Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

(—) (): My grievance relates to Liberal Party governments' commitment to and fetish with small government and the impact that that is having in this country.

Ms Henderson interjecting—

I could have quite easily interjected on the previous speaker when she was making her speech, so I suggest she keeps quiet now. This government, the Turnbull government and the Baird government in New South Wales, are driven by the belief that good government is small government and that services and programs are better delivered by the private sector. You need only look at the impact this has had in other countries throughout the world. The Turnbull and Baird governments would like to see Australia become a replica of the United States. They have a philosophy: they are totally driven by this belief of a hands-off approach to government. They support laissez faire capitalism. They are all about promoting private property rights—

Mr Christensen interjecting—

and I hear agreement from the member for Dawson on the other side—whilst cutting expenditure rather than raising revenue.

I think the Australian people look to government to do a little bit more than abrogate their responsibility and pass everything off to the private sector. This government comes to this debate with the premise that Australia is a country that has big government. That is quite false, because Australia has one of the smallest governments in the developed world, and one of the lowest-taxing governments. The ideologues on the other side of this parliament would like to see us in a situation where basically government just operates as a board of directors, does nothing and passes everything off to the private sector. That is not good enough. It is not good enough to transfer the functions of the government to the private sector.

A couple of examples come to mind of where Liberal-Nationals governments have done this. I remember when the CES was operated by the Commonwealth. I remember that the CES actually led to people getting jobs; it was about people getting jobs. Compare that to the situation we have at the moment where the main emphasis is on the job service providers making a profit, where some most horrendous scams have taken place and where job seekers are recycled and recycled. They are unemployed, but those providers continue to get their money.

Look at the issues around Medicare and private health insurance. The questionnaire that the minister sent out really shows her philosophical bent—the bent of this government that health care would be better provided by the private sector and that the best way to pay for it is not through Medicare but through private health insurance. It is all about propping up private health insurance.

Look at education. The Liberal Party governments have a very strong record of transferring funds to private schools. The majority of students and the majority of children in this country attend public schools. That takes me to TAFE. There has been quite a debate about TAFE, particularly in the state I come from, where we have the Baird government, with its Smart and Skilled program, taking money out of TAFE, while we on this side of the House believe TAFE is something you should invest in. Our policy is that 70 per cent of all the VET funding should go to TAFEs. But we have seen enormous exploitation of people who are involved in the vocational training through these private providers. I have at least two people per week coming through my office with problems regarding these private providers. I will talk more about that in the House of Representatives.

This is a government that is committed to dismantling the welfare system and making sure that people who look to government for support really have to struggle to get it. There is no commitment whatsoever. This has an impact on equity and sustainability. Never in Australia's history has the gap between those people who have a lot of money and those people who have very little money been wider. Never has the gap between the rich and the poor been greater. This is something that the hands-off approach of the Liberal government seeks to perpetuate. It impacts on research and innovation and leads to job losses.

Let us look at the Public Service. I believe that over 12,000 jobs have been lost in the Public Service. The work still needs to be done, so what happens? Those jobs are outsourced to the private sector. Then you look at the cost and the bottom line. They say, 'It demonstrates that money is being saved in the operation of the Public Service.' But that is just transferring the bottom line to another area. I believe the government fails in that area. It argues that it is about improving efficiency and effectiveness and eliminating waste and duplication. With job losses and outsourcing we are just moving the cost away from the government and paying considerable amounts of money to the private sector.

There is the abolition of government bodies like the preventative health body. This will lead to an increase in preventable diseases and chronic illness and the cost will be felt in a different area. More money will be spent in primary health care whilst the simple fact of having a preventative health body to ensure that the right policies are being rolled out would prevent that.

I bring you to my favourite area. In my Shortland electorate office at the moment the number one issue has been Centrelink and Medicare. I put on the table that Shortland is an older office, but we have been inundated with people coming in and complaining about the fact that they cannot get an appointment when they go to Centrelink. They are pointed to a computer and told that they have to log onto the computer or go home and use the myGov website.

Ms McGowan interjecting—

It is a really big problem, and the member for Indi backs me up on that. It is the same with Medicare. It is abysmal, appalling, the way this hands-off, small government approach to government is impacting on the lives of ordinary people, the people that I represent in the parliament. Government is elected to provide services and programs for people, not to direct people towards computers. It is obvious in New South Wales where they have sold off the ports, they are selling off the electricity and in Newcastle they are privatising the buses. There is the amalgamation of councils, councils that are operating extremely well—councils like Lake Macquarie council that reaches every benchmark that is required, and more. You can consider the implications for the environment and the competition with the laissez-faire approach of letting mining companies and other developers operate without putting in place proper environmental controls. It is a hands-off approach.

It is not good enough. We need a government that is prepared to govern. We do not need a government that is prepared to take its hands off the wheel. We need a government that believes in governing for all Australians, not a government that is committed to small government and a hands-off approach to delivering—(Time expired)