six years of age. Why didn't the childcare experts of the world ever dream up the idea of robbing parents whose children have turned six and giving that money to the parents of children who are not yet six! The problem with that logic is that they do turn six. Here we have a policy where the only way they can pay for Tony Abbott's Mission: Impossible rescue package is by backing in last year's failed cuts. Remember, they think they were successful and they really do like them.

Of course, there is the other measure, and this is what the Prime Minister struggles with. He said, rather famously, that he believed—oh my Lord, as soon as he says he believes, you know he doesn't; that is sort of like code, in Abbott language, believe (not believe):

Providing more government benefits to employed mothers than to stay-at-home ones—

remember that, National Party? You occasionally have a little bit of vertebral fortitude—

is not only unfair—

see, he does have a passing knowledge of the word 'unfair'—

but it's going to strike many people as an attack on the traditional family.

Remember Tony Abbott, the man of principle? He, more than any other in the 20th century, 21st century and 22nd century, was going to be a politician who kept his word? He cannot even hold his own position for a matter of some years without changing.

But it does not stop there. We have looked at their childcare rescue plan. It involves funding cuts. It involves taking money from some parents to give back to others, who, by the way, will not get that money until 1 July 2017, although families will get the cut now. It is going to be funded by cuts that have not even passed the Senate. It is 'funny money'. It is taking money from some to pay to others, but it does not solve the issue. All along, one thing that working women in this country know is that, when Tony Abbott says he wants to deliver something, not only will he not deliver it; he will not keep his promises.

Let us move onto paid parental leave. Never have I seen such blatant hypocrisy. This man is a weathervane on steroids. He is like Beetlejuice—Michael Keaton is the actor—whose head could spin 360 degrees. That is what this Prime Minister is doing when it comes to paid parental leave. Let us track the zigzag pattern, the crazy quilt pattern, of the Prime Minister on paid parental leave. Remember, it was going to be introduced over his dead body. Then he said that he had had a change of heart, a Damascene conversion, to use an analogy he would be familiar with. We picked him up on it today, saying, 'Once upon a time, you were against paid parental leave and then, all of a sudden, you were going to be the world's greatest champion of paid parental leave.' He said, 'Circumstances have changed and now I've got to go back to taking 80,000 mums off paid parental leave.' What he tried to imply was that his love of the rolled-gold paid parental leave scheme for millionaires was something that he thought about way back in the dim, distant past of Tony Abbott, and that more recently, when he had a look at the books, he realised his program was over the top and silly, which, to be fair, we all knew, those opposite all knew, everyone knew.

The Prime Minister is right: we do research some of his comments for a good laugh every now and again. He did not talk about his paid parental leave scheme—his rolled-gold scheme—back in the dim, distant past when he was writing a book called Battlelines, which was really more fiction than fact, because he has not even stuck to what he said there. In a press conference last year—2014, not 2004, not 1994 and not 1954, where he seeks some of his inspiration and views—this man who would save the nation with his great confidence-building budget compared himself to Richard Nixon.

Opposition members interjecting—

Possibly! The comparison was with Nixon when he went to China. He said:

… conservatives thought: 'My God, has he suddenly abandoned the faith?"' … "Progressives thought: 'My God, is China no longer a progressive country?'

The clear implication is that the Prime Minister of Australia said that his backing of paid parental leave was as momentous as America's recognition of China.

Well, Tony Abbott never even got off the runway, because he has dumped that policy. When it comes to paid parental leave, this is a person who has now said that the only way you can have paid parental leave in this country is that women who have already negotiated it as a term of their employment lose it, or they lose government support. Kate Carnell, the boss of the employers federation, has said, 'Well done, Tony Abbott—you are just going to lead to a strike on employers paying any of this benefit.' It will all come back to the taxpayer. Yet again, Tony Abbott, bungle, bungle, bungle.

The real thing we expect to see from the budget tonight is that the colours of this party have not changed; their intentions have not changed. You can hear the gnashing of teeth and understand their frustration at night-time, when they look at each other and ask why would the people in the Senate and Labor not simply roll over, lie doggo, and accept their unfair budget last year? The Prime Minister let the cat out of the bag in debate. He said that Labor has not gone past the 2014 budget. Nor have the Liberals. They would still put up their rotten changes to universities, with $100,000 degrees. They are still taking $80 billion out of health and schools. They still desperately want to slug pensioners—they just think that they have to change tactics. This is the mob who are no longer trying to come in the front door to do over Australian families—they are going to try to go around the side. Labor is awake to them.

Last year I believe this government in their budget were sufficiently arrogant, sufficiently full of their own hubris and puffed up with their own importance, that they believed they could say and do anything—as is their right, they believe, as the natural party of government. They got a shock last year—the Australian people and the Labor Party stood up to them. And we will do it again. We will evaluate the budget tonight. They have done all their selective leaks, they have embarrassed poor old Hockey on the way through—hung him out to dry. But tonight we will do two things. First of all we are going to play a little bit of budget bingo. Joe Hockey said the word 'fair' four times last year. I will bet you in budget bingo he will say 'fair' more than that this year. More importantly than that, we will make sure we fight for the future. That is what Labor does.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For anyone interested in some of the economics of the actual drivers of increases in standards of living in modern Western economies, a very important report was released in 2011. That report, by the UK Institute for Fiscal Studies, was the first comprehensive study since the late 1960s of the factors that actually drive family income growth, as they apply to the UK. The lessons are very pertinent for Australia. It was interesting to listen to the Leader of the Opposition because, if this matter of public importance is about standards of living and how they might be improved and increased, particularly for low-middle income working families in Australia, that was a speech in the year of Labor ideas which was completely devoid of any new idea or any plan whatsoever for increasing the standard of living for low-middle income families. What we have before the House, in the form of the releases from the Minister for Social Services, the details of which will be provided in the budget, is a clear plan revolving around child care.

The report by the UK Institute for Fiscal Studies showed two things—first, that the drivers of increased standards of living differed somewhat across various income levels in the United Kingdom economy. Secondly, they focused on low-middle income households and looked at data over a 40-year period. What they found with respect to those low-income households was very simple and very clear: they found that the key factor in raising the living standards of low- to middle-income households over the last 40 years in the United Kingdom had been the entry of women into the workforce in large numbers. The factors that drove income growth since the late 1960s differed across income levels. In upper-income families, male wage growth had been the strong provider of substantial growth in the increase in the standard of living. But, significantly, that trend had not applied to low- to middle-income households since about 1980. Employment income for low- and middle-income households had increased, and that increase had been generated by female income earners returning to the workforce. In 1968 in the United Kingdom, 86 per cent of low- and middle-income household gross employment came from men and 14 per cent from women. By 2008-09, 63 per cent came from men and 37 per cent from women in low- and middle-income households.

Overall, incomes in the low- to middle-income households rose in real terms by about 143 pounds between 2002 and 2008. The substantial driver of that was increased female participation in the workforce. The Institute for Fiscal Studies report said that between 1968 and 2008-09 over a quarter of all the growth in household wealth—a quarter of the increases in standard of living for UK low- to middle-income households—came from women working, compared to only eight per cent of the increase in the standard of living coming from men in work. So, looking just at the increases in employment, it meant that 78 per cent of all the growth in low- and middle-income households' income, in their standard of living, came from women while income from men's work barely increased the standard of living for that cohort. So the trend, if you like, was reversed over that long period of time. Low-middle income families went from being more reliant than wealthier households on a sole male income earner to being much less reliant than wealthier households on a sole male income earner.

That report is very applicable to Australia and to other Western democracies, and it raises the same question for Australians as it does for the UK—and that is a question that this budget deals with in a very detailed way: where will the income growth for low-middle income families come from over the next decade to increase the standard of living for the men, the women and the children in those families? The coalition answer to that question is greater female workforce participation. The plan before the House in the budget to achieve that revolves around child care. The Labor answer seems to be this: business, with the range of handouts that exist, absolutely as usual—which presumes that everything that happens by way of transfer payments, whether it be FTBA or FTBB, is the perfect response for all economic circumstances to generate increases in standard of living. That just cannot be the case.

The second problem with the Labor plan, if I can be so generous as to call it that, is that it talks about assistance revolving around handouts that have no behavioural link whatsoever to increasing female participation in the workforce—none whatsoever. So what this government intends to do is to take some money that has previously been applied to a certain outcome—which was simply the transfer of the money—and use that money in a different way to engage, incentivise and make much easier increased female participation in the workforce.

As I said, in the UK the average household income almost doubled in real terms in the 40-year period considered by this report. In Australia the story is very similar: real household disposable income in 1994 was $540 a week; that had increased to $820 a week in 2014. So Australian households are $290 better off today in real terms than they were two decades ago. From looking at the best evidence and available research, it seems quite clear that that has been generated by women entering the workforce, particularly from low- to middle-income households.

What are the barriers in 2015 to further female participation in the workforce? Is it FTBB? Is it something else? Or is it the affordability and availability of child care? Is the barrier for women entering the workforce the notion that they may no longer be able to receive two payments for the one purpose, which is maternity leave? Or is the barrier the ongoing affordability of child care?

In Australia, the Productivity Commission found 165,000 respondents explicitly stated that they wanted to work more, but that there were disincentives in the present system for them to do so. Departmental qualitative research around the plan that will be in tonight's budget showed that 24 per cent of the families in the relevant cohort with children under 12 said that they would be encouraged to work more under this plan. That demonstrates that this side of the House has a plan to increase workforce participation for mothers and that historically that is the best driver of the standard of living for Australian low- and middle-income households. If we have a look at the plan: there is an extra $3.5 billion extra, and families who earn between $65,000 and $175,000 will be $30 a week better off. They will then receive an effective subsidy of 85 per cent of the cost of child care. Those above $170,000 will receive a subsidy of around the 50 per cent mark and they remain essentially at the same level that they were before this reform. So let's put to bed right now the nonsense that, somehow, this is skewed to the upper end of the household income market. It certainly is not; it is the low-to-middle income end where this is designed to create incentives and ease return to work. Below $65,000 there is a specific package tailored to children in situations of disadvantage, but the assistance in this plan is not like the assistance that we seek to make savings from. The assistance that we seek to make savings from is assistance which is not in any way connected to achieving any behavioural outcome that leads women back into the workplace, but makes the transition easier and allows the family income of those families to increase. This is a plan that actually targets public money in a way which, based on best evidence and available research, has the best chance to increase the living standards of low-to-middle income families in Australia.

Perhaps most telling in this circumstance is that the activity test is both modest and fair, but it incentivises work. All that you need to do is to provide yourself with the gateway to greater employment—starting off with eight hours a fortnight in paid work or in unpaid work in a family business, in education, in training or in some form of participation which may indeed be charitable. By providing that gateway to earn income for your family—which has been the driver of better standards of living for Australians—this plan is so far superior in its target to reach an outcome than that which the saving seeks to achieve. I will leave you with this thought: in Australia in 1983 the families where both parents worked were about 42 per cent of all families; in 2010 they were 61 per cent. Those families are better off financially. Even more importantly, perhaps, 32 per cent of single mothers were in work in 1983; today that figure is 57 per cent. They are much better off.

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

Last Sunday the Prime Minister went on live television and said that a household income of $185,000 a year is not especially high. This comment goes a long way to showing Australians just how out of touch this Prime Minister is. A study by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling studies finds that those with an income of $185,000 a year were in the top six per cent of all family incomes, including singles, this financial year. If the Prime Minister thinks that that income, which only applies to six per cent of the Australian population, is not especially high, it just goes to show how out of touch this Prime Minister is and how completely out of touch this government is. That comment is underscored by the Treasurer's comment last year that poor people do not drive cars. Here we have a Prime Minister saying that $185,000 a year is not an especially high income and Treasurer who believes that poor people do not drive cars. It just goes to show that this government does not understand how tough Australians are doing it—how tough low-to-middle income earners, pensioners and those on fixed incomes are doing it. Go to a mobile office or hold a community forum, but go out and speak to the people.

Some backbenchers got a very good sense of what was happening when they went to their electorates last Christmas. They got a very, very good sense of how out of touch this government is, particularly with the struggles that low- and middle-income earners are facing, the struggles that pensioners are facing, the struggles that vets are facing—and not just the struggles in terms of cuts to every part of their lifestyle but also all the confused messaging. There are pensioners who are terrified. I remember my mother going to the supermarket last year and she had a friend of hers come up to her and say, 'Faye, with these changes that they're making, does this mean I can't get the pension until I'm 70?' There have been how many positions on the pension? There are been how many positions on the GP tax? There have been how many positions on veterans pensions?

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

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

Not only are you making cuts in so many essential areas, which indicates that you are completely out of touch with what people in Australia are going through at the moment, but you are also confusing the bejesus out of everyone and terrifying everyone in the process.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's your scare campaign.

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

You are the ones who have scared these people. They are completely confused. They are also doing it tough and they are struggling, and you are not listening.

In terms of this government being out of touch, I think its real blind spot is my electorate. The beloved electorate of Canberra has been hit so, so hard by this government. Since this government was elected, 17,300 Public Service jobs have been cut. Seventeen thousand three hundred Public Service jobs have been cut.

Mr McCormack interjecting—

Mr Chester interjecting—

I would like to see how the members opposite me at the table, from regional centres, would feel if 8½ thousand jobs were cut from their electorates just in the last 12 months. We had the Treasurer just one month ago, at the COAG meeting, saying to the ACT Chief Minister: 'Don't worry, Chief Minister; everything's going to be okay. The worst is over.' We open the papers yesterday, and what do we see? We see the finance minister talking about not only more cuts to education and health in terms of jobs but reviews of eight government agencies, and the collapse or consolidation of other government agencies. You have already promised between 1,000 and 1,650 jobs out of Defence. This is the future that this government offers to the people of Canberra.

This government is out of touch with Australia. It is out of touch with the people of Canberra. It does not understand the tough times that the Australian people are going through, particularly those from low- and middle-income backgrounds, pensioners, veterans and those on the disability support pension. Shame on you. We will continue to fight any unfair cuts in the future and any unfair budget. (Time expired)

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

Somebody has left their reading glasses here. Probably the opposition leader threw them over here when he finished his speech, because he is a bit short-sighted! The Leader of the Opposition is a bit short-sighted! He said—

Mr Giles interjecting—

Be quiet. He said: 'I'd hate to see what failure looks like.' That is a quote from his speech in this matter of public importance debate: 'I'd hate to see what failure looks like.' Deputy Speaker, I know you would pull me up if I used this picture as a prop, so I am not going to show it to you, but it is what failure looks like. I will just hand it to my colleague here, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence.

Mr Chester interjecting—

It is the Labor front bench of the previous government; that is what failure looks like. That is what failure looks like, because Labor in government failed families, Labor in government failed small business, Labor in government failed farmers. It failed defence. It certainly failed veterans, Member for Canberra. And it failed Australia. Its legacy was debt and deficit as far as the eye can see. We have heard the Prime Minister say it many, many times: 'as far as the eye can see'.

Now, I listened to the Prime Minister closely in question time, as I always do, and I heard him talk about achieving policy which is 'right for these times'. He talked about export volumes, up seven per cent, and housing approvals, up 20 per cent, under the coalition government, and about getting Australia back on 'a credible path to surplus'. We need to be a country that 'lives within its means', he said today in question time. He said, 'I want all Australians to have the opportunity to get a job.' They are the sorts of parameters, the sorts of policy decisions, that we are taking and making to get Australia back to working, to get the economy back to ticking, after we were left in such economic malaise by those opposite. The coalition government's focus has been on strengthening economic growth, strengthening job creation and paving a realistic path back to surplus as soon as possible.

At 7.30 tonight, the Treasurer is going to stand exactly where I am standing now and deliver a strong, fair, measured and reasoned budget. He is not going to promise all sorts of things years out, without any realistic hope of achieving them—like we saw with the member for Lilley, who stood here not that long ago, on this very spot, and promised to get us back to surplus. He promised:

The four years of surpluses that I announce here tonight …

What a load of poppycock. What a load of nonsense. The country is seeing real progress, and the coalition plan is to get jobs up—and jobs are up. We need more jobs, though. We need to support families, particularly in regional areas. I am going to be followed by the member for Casey, a good member, and the members for Dobell and Banks, good members, who will talk further about our economic plans. But I would like to just highlight some of the things the Nationals are doing, in conjunction with the Liberals, to help small business and to help farmers.

Last Saturday, we saw the Prime Minister, with the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Agriculture, announce a drought assistance package for regional communities—a support package worth $333 million. I know how valued that is going to be in your seat of Maranoa and your Queensland communities, Deputy Speaker, and certainly in those of the member for Parkes. There is $35 million for shovel-ready local infrastructure and employment projects. It also includes, along with a host of other things, $25.8 million for programs to manage pest animals and weeds in drought affected areas, which is so important in those areas that produce so much of Australia's food and fibre.

I also know how hard the Assistant Minister for Employment, the member for Cowper, Luke Hartsuyker, is working on the national rollout of the Work for the Dole, which is also playing a vital part in regional communities to help people get into jobs—to help those people whom Labor forgot into what is often their first meaningful employment, which will hopefully generate full-time work for them when the program for those particular people ends. I commend the member for Cowper for the work that he is doing. He said that, over the past 10 months, there have been some terrific activities and projects conducted as part of the Work for the Dole pilot schemes, which are now obviously being rolled out further afield. That is good. That is a really good for Australia but particularly good for regional Australia.

Tonight's budget is going to deliver further on our jobs package. It is going to make further advances on all the things that we are doing to make this country tick again. I commend the trade agreements that we have forged with South Korea, Japan and China; hopefully, we will be able to conclude one with India this year. We are getting on with the job of making this country work again.

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

Instead of acting in the interests of Australians, this government is now acting in the interests of two people: the Prime Minister and the Treasurer.

In the wake of last year's disastrous budget the government descended into chaos and dysfunction. Literally only eight months after they had been elected by the Australian people we saw the backgrounding against particular ministers begin. Then started the leaks from cabinet, then, funnily enough, from the National Security Committee of cabinet. Then we had the incompetence of certain ministers: the Treasurer claiming, rather rudely, that poor people in Australia do not drive; and the defence minister—the former defence minister, I should add—claiming that Australian workers could not build a canoe.

Then we had the failed leadership spill, in which 39 members of the government said that they no longer wanted the Prime Minister to be Australia's Prime Minister. Then after that we had a major cabinet reshuffle. It is now not clear who the Treasurer actually is in this government and who is actually behind the announcements that are going to be made tonight.

Whilst all this was happening, Australians have continued to suffer. Unemployment has crept up to 6.2 per cent, the highest that it has been since 2002. Business and consumer confidence in Australia has crashed and that has affected domestic demand—we have seen that in our growth figures. Real incomes of Australians are growing at their lowest rate in history. The lives of several groups of Australians—students, families, pensioners and workers—have been made harder by this government. But one thing that we can say is that since this government was elected, Australians are worse off. We can say that with some certainty. Why? Because the government are more worried about their jobs than the jobs and welfare of Australians.

Tonight's budget will not be about the interests of the nation; it will be about the personal interests of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. We have a Prime Minister who is under pressure. He faced a spill motion some months ago, and he had the hide to blame the member for Berowra for putting him in that position! It is rather ironic. Then you have the Treasurer, about whom it is claimed the government whip has said to the Prime Minister: 'If the Treasurer doesn't deliver tonight in the budget, he's got to go. He'll lose the confidence of members of the government.' What a wonderful endorsement of the Treasurer on the eve of this year's budget!

One of those who knows this more than most is the member for Cook, who, under indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, does not mind referring to himself as 'ScoMo'. ScoMo is on the hunt. ScoMo wants the Treasurer's job. How do we know this? At the weekend the Treasurer was asked by Laurie Oakes in an interview a question about what is an important element of the budget, and that is child care. What was the answer by the Treasurer? I will leave that to ScoMo to tell the Australian people later on today.

Yesterday ScoMo hit the airwaves selling his budget. He was out there in the morning and at one of his 50 media engagements, ScoMo—rather gracefully—credited the work of the Treasurer and compared the budget to a rugby league analogy.

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

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would ask the member to refer to members by their correct titles.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind the member for Kingsford Smith that he should—

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Five times is enough!

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Kingsford Smith has the call and he will refer to people by their titles.

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

The member for Cook rather gracefully referred to the work of the Treasurer with a rugby league analogy. And we all know that there is no higher praise that one can give an Australian alpha male than to compare him to a rugby league player! What a compliment the member for Cook gave the Treasurer. He said, when describing the budget:

It's not unlike, you know, the way that a prop forward takes the ball up. I'll be the prop forward talking it up and he can be the one who will score the try and that's what he'll be doing on budget day.

…   …   …

He's our Greg Bird.

For those from the southern parts of our federation who do not know who Greg Bird is: Greg Bird is currently suspended for eight weeks. So, he is sitting on the sideline—not unlike our Treasurer! And Greg Bird was recently fined for urinating on a police car on the eve of his wedding. This was his description:

It's put a dampener on our wedding weekend.

What an understatement! That is the description that the member for Cook offers of the Treasurer. That is why they are in chaos; that is why— (Time expired)

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, it is budget day and, like budget day last year, we have just seen another insubstantial performance from those opposite. The Leader of the Opposition proposed his matter of public importance on the standard of living and barely mentioned it. The member for Canberra did talk about the subject briefly. But then particularly the last speaker, like all their members, did not address the topic of their own matter of public importance. Instead he came in here to practise his lines in some sort of vain competition with those behind him.

The member for Canberra, like those opposite, here on budget day is stuck in a fantasy world where they deny their past fiscal failure and they offer no solutions to the nation's problems. Just to take one example, the member for Canberra bemoaned the policy decision to increase the age pension age, as if this had never been spoken about. But she sat in a government where the ministers responsible—the former Treasurer, Mr Swan, and the former minister, Ms Macklin—said this in 2009:

Increasing the age pension age is a responsible reform to meet the challenge of an ageing population and the economic impact it will have for all Australians.

…   …   …

Australia must move towards a higher pension age over the next decade.

That was the announcement on budget night in 2009.

We did not hear any stories about her mother and her friend being scared shopping, based on a Labor announcement, because those opposite—

Ms Burke interjecting—

The member for Chisholm, who I know very well, is not treated—no, I will not say it. But we know one thing about the member for Chisholm—and I have a soft spot for the member for Chisholm—and that is that, whenever she feels that the Labor Party is vulnerable, she interjects wildly and incomprehensibly. That is what the member for Chisholm does.

Ms Burke interjecting—

There she goes again! Is the member for Chisholm speaking on this MPI?

Ms Burke interjecting—

Very, very interesting. But, of course, the member for Canberra either ignored Labor's policy announcement in 2009 or she is completely ignorant of the subject. Let us take the Leader of the Opposition's matter of public importance on the standard of living. He does not talk about it, but this side of the House is focused on it. We have had a families and childcare package that those opposite have criticised but that they have no alternative to. When they were in government they pursued policies that did not work. Their solution to every problem was to borrow money and spend it in areas where there were no improvements—and child care would have to be their best example of that when it came to standard of living.

What about small business and job creation? For those who are unemployed and underemployed, a stronger economy and a job do a lot for their standard of living. But what about the 519,000 people in small business who lost their jobs when those opposite where in office? They were not worried about their standard of living. They were not worried about the standard of living of small businesses when they introduced their carbon tax, where small business got no compensation and it put their costs up and reduced their ability to be competitive and to employ. They were not worried about standard of living then. And they have had absolutely nothing to say about building a stronger enterprise-focused economy where there would be more opportunity and more jobs.

It is just hours until the budget—and with this MPI we have already seen Labor's approach. We do not have to wait until Thursday night for it; we have seen it. They will give political speeches, they will deny their fiscal failure, they will offer no solutions to the problems that exist with the budget and they will offer no innovation on their own side on how to create a stronger economy with more jobs and more support for families. Without a stronger economy, you are not going to have a stronger budget and you are not going to have an ability to do the things that we all want to do to support families, small business and the broader community. (Time expired)

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One year ago today, the Treasurer stood in this place and delivered Australians the most unfair and underhanded budget this country has ever seen. It was a budget aimed squarely at lowering the living standards of middle- and low-income families by cutting their benefits, increasing the cost of visiting a doctor and instituting $100,000 degrees. Thankfully, the Treasurer was unable to secure the approval of the parliament for his most horrendous measures and, one year on, the nation is still talking about the cuts that the last unfair budget failed to deliver. So I will be fascinated to see if tonight's budget actually achieves or delivers on anything.

For all my many years in this place, I have never seen a budget that has lasted 12 months. We are still talking about last year's budget. Indeed, most of the measures from last year's budget have still failed to pass the parliament. So I am not sure why we are having this budget, because last year's budget is still in abeyance—cuts that the Minister for Social Services is demanding still be passed to pay for his new childcare package. The Minister wants a $6,000 a year budget cut to families earning less than $65,000. How unfair is that? If we go by the Prime Minister's analysis, people on $65,000 are very low-income earners. If you are already doing it tough under this government, rest assured, later tonight you will be doing it tougher.

The Treasurer has been all but invisible before his second attempt tonight, and it is no surprise that Australians are looking on with cynicism and reservations. At least last time we saw him out smoking his cigar, but he has been nowhere to be seen this time. Actually, the 'treasurer in waiting' has been out working it hard.

Before the election the Prime Minister explicitly promised no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS. Every one of those promises has been broken at the expense of the living standard of average Australians. If you want to talk about scare campaigns, then go out and talk to a part-pensioner at this point in the cycle. They are terrified! My office has been inundated with calls from individuals who are not sure what is going to happen to them tonight. These people are living within set budgetary constraint and they have no way of earning any extra income.

In my electorate, this government's $57 billion cut to the health budget means that Eastern Health, which runs Box Hill Hospital and the Peter James Centre, has lost $1 billion from its budget over the next decade—$1 billion just from one hospital network. And it gets worse, because Monash Health, which operates the Monash Medical Centre—an enormous hospital in my electorate—has lost $1.7 billion from its budget. These figures, produced by the Victorian Health Department, show that over the next decade the living standard of any person needing elective surgery will severely decline. But the current government say that there have been no cuts to health. Well, there have been—and they have been dramatic. With such massive cuts, there is no way that these hospitals will be able to keep up with demands and provide timely treatment for patients. I challenge the Treasurer to explain to the people in my electorate, languishing in pain on already long surgery waiting lists, how these cuts have improved their living standards.

Mr Whiteley interjecting—

My friend from Tasmania may call out, but a lot of Tasmanians attend both of these hospitals for services. He may want to explain to his own constituents why they are now going to be on much longer waiting list. The Treasurer also needs to explain how the living standards of hardworking families are improved by a freeze on Medicare rebates, which will deliver higher out-of-pocket costs to families than the original $7 GP tax, and where and how that is going to impact? It is another mean tricky thing from a government that said 'no surprises'. The Prime Minister, in his deception, has started using the word 'fairness', but the sad fact is that these cuts were true Liberal cuts in a true Liberal budget. They would not know the meaning of 'fairness' if it came up and attacked them from behind—I will not use unparliamentary language to say what I really think.

The Liberal Party cannot be trusted to protect the living standards of middle- and low-income Australians. And they cannot—as the stream of angry pensioners and retirees calling my office this week can attest to—be trusted to protect the living standards of people on fixed incomes. The Prime Minister thinks it is fair to pay for child care by taking away support for low-income families. The Prime Minister thinks it is fair to stop 46 per cent of new mums accessing paid parental leave in the way the scheme was designed because he can give nannies to some others. Perhaps the worst of all, but least surprising, is that the Prime Minister thinks it is fair to ignore Australian jobs while he tries to protect his own. (Time expired)

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

Tonight the government will deliver the 2015 federal budget that will continue to deliver our responsible long-term economic plan to grow the economy and fix Labor's debt and deficit disaster.

The Leader of the Opposition wants to talk about acting in the national interest and protecting Australia's standard of living. But what does his record say? And what is his plan? The Leader of the Opposition was a senior member of the former Labor government that oversaw six years of chaos, waste and mismanagement—a government that protected the national interest by delivering higher taxes and debt and deficits as far as the eye could see. Labor turned nearly $50 billion in the bank into projected net debt worth well over $200 billion. That is the fastest deterioration in debt in dollar terms as a share of GDP in modern Australian history. It is quite an achievement—not!

They burdened Australian businesses with the world's biggest, job-destroying carbon tax and a grubby deal with the Greens. They watched as small business after small business struggled with high electricity bills and unnecessary red tape.

Sadly, the only industry to prosper under the Leader of the Opposition's time in government was that of the people smuggler. More than 50,000 people arrived illegally by boat, creating a blow-out of $11.6 billion in border protection costs. This record certainly did not protect Australia's standard of living; it eroded it. The Leader of the Opposition wants to lecture us on the responsibility of government to do the right thing by our citizens?

Our aim since day one has been to ensure that all Australians live in a strong, safe and prosperous community. Unlike members opposite, who spent six years destroying our economy, we are committed to stabilising the nation's finances and reducing debt. We are doing so because we know this is the key to building a stronger economy and a better future for all Australians. Australia is seeing real progress. Our economic plan is working. Growth is up and jobs are up. This is a budget for confidence, a budget for middle Australia. It is about encouragement to all Australians to have a go.

The government's Jobs for Families childcare package will encourage more than 240,000 families to increase their involvement in paid employment, including almost 38,000 jobless families. We are lifting Australia's standard of living with a new childcare safety net to support families who are vulnerable and disadvantaged. Our achievements demonstrate that we are almost certainly acting in the nation's interest.

Labor's projected debt and deficit has been cut in half. We are on a credible path back to surplus. Unlike the former Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government—which stumbled from opinion poll to opinion poll, and spent like Craig Thomson with an HSU credit card—we are taking responsible decisions that are in the long-term interest of Australia.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

I would love to have the opportunity to debate the opposition's plans for Australia; unfortunately, I cannot because they do not have one.

This year, 2015, was to be the year of big ideas for Labor. What have we seen come from Labor's intellectual break-out year? Two new taxes: a multinational tax and their supposedly Fairer Super Plan. Same old Labor. Labor continue to stand for higher taxes and Labor want to lift Australia's standard of living by reintroducing the world's biggest, job-destroying carbon tax. Labor want to lift Australia's standard of living by running up more debt and bigger deficits. And Labor want to lift Australia's standard of living by opening our borders and spending Australian taxpayers' money on establishing reception centres for the people smugglers.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Rubbish! Where did you get that from?

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

What is your plan? He has not got one; he cannot answer. Australia has spoken before about Labor's failed policies, and Australia voted for a responsible government that would put the interests of those in our community ahead of the backroom, faceless men. Australia voted for a government that would protect future generations by living within our means, just as all Australians have to do. We are delivering jobs, growth and opportunity in a way that is responsible, measured and fair.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How?

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

You will find out tonight. Just listen and you might learn something, especially tonight. We want to help Australians get ahead and provide them with greater capacity to make their own decisions about their future. We have a plan and it is a good plan, and you will hear all about it tonight.

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

What an instructive debate this has been! What an instructive half-hour or so we have had from government members, who have failed to engage with the basic challenge of government in setting out what they have been doing to maintain and secure the living standards of Australians! It is telling, not for the first time, that this is a government entirely concerned with looking in the rear-view mirror, looking at the past, instead of dealing with its responsibilities today and, more fundamentally, its responsibilities into the future.

Perhaps for the member for Casey there can be some excuse. He shares a couple of burdens. One is that he is a Carlton supporter, and that must be very dispiriting! I know how dispiriting that is. I can only imagine how dispiriting it must be for him to sit on the backbenches of this government as it fails to grapple with the fundamental challenges of maintaining the living standards of Australians.

The government's failure that this matter of public importance sets out is failure at two levels. It is a failure to have a credible plan for the economy. At one level this might be excusable, because the government does not seem to have any understanding of the state of Australia's economy. Are we in an emergency? Or are these times made for dullness? Perhaps I will come back to that theme of chaos and confusion in a minute. Also, the government and its members have no understanding of—and, perhaps worse, no concern about—the pressures on households, particularly those of low- and middle-income Australians. To add insult to injury, this is in a context where the Prime Minister has said: 'We are not going to repair our budget at the expense of your family budget.'

Well, let's add that to the roll call of misleading statements he has made from the time he was the opposition leader to the present day. The present debate around child care and paid parental leave exemplifies this. It shows this chaotic and dysfunctional government building on that background to have an incoherent and inconsistent approach to these fundamental policy challenges—an incoherent and inconsistent approach which is adding to the anxieties of working families in my electorate and right around Australia. And this is a government that is not really engaging with the policy challenges.

The new minister—the sometime Acting Treasurer or the Treasurer-in-waiting—looks very pleased with himself but can he answer the fundamental questions going to the three challenges in this area of social and economic policy he should be grappling with? How is he going to boost our participation rates to the level, for example, that Canada has? It is a really critical part in safeguarding our economic future. How is he going to support the needs of working families, particularly low- and middle-income families? And fundamentally—and this seems to be a point lost on members opposite—how is he going to engage with boosting the early learning of our children? How is he going to engage with that? We know that 90 per cent of brain development happens before the age of five yet the activity test which has been floated is going to put some of our most vulnerable kids at an extraordinary disadvantage before they even start primary school. This is a fundamental failing that will impact not only living standards today through the pressure on families and parents but will fundamentally undermine so many young Australians' chances of living life to their full potential.

This government is all over the shop on paid parental leave and childcare policy. The Prime Minister moved once and quickly from 'over my dead body' on PPL to it becoming his signature. And now he seems to have invented a notion of double-dipping—a notion that was clearly foreign to him this time last year when we entered this debate in very different circumstances. Of course, let's not forget that this supposed good news story on child care is to be funded by way of blackmail—the ransom note that is the cuts to family payments. It is a key part of the unfair budget that is still sitting in the Senate from this time last year, a budget that the member for Chisholm reminded us is unique in that it continues to dominate discussion in this place and in the communities we represent one year after it was introduced. It is an albatross around the Treasurer's neck and around the neck for all government members.

While members opposite talk about the failure of Labor to evidence a plan, let us be clear about this. Labor is engaging with the community on these issues around living standards. We have been listening to community members, particularly those on low- and middle-incomes—that is, not $185,000 a year, Prime Minister. We understand their concerns, particularly those on pensions and other fixed incomes, about a fair superannuation system, their concerns around managing out-of-pocket costs in health care and their concerns in family support more generally. We know and they know that fairness is not simply a four-letter word; it is about a values approach, it is about priorities and it is about having a vision of economic management that supports the concerns of families today and supports their living standards into the future. (Time expired)

David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Even by the very low standards of those opposite, this has been a particularly lacklustre performance on this MPI. I think an objective observer would agree with that. I think a part of the reason is that those opposite are completely bereft of ideas. They have been running around the country for the past year or so, distributing unfunded empathy and talking a lot about fairness. But what they have not done is come up with any alternative plans or rationale for their political philosophy other than a consistent addiction to increased taxation.

I think that lack of a rationale is really telling and really obvious when you look at the reaction to the social services minister's statements around pensions reform in the last couple of weeks. What we saw there was the minister make some difficult decisions, but important decisions which would see further benefits for people generally at the lower assets level who are on the pension—and substantial increases in many cases—but with a changed taper rate for people at the higher end of assets. You would expect those opposite to embrace such a plan, but what we saw was the opposition leader sort of squirming around trying to work out how he could oppose such a sensible plan that obviously contributed substantially to budget repair.

It is really sad when you see a politician bereft of a philosophy and a politician searching for a rationale. That is what those opposite are doing. You can only run around the country and talk about fairness for so long before people start to ask: 'What are you going to do about it?' The thing that we can draw together very consistently from those opposite is an absolute belief that more tax is a good thing. The year of ideas has consisted of two ideas, both very bad ideas and both related to taxation.

The shadow Treasurer described the first capital idea of those opposite—the misguided plan to change the thin capitalisation rules for multinational corporations—as the opening salvo in the battle of ideas. If that was the opening salvo, it was fired from a very small pop gun, because that is an idea which will raise a very small amount of money but will cause a lot of uncertainty in the corporate sector and cost substantial jobs. Their other idea was to increase superannuation taxes. So for people who have saved, who have managed to get themselves to a point of being financially solid in retirement, they said, 'We do not want you to do that; we want to increase tax on those people.' We reject that philosophy.

This tax theme we see through Labor in opposition and we see it through Labor in government. We talk a lot about the carbon tax, one of the great public policy failures of Australian history. We know that they will bring it back. The reason we know that they will bring it back is because they have said so. It is not a scare campaign; they have said it so that means you would have to think it would happen. The shadow Assistant Treasurer was shouting from the rooftops in an editorial some time ago about his love for the carbon tax and also the mining tax, which, of course, raised some three per cent of what it was budgeted to raise whilst smashing the mining industry in Western Australia in particular.

There is another, perhaps less well known, tax that the Labor Party decided to put on the economy when last in office, and that was on employee share options. Many employees, particularly in high-growth companies in the technology sector and other places, are not paid a big salary, but they are given an incentive in the form of share options. The way that works is that you basically get a piece of paper that says: 'If everything works out, this could be worth a substantial amount of money in four or five years time. It's worth nothing today.' But what Labor did, extraordinarily, was tax employees on the value of what might happen in four or five years time, even though that employee had no money today, which made these schemes in fact a disincentive for employees. Under the stewardship of the Minister for Small Business, we have gotten rid of that bad tax. We are opposed to a philosophy that says 'tax more', and that is a big difference between our parties. (Time expired)

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

The discussion has concluded.