Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the member for Lyne leaves the House, I would like to note that I agree with him and say that the member for Rankin—as much as he is a good bloke—seems to forget that he was the actual architect of the four surpluses that the member for Lilley said he would deliver but never delivered. He was right on the money today when he was talking about the member for Rankin being the architect of the disastrous effort of those opposite in trying to reach a surplus.

I rise today to speak in support of Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2015-2016 and Appropriate Bill (No. 4) 2015-2016. These appropriation bills seek authority from the parliament to provide for expenditure on activities that require additional funding or new activities agreed to by the government since the last budget. Appropriation Bill (No. 3) provides for ordinary annual services of the government and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) provides for other than the ordinary annual services of the government, such as capital works and services and payments to or for states, territories and local government.

Mr Deputy Speaker, as you would know, I am from Western Australia. The GST is always a bit of a bone of contention for those of us who travel across the wide spaces of Australia to come to Canberra, and we always ply our constituents' and our state's ideals when it comes to the GST. As we hear in this place quite often, the mining boom is over, but we are still seeing most of the GST go east. At the current rate, about 30c in the dollar is estimated for 2015-16. If we look back to 2006, there was parity—it was dollar for dollar. So our take of the GST has fallen off the edge of a cliff. But I am sure members and senators from Western Australia will continue to advocate on behalf of the great state of Western Australia to get our fair share of what we actually raise for the GST. There are big implications for the WA budget and the ability to deliver services from GST revenue. We do recognise that a special payment was made by the coalition government in the 2015-16 federal budget to recognise this disparity in the distribution of the GST—but more must be done. Perhaps this can be considered as part of the tax reform process that the coalition is going through as we lead up to the budget.

The appropriations being sought from these bills is just over $2.2 billion. Appropriation Bill (No. 3) provides for an appropriation of just over $1.3 billion. Major elements include $447 million to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, $277 million to the social services portfolio and $186 million to the Department of Defence. The additional funding for border protection is aimed at enhancing the management of the onshore Immigration Detention Network, reflecting further support for refugee resettlement arrangements and additional support for the accommodation and processing of asylum seekers.

A few weeks ago the Christian group Love Makes a Way held a vigil outside my electorate office. The purpose of their vigil, as I understand it, was to end offshore detention arrangements. In addition, there were about 300 protestors gathered in Redcliffe to protest against offshore processing for asylum seekers. The Refugee Rights Action Network organised the protest outside the Perth Immigration Residential Housing facility following the High Court decision ruling offshore detention as being constitutional.

We have heard the Minister for Immigration say that any weakening of our border protection arrangements sends a message to the people smugglers and that we are determined to ensure that the people-smuggling trade does not flourish again. I completely agree with the immigration minister—as would, I believe, the vast majority of my electorate. I can say this based on the surveys of my electorate that have been done in the past and also from the locals who have come to talk to me about it, particularly during the period of the last government when we saw many drownings at sea. It is interesting that some of the people who were most vocal in their protests against the previous government's policy with regard to the boats were people who came here during the fifties, sixties and seventies as immigrants from Europe. They came here through the normal process and the correct way, and they were shocked that the previous government was allowing people to come here through the back door, on the boats.

The last time the people-smuggling trade was underway was under the Labor government, and 1,200 men, women and children died at sea. This has not and will not happen under our watch. There have been zero deaths at sea under the coalition government. This government will retain its commitment to border protection. We saw the member for Denison move a motion in here the other week to suspend standing orders to censure the Minister for Immigration, and then we saw the member for Melbourne actually second that motion. I want to quote some of the things that the member for Melbourne said:

What did the minister say? He said he would not preside over a situation where we have people self-harming to come to hospitals in this country because they believe that to be the route into the Australia community and to Australian citizenship.

I would suggest that most of the people in my electorate would agree with that. You cannot have people self-harming to find a way to come to Australia as a citizen. The member for Melbourne went on to say:

… as we always see with this government and the Liberal-Nationals, when the polls go down the vileness goes up, and it is happening yet again. As we head towards another election it is becoming another race to the bottom on refugees, another race to the bottom to see who can take the most vulnerable in our community, those who need the most help …

But what the member for Melbourne seems to forget—he seems to have amnesia, along with the opposition—is that it was the Greens who did a deal with the Labor Party to start the boats coming to Australia again, back in 2008-09. It was their deal with the Labor government that saw the boats coming in. The member for Melbourne conveniently seems to forget that the Greens were part of the whole program that saw those 1,200 people drown at sea, and now he wants to say that we are the ones who are vile. I just cannot believe that the member for Melbourne would lose his memory and try to abrogate all responsibility of the Greens for that disastrous period of time with the boat people. He went on to say:

But the suggestion from this government boils down to this: whatever we might be able to do in terms of a regional solution, whatever options there might be, the government is saying that somehow child abuse is a necessary component of an effective border protection and immigration policy. What rot. We do not agree with that.

We do not agree with that, either. We do not agree that child abuse is a necessary component of effective border protection. He says the Greens do not accept it. Well, nor does the coalition. The coalition does not accept that that is a way to citizenship in Australia. So, again, the member for Melbourne has totally forgotten that it was his party, along with those opposite, who opened the borders for all those disasters at sea.

Because of the success of the coalition's border protection policies, Australia is now able to devote its refugee intake places to those refugees in genuine need. These bills appropriate $102 million for the support services to resettle an additional 12,000 refugees who are fleeing conflicts in Syria and Iraq. I am sure that these refugees will be made to feel welcome by the Australian people.

On the domestic front, just over $108 million will go to the National Disability Insurance Agency for the transition to the full National Disability Insurance Scheme, and just over $11 million will go to the Department of Human Services for addressing welfare reliance in remote communities, to provide incentives for job seekers to work and to strengthen the mutual obligation framework in Community Development Program regions.

The NDIS trial commenced in the Perth Hills area of Western Australia, just outside my electorate, in July 2014 for people with disability, up to the age of 65. The latest quarterly report from the National Disability Insurance Agency shows that the scheme is providing assistance to more than 22,000 Australians with disability and that participation satisfaction levels with the NDIS is high. I must admit that it was a privilege to serve on the NDIS Joint Standing Committee for some period of time, and it was great to see the expectations and hopes for the NDIS system from the many people who will benefit from it when it is implemented.

Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2015-2016 provides appropriation of just over $905 million. It includes $385 million for the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development, primarily for the Roads to Recovery program to help our local governments and councils to maintain our roads. The councils have used money from this program to repair and upgrade more than 45,000 road sites. The aim of the Roads to Recovery program is to contribute to the Infrastructure Investment Program through supporting maintenance of the nation's local road infrastructure assets, which facilitates greater access for Australians and improved safety, economic and social outcomes.

In Swan, there is a big mix of old and new roads. In November, the Prime Minister visited one of Swan's ongoing traffic and road issues: the intersection between Manning Road and the Kwinana Freeway. I started advocating for a southbound on-ramp in 2009, after consultation with residents in the area. Now that Fiona Stanley Hospital has opened, more and more people are travelling south on the freeway. An on-ramp would be a major piece of productive infrastructure that would act as a safety release valve, because the current route for people who need to go south on the freeway is quite treacherous and needs to be improved. With the increase in expected enrolments at Curtin University, much of which is on Manning Road, this is a vital piece of required infrastructure.

At the 2010 election the coalition committed $10 million towards this infrastructure project but, unfortunately, Labor made no similar commitment. It was interesting to hear recently that federal Labor had made some comments in the other place suggesting that they oppose the Manning Road on-ramp upgrade because it is not rail or public transport. I would suggest that the good senator who made that speech, and who lambasted the information that was sent out to all the locals in that area, go out and doorknock the houses in Manning and in the Karawara area along the Manning Road and actually find out that it is probably one of the hottest topics within that area. The Labor senator for the area has got it totally wrong. So, again, we see they are totally out of touch with the people in Swan. In stark contrast, the PM and the finance minister visited the site in person. PM Turnbull said that there was a definite need for an on-ramp. I suppose that is the difference between the coalition and Labor on roads.

Since the coalition came to government Swan has had several major black spots fixed, including three of the top 10 in WA for crashes and costs. These intersections were upgraded by the Gateway WA project, ahead of schedule and under budget and not reliant on the mining tax, as there wasn't one. Swan is the electorate all visitors to WA see first, and the federal government's Gateway WA project has helped make an impressive impact. We opened the Grand Gateway last year and I am looking forward to seeing the completion of the project in the very near future.

Seven black spots in Swan received funding in the 2015-16 black spot program. Two of these have already been completed while the others are underway for this year. Constituents of Swan will receive a mail piece soon that will ask them to nominate more black spots for this government to address. I look forward to receiving that feedback from my constituents.

We know black spots are often found at level crossings and this is certainly the case in the electorate of Swan. Two local level crossings in Swan are ranked in the top 100 in WA for crashes and costs. Just outside my electorate the federal government has led the way in making level crossings safer and improving traffic flow. My colleagues are working to eliminate the notorious level crossing at Nicholson Road, in Canning Vale, in a partnership with the state government. I hope the government can next turn its attention to level crossings in Swan.

I also want to touch quickly on the Safer Streets Program, a program that has had great success in my electorate. We secured $100,000 for four CCTV cameras for a shopping centre in Belmont, in conjunction with the City of Belmont, and we ended up with 27 cameras, which is a great bonus. The people of Belmont and those visiting the shopping area can feel secure knowing that those who are up to no good will be caught on camera and, if appropriate, will be passed onto local police for assistance in prosecution. We know that CCTV works, and the figures in Belmont back this up.

We have been able to deliver great things for the environment in the Swan electorate as well. I have been working closely with the environmental groups and want to thank the Green Army for all that they have achieved at Tomato Lake and Garvey Park. In Swan we also have the Swan-Canning River Recovery Program. This program is progressing well, with the hydrocotyle management plan to be launched very soon. I commend the bills to the House.

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

In rising to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2015-2016 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2015-2016 I want to touch on three areas—the area of citizenship and multiculturalism, the area of health and the area of organ donation—and how they impact, specifically, on my electorate of Greenway.

I turn, firstly, to the issue of citizenship and humanitarian settlement. Citizenship is a defining feature of our shared identity. We rely on citizenship to provide a sense of community and society, something that we all believe in. Since the citizenship amendments were passed, late last year, we have heard very little from this government on the topic. Labor has supported, with careful consideration and deliberation, a number of changes to Australian citizenship laws over the term of this government.

Yet today the government has gone quiet. Instead of sober planning, the only thing we have heard, recently, is about leaked national security documents advocating radical change to both residency and citizenship for new migrants. These include selective proposals to revamp the citizenship test and pledge as well as, specifically, calling out certain ethnicities—namely, the Lebanese community. The government must rule out these approaches based on fear and reaction. Citizenship policy is too important for political power grabs and should never be subject to internal government stoushes.

Sitting alongside this, this government has only been able to settle some 26 Syrian refugees out of a promised 12,000 over five months ago. There are 26 new refugees. Just think about that for a moment. The Abbott-Turnbull government announced this more than 160 days ago. At this rate it is going to take years to resettle 12,000 refugees fleeing Syria and Iraq. Compare this to Canada. Canada's new government is on track to accept 20,000 refugees before we even reach 100—and they were not even elected when the Abbott-Turnbull government made its announcement.

Australians are rightly proud of our humanitarian program. Our settlement services are recognised globally as best practice, yet a new life in Australia cannot begin until migrants arrive. Instead of dreaming up new adverse citizenship laws, impinging on people because of their background, religion or ethnicity, it is time for this government to get on with it. Like the economic program, simply nothing is happening.

There are some other issues that point to the fact nothing is happening in this area. In February last year we had Senate estimates reveal that the government is still relying on Labor's multicultural policy. You go to their website and you see Labor's multicultural policy. This government has not bothered to develop its own policy on citizenship and multiculturalism. In answer to questions during Senate estimates, the year before, the Department of Social Services said, 'The government is currently in the process of developing an updated multicultural affairs policy.' We saw, in February this year, over 800 days and still no multicultural policy from this government. This government remains a policy-free zone in this area.

On 11 February, then Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, when asked about when a policy would be developed, said: 'We don't want to rush the process, so we'll be taking our time.' There is no risk of any rush, here, because we still have a government that not only does not have its own policy but also cannot live up to the expectations of Australia's communities when it comes to best practice in this area.

Unlike this government, we on this side of the House value the economic, social and cultural contribution of new migrants to Australia. We do not just say it. We are the ones who have a policy about, unlike this government. You do not have to look very far to see that this government wants to hurt migrants. Only recently, we had government members—all of them on that side—voting to limit overseas travel for pensioners. They all voted in the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Budget Repair) Bill to make it harder for migrant pensioners to continue to receive the pension while overseas.

The situation before the government sought to change it was that pensioners could go overseas for 26 weeks and receive the full pension. If they stayed beyond that time the pension was reduced to a rate that depended on the number of years they had worked in Australia. Under the changes that everyone on that side of the House voted for, from 1 January 2017 pensioners will have their pension cut after just six weeks overseas.

You might ask how this got reduced from 26 weeks to just six weeks. No-one precisely knows how. FECCA, one of the key organisations in this area, disagrees with it. Key groups disagree with it. The one word that keeps coming back, as I go around Australia listening to people who are going to be impacted by this—not only for themselves directly, but the children of people who will be impacted—is that it is just mean. This government has grossly underestimated not only the impact but the level of discontent and opposition to this in the community.

In addition to that, we even had, in December last year, the new social services minister, Mr Porter, making another blunder, this time in relation to the newly arrived residents waiting period. This was a tricky move—trying to present something that simply was not true. In attempting to justify this government's $225 million of cuts for newly arrived migrants, the minister told the ABC:

The only exception to the newly arrived residents waiting period is refugee and humanitarian arrivals. But there's one other very curious exemption that has existed for a while and that is if an Australian citizen or resident goes overseas and marries and brings back a wife or dependent child—

And it goes on. Those very curious exemptions are real people. They are the spouses of Australian citizens that this government is hurting. The exemptions that the minister wants to remove, to support newly arrived migrants, are the ones that allow them to access Newstart allowance, youth allowance, Austudy payments, carer payments, sickness allowance, special benefits and other payments. This government is seriously lacking in an understanding of the area. It is very disturbing that we have a minister who not only does not even understand the basics of this policy area but also is lacking in any appreciation of what the impact will be.

I want to look at the issue of health and, in particular, some matters that have affected the Greenway community very badly. The people of Greenway are sick and tired of mistruths and backflips regarding health services in Blacktown. One issue that strikes more than any other for local residents, because it impacts on so many of them, is the government's decision to close the local Medicare office in Westpoint and move it to the Centrelink office on the other side of Blacktown. I have had nothing but complaints from local residents on this matter. There was no consultation about this whatsoever. The parking situation around that area is terrible. The number of people I have coming to my office or calling me and saying, 'I simply cannot do business with the Medicare office anymore' is astounding. I know what this government's tactic is: it is to make people move on and do things online. That would be fine if we had access to a real broadband network across all of Blacktown. It would be fine if we had a situation where everyone was able to do these things. But we do not.

I used to be able to say that one of the key arguments for keeping the Medicare office where it was in Westpoint was its proximity, not only to retail services but specifically to banks and local health funds. But this was not enough. After the government privatised the remainder of Medibank Private, the local branch of Medibank Private in Blacktown was shut down as well. After receiving a number of complaints from local residents about that office being shut down, I put in a question to the Minister for Finance asking what conditions were in the Medibank Private sale terms about keeping branches open and why the Blacktown Medibank Private office was closing while others, including Parramatta and Castle Hill, are not. I got from Minister Morrison, as he was at the time, nothing but a statement about what the Medibank Private Sale Act was. There was nothing whatsoever to give any comfort to my local residents.

The other issue, of course, that is making it even more difficult and painful for people to access health services is this government's absolute intent to put co-payments through the back door for certain services. I note and I commend something that I think those listeners who might be tuning in today should read. It is an op-ed by Catherine King, the shadow minister for health, about why the cuts to pathology and diagnostic imaging are making it harder for women with cancer. She writes regarding ovarian cancer:

It’s a silent killer and women diagnosed with this disease need all the help they can get. Sadly, this year, the Turnbull Government is doing the exact opposite with December’s budget update cutting $650 million from spending on the tests and scans which are vital to detecting, treating, and fighting diseases like ovarian cancer.

She says that even after the Medicare rebate, patients will be left between $365 and $1,322 out of pocket. I think her point here is absolutely right about budget cuts to pathology and diagnostic imaging. When women are told that they may have ovarian cancer, the last thing they need is to have that fight made harder and more expensive.

I am not surprised that I recently received correspondence from Pathology Australia. They are scathing in their assessment of the way in which pathology providers have been treated by this government. I quote:

Pathology providers had have enough. Providers have indicated they will introduce co-payments for pathology tests as a result of the cuts—

That is, this government's cuts—

The bulk-billing incentive when introduced in late November 2009 was designed to maintain and raise bulk billing for patients. It has worked.

So we have a situation where we have health services impacting on the electorate of Greenway, on families, cutting bulk-billing incentives so that people who are sick are discouraged from seeking help, and paying consultants and bureaucrats millions of dollars to work out how to best privatise the medical payments system.

In the time left to me: I indicated that I wanted to touch on the issue of organ donation, and I want to touch on a quite heartbreaking story about a young person named Deyaan Udani. Far too often, life is cut short. Deyaan Udani was a seven-year-old boy from Quakers Hill. On a trip to India, only recently, just before a planned return flight home, Deyaan was diagnosed with multiple blood clots in his brain and died three days later. He is remembered fondly. A local teacher said:

He could light up the room with his laugh and he has a heart of gold. He always showed empathy to others. He was just a very happy and fun loving little boy that will be missed and gone too soon.

Deyaan learnt about organ donation at school. He and his sister encouraged their father to become an organ donor. They told their parents they would actually like to become organ donors themselves when they grew up. Deyaan could not have known how prophetic his desire would be. He died, and his family honoured his wishes. Deyaan's organs were given to four other people, including three children. Each of these people had been critically injured. Deyaan's sacrifice has provided them with a renewed chance of recovery. The media outlet The Hindu reported that this was the youngest ever organ donation recorded in Mumbai.

In the wake of Deyaan's passing, his sister Naisha addressed thousands of people in Mumbai, urging them to also become organ donors. This occurred at an event that brought together the Udani family with those families who benefited from his own sacrifice. The mother of the young girl who received Deyaan's heart said the little boy had given them the greatest gift they could wish for. It is hoped that these public gestures and the attention will increase the rate of Indian organ donation, which is currently only 0.5 people per one million. I hope Australia's increases as well.

I send my deep condolences to the Udani family. May Deyaan Udani rest in peace.

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

The mid-year economic outlook review is a good chance to reflect on just how far we have moved forward to deliver good outcomes for ordinary Australians. There are many national achievements delivered by this Liberal-National coalition government, and today I will reflect on some of them.

Firstly, the three significant key trade deals that we have secured with China, Japan and South Korea open new doors for Australian industries to build new trade links and create more jobs. In Capricornia, the FTAs have provided the much-needed impetus to reopen live cattle export trades, creating new jobs. In helping to dramatically boost the price of Australian export beef, they have provided our agricultural industries with greater profit margins and the ability to create more local jobs. We have not seen cattle prices this high for generations. This government can take credit for setting up an environment and opportunities to help local rural businesses and farmers prosper. It was, after all, a Labor government that closed the live export trade overnight, causing thousands of Queenslanders to lose their jobs in the farming sector, trucking industry, livestock trade, stock and station agencies and port sector.

When it comes to improving the lives of ordinary, hardworking, regional families and our most disadvantaged, this coalition government has taken other steps which we can proudly reflect on. Significantly, the axing of the carbon tax has freed up cash for larger organisations to use to invest in areas that create further jobs. That is good news for ordinary mums and dads looking for jobs. For ordinary hardworking families and our seniors, axing the carbon tax also reduced the burden of extra charges being added to their already escalating household power bills. Further to this, the Turnbull-Joyce government is serious in our promise to expand the role of northern Australia in our economy. It is committing more than $500 million to its future development to kick-start new businesses, trade and jobs. It recently appointed a new minister for northern Australia—based in Rockhampton, the official gateway to the northern Australia.

Closer to home, I am pleased to inform the House of progress that the coalition government and I have made in delivering serious and tangible infrastructure projects to my electorate of Capricornia. In Capricornia, we face a jobs crisis due to the coal downturn and tough times for tourism and small business. Families, too, are struggling to find work and make ends meet. The Turnbull-Joyce Liberal-National government has focussed on providing our region with road and infrastructure spending for projects designed to stimulate economic activity and employment. Recently, $20 million in new federal funding was announced for three key projects under the federal government's National Stronger Regions Fund program. The funding includes $2.34 million for the Capricorn Rescue Helicopter Service to construct a new hangar and medical aviation centre in Rockhampton. The project involves a two-bay hangar with engineering facilities and much needed space for doctors and medical teams to be on stand-by. We are providing $7 million towards the revamp and upgrade of the Rockhampton Riverbank Redevelopment on the Fitzroy in the city's CBD. The funding will support the Rockhampton Regional Council's project for better facilities and the opportunity for greater economic activity in the area. Also, we are providing $10 million towards stages 4 and 5 of the Yeppoon beach foreshore redevelopment on the Capricorn Coast as part of a major economic, job creation and tourist drawcard.

These funds come on top of $9.9 million in joint federal-state funding under the category D Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements to aid in the continued recovery after Cyclone Marcia. The NDRRA funds, which relate to rebuilding damaged infrastructure to a more resilient level, will be spread across six projects, including: $2 million to top up a fund in Livingstone Shire to rebuild the Scenic Highway, or Statue Bay road, with joint government funding now totalling nearly $12 million for this project; $3 million to continue further rebuilding of Kershaw Gardens in Rockhampton; and $5.1 million towards strengthening the rebuild of Pilbeam Drive, Glenmore Water Treatment Plant, Dean Street, Capricorn Street and Elphinstone Street in Rockhampton. In February, to mark the one-year anniversary since Cyclone Marcia, the Prime Minister joined us in Capricornia for a special morning tea with SES volunteers and crews from the Capricorn Rescue Helicopter Service to thank them for their participation in cyclone recovery activities.

Earlier, I mentioned that it is recognised that, due to a current mining downturn, the local Capricornia economy is doing it tough. The $30 million in investments in infrastructure that I have just outlined will go a long way to stimulating economic activity and job potential in these areas. Our federal coalition government has also been investing heavily in road-building projects to provide jobs to help offset the mining sector downturn. For ordinary Central Queenslanders this means the chance to apply for new jobs. Safer roads also mean saving lives and reducing the risk of accidents which could potentially claim the lives of any one of us or our loved ones.

In the two years I have been in this job I have managed to fight for nearly $400 million worth of local road funding. As we consider the economic outlook tonight, let me outline some of them. The Turnbull government's road projects include $166 million to fix up the Eton Range section on the notorious Peak Downs Highway west of Mackay. I was present to officially mark the start of construction there at the end of January. This project is about saving lives on the busy mining route, which has been the site of far too many horrific and deadly accidents involving heavy vehicles and trucks. It is worth noting that this is in fact a state run highway and, as such, is the real responsibility of the Queensland Labor government, but the federal Liberal-National Party coalition is the government that is actually contributing all of the $166.17 million to fix the notorious Eton Range crossing. The highway is predominantly used to serve the inland coalmining sector.

The new alignment between Nebo and Mackay will reduce the gradient of the highway over the Eton Range, making it safer to accommodate heavy trucks. Over 4,000 vehicles, including 800 heavy trucks, travel through the Eton Range each day. I am proud that our federal coalition government is delivering for the truck drivers, the mining workers, the local residents, the rural property owners and country travellers who use the Peak Downs Highway and this particularly dangerous spot. In addition, the regional economy benefits with around 295 jobs supported over the life of the project.

Other major road projects include $38.26 million to replace seven old bridges in Isaac and Rockhampton shires under the federal Bridges Renewal Program; $8.5 million on overtaking lanes on the Bruce Highway near Sarina; $15.5 million to construct three new overtaking lanes and to extend a fourth along the Bruce Highway from Rockhampton to north of Gladstone; $29.4 million in Roads to Recovery grants over five years to help fix up council roads and streets in five shires, including Rockhampton, Livingstone, Isaac, Mackay and Whitsunday; and $136 million to complete the stage 2 Yeppen south flood plain project on the Bruce Highway south of Rockhampton. The then Deputy Prime Minister, Warren Truss, visited Rockhampton in December to officially open this project. It is important to note that Rockhampton is the gateway to northern Australia and northern Queensland.

Previously, during floods Rockhampton was cut off by rising waters, leaving food, coal transport and freight trucks carrying vital goods up and down the Queensland coast stranded outside the city. The Yeppen south project is about keeping this city and our great region open for business in severe wet times and it is about awakening the future economic growth of our great nation. This is because the economic cost of freight and haulage trucks being stranded by floodwater represented a huge cost in lost business, revenue and trade.

Further to this, we are improving mobile phone coverage in Capricornia with a $3.14 million program to build or upgrade four new base stations, delivering better services to families in areas around Clarke Creek, Marlborough, Mount Chalmers Road between Rockhampton and Yeppoon, and Gargett in the Pioneer Valley. I continue to lobby for better mobile services in the Clermont area, about 400km west of Rockhampton, and for many other blackspot zones, including in the Sarina Range. By providing better communication we are providing better access for rural businesses to grow their client base and ability to create jobs. Better communication also provides better access to education for remote and rural children at school and for adults studying university.

Young people in Capricornia are also benefiting from the programs being rolled out by the Turnbull-Joyce government. For young people seeking work skills that may eventually lead to full-time jobs or careers, the Liberal-National government has injected over $3 million towards 16 Green Army projects which are either underway or completed in Capricornia. These projects range from Mackay to Yeppoon and Rockhampton, providing young people with experience in environmental projects and increasing their skill base to help them seek full-time employment.

I have been fighting hard too for families experiencing dreadful circumstances such as domestic violence and family court disputes in Capricornia. After much lobbying on my part the federal Attorney-General and I recently announced the appointment of a new Federal Circuit Court judge, Judge Anne Demack, to be permanently based in Rockhampton to service Central Queensland. Rockhampton has the highest rate of domestic violence in Queensland per capita, and this new role is a significant step forward to help those with family court disputes domestic violence and custody rows. This helps the most disadvantaged groups in our city.

The Turnbull-Joyce government is not just looking at the short term but also setting goals for our very long term future in Capricornia. Recently, I was pleased to announce that Central Queenslanders will benefit from a long-term plan to spend $190 million on defence infrastructure and intelligence programs in the Rockhampton-Livingstone region in the coming years. The projects were outlined in the release of the Turnbull government's 2016 Defence white paper. The paper sets out the government's comprehensive long-term plan for Australia's national security. The government will increase defence spending by $29.9 billion over the next decade. In Capricornia up to $190 million is ear marked for upgrades in infrastructure at the Shoalwater Bay training area, which is already considered one of the best sites for international military exercises in the Pacific.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, will the member for Capricornia accept an intervention under standing order 66(a) in relation to the provision of a courthouse or courthouse facilities for the newly appointed Federal Circuit Court judge in Rockhampton?

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

I will not.

Our white paper's Integrated Investment Program will deliver substantial benefits for Central Queensland, including these points. The Shoalwater Bay training area will be upgraded to support a range of new land combat and amphibious warfare capabilities over the next decade to 2025-26, representing an investment of up to $150 million. An additional investment of around $40 million is planned for the decade between 2025-26 and 2035-36. And new facilities at the Shoalwater Bay training area will support the introduction of new armed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance unmanned aircraft in the early 2020s.

The investments outlined in the Turnbull government's 2016 defence white paper will strengthen our Defence Force and provide a welcome boost to the economy of Capricornia. They are likely to create contracts for local supply businesses and raise the prospect of raising new jobs.

Defence employs over 70 people in Capricornia and joint defence exercises conducted at the Shoalwater Bay training area bring thousands of personnel, and millions of dollars in local spending to the Rockhampton-Livingstone economy. This has significant flow-on effects for the local economy and our local businesses.

Meanwhile, I have had brief discussions with both the federal Defence Minister, Marise Payne, and Assistant Defence Minister, Michael McCormack, about other military proposals in the Rockhampton area, including a push to base a contingent of military warfare vehicles at Shoalwater Bay permanently. This would allow additional military families to be based in Rockhampton, which helps to diversify the city's workforce and is good for business. (Time expired)

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

Thank you. I call the member for Bendigo.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is good to see you in the chair. Right before Christmas, just after this government dropped its MYEFO, my local paper reported, 'Government’s cuts hit La Trobe's clinical placements'—22 December. An article the following day says:

La Trobe University has been left to find $2.6 million per year across its campuses to fund clinical placements – many of them in nursing and allied health courses – after Treasurer Scott Morrison announced a raft of budget cuts this month.

So, right as universities were ending the academic year, this government announced it was cutting funding to the following year's clinical placements. There was no warning and no opportunity to look at the reserves to see if they could fund this. This government announced, with days left in 2015, that they were going to cut the funding for clinical placements.

Many of these students are based in Bendigo. We have the Rural Health School in Bendigo at La Trobe- Bendigo campus. That facility was built by the former Labor government, a government that did invest in higher education—not like what we have seen from this government. At the time, the paper reported that the university would not axe the clinical placement program; it was too important. However, they did acknowledge that funding would be found from elsewhere within the university budget. Funds that otherwise would have been used for teaching and learning resources will now be deployed for those clinical places. This is the chaos of this government. This is what this government does when they make these radical budget decisions—whether it be in the May budget or the December budget—that affect universities and regional communities.

Clinical placement funding is critical if our students are to receive the same educational opportunities in Melbourne. That is just a simple fact. If we are serious about ensuring that we have the skilled health workforce we need in the regions, then we need to make sure that universities like La Trobe and the Bendigo campus can have access to funding for their clinical placements.

At the time, the health minister said: 'That's okay. They'll be able to apply for the new fund that has been established.' But what is not being made clear to the university is whether they would qualify for this new fund. Bendigo Rural Health School does not have a medical school within it. It has everything but. So it is unclear whether they can even apply for the new funding. It is not known whether Bendigo-La Trobe's Rural Health School will qualify for the new competitive funding round. Secondly, the very nature of competitive tender processes means there is no guarantee this campus will be successful, especially given there is now less funding in the pot than what there was previously. Thirdly, there was the timing of the announcement of the cuts; they tried to sneak them through right before Christmas.

These were not the only cuts that hit Bendigo in the MYEFO budget and in the appropriations bills that are before us. What was also shocking was the cuts to funding for programs that help our most vulnerable job seekers. With just under $130 million cut from jobactive, in addition to about $130 million cut from the Skills for Education and Employment Program, this means one in five job seekers in central Victoria will miss out on the opportunity to acquire new skills to help them find employment. The group they are targeting with this is our older workers.

What this government does not seem to understand is the shift in the nature of work and work opportunities within the Australian workplace. People who may have worked in manufacturing their entire working life or may have worked in mechanics or a number of other skilled jobs that simply do not exist today—or there are fewer of them—do want to retrain. They do want to have their skills going forward, yet this government is cutting the very programs that support that. That is where this government is narrow-sighted. They want to get out the big stick and whack you if you do not look for work, yet they are not willing to help fund the programs to help you find work.

Last week I caught up with a local group that has come together to talk about the long periods when you cannot find work, about how depression can set in and about the effects on mental health. This group of local men have put their hands up to say: 'You know what? It's really hard to find work. It's really hard on my family when I can't find work. I find it really stressful. And now I'm seeking mental health support and I'm looking for support to get through this troubled period.'

All these issues could be avoided if the government only funded support programs properly and, more importantly, had a genuine jobs plan, a plan that would actually create and secure jobs into the future—lots of jobs, the jobs that we have today that will exist tomorrow. It is this great statistic that people like to throw out there: '40 per cent of the jobs for tomorrow have not been created yet'. Guess what that means: 60 per cent of the jobs we have today will exist tomorrow. Yet what will the nature of these jobs be? Why isn't this government doing more to create good, secure jobs that people can count on? There is a reason we have net negative wage growth in this country. It is because more and more people are losing good full-time jobs and are being forced to take up insecure casual and part-time jobs. People are working for less money than they have previously, and that is having an impact on their household income.

In the MYEFO there was also a recommitment by this government to cut $80 billion from health and education. In my part of the world that included $34 million from Bendigo Health. Next year—it is very exciting—the state Labor government will actually open the brand-new Bendigo hospital. It is a massive investment project that has been building for quite some years. But what is disappointing to the people of Bendigo and to the state government is the fact that this federal government is short-changing them on the operating funds. They have cut money from the operating budgets, meaning it is going to be harder for this new hospital to turn the lights on, to perform procedures and to have the funding for wages so they can open more beds. This government is not paying its fair share when it comes to health funding.

It is not just the Bendigo hospital; it is also the cuts to the Castlemaine hospital, to the Kyneton hospital, to the Maldon hospital and to Heathcote Health. These are smaller hospitals that rely on urgency care and that are, for some people, the only way to access emergency care during the weekends and during the evenings. They are staffed by doctors who basically bulk-bill those patients. We saw this government recommit to introducing some form of GP tax and, worse still, continue to cut funding from Medicare. It is a government that does not understand that in the regions we actually need to invest more in health, not cut funding from health services, because it makes it very hard for these smaller hospitals and health services to deliver the health support that is needed.

This government, in its MYEFO, also committed to the funding cuts to our schools over a decade—$10 million to the schools in the Bendigo electorate. The Bendigo electorate schools would have been some of the biggest winners under the Gonski reforms. Years five and six would have delivered the resources that a lot of our smaller regional schools need. They would have delivered the resources for a lot of our schools in low-SES areas, like Eaglehawk, Long Gully and Heathcote They would have delivered extra resources for schools that have a higher than average number of students with a disability. I do not know if many of those opposite are talking to their prep and primary school teachers, but they have never seen the numbers of students with a disability, who are on the autism spectrum or who may have a learning difficulty, like dyslexia, coming into their classes. Specimen Hill Primary School said that 40 per cent of students in their prep classes need some form of help. Yet when the schools most need this government to partner with the states and invest in them the government is cutting away these critical dollars.

I was out at Huntly Primary School a few weeks ago, and I went on a tour with the school captains and school leaders and spoke to the principal. The oval was looking very dry. I said, 'Is that because of the water bill?' and the principal said: 'Yes. I have the choice to either water the oval, which costs me about $4,000 a quarter'—water is very expensive in central Victoria—'or in a year that is the funding for a part-time teacher aide. My school made the tough choice of putting the numeracy and literacy skills Reading Recovery program ahead of watering the oval.' These are the tough choices our schools are making, because this government has short-changed them and not paid a fair share into schools.

Education is absolutely critical. We need to ensure that every student, regardless of their postcode, will get a great education and that, regardless of their postcode, the schools will have the resources they need. But under this government and the funding they have cut, some of our schools will continue to fall behind, not because they are not good schools but because they do not have the resources. This Prime Minister stands up here and says, 'It's not about resourcing.' That is wrong on so many levels. I challenge him again to come and to the schools in my electorate, meet the students and their teachers and learn what it means to be a school that cannot afford art applies and that is making the tough choice between a language program or a music program because they simply do not have the dollars in their budget to pay for those extracurricular activities.

Earlier I mentioned jobs. This budget, again, in MYEFO, failed to have a comprehensive plan on how the government is going to create jobs for our young people. What disappointed me in this budget was that there was no concrete commitment to return funding to successful programs like Youth Connections, there was no concrete commitment to restoring the funding they cut from skills and apprenticeship systems and there was no concrete commitment to guarantee future funding for our TAFEs. All the talk about the fantastic new white paper means nothing if you do not invest in skills. In my electorate I have the Bendigo Bushmaster, which is built at Thales, and the Hawkei contract will come online. It is a bit hard to build a Bushmaster and a Hawkei without having an engineer who has being trained and without having apprentices to go into that work so that they have the skills that they need to build our defence equipment. If we are serious about innovation, if we are serious about having jobs in the manufacturing sector going forward—high-tech, high-skilled jobs—we must invest in education.

Finally, I would also like to highlight that this government has not reversed its decision on the financial assistance grants to our local government areas. It is okay for MPs who may have electorates in the inner city. They can make up the revenue cut by this government, through parking meters. In the regions, you cannot. Ratepayers in the regions cannot afford to pay anything extra. In one part of my electorate, rates increased by as much as 18.5 per cent over three years. It was unsustainable. At the same time that their property prices went up, their rates became a cost-of-living pressure, forcing many households into poverty. So increasing rates for local government is no longer an option, because the ratepayers cannot afford these massive increases. That is why the government needs to restore the funding that it cut in its first budget—and has confirmed it will cut in its next budget—to the financial assistance grants. That is to ensure that our local government has the resources to build the roads, to build the footpaths, to make sure that our SES as well as an array of other services are there to go forward.

The minibudget that the government has released demonstrates again that it does not matter who the Liberal Prime Minister is or who the Liberal Treasurer is; they are addicted to cutting funding from the areas that need it the most. It does not matter who is in charge of this government; it is just more of the same: cruel cuts that hurt the most vulnerable in our community, actually stall growth and mean that we are not moving forward as a country.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my great pleasure to rise and speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2015-2016. It gives me an opportunity to talk about the Turnbull government's achievements and the many ways in which we are delivering jobs and growth.

Before I do that, I want to place on the record my profound concern in relation to the member for Bendigo's comments about health funding. We have seen a situation in Victoria where the Victorian government have made an improper grab for money which they were not owed—some $73 million—and they are now going around frightening local hospitals, local CEOs, making claims that are simply false. This is an improper grab for cash. They did not run the calculations properly in relation to the formula. What the member for Bendigo has just said in relation to that matter is absolutely wrong. The Victorian government need to fess up. This has not happened in any other state. The Victorian government's tricky accounting has not gone by without being noticed by us and being corrected. We will not stand for this misrepresentation from members opposite and from the Victorian government.

At this time, as we transition out of the mining boom and into the new economy, the innovation economy, I am very proud to see that we created over 300,000 new jobs last year. This is the best record of job creation since 2006. The doomsayers on the opposite side—the likes of the member for Corio—spoke endlessly about skyrocketing unemployment in our region. Well, we are seeing some of the best employment figures we have seen in a long time. We have just announced—as we have just seen the figures from the ABS—a 5.2 per cent unemployment rate in the Geelong region. There are pressures on the local economy—there is no doubt about that—particularly in manufacturing. Of course, we lost Ford under the previous Labor government. Let us not forget that­, but let us not forget that there are 500 or so Ford workers continuing to work in our great city. But we are seeing some wonderful success stories in the local employment figures that are coming through, and nationally the ANZ job ads survey in January 2016 shows that job ads are now 11.3 per cent higher than they were 12 months ago.

Everything that the Turnbull government is doing is focused on driving jobs and growth—the jobs of the future, not the regressive policies that we have seen from the other side, from the Labor Party, a party that believes that you can prosper by taxing homebuyers and through its smokers tax, its capital gains tax and its absolutely unbelievable refusal to support our attack on multinational tax avoidance. The Greens showed much greater economic responsibility when they joined with us to vote for that legislation to combat the improper shifting of profits by multinational companies into other jurisdictions. What did Labor do? It voted against the legislation.

The Labor Party proposed some $5 billion of savings prior to the 2013 election that they are, unfortunately, now blocking in the Senate. We are seeing gross recklessness from the Labor Party, from members opposite. Of course, we are seeing that in spades with the negative gearing policy that the Labor Party have put forward, a policy which will punish the many thousands of nurses, midwives, metal workers, teachers—the people who rely on negative gearing to give their family a bit of a head start. Taking one-third of the demand out of the established property market will do enormous damage to the homebuyers market. Labor have simply not thought this through. They do not understand that, when you destroy confidence in a market as important as the property market, that ricochets throughout the economy. This is another example of an ill-thought-through, reckless, irresponsible policy which shows that the Labor Party are simply not up to governing.

I am incredibly proud of our government's achievements. We have abolished the carbon and mining taxes. We have finalised three free trade agreements, with China, Japan and Korea—and of course the TPP is our fourth major free trade agreement. We are delivering the lowest company tax rate for small businesses in almost 50 years and we delivered $5.5 billion of incentives for small business through the last budget. We understand that small business is the engine room of our economy. We are tackling the hard questions, in the Harper review, looking at how we can change competition law to drive innovation and the jobs of the future. We are investing some $50 billion in infrastructure. Our $1.1 billion National Innovation and Science Agenda shows that we are focused on the future—what we need to do as a responsible, contemporary government, looking at the opportunities that lie ahead for us as a nation. But we are also tackling the hard issues on our industrial front. In Victoria in particular, construction costs run at some 30 per cent higher than in any other state. That is because of the lawlessness in the building and construction sector. We have heard some terrible stories of corruption and of standover tactics by some union bosses—not the ordinary men and women who are members of unions, who work hard and go to work expecting their union bosses to do the right thing by them. They want to make sure that when they go to work their business thrives, the industry thrives, and we are not seeing that, particularly in Victoria. That is why we need the Australian Building and Construction Commission—of course, another major initiative for our economy that is being blocked by the Labor Party.

I am very proud of the achievements in the Corangamite electorate delivered by the Turnbull government. Last year we announced a $14 million Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre, an industry growth centre to drive those advanced manufacturing jobs—for instance jobs in the renewable energy sector. A lot of work is going into the renewable sector to look at how we can improve issues such as battery storage to make sure that we are investing in those wonderful opportunities in renewable energy. We have announced $2.6 million for the Geelong Region Job Connections program. There are lots of local jobs creation programs being rolled out across our region, which have really made a difference on the ground.

I am very proud that the new Australian Bureau of Statistics centre of excellence, the national data acquisition centre, opened yesterday. It will eventually hire up to 300 people—a wonderful high-tech centre. Another government agency coming to our region and bringing wonderful opportunities. Only about 40 ABS jobs will actually move to Geelong. The rest are all going to be created locally, so that is absolutely wonderful news.

That builds on the incredible investments we have made with the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The Barwon trial has been rolled out. Many hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent already, and in excess of $400 million in my own region with the National Disability Insurance Agency headquarters in Geelong, which is wonderful.

At the moment there is a tender underway to construct a new building. It will be in excess of $100 million to house not just the NDIA headquarters but also some 400 jobs for people working for the Commonwealth Department of Human Services. This is on top of the new WorkSafe building, which has just been announced, another state Liberal commitment matched by Labor, but again an initiative of the Liberals. We are seeing some wonderful investment being driven into the Corangamite region.

One of the very big focuses in our region is infrastructure. After years of failure when it comes to rolling out NBN broadband we are now seeing NBN fast broadband under construction, or available, to more than 70,000 Corangamite homes and businesses, by 2017. This includes the Geelong southern suburbs of Belmont, Highton, Grovedale, Marshall, Wandana Heights and Waurn Ponds—now all on the rollout. Construction begins in the beginning of 2017 and in other parts of Geelong later this year. Construction is already underway in places like Ocean Grove, Barwon Heads, Torquay and Jan Juc. It is wonderful to see this essential infrastructure being delivered. Many parts of Corangamite were left off the NBN rollout by the previous Labor government—a very poor reflection on the Labor Party, on the previous Labor member and on commitment to important infrastructure in large regional cities like the one that I proudly represent.

Another failure of Labor is that no money was invested in mobile phone black spots. It was with great pride when we announced that there will be 10 mobile base stations rolled out across Corangamite: in Apollo Bay, Barongarook, Barwon Downs, Cape Otway, Carlisle River—where construction will be completed in a couple of months time, which is great news—Dereel, Gellibrand, Kawarren, Steiglitz and Yodine, to service Birregurra. Some 115 of the 141 mobile phone blackspots nominated in Corangamite will be addressed by handheld, or external antenna coverage, and this is wonderful news.

We have our Great Ocean Road upgrade underway. They are wonderful projects for such an iconic road. It is so important and a centrepiece of our $2.1 billion tourism industry. This is the road that Labor forgot. This is the road that federal Labor vehemently opposed in terms of investing in this road. Not only is the $50 million making a real difference to communities like Anglesea, Lorne, Separation Creek and Wye River, where there has been a terrible crisis after the bushfires over Christmas. We have announced the start of construction of a new $4 million Separation Creek bridge. This road is so important that I am fighting for more funding for it. This road is so important for road safety, for tourism and for the regional tourism economy, not just for domestic visitors but also international visitors.

We are duplicating the Princess Highway—another very important commitment—an incredible infrastructure project for our region. The first section is almost complete. There have been some real problems with the completion date, but it is wonderful to see that the Winchelsea to Colac section is on track, supported by some $371 million in total of investment.

We have major infrastructure challenges in our region. The cancellation of the East West Link has been an absolute disgrace. The Auditor-General in Victoria has now disclosed that that has cost Victorians $1.1. billion. This is a project that Labor members opposite—people like the Leader of the Opposition—previously supported. We desperately need a western road link for Geelong, Corangamite and south-west Victoria. It is an absolute gridlock trying to drive to Melbourne in peak hour, getting over the Westgate Bridge.

What is the Labor Party doing in Victoria? They are doing virtually nothing. It is an incredible reflection on Labor that we are seeing virtually no progress when it comes to rolling out the infrastructure that we need in our great region.

Another example is rail. We are seeing utter chaos with V/Line services right across Victoria. It is an absolute shambles. It is costing the Victorian government $4 million a week, yet the Victorian government is refusing to look at one of the most important infrastructure projects that we need for our region: the duplication of the rail line through southern Geelong to service South Geelong, Marshall and Waurn Ponds. We need new platforms and a duplicated rail because people living in Armstrong Creek and all through the southern part of Geelong cannot get the rail services they need. While there has been the Regional Rail Link that has now been completed, of course it cannot be used most of the time because of the chaos with V/Line services. It is apparent that that is doing more for people living for western Melbourne than it is for people living in Geelong and Corangamite, and the Labor Party have absolutely taken their foot off the accelerator when it comes to rolling out these important infrastructure projects.

Another great announcement we have made in the last week is almost $30 billion of additional defence expenditure. It is wonderful to see our defence white paper, which reinforces the importance of so many wonderful defence projects, including the LAND 400 program, and I know that our city and our region are working very hard to secure a slice of the action of that incredibly important $3 billion project.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2015-2016 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2015-2016 gives me a wonderful opportunity to talk about Northern Australia and the importance of Northern Australia not just for Australia's budget bottom line but for the social and economic wellbeing of our whole nation. Northern Australia is not simply the home of our big export cattle herd. It is also the home of our oil and gas industry and our prodigious and greatly capable iron ore and coalmining industries. It is, in so many ways, the economic engine room of our nation.

In the past decade we have seen investment in the resources sector of Northern Australia eclipse even the modern-scale equivalent of the Marshall Plan—which was an investment program to help Europe recover from the devastating impacts of World War II. What we effectively saw in our resources sector over the past decade was a scale of investment some four times bigger than the Marshall Plan, and that investment was carried out in one single sector of our economy, in the resources sector. We built massive capability in iron ore exports, in port facilities, in rail facilities, in coal exports and in oil and gas in particular. Indeed, this year we will see coming into location the Icthys central processing facility and the Icthys floating production, storage and offtake facility. Both of those facilities, in and of themselves, are impressive. But when hooked up to one of the world's largest subsea pipelines, some 500 miles long and 42 inches in diameter, running from the Icthys field into Darwin, we have revealed the most significant resources investment in one sector in one project than can even be comprehended. In many ways, that single investment is the world's largest-ever single financed project. It is financed by bankers around the world—$20 billion of it privately-raised finance—in order to make that project work. On many occasions I am caused to think that the engineering of the central processing facility itself is impressive. The engineering of the third-longest subsea pipeline, at 42 inches in diameter and 800 kilometres long, is, in and of itself, impressive. But the financial engineering that underpins that project is simply staggering.

In the course of the next 40 years that project will generate jobs that will be generational in their impact on our communities, particularly through the Kimberley and through Darwin. That project alone will generate business in the order of $100 million a year, and that is before we discuss the start-up that will happen in coming months at Gorgon, the world's largest geosequestration project, that will happen at Curtis Island when Curtis Island is in full production, and that will happen as we move into enhanced production from our existing iron ore capacity.

The story does not end in hard commodities and oil and gas. The story continues when we look at the great potential of Northern Australia for food and protein production. Out of Wyndham in the north of Western Australia we may well see one of the world's great seafood production operations commence, Project Sea Dragon. One would hope that, in the next few years, that project will produce prawns for a North Asian market, bringing into productive use lands around Wyndham, generating local wealth, jobs and opportunities for West Australians and also generating opportunities for Aboriginal people who live in the East Kimberley. It will also generate an export income that is both sustainable and highly valuable into the next decade or three or four.

Underpinning much of this is the optimism that Australians necessarily and instinctively feel about Northern Australia. Within that optimism there is kind of a traditional craziness. A view that all that land and all that water must eventually be turned to some great productive use often causes us in this place to focus on building dams. And building dams is not what it is all about. Building water impoundments can be useful. Water impoundments can control water run-off in tropical environments that can be important. Building water impoundments to store water for future use can be extremely valuable, but sometimes the uses need to be purpose designed, and we are seeing some thoughtful work being done in this area that may well be a key to good finishing-off crops that will help our billion-dollar northern cattle herd but also some interesting opportunities in horticulture as well.

In a previous parliament as a parliamentary secretary for northern Australia, I oversaw the investment in the Ord stage 2. Ord stage 2 saw a total investment from state and Commonwealth governments of in excess of $500 million. But one of the really interesting developments in horticulture in Northern Australia is actually south of Darwin, where there is very little Commonwealth or Territory money. That investment is to support the horticulture that is driven by Cambodian and Vietnamese horticulturalists and families, who make their businesses work through the sweat of their brow, the incredible energy that they bring and their willingness to find creative crops and willing markets. So okra production out of an area south of Darwin finds its way into markets in Melbourne within days of being picked, and finds itself in a situation where growth and opportunity is available to it, providing opportunity and economic security to the families that are driving those businesses in the horticultural districts south of Darwin.

One of the terrific things about this is that we see pure entrepreneurial spirit being invested to drive opportunities in northern Australia. It does not all need to come from a multibillion dollar damn-building project from the Commonwealth government or from a state government—clearing land, laser-levelling fields in order to, as we used to say, build a field and he will come. Sometimes what we are seeing is pure entrepreneurial spirit driving opportunities, creating wealth, defining markets and sustainably generating products.

In recent months in the Northern Territory, we have seen a range of decisions made by political parties around fracking and around gas production from onshore opportunities. Hydraulic fracturing has been used in the Northern Territory for more than 40 years. Hydraulic fracturing involves injecting water, sand and relatively small amounts of chemicals into rocks and creating fractures that allow gas to flow to the surface. This technology can unlock significant additional gas resources and generate low-carbon energy, jobs, wealth and opportunity not just in the Northern Territory but across northern Australia.

At a Katherine regional mining exploration forum that I recently attended, I discussed the science of hydraulic fracturing with engaged community members. Regrettably, good science has been missing from the misinformation and scaremongering that have ignited concerns about fracturing. Good science by the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency, the New South Wales's chief scientist, who was recently named in the New Year's Honours list and Geoscience Australia and Dr Allan Hawke, the Territory's special adviser on fracturing, show that hydraulic fracturing can be and is being managed safely. Of course, as we expect in Australia, the risks of fracturing must be managed through robust risk and environmental impact assessments and continued environmental management and monitoring. Regulation plays an important part and Australia has some of the best environmental regulations in the world.

In Queensland, the most comprehensive water monitoring program in Australia, if not the world, is regulated by Queensland and federal government environmental agencies to ensure that fracturing and gas extraction have no unacceptable impacts. This program in Queensland involves hundreds of monitoring bores and will most likely contribute even more to our scientific understanding of the Great Artesian Basin. It will contribute more in one decade than we have learned about the Great Artesian Basin in the past century. Queensland gas companies have also invested significant funds to treat the salty water that they extract and which otherwise would not be used. They are either re-injecting fresh water into shallow aquifers or virtually giving it away to farmers for irrigation and to local towns for domestic use.

Queensland has more than 5,000 land use agreements across northern Queensland and through the Surat Basin with local farmers. These land use agreements have supported local towns and those local towns have embraced the benefits of the gas industry. It is not impossible to see those benefits being delivered to the community of Katherine, if the community of Katherine would embrace the opportunity available to it through the resource that is available quite close to Katherine.

In similar fashion, of course, developing the Territory's large shale gas resources through the use of hydraulic fracturing could generate new long-term jobs in any number of remote and regional communities. It could create new businesses, improve regional infrastructure and generate increased royalties to the government of the Northern Territory. Just because science and economics are on the side of fracturing, it does not however remove a broader industry obligation to listen to communities, to properly address their concerns and to build a better understanding of the business of fracturing.

It is accepted that a strong regulatory regime is vital to effectively managing environmental risk. But there is a broader social licence that needs to be earned for the gas extraction sector to be successful in northern Australia. While governments can implement strong regulation to effectively manage environmental risks, only the industry can earn acceptance of what they do.

I am pleased to hear about recent independently run discussions on fracturing such as those that have been organised by the Darwin rural community forums. Companies in the Territory's onshore gas industry do need to contribute to these forums to explain their practices and their potential benefits. But in a world of 140-character arguments and publicity stunts and ideological campaigning, companies need to return to the field of public debate and engage in the kitchens and cattle yards of their neighbours and hosts. Eventually, common sense and the reasonableness of communities wins out and they feel that they understand the benefits and the risks of hydraulic fracturing, and are confident that companies and governments can manage and regulate those risks. This is happening in Queensland. It can happen in the Northern Territory, with the same outstanding beneficial outcomes.

In coming days, on Curtis Island we will see an official event to mark the start-up of the APLNG LNG production facility, taking coal seam gas out of the Surat Basin, converting it to highly energy efficient, sophisticated, elaborately transformed manufactured goods called liquefied natural gas, and exporting that gas for use in industry in North Asia. It is a truly virtuous cycle—taking a resource, making that resource so energy intensive that within weeks of its extraction from the Surat Basin it can be driving industry in Korea, Japan and China. It can be warming homes and cooling food. It can be driving wealth creation thousands of kilometres away from its point of extraction. It also supports outstanding living standards in the towns and regions of North Queensland.

So we see across northern Australia wonderful opportunities that come from our horticulture, from our agriculture and from our resource exploitation. We also see that resource industry under incredible stress at the moment. Price pressure in global markets has placed nickel under immense pressure and has closed many nickel mines. I think of one in the Kimberley, where the Panoramic Resources Savannah nickel asset is in the process of being mothballed, and close to 400 workers are being laid off as a consequence of that necessary economic measure.

Amidst the closures that happen in coalmining districts and iron ore mining districts I also see companies preparing to become so productive and so capable that, when eventually the commodity cycle turns back—and it will—these firms will become global powerhouses of economic opportunity that will benefit not only northern Australia but our whole region. The productivity gain that we are already seeing in iron ore, in oil and gas, and in coal is making our principal providers of these commodities very power commodities in the global marketplace. We will see them joined in the future by those firms that engage in protein production and horticultural production—making northern Australia the province that we know it can be, driving wealth and generating opportunity across our continent for the benefit not only of the people who live in northern Australia but of all of us who live in Australia.

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to take the opportunity as we debate these cognate appropriation bills to highlight how the government's economic approach is crucial to building a stronger Australia and, indeed, how it is benefitting my constituents on the southern Gold Coast. The government's focus is firmly on creating jobs and growing the economy through innovation, investment in vital infrastructure, tax breaks for small businesses, education and training to meet crucial areas of demand, and helping foster an entrepreneurial spirit.

This focus builds on the exceptional work the coalition has done since it was elected in 2013. And that is a point I want to make very clearly today. The coalition has a proud track record over the past two years. It is one that has set the groundwork for economic recovery. It is a track record that has enabled our economy to transition well out of the mining boom, generating 301,300 additional jobs last year—90 per cent of which were in the private sector and over 60 per cent were full-time jobs.

When I spoke on the budget bills in June last year, I spoke about our have-a-go budget—rewarding enterprise, boosting small business and creating new jobs. I spoke about how our approach was reflective of the dynamic spirit that has always been part of the Gold Coast. And I am pleased to report that there are very positive signs on the Gold Coast. In fact, last year the number of people employed in the Gold Coast region grew by eight per cent—which is over 23,000 new jobs. As I said last June, local small businesses on the Gold Coast have embraced the budget and regulatory reforms we have introduced, and that is very positive news for our local economy. Over the past 6 months, I have continued to speak with local residents and especially local business owners and there is a real optimism and excitement that the Turnbull government is committed to further building on the economic reforms we have introduced so far.

This is not about an announcement-a-day schedule that consists of schemes drafted on the back of an envelope to meet a media cycle. We will consult widely, we will take the time to make sure our policies are carefully considered and we will get them right. Importantly, we will balance the twin imperatives of cutting government spending and reforming the tax system as we craft both the May budget and the policies we will take to the election later this year. This is about the economic future of this country, and we take our responsibility very seriously. I know that the business community appreciates that approach. Certainly that is the feedback I have from businesses in my electorate.

Just the other week I had the pleasure of visiting local business and training organisation, The French Beauty Academy at Robina, to discuss how our VET reforms are providing even more opportunities for local people to gain valuable skills. A few weeks earlier, I visited a growing local business, First Class Financial Group, which had secured a federal Industry Skills Fund grant to undertake training that will help them expand their business and product offering even further. Late last year, another successful local business, Global Tour Specialists, secured Industry Skills funding to help their company grow. And I was thrilled when late last year local Palm Beach business Boardcave was offered $466,000 commercialisation funding to take its innovative idea from the drawing board into the global marketplace, under the Australian government's Entrepreneurs' Program.

These are just a few of the very recent success stories in my own electorate. It is through practical programs such as these that the government can support the drive and enterprise of businesses that are the backbone of our economy. I am particularly excited, as Assistant Minister for Science, about our National Innovation and Science Agenda. It is the foundation of our plan to grow the economy of the future. As part of the agenda, we have announced 24 different measures, worth $1.1 billion, to create high-paid jobs and help Australia compete globally.

I can also report to the House that over the last two years of the coalition government more than $35 million has flowed directly to the local community in McPherson, and I have been pleased to support and lobby for a wide variety of local community projects. This funding includes a number of extremely successful Green Army projects to revitalise and repair the local environment and employ and train young people; beach safety equipment grants to support the fantastic work of local surf lifesavers; positive drug and alcohol treatment programs for youth outreach and rehabilitation; veterans and community grants to help local veterans overcome isolation; local sporting champions grants and the Sporting Schools program to encourage healthy participation and excellence in sports; a new base station for Currumbin Creek Road under the Mobile Black Spot program; a range of Saluting their Service and Centenary of Anzac grants to support local commemorations and memorials; funding for the Gold Coast Dyslexia Support Group for a documentary to educate and raise awareness; several Office for Learning and Teaching grants to support research at Bond University, in the heart of my electorate; funding for remedial maths classes for disadvantaged students at Southern Cross University; Australian Vocational Student Prizes to support and encourage our VET students; New Colombo Plan scholarships to help local university students study overseas and to gain valuable insight and skills. There is a long list, and I could go on at length, but that is just a sample of what the McPherson community has achieved with the backing of the coalition government. It does not include our soon-to-be-released Stronger Communities grants that we have been working hard on to prioritise.

I also want to point out the key infrastructure funding that has additionally flowed to the electorate, including over $38 million dollars from 2014-15 to 2018-19 for the Gold Coast City Council under an increased Roads to Recovery program. We also provided an extra $1.2 million in black spot funding to fix dangerous local roads. The federal government also provides close to $4 million each year in additional road funding as part of over $9 million it provides in Financial Assistance Grants to the Gold Coast City Council. The coalition recognises that investment in infrastructure is a key part of ensuring continued growth. I note that the Australian Infrastructure Plan, released earlier, has been welcomed by the government as it provides a positive reform and investment road map for Australia. The plan sets out the infrastructure challenges and opportunities Australia faces over the next 15 years and the solutions required to drive productivity growth, maintain and enhance our standard of living and ensure our cities remain world class. The government will respond to the 98 recommendations in the plan in due course.

Representing an ever-growing region like the Gold Coast, I am acutely aware of how vital long-term infrastructure planning is to meet the future needs of the community. Transport infrastructure is a particular passion of mine, and I have spoken many times in this place on the challenges of prioritising transport planning on the Gold Coast. Today, I would like to speak again on the urgent upgrading that is needed for the M1, from Varsity through to Tugun. This part of our national highway system has become an unsafe bottleneck for thousands of local residents, interstate tourists and those who rely on this major route for their businesses. It has been an issue that we, on the southern Gold Coast, have fought for collectively since 2007, when there was a commitment by both the then federal government and the then opposition to widen the Ml—the priority area being Tugun to Nerang. Logan and parts north of that were, however, the beneficiaries. Whilst that is certainly good news for motorists in that area, it meant that my electorate and the whole of the southern Gold Coast have been left waiting for significant upgrades.

In November last year, in this House, I expressed my disappointment at the silence I had received from the state government, despite my repeated representations on this issue. I am pleased to say that I did, in fact, finally get the opportunity to meet with the Queensland Minister for Main Roads, Road Safety and Ports, Mark Bailey, just the other week. I was hopeful that the door had been opened and that there would be engagement by the state government to look at ways for the upgrade to occur as soon as possible. I hope that I am not going to be disappointed and that there will be opportunities to work together to deliver this much-needed transport infrastructure to the southern Gold Coast.

I have certainly taken the opportunity to meet with the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, the member for Gippsland, and I do congratulate him on his recent appointment to that role. I have spoken to the federal Infrastructure and Transport Minister just the other week to bring him up to date on progress or, in fact, lack of progress in that area. I have also spoken to the Prime Minister. I will leave no stone unturned in my endeavours to make sure that we have the M1 upgraded. The people of McPherson can be assured that I will continue to fight for funding for upgrading of the M1, as I will for a range of other transport options in my electorate. On that point, I can report that I also met recently with the Gold Coast Mayor, Tom Tate, to specifically discuss transport infrastructure, including stage 2 of Light Rail, for which the federal government has provided $95 million. This will enable completion of the second stage in time for the Commonwealth Games, in 2018, which will be a huge boost for our city.

I did want to conclude by pointing out that the Turnbull government's focus on liveable cities is a policy that will provide long-term benefits for growing cities like the Gold Coast, which is, after all, the second-largest local government area in the nation. I certainly look forward to further policy development and announcements in that regard and working with the Gold Coast City Council to ensure our region is able to capitalise on the opportunities provided.

I do want to make the point that these are budget bills that we are debating and getting the budget setting right is absolutely crucial. All of the positive programs and infrastructure planning I have outlined today are dependent on it and will contribute to a growing economy. We will not take the approach of racking up deficit after deficit with no plan to get back into surplus. We will not further mortgage our children's future with unfunded spending promises. We will not burden the Australian people and shackle the Australian economy with tax hikes, because we recognise that only responsible financial management and economic growth can offer the social dividend of support and funding for community-based projects that make a real difference. Ours will be a responsible and realistic approach with a focus on harnessing and encouraging the tremendous drive and enterprise of the Australian people—a spirit, which, I am pleased to report, is very much alive and well in my electorate on the southern Gold Coast. I commend the bills to the House.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today we are debating Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2015-2016 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2015-2016, which are budget bills. With budgets come choices, choices a government makes of its priorities. The mid-year fiscal update, which is part of this appropriation bill, is an update of the government's priorities. Our most recent budget was delivered by one Prime Minister and the update is delivered by another Prime Minister, but the details of the priorities have not changed. There are many things, demonstrated in the mid-year fiscal update, which show that despite the rhetoric of the new Prime Minister, despite the overtures he makes, when you look at the detail—and the devil is in the detail—you see there is no change to many of the critical issues facing our nation, no change to the key priorities of this government. I will go through a few that have been outlined in the budget.

The first is paid parental leave. This is of critical importance and something that I am incredibly proud of. It is a measure that our previous Labor government brought in. This affected many families, ensuring that mums and dads could have time off with their children. I was dismayed that in the May budget the Prime Minister and the Treasurer called a lot of these mothers using their workplace entitlements with the government scheme 'double-dippers'. I remember, very clearly, the reaction of my mother's group when many of them were accused of being double-dippers. It was an insult to so many mums and dads around Australia who were doing the best they could to cobble together leave so that they could balance work and family. What did we have from the then Prime Minister and Treasurer? They called these mums and dads double dippers.

You would expect a different approach from the new Prime Minister, but no. The new Prime Minister and his Treasurer are continuing to ensure that 80,000 new mums and dads are worse off. This became clear in Senate estimates. The Prime Minister's so-called compromise still means that new mums will be forced to live on less and spend less and not be able to spend time, necessarily, with their newborn babies.

It is disappointing that MYEFO has confirmed there will still be cuts to paid parental leave. It is time those on the other side listened to the mums and dads of Australia and to the crossbench that has said it will not support these savage cuts. Rather than bring in a new baby bonus—in a desperate bid to appease the National Party—they should continue with a scheme that is working and supporting parents right across this country. Unfortunately, we do not see that from the new Prime Minister. We still see a lack of understanding of what mums and dads out there with new babies are facing. I will continue to advocate this very important issue.

We have also seen, as a result of the budget and update, continued cuts to health care. For a party that said it was not going to get stuck into Medicare, hospitals or health, the evidence is in. There is cut after cut, when it comes to health. I was particularly concerned when we heard reports that the government was not going to fund the Breastfeeding Helpline for a further 12 months. Advocates right across this country stood up and said how outrageous that was. I got feedback from many people in my community who were incredibly upset that this very important service might not be available as a result of government cuts. As someone who recently had a baby and was breastfeeding for some time, I used that helpline when I was unsure about how to proceed. The people on the end of line—the mums and volunteers—helped, enormously, allay my fears and concerns, as they have done for so many other new mums breastfeeding around the country.

Unfortunately, as a result of the $80 million cuts to the Health Flexible Funds, this service was put in jeopardy. It is an outrage that it took so many people to stand up against this cut before the government reversed its decision. But they have only reversed it for 12 months. This leaves us wondering what the future will hold for this service. It is time for the government to properly budget for the service to ensure that the small amount of money that goes into it from government, and leads to so many volunteers jumping on the end of the phone to help mothers with breastfeeding, is not cut. June next year will come around pretty quickly and the Turnbull government must stop this callous cut and ensure there is long-term funding.

The shadow minister for health was right onto this issue. All of us on this side of the House know that she will continue to pursue this very important issue until the government finally acknowledges that the cuts—and this is one example of many health cuts—will have adverse effects out there in the community.

We have also seen many, many more cuts in health. The other cut in the midyear fiscal update was the very significant cut made to pathology and diagnostic services. Slashing bulk-billing for diagnostic imaging and pathology, as well as cuts to crucial workforce training programs, is a significant concern. It also shows, as I said at the beginning, that budgets are about priorities. By slashing bulk-billing for these types of services the government shows that it has no understanding of preventive health care. Not only have they cut significant amounts of money from preventive health care in their previous budgets, but this measure also means that there could well be financial disincentives for women to get Pap smears and for cancer sufferers to get check-ups.

This is what this government does not seem to understand: preventive health care actually saves the budget money, because if people are not getting sick it costs a lot less. This is the type of thinking that we never saw from the previous Prime Minister. We never saw any attempt to understand that investing in preventive health care, by preventing people from getting sicker and sicker, is actually good for the budget. It is not just good for health—of course it is that—and good for communities; it is good for the budget.

Unfortunately, there is a $650 million cut in MYEFO. This is a very short-sighted decision that will mean that there will be those who fall through the cracks. We saw this type of user-pays attitude constantly from those opposite. If you can afford health care you can get the best health care possible. If you cannot—if you are of modest means and cannot afford to pay these gaps—then bad luck. This is disappointing, but it is not surprising. The Prime Minister has tried to suggest that he is a different type of Prime Minister, but MYEFO shows the truth. It shows that this Prime Minister is no different to the previous Prime Minister when it comes to cutting essential health services.

I will get to education. There are so many cruel cuts that are short-sighted for our nation. Take the higher education cuts. When the Prime Minister became Prime Minister I think there was hope in the community that he would walk away from the savage 20 per cent cuts to our universities. But MYEFO clearly demonstrates that those 20 per cent cuts are still on the table. It is still a priority for this government to cut our universities. Twenty per cent is such a significant amount. The education minister has indicated that deregulation is still on the agenda. That means $100,000 degrees. I am incredibly surprised that we have seen member after member in this place come up and defend $100,000 degrees. It is disappointing, especially, that those in the Nationals, who often represent students in rural and regional areas that have found it more difficult to access higher education, have not been stamping their feet and sending a clear message about these cuts, which will disproportionately affect rural and regional universities that do not have the philanthropic support that other universities have. But they have not said boo. Once again, it is disappointing but not surprising that this Prime Minister and this new education minister are absolutely committed to these cuts, not only to our universities but to our schools.

Schools, as well as higher education, will be an important debating point at the next election. There will be a clear difference between Labor and Liberal when it comes to education. In MYEFO, the midyear update, we saw clearly once again that the Liberal Party is committed to ripping $30 billion out of our schools. Of course the Prime Minister tried to allay fears around this and tried to pretend that he was not really going to do it by announcing that he was good friends with Mr David Gonski and that somehow he understood what was happening in our schools. He needs to actually show that he understands the work that Mr Gonski did. The work that Mr Gonski did clearly demonstrated that to lift attainment right across the country we need a needs-based funding model, a model that is not historic, unchanged since the seventies and not transparent. Instead, he made it very clear that a needs-based funding model would ensure that we can lift attainment right across the country.

Once again, there was silence from the National Party. This needs-based funding model would be about ensuring that students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and from rural and regional areas, Indigenous students and students with a disability got extra resources to ensure that they could succeed as well. The Nationals pretend to be a party of rural and regional people, but when they do not stand up for rural and regional higher education opportunities, rural and regional schools or access to rural and regional health care, you wonder what they actually stand up for in terms of rural and regional communities. I think a lot of communities out there would be scratching their heads and saying, 'Why do you want to rip this money out of our schools?' The education minister, quite soon after MYEFO was released—he thought it was a quiet period and no-one would notice—did acknowledge that the government was committed to $30 billion worth of cuts to schools.

Quite frankly, this election will be about trust. We hear the Prime Minister talking about trust a lot. Well, there was a party that went to the election and said that they would match Labor's schools funding dollar for dollar. That was the Liberal Party and the Nationals. Then they got into government and they cut it. They also said they would not change the funding arrangements for universities. Then they got into government and cut it. It does not matter whether it was the previous Prime Minister or the current Prime Minister, the budget is clear and the budget update is clear. There is a commitment to gutting our health care, gutting our higher education system and gutting our school system.

It is time that the Prime Minister listened to the Australian people and actually stopped these cruel cuts that will not deliver to the Australian people. But I do not have a lot of hope. There will be an election sometime this year, and the choice will be clear: Labor stands up for health and education.

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the appropriation bills, Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2015-2016 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2015-2016. Before I proceed with that, I just want to correct the record. A bit of scuttlebutt has been spread by those on the other side about the so-called cuts to education. Cuts mean that you would be getting less next year from what you were getting this year. That is so far from the truth. We in the coalition are committed to improving teacher quality—that is the first and most important thing; everyone remembers their great teachers—and supporting school autonomy. When schools are in charge of their own qualities and standards, things get better. Engaging parents in education is the important thing that is forgotten. Enhancing parental engagement equates with better student outcomes. We are committed to improving the curriculum and literacy testing of teacher graduates. As you know from the press, these have been documented to be sorely lacking. Also, we have a commitment to more language being taught in our schools.

Down to tin tacks of funding, what has happened since we were given responsibility of governing the country at the 2013 election? Across New South Wales, my state, there has been a 25.4 per cent increase in Commonwealth funding to schools. What the former member, the member for Kingston, was alluding to were hypothetical reductions in blue-sky forward estimates well beyond any budget forward estimates. There will be increases. There is no cut to the quantum of funds. What is going into New South Wales schools has been established, and it will grow by CPI and population growth. So that is not a cut. But I just think we need to put on the record the truth on this matter. It is really quite scurrilous that the members of the opposition keep talking about hypothetical cuts, or calling them 'cuts', whereas, really, they are increases—just not unrealistic, unfunded, blue-sky, promised increases. We are delivering real money—money that has increased 25.4 per cent—to New South Wales schools, including schools in my electorate of Lyne, during this period of the Abbott-Truss government and now the Turnbull-Joyce government.

Getting back to the appropriation bills, these two bills facilitate special transfers of funds to fund, first of all, the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development for a very important program well known to everyone in regional Australia—that is, the Roads to Recovery Program. A signature National Party initiative from over a decade ago, it has delivered the goods across the country both in metro and, particularly, regional areas. There is $385 million appropriated to give additional funding to Roads to Recovery. That means that, in the Lyne electorate, they are now getting $7½ million in the Manning. That is almost a 300 per cent increase from what they were getting under Roads to Recovery before we came into the responsibility of Treasury and of managing the government in 2013. For Port Macquarie-Hastings, there is $11.4 million over 2014-18 now allocated to Roads to Recovery. Again, that is almost a 300 per cent increase.

Secondly, the appropriations bills allow the Department of Health to receive $125 million for capital to establish and deliver the Biomedical Translation Fund. This is all part of a manifestation of the Medical Research Future Fund. Translation funding is when you get raw science and you translate it into a therapeutic application. A lot of this development of medical and biomedical intellectual property requires more research. This will be really well used, because we have such good researchers in this country. They have a track record of delivering on funds in this space—way above their weight. We develop so many medical technologies and do really important research. We are renowned around the world as being really high-class researchers. This money will put that research into a real treatment.

Lastly, Appropriation Bill (No. 4) provides $74 million to bring into action our single-touch payroll reporting system to make it easier for people to interact with the Australian Taxation Office. It also allows the Australian Taxation Office much greater data and analytics infrastructure. There are also funds to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection—of just over $447 million. As you know, the coalition government is committed to strong borders and maintaining control of our immigration program, unlike the disaster befalling Europe.

The social services portfolio also has funds allocated—just over $277 million. The Department of Social Services will get $102 million of that to provide settlement services to over 12,000 refugees from that horrible conflict in Syria, Jordan and nearby Turkey in the Middle East. There are many refugees who cannot go anywhere and cannot go back, and we are choosing those families and people who will never be able to go back into that homeland of theirs, because they are threatened by ISIL.

That department will also receive $11 million for addressing welfare reliance in remote communities, which is a big problem. It is something that has to be addressed, because being on welfare for generations or for the duration of young, working-age adults' lives is soul-destroying and, if we can get programs through the department that address that, it will be great.

It will also allow $186 million to go to the Department of Defence to cope with all the extra transport, logistics and exchange movements that have been so prominent in the recent two years with the conflict in the Middle East.

Everyone is now aware of many of these appropriations, but I want to highlight to the House some of the other appropriations and what they have delivered in the Lyne electorate. First and foremost, the biggest infrastructure project in the country, the upgrade of the Pacific Highway, started at the Sancrox interchange outside Port Macquarie. I was very pleased to have fought for this since 2010. That $30 million project will facilitate and is critical in developing the employment precinct and industrial lands on the outskirts of Port Macquarie just adjacent to the Pacific Highway. The construction of the Pacific Highway is happening at the same time, and this Sancrox interchange project has delivered almost 1,000 direct jobs during this phase and 2,900 indirect jobs as a result of the project. There are 37 kilometres of dual-lane highway. There are about 56 bridges across several rivers and creeks. It is a massive undertaking and it is part of a $7 billion program that will duplicate the Pacific Highway all the way to the Queensland border by as soon as 2020. Work in the 37 kilometres in the Lyne electorate will, if all goes well, be there a year earlier.

There are many other achievements in the Lyne electorate during the first 2½ years of responsibility being given to me by the people of the Lyne electorate, and I want to put them on the record. We have got funds for schools, medical centres, roads and bridges in both the north and the south of the electorate. We have got extra aged-care funding. We have got extra funding for water supplies. We have got disability funding. We have had many projects that I campaigned for that have been delivered, and I will document some of them.

In the first instance, 25 local schools have had grants for the local Sporting Schools program. There have been an extra 252 disability places funded in the Hastings. As I mentioned, councils have had an increase in their federal financial assistance grants, and in the Hastings-Port Macquarie region that amounts to $43½ million over the four years. That includes the $11.5 million for Roads to Recovery that I mentioned earlier. We have had Green Army teams delivered. We have had bridges such as Potts Bridge on Comboyne Road. Two bridges down at Kendall were announced. We have had federal aged-care funding increased from $90 million up to $105 million across the Manning and the Hastings valleys. We have got many black spots for mobile phone telephony in the electorate but we secured for the Lyne electorate $3.5 million for black spot funding in the Manning and the upper Hastings. We have had environmental works done with Green Army teams and Landcare funding in both the Hastings and the Port Macquarie precinct. We have had Work for the Dole projects roll out. We have had expansion funding for Newman Senior Technical College. Wauchope District Memorial Hospital's palliative care unit completed its funding. We have had school funding for St Columba Anglican School, Heritage Christian School and St Paul's High School. So it is really rolling out infrastructure in the northern part of the electorate.

In terms of the previous member's contribution about cuts to health: we have had a plethora—almost $1 million—of funds into medical centres to allow for expansion and delivery of better services at local GPs. It has been so hard to get into a GP in these country towns, but these infrastructure grants will allow existing practices to expand and deliver more hands-on care. We have delivered the goods for Port Macquarie Surf Life Saving Club, which has done a really great job with the almost $100,000 they were granted. The tennis court upgrade likewise has been delivered. The Biripi Aboriginal Corporation Medical Centre Town Clinic has also had a contract which over the forward estimates will deliver $8½ million towards health care. So comments about cutting education and health are absolutely incorrect. We have delivered the goods in the Lyne electorate.

Down in the Manning the record of achievement is even greater. Sporting Schools grants I have mentioned. We have got $37½ million allocated to the Greater Taree City Council, a council that needs this sort of funding. It is untied, but it has also had over $7 million in Roads to Recovery which is tied to roads. We have had bridges at Dyers Crossing and Dickinson Bridge built. We have had the Gloucester Road upgrade. We have had the Bucketts Way delivered. There have been so many long-term infrastructure improvements. We have had three Green Army projects. We have had increases in the NBN rollout; that is another issue that I need to highlight.

When I was given the responsibility of representing Lyne there were areas in the north that were not even mentioned in the rollout plan for 10 years. Fortunately, they are moving through to Camden Haven and into the outskirts of Port Macquarie in the rollout planned for this year. And we just announced two huge new towers to deliver NBN services near Coopernook and over into Harrington and Moorland.

We have had Work for the Dole, as I mentioned. Biripi medical centre has also have expansion funds. We have had black spots for roads as well in the Manning—$2.5 million. All these appropriations are really significant. I have not been exhaustive, because there are just too many little ones to mention. The community grants that we are rolling out will also deliver the goods. I commend this bill to the House. (Time expired)

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

I rise to talk to Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2015-2016. At the outset, I want to acknowledge a number of things. Firstly, we are going to be supporting these appropriation bills which combined appropriate an additional $2.2 billion for the 2015-16 financial year. They will reflect measures in the 2015-16 MYEFO, Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, as well as machinery-of-government changes resulting from the leadership change last year.

MYEFO was released December 15 last year. We are not in the business of blocking the measures in that bill. It has really been the track record of those opposite that they have engaged in that type of behaviour. We are not in the business of blocking supply, and that is why we intend to support the bill. Having said that, it is important to note MYEFO continues a tradition that has been established from the very first MYEFO that this new government—the Abbott government and now the Turnbull government—delivered. They have both maintained a consistency. The consistency has been for MYEFO to deliver cut after cut after cut.

The last MYEFO was pretty much the same. Across a range of areas—be it aged care, workforce development initiatives, healthcare—you could see cut after cut after cut. Also the new Turnbull government is still carrying over the type of things that the Abbott government wanted to do—in particular, there is no walking away from the GP tax; there is no walking away from $100,000 university degrees. All these things have been tucked away, as if they were in suspended animation, ready to come out whenever the government thinks it can get away with it. Judging by the debate that is happening in the other place on electoral reform, I suspect that somewhere down the track you are going to see all these nasties—that we were able to stop through the combined forces in the other place; blocking those types of measures that would have hurt Australian families—resurrected once the coalition is able to. As a result of its engineering of these new electoral reforms, I imagine you will see all these things being brought to life and imposed on the Australian people at some later date. The types of cuts that are still embedded within that last MYEFO are still being brought to us here today.

MYEFO itself is being brought down in the context of an economy that is still growing below trend. It has had to be adjusted as a result of population growth, or lack thereof. We still see as well a government that was elected on a mantra of tackling debts and deficits. Their record in that department is terrible. Last MYEFO, the cornerstone of these appropriation bills, blew the deficit out by $26 billion over the forwards. It was a blow-out of $120 million a day between the 2015-16 budget and the 2015-16 MYEFO.

As I said, before the election the coalition thought that debt and deficits were the signature test for economic leadership. On that basis, when you look at their track record, they have failed their own test. Net debt for 2016-17 is nearly $100 billion higher than forecast in the 2013 Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook. Gross debt is headed towards $550 billion by the end of the forward estimates. Again, it is worth noting that the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook is prepared independently—it is prepared by the secretaries of Treasury and Finance during the election period—and it had the budget returning to surplus at the end of the forward estimates period.

The budget that was brought down by the Abbott government—and now we expect in the next 10 weeks another budget to be delivered by the Turnbull government—did not forecast a return to surplus until 2020-21, and that would be largely off the back of bracket creep. So most of the work of returning the budget to surplus is due to just that: bracket creep. And, if the Treasurer gets his way and is able to prevent bracket creep occurring, it is entirely possible that we could see the surplus go off into the future yet again.

I made reference to the fact that the broader economy is not performing in the way that many would expect or anticipate or desire. It is growing below trend, and that is something that the RBA has been pointing out for quite some time—I sit on the standing committee on economics. The economy has been growing below trend, and the RBA does not expect it to move much further into the future.

There are some other disturbing signs as well. If you look at last week, wages in this country are continuing to grow at some of the lowest levels—as they have for quite some time—we have seen since records began. This makes it harder for families to anticipate if they will be able to cover a big bill with the savings they have; they cannot bank on a wage increase or a healthier salary, because when you look at wages growth it is just not moving that fast.

What is also important to note—and I took heed of the shadow Assistant Treasurer's contribution in this debate where he highlighted an important statistic—is that net disposable income per capita has been falling for six consecutive quarters. This is of great concern, because it is obviously a reflection of what people will be feeling out there beyond this chamber when they are thinking about meeting the needs of their families, paying the bills or being able to fund the types of things that they would like to do. So, it is serious that this statistic has been falling in all of those quarters.

Real living standards, as a result, have gone down two per cent since the coalition came to office, and it would not have been helped by the 2014 budget hacking into the type of support that families, the general community and those people in need are accustomed to and require. They certainly would face the same types of pressures as a result of the 2015 budget and the cuts that have been continued in MYEFO. Again, these are serious issues that are impacting on people, particularly from the electorate that I am proud to represent in this place—from Western Sydney and the seat of Chifley.

MYEFO, as I mentioned before, continues a tradition that has been set by this government. The tradition has been to cut, cut, cut. The first MYEFO that Chifley residents had to confront was the one for 2013-14, delivered in December 2013. It had a particularly nasty cut in it. Back then we had, earlier in the year, finally secured the green light for funding for an important healthcare project. Health care, for me, is one of the key priorities for the Chifley electorate. People in our electorate should be able to anticipate access to healthcare services that are as good as any in the Sydney area. They have had to contend with a lot, where investment has not kept pace with growth in our area. A number of people, rightly, expect better. It has been one of the areas that, since I have had the honour of being elected into this place, I have pursued—in particular, trying to find sources of investment support to be able to secure new equipment for Mount Druitt Hospital. I have fought for some time for us to be able to get an MRI in Mount Druitt Hospital. After a long campaign, we secured thousands of signatures. We eventually got the funding for that, and in that first MYEFO that the Abbott government brought down, in December 2013, they callously cut away the funding that would have provided that vital equipment for our area.

It was a shameful act by a new government that had said they would not be making cuts to health care, and their first signature economic decision in that MYEFO statement was to do that. They were also joined, in this zeal for cutting, by the Baird government. Through the funding cuts of the state Liberal government, New South Wales saw, in an area that is affected by heart disease, the closure of a cardiac ward at Mount Druitt Hospital. It is shameless that in an area of high need they could cut those vital services to people. People basically saw a downgrade of healthcare services in our area from a federal government and a state Liberal government working in tandem to cut the support required. Remarkably, out of the blue, the Baird government, going into an election last year, announced—lo and behold, after cutting funding, after cutting services to Mount Druitt Hospital—that they would put in place an MRI. Bear in mind that they had to contend with the $80 billion of cuts to schools and hospitals that were triggered by the 2014 Abbott budget, but in that climate they said that they would fund an MRI for Mount Druitt Hospital.

Putting aside the politics, I was happy to see that occur, because the Baird government had had a dismal record in terms of healthcare funding, but if they were going to put that equipment in, so be it. We will never turn away that type of support. However, while they were quick to make that commitment to fund the MRI, they have been slow to actually honour it. We have seen them dragging their feet in honouring the commitment. My friend and colleague at the state level, the member for Mount Druitt, Mr Edmond Atalla, has asked them on a number of occasions for answers as to when we can expect to see the MRI at Mount Druitt Hospital. He had asked in May whether the New South Wales minister could provide a timetable for various upgrades at Mount Druitt, including the new MRI machine. The minister answered: 'The project planning for Blacktown Mount Druitt Hospital stage 2 is currently underway.' That was it—no indication. A few months later, in August, he asked again:

When will Mount Druitt Hospital receive an MRI machine as announced by the Government during the pre-election campaign?

The answer:

I am advised that:

The Government announced a $400 million commitment towards Stage 2 of the Blacktown and Mount Druitt hospitals expansion. This follows the $312 million Stage 1 redevelopment.

The Stage 2 redevelopment includes a new MRI machine for Mount Druitt Hospital.

There was no answer as to when. They make the promise in the lead-up to the election but do not follow through whatsoever.

This is, quite frankly, an outrageous delay that is being foisted on the people of Mount Druitt, and they should not tolerate it. As I have said, they have already had to contend with a massive cut to future healthcare spending by the Abbott government, maintained by the Turnbull government, seeing cuts through MYEFO, and we have seen further cuts in the last one. We have now seen the state government, in a grab for votes, make a commitment and not follow through more than a year since that commitment was made. The people of Mount Druitt should not be forced to wait.

Labor in government made big investments in Mount Druitt Hospital. I am pleased to see the shadow minister at the table. When he was a parliamentary secretary he visited Mount Druitt Hospital and announced investment in palliative care at the hospital, which we were very grateful for, and the assignment of extra funding for modern CAT scanners and also extra subacute beds at the hospital, which people were very grateful for. Labor in government had a track record of investing in health care in our area, and from the federal and state jurisdictions we have seen nothing but cuts. This agenda is continually maintained by the types of documents that, as I said, are the cornerstone of this appropriation bill today. So I am calling on the Baird government to finally stump up, to stop trying to get the cheap headlines, to deliver for the people that you said you would and to put that MRI machine in Mount Druitt Hospital. The people of our area, as I said, deserve to have access to health care as good as any within the Sydney metropolitan region, and they have been denied that. We need to stand up to fight for that, not only at the state level but, as I said, the federal one as well, where we are committed to taking on this government, which might be in a different form, in a different guise, but is still maintaining the same type of philosophy that the Abbott government started with, which was to break the election promise not to touch health care, to fail to deliver. We are certainly not going to sit idly by and see continued cuts affecting, particularly, the people of Western Sydney.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to talk about a very important human right globally, and that is women's and families' right to control their own fertility. In the early 1950s a group of women and men started to campaign strongly for women's rights to plan their own families. Family planning as a human right challenged many social conventions and religious and cultural ideas of the time. Campaigners faced great hostility to gain acceptance of things that we take for granted today. Some people were imprisoned, but they emerged determined to work with different cultures, traditions, laws and religious attitudes to improve the lives of women and families around the world.

At the 3rd International Conference on Planned Parenthood in 1952, eight national family planning associations founded the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the IPPF. I am very pleased to say that, tomorrow in parliament, we will have the IPPF briefing us on their new focus in our region, which is the need for reproductive health services in times of humanitarian crisis. I am very pleased to say that Australia is one of the major partners in the work of the IPPF in this regard. Sixty years since 1952, the IPPF is a charity of 152 member associations working in 172 countries. The IPPF run 65,000 service points worldwide. In 2011 these facilities delivered over 89 million sexual and reproductive health services. The IPPF's vision is for a world in which all women, men and young people have access to the sexual and reproductive health information and services they want and need. As I say, tomorrow we will have the Australian chapter of the IPPF in this parliament, and Mr Tewodros Melesse, the director, who is of Ethiopian background but is an Australian permanent resident, will be here to brief us on the work the IPPF now undertakes in our region, particularly in response to humanitarian disasters.

Let us look at the work of the IPPF. They particularly focus on contraception, including the use of temporary, long-term or permanent methods to prevent pregnancy. Of course, in their promotion of condoms they also want to ensure communities understand the protection that condoms provide for prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. The IPPF's work also focuses on women's health, given the great inequalities globally that relate to women's sexual and reproductive health and rights. In some countries, particularly underdeveloped countries in our region, as many as one in seven women will die after becoming pregnant, or when they give birth to their children. Sexual rights are basic human rights but, around the world, they are denied to women, particularly, through violence, abuse and coercion, and through criminalisation and discrimination. Over 40 per cent of the IPPF's resources are devoted to addressing the needs of young people. Under 25s account for 50 per cent of new HIV infections, and girls and young women are the most vulnerable group. Too many impoverished women and girls are trafficked into the sex industry, particularly in our region, and the numbers are growing.

At global, regional and national levels, IPPF advocates to persuade governments and decision makers to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights in their populations, to change policy and legislation and to fund programs and service delivery. Increasingly, we are seeing women and girls as the majority of victims of humanitarian crises. Whether these crises come about through natural disasters or conflict, they present acute sexual and reproductive health challenges. Nine out of 10 of the countries worst affected by poor sexual and reproductive health are in fact in a state of humanitarian crisis.

IPPF is also at the forefront of efforts to ensure that a comprehensive response to HIV is located within the broader sexual and reproductive health framework. The Global Fund was in parliament today, and I was pleased to chair our forum with them—very well attended by members and senators, I am pleased to say. We heard from Dr Dybul that one of the serious outcomes of gender based violence, whether in our regional or globally, is that women are more likely to become infected with HIV. That is a tragic circumstance, where intimate partner violence is more likely to lead to those women contracting HIV. Until we have gender based equality, individuals face barriers deciding if, when and with whom to have sex; whether or not to use contraception; if, when and how many children to have; and how to seek health care. Too many women, in particular, are denied access or choices in those matters because of their lack of empowerment and equality. Every year 47,000 women die due to unsafe abortions. It is one of the three leading causes of maternal mortality globally. IPPF supports a woman's right to choose and to access safe abortion services.

IPPF has now initiated a program called SPRINT. I am pleased that Australia is one of the key partners and donors to this SPRINT program, which is about sexual and reproductive health services provided in crisis and post-crisis situations. The aim of the SPRINT program is to increase, for women and families, access to sexual and reproductive health services; to improve the capacity of health professionals; and to provide better information in communities in humanitarian crisis in the Asia-Pacific, South Asia and Africa regions.

We in Australia sometimes take our own great access to reproductive health services for granted. We believe that if it is easy for us to access services it must be comparatively simple for our near neighbours. Tragically, we are a region which is subject both to more frequent natural disasters—most recently in Fiji and to our north—and we are seeing a great deal of humanitarian crisis associated with conflict.

SPRINT has supported the training of over 4,000 humanitarian health worker policy and decision makers from 81 countries across the Asia-Pacific, South Asia and Africa regions. These trainees then work to coordinate the implementation of sexual and reproductive health services in natural disasters including: in the Solomon Islands when there were floods; in Afghanistan after the landslides; in Pakistan in the Sindh Arid Zone drought; in TemotuIsland, where there was a tsunami and earthquake; in Baluchistan, where there were earthquakes; in Kenya, when there were floods; in Uganda, when there was conflict and refugees were fleeing; in Indonesia, following the earthquakes; in the Philippines, following Typhoon Haikui, Typhoon Bopha, Tropical Storm Trami, the Zamboanga conflict and Typhon Haiyan; in Ethiopia, where there was drought and food insecurity; and in Kenya, when there was drought and food insecurity. All of these were in very recent times and in our region.

Australia is helping to fund SPRINT to train both local peoples and volunteers to be able to implement sexual and reproductive services to the victims of these disasters. The program has been made to integrate sexual and reproductive health with international health emergency management systems in several countries around the Asia-Pacific, in particular in the Philippines. SPRINT partners include the UNFPA and the FPOP. They are working to integrate the Minimum Initial Service Package, or MISP, into the country's Magna Carta for Women, and a landmark reproductive health bill—this is in the Philippines and we commend the Philippines for taking these measures, given they are so often subject to natural disasters as well as conflict within their borders.

During the first year and a half SPRINT reached more than 140,000 targeted victims and provided life saving sexual reproductive health assistance to more than 60,000 people—30,000 were women and girls in natural disasters and conflict areas across three regions.

I am also very pleased to say that we have had a great deal of cooperation with the University of New South Wales. It has launched a research team to conduct in-depth monitoring and evaluation of SPRINT's activities and it has contributed to the body of evidence on sexual and reproductive health needs in emergencies. The work has enabled SPRINT to improve its strategies, programs and curriculum.

ARHA and SPRINT held a joint Australian parliamentary tour to the Philippines and the Thai-Myanmar border, a little time ago, to highlight the need for sexual and reproductive health services in crisis and post crisis situations. There is great collaboration between the IPPF and the Australian government, which is a major donor and contributor to them, and also with ASEAN, the IFRC, the UNHCR, the UNFPA, the UNAIDS, the WHO, the Regional Inter-Agency Standing Committee, the Asia Pacific Emergency and Disaster Nursing Network and the Inter-Agency Working Group on Reproductive Health in Crisis. All of those agencies are key and critical in terms of helping with funding, training, capacity building and they need coordination. The IPPF is in the driver's seat to make sure that for the victims of these humanitarian crises—whether they are natural or conflict created—that coordination is there and it is working.

SPRINT also provides funding to support sexual and reproductive health responses in acute and protracted humanitarian emergencies across places—I have mentioned the Philippines, but they are also in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, Uganda, Cote d'Ivoire and the Solomon Islands. I am very pleased and proud that Australia is one of the key supporters of this special SPRINT program, which is part of the International Planned Parenthood Federation work. I know we will continue to be a major supporter of the sexual and reproductive health needs and programs for people in crisis and in post-crisis situations.

Sadly we currently seem to have more humanitarian crises associated with conflict in the globe than ever before, and the victims in those conflicts are increasingly women and children. Too often we overlook the most basic needs of the women in those circumstances, which is the attention they need for their reproductive health. It is very often a case of rape, of forced intercourse, in child marriages and child pregnancies. I know we all are horrified with the policies and the behaviour of ISIL as it prosecutes its terrorist acts and war in places like Syria and Iraq. Australia understands those crises and understands the sexual and reproductive health needs of women trapped in those circumstances. We will always be at the forefront in offering special support.

I commend the work of the IPPF. I look forward to chairing their forum tomorrow in this place. I am also so pleased that Australian aid has long been associated with supporting women and children, with some 80 per cent of our total Australian aid budget committed to programs and projects which have an empowering outcome for women and girls, particularly in our Indo-Asia Pacific region.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Victoria is being cheated by the Prime Minister and the government, who are undermining possibilities for public transport in Melbourne by refusing to fund promised support for Melbourne Metro. Federally, Victoria has only received eight per cent of infrastructure money—getting $91 per head as compared with $230 per head for New South Wales.

Thirty-five per cent of all immigrants coming to Australia are pouring into Melbourne and we have net migration now from other states. Melbourne will become a city of four million people and it needs rapid expansion of its public infrastructure. We can handle the population growth, as Australia expects us to, but we need the correct proportion of funds to fund public transport so people can move around the city. Worse, until recently the hypocritical Liberal Party were voting with the Greens in the Victorian upper house to prevent the sale of the Port of Melbourne. Ideologically the Liberal Party talk about being in favour of privatisation, but as soon as they get the opportunity they vote with the Greens in the Victorian upper house to prevent the Victorian government having the money to partially fund this themselves.

The Prime Minister says that this nation will grow through investment in infrastructure but he has yet to commit funding to any new projects since taking over. Melbourne Metro now has a business case showing its economic merits. The Victorian government has committed $4.5 billion of its own funds, but despite all of this the member for Wentworth, the Prime Minister, is refusing to match the funds. Victoria may now have to go it alone, paying the $10.9 billion that the project will take that will integrate trams and trains, put a lot of the trains underground in the inner city and connect the outer services with level crossings, et cetera. All of these are absolutely necessary in a growing city of four million people.

We have seen pictures of our Sydney Prime Minister crouching down outside the Melbourne Club, taking selfies of himself on trains and trams—but, selfies aside, as Australians, as Victorians and as Melburnians, we want someone to actually fund public transport, not just take pictures of themselves. The Melbourne City Loop is at full capacity at peak hour. There is no room for more trains. The trains are severely overcrowded—something you do not see in the Prime Minister's selfies. Some of the trains have a capacity of 800 and yet 1,200 people are cramming into them, Tokyo style.

There has been a 70 per cent increase in people catching trains in Victoria in the past decade—40 per cent over the past five years. That is why Infrastructure Australia had a business case for Melbourne Metro ready years ago and has released a new one. Yesterday the Premier of Victoria, Dan Andrews, wrote to the Prime Minister asking that $4.5 billion in funds be given to the state government in order to proceed with the project. Mr Andrews made the reasonable point that Victorians pay taxes to the federal government and they should be returned in infrastructure.

In early February, the member for Grayndler stood with me at the Domain interchange, where the trams and the trains meet each other opposite the shrine, and reaffirmed that Melbourne Metro will be Labor's first priority for infrastructure in Victoria when a Shorten Labor government is elected at the forthcoming election. Mr Albanese said: 'If you leave public transport infrastructure just to the market, you won't get a good outcome. You need a government that is willing to deliver it.' I ask this government why Victoria is being so unfairly treated when such funding is clearly needed for one of Australia's largest and most needed infrastructure projects.

On another topic of appropriations, on 16 January our Minister for Foreign Affairs suspended sanctions against Iran and against certain individuals and entities. Although accompanied by a statement, these sanctions were essentially suspended through a backdoor process. There was no ministerial statement from the floor of this House and no debate. The opposition has been calling on the foreign minister to debate her policy for months. Every Monday during November and December we demanded that this government come into the House and explain the process of dropping sanctions. Surely a substantial step like this warrants a debate in this House. We had many debates when we put sanctions on; it is a disgrace that this House—unlike many other democratic assemblies around the world—has been unable to debate these issues. Members of the coalition have expressed to me in private their discomfort about the foreign minister's apparent infatuation with Iran.

I will list here, for the public record, issues that Ms Bishop needs to defend in public with regard to Iran. The first issue is her announcement in April last year—before the nuclear deal was even signed, much less implemented—that she was negotiating an intelligence sharing arrangement with Iran. Just this week, we read in the Manila Times that Saudi Arabia has tipped off three governments—Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand—that members of the Iranian revolutionary guards were in advanced stages of planning bomb attacks or hijackings of Saudi passenger planes over South-East Asia. The foreign minister knows as well as we all do that many Australians were aboard MH17 when it was shot down by Russian-backed rebels. A plane going down over South-East Asia, shot down by this country's apparent new allies, could easily have plenty of Australians aboard. Not that it should matter if Australians were aboard; any nation that threatens attacks against commercial passenger aircraft is clearly an inappropriate one for us to have such a close relationship with.

The second issue is that the foreign minister quite rightly condemned ballistic missile tests by North Korea in the last few weeks. I remind the House that Iran had ballistic missile tests on 10 October and 17 December last year which were in contravention of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1929. There was not a word, not a peep out of the foreign minister. Yes, there should be condemnation of North Korea but equally there should have been something said—even by people who go along with this Iranian deal—about these Iranian ballistic missile tests.

The third issue is her statement in June last year that Iranian and Russian involvement in Syria should be seen as a positive, given that they, along with Hezbollah and Syrian forces, are now besieging and shelling 300,000 civilians in Aleppo. I constantly interject on the foreign minister during question time and ask her how the bombing of Aleppo is going. She does not respond, but it is totally inappropriate to support Iran besieging the second-biggest Sunni town in Syria, to have Shiite forces in that part of Iran. Again, the Australian government should be saying something about it.

The fourth issue is: last year she floated the idea of Iranian consulates in Sydney and Melbourne, giving Iran a diplomatic presence as it has had in Argentina and Thailand where they have organised terrorist attacks—particularly in Argentina where 88 members of the Jewish community were killed.

On the fifth issue, I would ask the foreign minister why she would consult with Iran ahead of Australia bombing Daesh targets in Syria, given that Iran is part of the problem in Syria, not part of the solution. The sixth issue, most pertinent to the issue of sanctions, is the apparent lack of scrutiny that has gone into the 144 entities from which she removed designation in January which would assure the Australian public that none of them have institutional relationships with the Iranian revolutionary guards or that dual purpose use could be used in military activities.

The foreign minister may not like me or the ads that I have been putting in The Australian Financial Review questioning her policies. She may not like my campaign to have her front up in this parliament. She can ban me from events, as she did yesterday when I was the designated representative with the Estonian and Finnish foreign ministers, but she cannot avoid the spotlight for much longer. We are not going to let this issue die. The opposition is going to see that this issue is brought up at other venues, perhaps in another place, and the foreign minister will have to answer to the public there.

Let me turn to the issue of live exports and animal cruelty. In 2011, the then Labor government worked with farmers and industry to establish the Export Supply Chain Assurance Scheme, ESCAS, forcing exporters to show that they have a plan to treat Australian live exports humanely, and providing a monitoring and auditing system all the way from the port to the abattoir. On top of ESCAS, Labor established the Australian Animal Welfare Advisory Committee to provide relevant advice on standards and practices, and proposed establishing an independent Inspector-General of Animal Welfare and Live Animal Exports to scrutinise the industry to ensure that the sorts of incidents we have seen many times on TV, the horrific treatment of Australian animals that have been exported, do not re-occur.

I am a supporter, like the opposition, of the Australian live export industry. I think it can perform a valuable role for Australia in foreign exchange earnings, but the animals do not have to be brutalised or mistreated. Unfortunately, just a month after the coalition formed government, the new agricultural minister who is now doubling as Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, scrapped the committee and binned the Inspector-General proposal. Mr Joyce's disappointing explanation was, 'This is one bit of red tape we can do without.' In his brutalist logic, he said: 'We all need to be realistic about the fact that livestock are raised for food.' Well, they are but Australia can do better than that. Now, the Deputy Prime Minister is talking of watering down ESCAS. A strong regulatory system is good for animal welfare, it is good for farmers and it is good exporters.

The humane treatment of animals is compatible with maintaining a sustainable agriculture sector in this country. Indeed, the red tape that the minister simplistically described, helps project Australia's image as a clean, green agricultural exporter. Animal welfare is more than just red tape. The proper treatment of export livestock should be a standard to which any self-respecting government should strive. Indeed, the enlightened self-interest of the industry is that there be adequate regulations and that they be enforced. It is this same principle that has seen Labor announce just this week the introduction to parliament of legislation that will ban the sale or import of new cosmetics that have ingredients that have been tested on animals.

Exporting livestock accounts for close to $1 billion of Australia's economic output. Tens of thousands of jobs rely entirely on this industry. Labor has consistently been a strong supporter of sustaining and fostering Australia's reputable agricultural sector, and it is in this light that our reputation will hang or fall, depending on the treatment of livestock in global exports.

Again, the government had better watch this space because the opposition is going take this to the public all around the country, as I am doing next week with shadow agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon and Clare O'Neil, to public forums on this issue where the very many people who are interested in the humane treatment of animals can express their opinions. And we will explain to them the differences between the opposition's views and that of the unnecessary brutality and cruelty we have heard from some in this government.

The attitude of the current government highlights how disconnected the Liberal National coalition is with the Australian people. People in my electorate and right across Australia have made it abundantly clear that animal cruelty should be stamped out. I, and the Labor Party, will continue to fight any Turnbull government plans to wind back the instruments of animal welfare protection, and we will re-introduce the Inspector-General when we get back into government.

Peter Hendy (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my role as Assistant Minister for Finance, I would like to thank all members who have contributed to the debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2015-2016 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2015-2016. These additional estimates appropriation bills seek authority from the parliament for the additional expenditure of money from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for this financial year. I would like to highlight six areas relating to the delivery of the government's commitments that are supported by these bills.

First, these bills would provide the Department of Immigration and Border Protection with just over $447 million. This reflects additional funding for enhancing the management of the onshore immigration detention network, further support for refugee resettlement arrangements and additional support for the accommodation and processing of asylum seekers.

The Social Services portfolio would receive just over $277 million. The Department of Social Services would receive just over $102 million, primarily to provide support services to resettle an additional 12,000 refugees who are fleeing the conflict in Syria and Iraq. The National Disability Insurance Agency would receive just over $108 million for the transition to the full National Disability Insurance Scheme, as agreed with New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. The Department of Human Services would also receive just over $11 million for addressing welfare reliance in remote communities program, which will provide increased incentives for job seekers to work and to strengthen the mutual obligation framework in Community Development Program regions.

The Department of Defence would receive just over $186 million, largely reflecting supplementation for foreign exchange movements and the net effect of the reallocation of funds between operating and capital costs.

The Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development would receive just over $385 million reflecting, primarily, additional funding for the Roads to Recovery program to help local government and councils maintain Australia's roads.

The Department of Health would receive $125 million to be used as capital by the Biomedical Translation Fund following its establishment. The fund will be used to invest in promising medical discoveries and will complement the Medical Research Future Fund through the commercialisation of health and medical research.

Finally, the Australian Taxation Office would receive just over $74 million, largely for implementing single-touch payroll reporting and for improvements to data and analytics infrastructure.

The total of the appropriations being sought through these two appropriation bills is just over $2.2 billion.

Once again, I thank all members for their contribution and commend these two bills to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.