Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am a very, very busy member for Fisher this morning! I rise today to speak in relation to Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018 and related bills. Before I start on my 15-minute journey on this bill: this morning, my Facebook feed came up telling me that it was Mr Leeser's birthday. We tried to send him a message, but it would not allow us to send him a message. For some reason, he has got it blocked. More embarrassment for you, Mr Leeser: happy birthday from everybody here at Parliament House. You are doing a sterling job as the new member for Berowra. I am pleased to say that and to count you as one of my friends—but back to the job at hand.

This is a great budget for the Sunshine Coast because it delivers for all Australians. It is based on fairness, opportunity and security, and it provides and sets out the right choices for Australia's future. I want to highlight some of the best features of the budget not just for my electorate but for the nation as a whole. I will start off with my own patch. One of the best things that the budget has set out is expenditure for the expansion and the upgrades of the Bruce Highway. Everybody on the Sunshine Coast and almost everybody who lives in Brisbane—even my colleague across the chamber there—would know that the Bruce Highway has been a car park for many years. It is a drag. It is an anchor on our productivity on the Sunshine Coast. I am very pleased to see that the federal government has committed in the federal budget $530 million for the additional lanes between Caboolture and Caloundra and another $120 million for the upgrade of the Deception Bay interchange. Just in the budget alone, that is $650 million for Bruce Highway upgrades south of Caloundra to Caboolture. That is an absolutely outstanding boost for the Sunshine Coast economy.

Now we wait to see the results of the planning study that is currently being done by the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads. I had an opportunity to speak with Minister Bailey, the Queensland Minister for Main Roads, Road Safety and Ports, last Thursday. He assures me that they are fast-tracking the planning study and that that planning study will be completed by the end of this year. I have been calling upon the minister to fast-track that planning study. I am very pleased to say that he has informed me that it will be done by the end of this year. That is a great news story. Now we will be able to get cracking on that road.

That $650 million investment into the Bruce Highway is on top of the $743 million that this federal government has already invested on the upgrades to the Bruce Highway between Caloundra Road and the Sunshine Motorway. When you put the state's contribution in, their 20 per cent contribution—as we all know, the Bruce Highway is funded with 80 per cent federal and 20 per cent state contributions—it is a $929 million project just on that eight-kilometre stretch of road.

When you add to that other improvements to the Nambour interchange, this federal government is spending $1.6 billion on upgrading the Bruce Highway between Nambour and Caboolture. That is a fantastic outcome for the Sunshine Coast. Many of my Sunshine Coast local constituents would say it is not before time, and I would have to agree with them. It is very exciting. It will mean quite a lot of disruption for perhaps four years whilst all of that road is being done, but you cannot make an omelette without cracking an egg. I would just call upon local people of the Sunshine Coast to be patient. Please slow down during roadworks. They started last Thursday. Yes, it will take a long time, but, at the end of the day, keep your eye on the prize and we will have a great outcome for the Sunshine Coast.

That brings me to our next infrastructure project. We cannot resolve our travel woes on the Sunshine Coast without addressing our rail situation. The North Coast rail has been a single track north of Beerburrum to Nambour for over 100 years. It is the same piece of track that was laid in the 1890s. I am very proud to announce that, as the chamber well knows, in the budget released two weeks ago the Treasurer created $10 million for the national rail project. That will provide a great sum of money and areas such as, for example, the Sunshine Coast will be able to bid for the upgrade of the North Coast rail line between Beerburrum to Nambour. They will be able to bid for that project. I wrote to the Deputy Premier of Queensland yesterday, Jackie Trad, who is also the Queensland Minister for Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning. I have called upon her to meet with me and also to meet with the federal Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Darren Chester, to work out a way we can get this rail project done.

The Sunshine Coast is being loved to death. We are expecting another 200,000 people to call the Sunshine Coast home over the next 20 years, so we have to improve our public transport. What better way to do that for our commuters and people travelling to the coast than by upgrading and duplicating our rail line. Just as I poured all of my energy into ensuring we got that upgrade to the Bruce Highway, I will now turn my attention to the duplication of the railway line because it is so important to us.

The next issue I want to talk about is mental health. Mental health is an issue that is very important to me and to my constituents. It costs our economy $60 billion a year. Today, five men and two women will commit suicide—today and every day. We have a significant problem with suicide in this country and in particular on the Sunshine Coast.

The budget contains $5 million in funding for the Thompson Institute. I was very fortunate to have had lengthy discussions with the Minister for Health and Treasurer about funding the Thompson Institute, which is attached to the University of the Sunshine Coast. The Thompson Institute will be a groundbreaking research and clinical treatment facility for people suffering from mental illness. On Tuesday of last week the Treasurer announced $5 million to go into three packages. The first package is in relation to dementia research and treatment. The second package is in relation to youth mental health. The third package is in relation to suicide prevention.

I would like to see in the short term—perhaps over the next 12 to 18 months—further money contributed by private sector groups such as the RSL and perhaps from state governments and the federal government to add to those projects, specifically in relation to research and treatment of PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder impacts many, many Australians, particularly ex-Defence service personnel. Unfortunately, in this country we seem to forget that many of our emergency services workers—our police, our fireys, our ambos—who attend accidents see things that are beyond your and my comprehension. Every day, multiple times day, they see horrors that are not worth repeating here in this place. We must remember that the men and women who give to our communities as emergency services workers should be treated with the same care that is afforded our veterans. So I am striving to establish within the Thompson Institute funding for research and clinical treatment of Defence personnel and emergency services workers to assist them with post-traumatic stress disorder.

I should also give a big shout-out to the Thompson Institute. Roy and Nola Thompson are salt of the earth people from the Sunshine Coast. They have contributed over $10 million out of their own pockets to the Thompson Institute to assist people on the Sunshine Coast suffering from mental health disorders. They have put their money where their mouth is, and I am very proud that the federal government has done likewise. I want also to give a huge shout-out to the Minister for Health. He saw the benefit of the Thompson Institute and what it can do in its groundbreaking research, not just for people on the Sunshine Coast but for people around this great country.

I would also like to talk about the NDIS. I have a disabled daughter, and I was the president of the Sunshine Coast Children's Therapy Centre for a number of years before I entered this place. The issue of people living with disability is one that is close to my heart, and I am very proud that this federal government has moved to increase the Medicare levy by 0.5 per cent from July 2019 to fully fund the NDIS. I know that members opposite in this chamber and in the House almost to a person support the increase in the Medicare levy to properly fund the NDIS.

Australians are all about mateship. We are different from many other countries. We see countries, like America, squabble over providing appropriate healthcare cover for their citizens, but in this country we look after our own. We have one of the best healthcare systems in the world, and I have not met an Australian who begrudges two per cent of their income being levied. I have not met an Australian, apart from the Leader of the Opposition, who thinks that we should not pay an additional 0.5 per cent to properly fund those who are most disadvantaged in our community. From my perspective, the world in which I live, we are talking about kids who will never go on to lead lives like our other children. Parents live with the fear of what is going to happen to their child after they pass off this mortal coil.

In Australia, we look after our own. We believe in the bond of mateship. And we on this side of the chamber are adamant and strident in our support for the NDIS and for properly funding it. I call upon the Leader of the Opposition, and I call upon those fair-minded people opposite to speak to their leader and encourage him in the strongest possible terms, to stump up and support Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018. A $55 billion black hole was left for this government in the NDIS funding—$55 billion. We are determined to ensure that the NDIS is properly funded.

Very quickly: another great initiative out of the budget is $80 million being spent on community mental health services for those suffering from a permanent psychosocial disability that otherwise would not be dealt with or assisted by the NDIS. (Time expired)

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Inequality in Australia is at a 75-year high. Wages growth is at record lows. Indeed, wages now are stagnant or, for some workers, going backwards. This is the worst, lowest rate of growth for wages since records were first kept. The people of Australia and the people of Newcastle, who I represent, might be forgiven for thinking that this budget might want to tackle some of those deep issues of inequality in Australia. Certainly, the Prime Minister likes to talk the talk around fairness and built certain expectations around this budget that it might well be a budget to look at this issue of inequality. But, sadly, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer's 2017 budget shows that they have no idea—absolutely no idea—how to tackle inequality in Australia.

Budgets are all about priorities. They are clear indicators of the values that guide us, the direction that the nation is going to take, so they are important documents. They are much more than just a series of numbers, although I am certainly not disputing the importance of numbers. People need to be able to read budget papers beyond the toing and froing of dollar figures. That is where we learn what the real priorities of a government are.

Sadly, when you scratch beneath the surface of this budget, what is very clear is that this government's priorities remain very squarely with the top end of town. That is where they have been for some time now, and there is no relief here for many of the people that we on this side of the House would want to see getting a fairer distribution of the common wealth. I expect that multinationals and multimillionaires will be very happy with this budget and the government's efforts, but, in the community that I represent, there are many, many people who will be hurt.

To start with, when we look at the taxation breakdowns, obviously the government is trying to get revenue, although this government for a long time tried to pretend it had no revenue problem. This is a budget that, when it carves up the taxation pie, chooses to give its priorities again to the top end of town. People earning more than $180,000 a year are going to enjoy a tax cut out of this budget, while everybody else earning $21,000 or more in Australia gets a tax hike. Big business gets a tax cut which is going to cost this budget not $50 billion as was first anticipated; it has now blown out to $65 billion of Australian taxpayers' dollars which is going to big business and multinationals so they get a little tax holiday.

That includes $7.5 billion that is going to the major banks in Australia. We know that most of those dollars will indeed probably be going offshore. These are the same banks of course that in the last financial year have recorded record profits, obscene profits, at the same time as they sacked more than 2,500 full-time jobs in that sector. These are the same banks that this government continues to let off the hook by refusing to hold a royal commission into their unethical practices and predatory behaviour that certainly constituents in my electorate have been hurt by and had their lives devastated by. These are the people that the government continues to choose to back in at the expense of everybody else. It is not good enough. The Prime Minister, as I said, is paying for these exorbitant corporate tax breaks by savagely cutting into the services that the rest of my community rely on. There are savage cuts to schools—and I will come to the detail of this in a minute—our universities, TAFE, families, pensioners, health and vital public services.

Let's look firstly at the school funding cuts. This government is out on the hustings at the moment, purporting to be injecting money into schools and to having solved this issue around schools funding. This is the cruellest con job of all, and the Australian people are alive to it. I can assure this government that this is not an argument that they are going to be able to prosecute with any success. Australian schools stand to lose $22 billion out of this over the next 10 years. In my electorate of Newcastle, we are set to lose $14.5 million over the next two years alone. When this government tries to direct people to some dodgy calculator to find out what money their school is allegedly receiving in additional benefits, do not be conned—because the baseline being used by this government is Tony Abbott's dodgy $30 billion cuts from the 2014 budget. The government are calculating from the lowest base of all, where schools were being entirely gutted, and saying, 'We're going to return a little bit,' and somehow expect the nation to be grateful and that parents and communities will say: 'Great work, guys. You're not ripping us off by $30 billion. It's only going to be $22 billion that you rip from our local schools.'

I am telling you, the people of Newcastle have good detectors for when people are telling untruths. They know when they are being conned. I can tell the government that, if they think this is going to fly for them, they need to take a serious look around. It is not just my electorate. That the National Party is not out there with a massive campaign standing up for their public schools in particular in all of their areas is astonishing. They should hang their heads in shame. They are the biggest beneficiaries of the school funding under the proper, Labor formulated needs based funding. They represent some of the poorest communities in this nation, and not one of them has got the guts to stand up in this parliament and take the government to task, and they call themselves a coalition partner. It is astonishing.

Universities are also in for a tough time, with $3.8 billion being cut from Australian universities. This will increase the cost of a degree for an undergrad student by $3,600. University graduates are also being asked to repay their HECS-HELP debts sooner, when they start earning $42,000, which is really very entry-level pay. The government has caused an issue that is deeply disturbing for me as a representative of Newcastle with the changes to the enabling programs that are flagged in this budget. The government wants to put enabling programs out to tender, into the private sector, and it wants to charge students going into those programs $3,200 to enrol. Let me give some insight into the devastating impact of that. I will have a lot more to say about this in a debate in the House when we get to the higher education bill later on.

The University of Newcastle is the oldest and largest provider of enabling programs in Australia. We have programs that started in 1974. We have assisted more then 42,000 students who would not otherwise have had access to tertiary education or assistance to complete their degree. We in Newcastle are extraordinarily proud of our university's capacity to give students alternative pathways to higher education: 42,000 graduates is something to be celebrated, and I pay tribute to the University of Newcastle, and its enabling programs in particular, for that work. Over the years, I have met so many of those students who are our biggest success stories, making enormous contributions not just to Newcastle but to the Australian community at large. The idea that this government is so short-sighted as to put a financial obstacle in the way of students who already face multiple obstacles to gaining entrance to tertiary education is astonishing. It is truly appalling. It is short-sighted, and this government absolutely has to re-think its position on that. These extra fees are going to preclude hundreds of disadvantaged students, not just from the University of Newcastle but all around Australia. It will very disproportionately impact women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, students from low-SES backgrounds and, indeed, all those students who are the first in their family ever to go to university. That is what we do best in Newcastle. We deliver education that is excellent but has equity at its core. That is what this government fails to understand, each and every time.

Let us look at TAFE, another important education sector. The government is ripping $600 million more out of TAFE in this budget. That is on top of the $3 billion in existing cuts that the government has made to TAFE. We have lost more than 130,000 apprentices since this government came to power in 2013. It is a truly appalling track record. I am so proud that Labor has a core commitment to investment and training in TAFE and, indeed, to apprentices. We have laid out positive plans for TAFE and vocational training in Australia. I applaud Bill Shorten's work in that area. It has been a terrific job.

One of the things I mentioned in the House earlier this week around TAFE at the moment is my concern about this government's propensity to outsource everything to the private sector. Hunter TAFE, in my area, is going to lose the Adult Migrant English Program. It is being outsourced to a private provider that does not have teachers or onsite childcare facilities. There is nothing in place at the moment. There are lots of questions to be asked about its capacity to deliver all of the complementary services that are required in the migrant English program.

On all fronts of education this is a profoundly disappointing budget. I have not even touched on the other great con in the budget, that of the Medicare freeze. The government purports to have fixed the problem. Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth. If you are waiting for assistance, for the GP freeze to come off your consultations, you are going to be waiting another 12 months. If you want specialist consultations, you will be waiting another 12 months for that too, and allied health services, including psychologists, will certainly have a freeze in place until July 2019. Do not be conned about this. This government purports to have learnt a lesson about Medicare from the last election, but I have to tell you that there is not much when you scratch beneath the surface in this budget that suggests they have really learnt any lessons from that. Labor, the party that created Medicare and has always supported Medicare, will certainly be defending Medicare with every breath.

There is no news in this budget about jobs in my region either. For rail manufacturers like Lovell Springs and Moly-Cop, the last manufacturers of springs and train wheels in Australia, there is nothing in this budget to bring them any joy. There is no thought of jobs in the region. There is no money being spent on housing and homelessness issues—a massive issue for my area. Pensioners are getting dudded. The one big regional infrastructure project, Glendale interchange, fails to get any kind of commitment from this government. Likewise, there is no commitment to high-speed rail into the future. This is a shocking budget; it is shocking for everyone but the top end of town. (Time expired)

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

I rise today to speak alongside my colleagues on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018 and related bills. I am proud to stand as part of the Liberal-National Party coalition government, which is delivering a fair deal for Australians. I am proud to stand with the coalition that builds the infrastructure needed to strengthen our economy. I am proud to stand with a government that understands the needs of working families and commits to making life easier for all Australians. I am proud to stand with a coalition that delivers on the needs of regional Australia and gives them fairer opportunities to grow. I am proud to stand with a coalition that does not pander to the Greens at the expense of jobs and reduced living costs.

The Turnbull government's new plan for schools is based on better-targeted funding and evidence-based programs proven to boost results. It will see every student at every school in Capricornia receive a funding increase of between $112 and $653 per student starting in 2018. Our reforms will set Capricornia schools up for the future and deliver fair, needs-based funding for all Australian students. We are delivering the real Gonski needs-based funding model that Labor did not. We are increasing the funding by between $1,332 and $12,771 per student over the next 10 years in Capricornia. We will end Labor's 27 special deals with states and territories, unions and nongovernment school leaders. While we know that a strong level of funding for schools is vital, what is more important is how that funding is used.

Families and small businesses are doing it tough in the Queensland city of Rockhampton. Rookwood Weir, near Rockhampton, is a key economic driver. Agriculture is a key pillar of the Australian economy, and water and agriculture are intrinsically linked. Under the Australian Constitution, primary responsibility for water management lies with state and territory governments, but we recognise that this is an area that requires national leadership. The coalition understands that without a push this will not be progressed, especially in Queensland. The coalition government is reaffirming its commitment to supporting greater water security for the health and wealth of all Australians. This includes the coalition's $132 million commitment to the Rookwood Weir on the lower Fitzroy River.

We can create thousands of jobs around Rockhampton within two years, but the Labor Party, once again, is holding back this opportunity. The Queensland state Labor government and Labor MPs like Bill Byrne are sitting on their hands delaying the project and, along with it, stalling up to 2,100 new jobs. This is in contrast to the Turnbull-Joyce coalition government, which has put $130 million on the table to pay for 50 per cent of Rookwood Weir. Further to this, we gave Queensland an extra $2 million to get on with the job of completing the state's business case required for Rookwood Weir. After a year, they are finally getting this started.

Rookwood Weir would boost agricultural production in the Fitzroy Basin by up to $1 billion a year. An additional 2,000 workers in agriculture would provide a flow-on effect for the entire community, and an additional 2,000 workers would mean more demand for real estate, retail and services. That demand puts money into the pockets of small-business owners across the region. It is also vital for our own water security. Rockhampton's urban water supply will run out once in every 24 years. By committing to Rookwood Weir, we are committed to providing a diverse economy that will support growth and water security for generations to come.

I also relish this opportunity to address the chamber on the subject of the Bruce Highway. The Bruce Highway is an important freight and transport corridor up the entire Queensland coast. It is effectively a lifeline between Brisbane and the rest of the state, especially for places like Rockhampton, Marlborough, Yeppoon, Sarina and Mackay. With huge freight trucks, livestock carriers and general motor traffic, the issue of road safety on the Bruce is an important one. The federal government has budgeted, and not just promised, a $6.7 billion long-term plan to spruce the Bruce. This equates to the biggest project agenda in Australia's history.

My electorate of Capricornia is our nation's official gateway to northern Australia. Already, $700 million of work linked to the Bruce has been completed, is underway or will soon start in my region alone. In Capricornia, on the southern side of Rockhampton, the Australian government has invested more than $210 million at the entrance to Australia's beef capital. The aim of this was to improve traffic flow, improve road safety and ensure that the city remains open to freight and traffic movement during floods. I am proud that the Liberal-National coalition funded the lion's share of stage 2 of this project—the biggest part of this reconstruction program, known as Yeppen South stage 2. The coalition contributed $136 million towards stage 2, which was one of my 2013 election promises. The Yeppen South stage 2 roadworks have resulted in the longest bridge on the Bruce Highway in Queensland and significantly improved access into the city. It also saved Rockhampton and the economy in the recent flood.

There has also been significant spending on other parts of the Bruce Highway in Capricornia in recent times, including: $8.5 million to engineer two new overtaking lanes to make the Bruce Highway safer between Koumala and Sarina; $9.2 million to realign truck access and improve the flow of traffic on the Bruce Highway into the city of Rockhampton, specifically at the George Street and Albert Street intersection; $7.9 million for new northbound and southbound overtaking lanes on the Bruce Highway south of Marlborough; $15 million to fix up the Hay Point Road turn-off near Sarina under our roads Black Spot Program; and $1.2 million that has been provided to the Mackay Regional Council to fix the Horse and Jockey Road and Lansdowne Road intersection at Racecourse.

During the federal election, we also announced $60 million for a four-lane highway between Gracemere and Rockhampton. This section connects the Capricorn Highway to the Bruce Highway at a notoriously busy intersection on the outskirts of Rockhampton where up to 20,000 commuters, on top of freight and livestock trucks, attempt to enter the city at peak times each day. Further north in Capricornia, the Bruce Highway is undergoing major reconstruction to make way for the Mackay Ring Road—$360 million has been provided by the federal government.

But we are just warming up. The Turnbull-Joyce government is spending a further $96.8 million to create a four-lane section of the Bruce Highway on the northern outskirts of Rockhampton. Construction was originally due to commence mid-2018 and scheduled for completion by late 2019, weather permitting. However, the first $13.8 million of the Turnbull-Joyce federal government funding has been brought forward to fast-track stage 1. Work is already underway to generate economic activity in the city. This is strong evidence that our coalition government is delivering real improvements to the Bruce Highway.

I would like to commend the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, my esteemed colleague Darren Chester, for his efforts to get the Queensland state government to finally budge on the Walkerston Bypass. We have delivered a bumper deal for a critical road project in Capricornia, with up to $120 million now on the table to build the Walkerston Bypass. Last year, we committed $75 million to the project, and we have now secured more as part of a wider road-funding package for Queensland, to be announced. This was not an empty election promise. We are delivering beyond our election commitments because we know how important this infrastructure is for the safety and wellbeing of the people of Walkerston. We have listened to residents who, for years, have raised concerns about heavy vehicles passing through the town, especially through the intersection so close to the school—promise delivered.

I have met with Minister Chester a number of times to push for this critical infrastructure, and I am so grateful that he has succeeded in reaching an agreement with the state government. We have delivered well above our election promise, knowing that the additional commitment would lock in funding to prevent further delays from the Queensland state Labor government. Construction for the bypass will start following completion of stage 1 of the Mackay Ring Road project, extending the pipeline of infrastructure construction work in the Mackay region.

The coalition government does not just talk about jobs; it delivers opportunities for creating them. On 31 May, grants will open for the Bowen Basin jobs package. Following the publication of the committee's local investment plan, the coalition government is now delivering opportunities for local infrastructure, business innovation and skills training under three streams. I would like to thank the Bowen Basin Local Planning Committee for their hard work. Their plan is based on local knowledge of the Bowen Basin region and reinforces our commitment to enable regions to localise growth programs. This is one of the only funding packages available for private enterprise, with businesses able to apply through the business innovation stream. It is a real commitment to job growth. This is a great opportunity for the communities of Capricornia to submit applications for key projects that will boost the local economy and create jobs. It will harness the broad range of skills in Capricornia to create more jobs, and I look forward to seeing what applications are put forward. It will provide the Bowen Basin region with a much-needed $30 million shot in the arm, and we are one of only 10 regions to benefit from this pilot program.

Finally, I think it is important to stress that, unlike Labor, we actually pay for our projects. Labor needs to understand that it is called a budget, not a spending spree. Thank you.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to talk about the 2017-18 budget and its effects on South Australia. We all know South Australia has had a very rough time under this government in all its incarnations. In its first incarnation, the Abbott-Hockey incarnation, we know what happened there. First of all, it drove the car industry out of Australia. It drove out a billion dollars of investment in the Holden Elizabeth plant—it said no to that and was not at all interested in a billion dollars worth of investment which underpinned 10,000 auto jobs in South Australia. That is the first thing.

The second thing the government did is that they basically failed to build the supply ships that the Navy needs and is now purchasing from Spain, in South Australia. They thought that it would be better for our shipbuilding plan if, rather than get the supply ships and build them in South Australia, we were to have a valley of death, a very narrow one, and very quickly dissipate the workforce at ASC—and I know many of those people at ASC—only to build it up again when we came to build the OPVs and the frigates and the submarines.

We know that that schism in shipbuilding did not need to occur. The reason why it occurred was that the vandalism of Prime Minister Abbott's leadership continued over into Prime Minister Turnbull's leadership. We know that the same ideas, the same sort of 'Let's just wipe our industrial capacity off the map' occurred. The only reason we now have a national shipbuilding plan, and the only reason why we now see some action on continuous shipbuilding, is that Prime Minister Turnbull has been bullied, or dragooned, by Mr Pyne into doing it. That is the only reason why we now have a shipbuilding plan, because we know that that was not their intention. If it had been their intention to have continuous shipbuilding in South Australia—indeed, across the nation—they would have done the supply ships in Australia rather than sending them to Spain. It was an incredibly foolish decision. We know that former Prime Minister Abbott wanted to build the submarines in Japan. He wanted to purchase Japanese submarines and he wanted to have them made in Japan. This is the context in which we arrive at this budget.

The South Australian economy has had economic shock therapy. Rather than having the defibrillator out, they have attached the jumper leads to the South Australian economy and given us as many volts as they can—economic shock therapy to our industrial base. It is completely unnecessary in the automotive industry, which would have been exporting cars, with the dollar where it is, and it is completely unnecessary with shipbuilding and submarine building. All of that uncertainty, all of that economic mayhem, and South Australia is paying a disproportionate price for the actions of this government. Something worth thinking about is that if the investment decision for Holden had happened a year earlier or a year later we would still have a car industry in this country. It was simply a period of 18 months in which a government took leave of its senses—complete leave of its senses—and in the process caused economic mayhem in my state.

We roll round to federal budget 2017. On 8 May, I opened TheAdvertiser and there it was on the front page, the splash: 'Federal budget 2017: help on electricity prices, housing and $100 million for after Holden closes in SA'. This was obviously leaked to the papers, and I do not begrudge the government their splash. They are entitled to do that with their budget. It is standard operating procedure. We had a picture of Mr Morrison at his desk. A 'vote of confidence' was what the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Arthur Sinodinos, said about the post-Holden funding. It was all hopeful stuff. Then, of course, we had Mr Nick Xenophon who, in a rare moment of positivity, said:

It's great the government came on board to support this proposal for the fund. This $100 million will help turbocharge manufacturing in SA and Victoria in areas where it’s needed most.

So we had this splash to TheAdvertiserto Tory Shepherd, who is a very good journalist—and obviously the government and Senator Xenophon were a bit of a tag team on some mutually beneficial backslapping in the prelude to the budget.

If you were working at Holden, or you had worked at Holden, or you worked in components, or your kids worked in components, or if you were just a man or woman in the street, you could be forgiven, when you looked at that headline, for thinking: 'A hundred million dollars sounds like a lot of money. It sounds like they are finally reacting to the chaos that they have caused.' But, of course, this was a cruel hoax, because it is not $100 million; it is actually two lots of $50 million spread over five years. Then, by the time you aggregate the Victorian bit out from the South Australian bit it is actually $10 million a year. So, regarding this great headline, you would not have gotten the splash if it were $10 million, would you? $10 million for my state, which faces losing 7,000 to 9,000 jobs—it depends on where we are at the moment as the redundancies fall at Holden and as the redundancies fall in the components sector, and as the flow-on effects of that occur. That is what it is going to cost the South Australian economy. We are already starting to see it reflected in the northern suburbs in real estate prices and in economic activity in the area. It is very difficult. So, for the government to come along and say, '$100 million. Aren't we great. Pat us on the back. What a great budget. Here's a picture of me at my desk in Canberra,' and to have Senator Xenophon, who is supposedly the great champion of South Australia and is supposedly out there horse-trading and negotiating deals on our behalf.

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear, hear.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We hear 'hear, hear' from the member for Mackellar, in Sydney. He thinks this is a great deal. He loves dealing with Senator Xenophon. I wonder why? I wonder why we hear 'hear, hear' from Sydney. I have a bit of time for Senator Xenophon, because he is not a bad sort of fellow to have coffee with, but maybe his national vision has become a bit to national and he is not doing what South Australians expect of him. South Australians are voting for him as a regional party and a regional block, and, if he is going to horse-trade, they expect him to get good horses. This must be the first time that we have swapped the cow for the magic beans for the magic beans for the cow, or maybe we just walked away with nothing—$10 million! Maybe we could sell Senator Xenophon a harbour bridge in Sydney or something like that—I don't know!

An honourable member: A monorail.

That is right. A monorail—that famous episode of The Simpsons. The reality is as my friend Tom Koutsantonis, the Treasurer of South Australia, said: 'Of the $70 billion dollars allocated for infrastructure, South Australia received no new funding. No new projects, no new roads, no new spending.' The reason it is so important to have infrastructure spending in South Australia in the period between now, literally, and 2020-21 is that that is when we are leading into the shipbuilding. So, if everything goes to plan, OPVs and the build-up to the frigates should be occurring at that time. It is this middle period in which people are going to be looking for work. We need to keep a trained workforce in the field, working, earning money and keeping their skills up. We had that cruel hoax on The Advertiser front page. On 10 May, we had the headline 'Budget 2017: South Australia dudded, Weatherill, Xenophon say'.

Mr Falinski interjecting—

I hear the laughter from the member for Mackellar—somewhere in Sydney—the nice bit of Sydney. I had a bit of time for his predecessor. She was a gracious stalwart of the Liberal Party. On occasion she took issue with my behaviour in the house, but we won't talk about that now!

But we then had Senator Xenophon bagging the budget a few days later. Listen to what the Civil Contractors Federation SA said—and nothing gets Senator Xenophon moving like a bit of a contrary view. He will shift is position right the other way around. He is highly responsive and agile. He went from backing the budget to running a mile from it, and he ran a mile from it because it is terrible for South Australia. The Civil Contractors Federation SA said there had been a 'dire lack of funding' in the budget for key infrastructure projects in the state and it 'threatens to impact the chances of the SA Liberal Opposition winning next year's state election'. Not that it should be about elections, I might add. That should be the last thing. They obviously are trying to put a bit of pressure on. But it should actually be about people's jobs. It should not be about politicians' jobs; it should be about people's jobs. It is sad that we have to remind ourselves of this.

There are a lot of infrastructure projects to choose from in South Australia—the Adelaide-to-Tarcoola rail upgrade; the Eyre iron road infrastructure project for the new mine on the Eyre Peninsula; the Adelaide north-south corridor; AdeLINK, which is the tram network; the Strzelecki Track; the South Australian regional mineral port upgrade; the Sturt Highway high-productivity vehicle capacity enhancement, including the Truro bypass—I used to go to Truro in my youth; it is a great place, but a lot of trucks go through there—the Melbourne-Adelaide-Perth upgrade; and, most importantly, as this project has capacity to lead to jobs quickly, the Northern Adelaide Plains water infrastructure development. I know that project is favoured by the government. The government are interested in this project. They funded a study into it. Federal Labor said that we would commit to it because there are thousands of jobs in agriculture on the Adelaide Plains waiting to be created and probably hundreds of jobs in putting that water infrastructure in place.

There are great economic outcomes and great environmental outcomes, because it takes sewer water from the Bolivar sewerage works and turns it into water fit for agricultural purposes. This has already been done in Virginia and it can be done in Two Wells, which is the area north of it. I know something about it because I have been involved in water projects in my electorate in the mid-north of my state since I have been elected. We have had quite some luck and these projects have survived even the transition in government. I happily acknowledge Senator Birmingham's role in that. He is from the same part of the world as me and he understands the importance of water to agriculture, agricultural productivity, and the jobs and the like that are created. There is a fair bit in it for urban dwellers as well because it creates supply chains, economies of scale, and economic growth and wealth in my state.

We have to finish on a keynote. In Senate budget estimates on Monday Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development Secretary Mike Mrdak said that there are no additional new projects in South Australia over and above those that were previously committed. What a sad indictment on the government and what a cruel hoax that they have perpetrated on our state. They go out in the media and pump up expectations about jobs, growth and infrastructure, but what do we find? The reality is they give South Australia a big fat zero. We are getting terribly used to it, but this means that a clear message must be sent to the federal government over and over again that they will not prosper and get a vote in South Australia if they continue on this path.

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wakefield for that interesting speech on the appropriation bills. I shall pass on his best wishes to my predecessor and in particular the tone in which his gracious remarks were delivered. I also suggest to the member for Wakefield that, if South Australia wishes to get more infrastructure, he speak to his good friend the Treasurer of the South Australian government and advocate that he finally take delivery of the Royal Adelaide Hospital, instead of holding off on it.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is almost open.

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think that should be Labor's slogan: 'It is almost open'. Budgets are incredibly important to the running of any country and to any government. As a Liberal I believe in equality of opportunity rather than mandated equality of outcomes. Budgets are the keystone to how any government provides both the stability and the platform on which you can grow your economy and allow people to take advantage of all the opportunities that this great nation of ours provides for them. This budget is about growth, providing for essential services, putting downward pressure on the cost of living, and government living within its means.

Every government has a choice. It has a choice between growing the cake so that everyone gets more and fighting over who gets what portion of the cake. This budget is unashamedly about growing the cake. It is about saying to all Australians, wherever they may live, wherever they may come from, whatever the circumstances in which they were born, that they have an opportunity to become anything they want, because the opportunities in this country are completely and absolutely endless.

The problem with running budget deficits ad nauseam, or for any length of time, is that it makes your community poorer. You cannot continue with a government unable to live within its means. An Austrian economist showed many years ago that what happens is that the private sector, private individuals, realise that government cannot keep going on spending, cannot keep going on taxing, without there being a point of adjustment. So the private sector pulls back on its spending and private individuals hoard cash because they know the time is coming. We have seen this in reality. We have seen this in real life. It is not just a theory; it has happened.

When Margaret Thatcher in 1979 brought in her budget that reduced the deficit of the United Kingdom, there were 182 academic economists who wrote an open letter to the Financial Times telling her she was wrong, but what we found was that, in the 1980s, that unleashed a wave of investment that created prosperity in the United Kingdom. For four or five decades, the United Kingdom had been suffering a decline in prosperity. That was reversed when Margaret Thatcher brought the budget under the control.

We saw it with Ronald Reagan in 1981. We saw it with Bill Clinton in 1992 and then again in 1994. Everyone thought that the United States government was out of control, that it would never be able to pay back its debts, that its unfunded liabilities would eat the country alive. Bill Clinton, by cutting the budget, by moderately increasing taxes and then by cutting even further in 1994 with social welfare reform, had the result of reducing the net government borrowing and unleashing a wave of investment into the American economy that led to a decade of prosperity and peace throughout the world.

This is the difference between Labor and the Liberal Party. We believe that people are best placed to make their own decisions—their own decisions—about how they spend their money and the manner and form in which they spend their money, because that is the best way to grow the economy. Labor left us with a lot of unexploded landmines. One example is the NDIS. This is a scheme that helps fellow Australians who, through no fault of their own, find themselves after a catastrophic accident not able to look after themselves. This scheme has gone unfunded for too long. When Julia Gillard introduced this scheme with the Liberal Party's backing, she said that the best way to fund it was with a half a per cent increase in the Medicare levy on all Australians, for all Australians, and we have done that too. We have found that it did not fund the entire scheme, so we have increased that levy from half a per cent to one per cent.

I am yet to meet one person in my electorate or in the community at large who begrudges the idea that they would pay an extra half a per cent on their income tax to fund a scheme that helps the most vulnerable Australians who are vulnerable through no fault of their own and who have no other choice. In my own community I have two such people. One is Scott Lennon. Scott was sailing one day, turned his back at the wrong time and got hit by the boom swinging over because the boat jibed when it was not meant to. He could have died. He got into port. He has had almost 2½ years of intensive rehabilitation funded by the New South Wales government and funded by his insurance at work. He used to be a partner at PwC and now does volunteer work for me. He is going through an extraordinary period in his life.

People like Scott deserve to be supported by government, by the community. If government is nothing more, it is an outreach of the community. There are people like Adam Johnston, who was born with a chronic disease. Adam has been one of the standard-bearers of funding for stem cell research both here and around the world. NDIS will provide Adam with the opportunity to carry out the important work that he has so nobly begun. Why won't the Labor Party support this? Why is it that when they introduced the scheme a 0.5 per cent levy was okay, but when we ask Australians to make a small contribution, to ensure people like Scott and Adam get the funding and support they require, they are opposed? Why do they continue to argue about how the cake is sliced rather than standing with us to grow the cake?

In my community, everywhere I go, people say to me, 'Look, we understand that we have to play our part to get the budget back into surplus and to pay off the debt that the Labor Party left us with, but why are we the only people accepting that burden?' Whether they be superannuants or pensioners, that is a common theme that I get. The fact of the matter is that the government is taking steps on its own. We have reduced spending growth to the lowest level since the Whitlam government was elected. No other government has achieved what we have achieved in reducing spending. There are a lot of people in the Public Service, a lot of people in Canberra, who have made sacrifices to ensure that this is the case, but we are delivering more with less.

This budget is not about tax increases. The real story about this budget is the spending restraint that this government is showing. It is for all Australians to show that we are committed to paying our way. The thing is, you cannot have a budget deficit that does not stop. As Irving Kristol once said, it takes a lot longer for things to stop than you think and then they stop a lot faster than you want. It is important that this House, this parliament, show that we are serious—that we are part of the solution, not part of the problem. After all, we created the problem of these debts and deficits and therefore we have to more than play our part.

Look at the infrastructure deficit. Members of my community pay a lot of tax. They do not get a lot of government services and frankly they do not ask for a lot either, but of the 10 most congested roads three either are on the northern beaches of Sydney or service the northern beaches of Sydney. We have the option of only one form of transport on the northern beaches, and that is road. That is why what Minister Chester has done in creating the national rail passenger fund is so critical for our area. I spoke to Minister Chester last night. I have strongly put the case for a metro to the new hospital being built at Frenchs Forest, between Chatswood and Frenchs Forest. This rail line, this metro, would open up so many opportunities for people to use other forms of transport, rather than their car and buses. It would create a seamless link for people to get to the hospital and get to wherever their jobs and work might be. It is a critical part of unclogging the roads of the northern beaches and improving the lives of so many who give so much and ask for so little.

When I spoke to Minister Chester last night I said to him that the time for us to dillydally on this has ended. We need to get the money for this train, which has been planned since Bradfield put the plans in place in 1932. By getting this extra funding, hopefully, the state government can accelerate its rollout of these trains and this line. I will be speaking to the state minister for transport and strongly arguing that he make an application to this fund as part of that process.

Then there are our roads. Not a day goes by when a member of my local community does not say, 'Not only are our roads congested; look at the state of them!' I have been able to wrangle out of Minister Chester another $2 million to improve the roads in our area and make sure that they live up to the standards that any person living on the northern beaches should expect and that most other people in Australia enjoy. Look at major truck accidents. There have been five in the last five years. We have had four large vehicles roll over. Fortunately, none of them crushed anyone, but they all caused major incidents and it was only by the grace of God that no-one got killed. In Mona Vale, we had a tanker that blew up. It blew up next to residential housing and major businesses that employ nearly 2,000 people. This is not good enough in Australia in the 21st century. I will be advocating for the state government to make application for the heavy truck safety fund to improve these roads and to improve the situation, and for that solution to be indelible—not makeshift solutions, but actual solutions that allow people to go about their work without fear of a truck rolling over.

While we have one of the most beautiful areas in the world, we also have some of the most expensive housing in the world. The average price of a house on the northern beaches is now about $1.6 million. I met with Paul Maddock, David Muir and other residents of Avalon, who made the point that what they worry about is the fact that their children will not be able to enjoy the same standard of living that they enjoyed and will not be able to enjoy the same opportunities that they enjoyed. We all know that the answer to housing affordability is more supply and better transport. This budget goes some way to delivering that. The other thing that this budget does is give first home buyers a faster pathway to owning their first home. The superannuation savings account, which will have the same tax concessions as a superannuation fund, will allow first home buyers to save money 30 per cent faster than they would otherwise, the release of Defence lands and the release of the billion-dollar fund to assist state governments to rollout the supply of housing through improved infrastructure are all things that will put downward pressure on the cost of housing on the northern beaches. This is critical for our children and for our children's children.

Pensioners in my area have suffered the brunt and the burden of what we are trying to do to restore integrity to our budget, so I was pleased that Minister Porter listened to so many on our side of this House when he restored the concession card for pensioners. People like Ralph and Lillian Schubert, who have not asked for anything in life, who have worked hard, who have paid taxes, who have made a massive contribution to Australia through World War II and onwards and who continue to make a massive contribution to our community, will now enjoy the same benefits that they have always enjoyed, whether it is reduced rates at RMS, reduced rates for CTP insurance or reduced rates generally. This budget allows them to live their lives to the full extent that they should.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The 2017-18 federal budget was a budget from a Prime Minister who has lost the confidence of the Australian people and is fighting for his political survival. The Prime Minister delivered a budget with one objective in mind: to save his own job. It is a budget that purports that the Prime Minister is listening to the Australian people when in fact the Prime Minister is simply listening to the polls that are published in the newspapers every week or so. This is a budget, when carefully analysed, that has no clear direction for anyone: there is no underlying strategy, no long-term plan or vision and no core values to it. It is a budget that is—to use a common term—'all over the shop'. It provides no certainty or confidence for any sector in the community.

The Prime Minister has indeed abandoned the unfair cuts that were on the agenda since 2014. He abandoned them because he knew that they were unfair, he knew that there were harsh and he knew that they had been rejected by the Australian people. These were cuts like those proposed for paid parental leave or the five-week wait for Newstart, cuts to young people between the ages of 22 and 24, scrapping family tax benefit part A and part B, scrapping the pensioner education supplement and entry payment, and cutting the pension to migrant pensioners. These were all propositions that for the last three years have been constantly rejected by the Australian people and in turn opposed by Labor. Because of that constant opposition the government finally got the message that they would never get through this parliament. That is the only reason that they were cut only earlier this month. It is not because this government has changed its views on those issues or that it has softened its heart on them; it simply walked away from them because it knew it could not get through the parliament.

Budgets are not only about priorities but also about management of the nation's finances. It is a responsibility that this government has failed badly on. Let us not forget the government has now been in office for four years. This constant rhetoric about fixing up Labor's mess, in my view, has run its course. After four years, if the government is unable to balance its budget and get its finances in order, it has no-one to blame but itself. Indeed, with respect to the government failing badly, only yesterday again we heard that as recently as this budget, it appears that there is another $2 billion shortfall as a result of their so-called bank tax that was going to bring in some $6 billion plus. It now appears that those figures themselves are questionable. In the space of a couple of weeks we have found a $2 billion problem with the proposal, and again that is because the Treasurer and the Prime Minister simply do not know what they are doing. They put up proposals on the run that have not been carefully worked through, which, unsurprisingly, when you analyse them, simply do not stack up.

Let us have a look at this budget. It is a budget that brings in revenue for the coming year of $433.5 billion. The expenditure is $459.7 billion, which leaves a deficit of $29.4 billion this year. The government claims that the budget will return to surplus in four years time in 2021. I make two observations about that claim. Firstly, it is dependent on three per cent growth. That in itself is an optimistic assumption if you look at the figures in recent years. Secondly, I doubt very much both the Prime Minister and the Treasurer will be here in 2021 to be held to account for those claims. It is easy to make claims and projections when you will not necessarily be there to be held to account. It is also a budget that has a gross national debt that will peak at some $725 billion in 10 years time. That is a staggering figure. I can recall when gross national debt was $200 billion or $300 billion, and everyone was standing up in this place saying how terrible that was, yet this is a budget that will preside over a gross national debt that is going to reach three quarters of a trillion dollars.

We have the tax revenue to GDP ratio currently at 23.8 per cent, and that will rise to 25.4 per cent. Again, that is the highest tax revenue to GDP ratio in a decade, and this is a budget that again raises taxes as well. If you look at all those statistics, you can see for yourself—and it paints a very clear picture—that this government has in fact lost control over this budget. It is a budget where we see $22.3 billion of education funding being cut and we see increases in university fees that force graduates to pay more and to repay their HECS debts even sooner, as well as the cuts to TAFE funding. On all the education levels we see huge cuts, but we do not see the same applied to big business, which we are going to provide with a $65 billion handout. It is a budget that also does not lift the very hurtful Medicare freeze for another two to three years, and I want to talk about that in more detail in just a moment.

All of these harsh measures are being included in this budget, while simultaneously the government talks about a $65 billion cut to company taxes. We know that $24 billion of that has already gone through, but there is some $40-odd billion still to come. The reality is that most of that cut will go to big corporates and to investors that probably reside overseas, so there is likely to be very little benefit to the Australian economy as a result of it. Indeed, my understanding is that, at best, it might be a benefit of one per cent over the next 20 years, if you can believe government figures, and personally I do not. Even if you did, that is at best what it is likely to produce, when simultaneously we make billions of dollars off cuts to education, which would have otherwise added to the GDP of this country by a much higher amount than that.

I want to turn to the health portfolio for just a moment, because the government seems to be making a big deal about the fact that it is going to lift the Medicare freeze. So it should, given that the freeze has now been around for several years. But the freeze is only going to be lifted for children under 16 and concession card holders from July 2017—that is, from this year. The freeze is going to be lifted for very few people. In fact, I believe it has been costed at around $9 million. That is the total sum of the so-called freeze for this year. For GPs and specialists, it will be a year later when the freeze is lifted. For specialist procedures and allied health professionals, the freeze will be lifted in 2019—in two years time. For diagnostic imaging, perhaps it will be lifted in 2020.

The freeze is already hurting people throughout the country. I have no doubt about that at all, because doctors cannot continue to maintain their fees on the basis of what they were several years ago. I want to quote from a letter from a podiatry provider in my region, who has several outlets. I am not going to name the podiatrist, but I quote directly from a letter that has been provided to the patients of that service: 'Due to the federal government's decision to continue with the Medicare freeze on medical and allied health Medicare rebates, we can no longer continue to bulk-bill Medicare patients. Given this change, the full service fee of $63 will need to be paid on the day of the appointment. This was not a decision taken lightly; however, due to the short-sightedness of the federal government and their decision to freeze the rebate for an unreasonable eight-year period, we had no choice.'

That letter says it all. They have put up with it for several years, but they cannot continue for eight years at one level of rebate from Medicare. So they have had to increase their fees, which now means that when patients go to that service, unless they can pay the full $63 up-front, they cannot get the service. Patients that cannot afford the $63 clearly will not be able to get the service at all, because they will not go there. Yes, with the $63 there will be a Medicare rebate, but the issue is that it has to be paid up-front.

In a similar vein, I turn to the aged-care sector. I frequently speak to aged-care providers and people who have family members getting aged-care services. The message I get back very clearly and very loudly is that the ACAT assessment process is in total disarray. The allocation of packages has become a nightmare. In fact, it is more spin than reality. Level 3 and level 4 packages for the most needy either are simply not available or are available in a year and a half or two years time when, regrettably, the person in need may not still be with us.

I want also to turn to another matter that affects the aged, and that is the Meals on Wheels service throughout this country. They asked for $5 million in additional funding in this budget plus another $300,000 over two years to support their structure. Madam Deputy Speaker, as I am sure you would know, members from all sides of this House come into this place and talk about the value of the Meals on Wheels service for their communities across Australia. It is a value that nobody would deny. But it is one thing to talk about how important the service is and how good it is, and it is another to come into the House and stand up for it. The government is clearly not standing up for it with this budget, because it is my understanding that the $5 million in funding has not been provided to Meals on Wheels.

This is an organisation that in my own electorate has 145 volunteers delivering meals to about 210 people. Fifty to 80 per cent of the cost of the meal is actually paid for by the person themselves, and these are quite often people who are confined to their own homes because of limited mobility. They are elderly people who need a bit of support, and you have volunteers providing it. It comes at a cost saving to the government, when you carefully analyse what they do, and yet it cannot find $5 million to ensure that they get the service without having to put their hand in their own pocket again. I think it is damning of this government that it could not find that money.

With respect to local issues, I will talk about the Northern Community Legal Centre, in my region of Adelaide. Again, because of the cuts in past budgets of this government there is uncertainty about what that service can do beyond this financial year. Its services are in limbo. This comes at a time when the service is going to be confronted with its greatest need, because GM-H is going to be closing later this year, and the centre is in the midst of the region that will be hit the hardest by that closure. It is a service that, undoubtedly, will be needed more than ever before, yet it is uncertain about its future because of funding cuts made by this government in previous budgets. Yes, I am aware that there has been some money reinstated, or that cuts that were proposed will not go through as a result of a reversal made by this government, but the original cuts do stand, and that is hurting this service.

In the moments I have left I will talk about the issue of this budget and South Australia. Once again, South Australia has been dudded by a budget of this government. I heard the member for Wakefield earlier make similar remarks, and he is absolutely right. If you look at the budget, you will see that there is not one new infrastructure project funded in this budget. I have heard South Australian Liberal members come into the chamber and try to defend the budget position by talking about some minuscule projects that have been provided in previous years or in the lead up to the budget. The value of those projects is a drop in the bucket. More importantly, they claimed that the reason there are no infrastructure dollars for South Australia in this budget is that the South Australian government did not put any bids in. That is absolute nonsense. There were bids in already from previous years. But even if you want to accept that as being the fact, where were the South Australian Liberal members when they should have been standing up for their state and putting in their own bids? I remind them that it was only two or three years ago that the former member for Boothby put in a bid for the extension of South Road—down the Flinders hospital end of South Road—worth, I think, $1.7 billion. He came into the chamber and claimed credit for having done that, although that project was not a priority project for South Australia. The point I make is simply that if members want to blame the South Australian government they need to look at themselves first, because, unlike previous members of their party who stood up for South Australia and came into this chamber with projects, the current ones did not. So do not blame the South Australian government—that in itself is dishonest—but look at yourselves.

Finally, yes, there have been a few dollars returned to South Australia in the form of the reinstatement of the SA local road funding supplement. I say again: do not crow about that, because that is money that was always there, that was taken away for two years and has now been reinstated. How generous is it when you reinstate something that you had already taken away? As I said at the outset, this is a budget that is designed simply to save the future of the Prime Minister.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate on the appropriation bills, because this is a budget that provides fairness, security and opportunity. It is a budget that means a great deal to many people in my electorate. It is a budget that is going to build on the strong economic management this government is delivering. This budget tackles the big issues, the problems and challenges that many of my constituents face. So many of those problems and challenges are met in this budget. We are guaranteeing Medicare. We are providing funding for the NDIS to make it sustainable rather than a scheme that has a $55 billion black hole, as was the case under the Labor proposal. We have measures in this budget through a modest increase in the Medicare levy to make the NDIS sustainable. No-one will argue with that, except, perhaps, the Leader of the Opposition. I know that good members on the other side of the chamber believed that the 0.5 per cent increase in the Medicare levy is an appropriate move to ensure that those who depend on the services of the NDIS can sleep peacefully, knowing that the scheme is funded and that they will have access to the services that they rightly deserve and that they need so much.

We are investing $1 billion more to add new medicines to the PBS. We are delivering an additional $18.6 billion for schools over the next 10 years. This is in stark contrast to Labor, who had nothing but an education policy morass, an unfunded thought bubble that was never ever going to be provided. In fact, Labor had not provided the money; it was never in any budget. There was no funding for their alleged education policy in the budget. This budget provides $18.6 billion to ensure that our schools are properly funded going forward over the next 10 years.

We are keeping the instant asset write-off, which is so popular with businesses, to allow small businesses to prosper and grow and to allow them write off 100 per cent of the cost of assets up to $20,000. It is a great measure, which was warmly received by the business community when it was first announced, and I know that small businesses in Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour, Kempsey, Macksville and South West Rocks appreciate the fact that the instant asset write-off will continue for a further 12 months.

This budget guarantees 15 hours a week of preschool. We are expanding the ParentsNext program. It is a great program which is encouraging young people with small children to participate in the workforce. It is helping to remove the barriers that are preventing many young people with caring responsibilities for children from getting back into the workforce. It can be difficult enough to find a job, but if you are facing the additional challenge of caring for very young children at a time when you do not have a great deal of work experience, you may not have many employment opportunities. ParentsNext is a great program. I know that helping people into work is a great passion for you, Madam Deputy Speaker Bird, and I think that you would certainly applaud the expansion of ParentsNext and the work that it does of giving young people a chance to work towards the goal of having young children see their parents going to work and see all of the benefits that come with work.

There are some 12,000 businesses in my electorate. Unlike those in large capital cities, we in regional Australia are absolutely dependent on small business as the major driver of employment growth and employment opportunity. To a great extent, we do not have the large corporates in regional Australia. Therefore, so much of the heavy lifting is done by small business. This budget supports small business through the extension of the instant asset write-off and through the reduction of the tax rate to 27½ per cent for companies with a turnover of up to $10 million. That is a very welcome measure providing for better taxation treatment for small business, allowing them to grow and allowing them to employee more Australians. It is a very important measure indeed.

This budget also provides funding to ensure that the election commitments that I made in the run-up to the last election can be completed. These include the ongoing work on the Pacific Highway, the upgrade of Port Macquarie Airport, the upgrade of the amenities block at Oxley Oval in Port Macquarie, the allied health facility at Southern Cross University in Coffs Harbour and the upgrade of the jetty foreshores in Coffs Harbour. The $2 million for Kempsey Cinema was provided some time back. This budget will provide that those funds will be available when construction is ready to start. There is funding for the promised CCTV for Kempsey, South West Rocks and Crescent Head and for the closed-circuit TV and security upgrades for the jetty area around Coffs Harbour. These are important measures that were previously announced, but the money is provided under this budget.

In the electorate of Cowper, some 55 per cent of locals are over the age of 55. This budget has a number of measures that I believe will be very important for those older Australians. There is the one-off energy assistance payment. Also, some 93,000 pensioners will have their concession card restored. These are very important measures which will be welcomed by the people that I represent.

With regard to the NDIS, in the electorate of Cowper there are some 5,000 people who live with a significant disability and depend on the NDIS. Under this budget, under this government, the services that they require will be fully funded. That will, I think, add a great deal of security for those Australians. As usual, we are fixing up Labor's mess. Labor promised an NDIS, but they did not fund it. It is great to hear the reports that the majority of the shadow cabinet in the ALP supported the proposed increase in the Medicare levy. We welcome that support. I know many members opposite agree with the fact that a half per cent levy is an appropriate contribution. If you are on a low income, you make a very modest contribution; if you are on a high income, you make a much higher contribution. That is fair and reasonable. But I think that, as a matter of principle, all Australians should make some contribution to assist those who are living with a disability. I think it is part of being Australian to help someone who needs a bit of a hand, and this increase in the Medicare levy will do that.

With regard to child care: every child in Cowper will be guaranteed 15 hours of preschool each week in the year before they start school, to help the children and their families be better prepared for when they start formal schooling—a very important measure. There are some 8,000 families in Cowper who are using government-supported childcare places—an important measure.

Turning to school funding, I think the $18.6 billion investment over 10 years and the proposals that have been put forward by the Minister for Education and Training, Senator Birmingham, are a very complete package. There is transparent funding. The formula takes into account those schools with a low socio-economic status and those schools that may have children with a disability or particular challenges. It is a comprehensive formula that aims to ensure that our schools have the resources that they need to provide high-quality education over the next 10 years. That is in stark contrast to Labor, who had an education package that, again, was unfunded.

If I look at some of the schools around my area, there is an increase of $12 million for Port Macquarie High School; an increase of $9 million for 'Jetty High', in Coffs Harbour; an increase of $19 million for Macleay Vocational College, a great local school that does a great job in providing kids who have significant challenges in the school system with a great education and gives them hope and a future; $6 million for Macksville High School; and around $6 million for Bellingen High School. It is a great increase in education funding.

On the subject of jobs, this government is absolutely focused on ensuring that it creates as many opportunities as it can. That is why it is continuing the $5.6 billion commitment to the highway. I know that people in my home town of Coffs Harbour, in the electorate of Cowper, are very interested in the progress on the Coffs Harbour bypass. Work is progressing. I can say that there have been significant property acquisitions on the proposed route. We have a designated route. Work is progressing apace to formalise the final design so that we can make some significant decisions with regard to the design of that project—whether the hills around Coffs Harbour are traversed by a cut or they are traversed by tunnelling or a combination of both.

There is a lot of detailed work being done with regard to the geotechnical work. A lot of resources are being expended and a lot of traffic planning is occurring. The New South Wales government is developing its business case, and, at a federal level, we are waiting to receive that business case from the New South Wales government. We certainly welcome the work that has occurred to date. A lot of interesting information has come out of the traffic studies that have occurred with regard to the likely impact of the bypass on the traffic flows around Coffs Harbour itself. A lot of interesting work has come out of the test drilling with regard to the implications for the final design and the decision as to whether it is a cut or a tunnel to get around Coffs Harbour.

I also welcome the fact that this is a responsible budget that is returning our finances to surplus. We will have the budget back in the black by 2021, a surplus of some $7.4 billion. This is in stark contrast to the good old member for Lilley—who could forget the member for Lilley!

I was sitting in the chamber when he announced those four surpluses: 'The four surpluses I announce tonight.' As with their funding for their education reforms and as with their funding for the NDIS, the surpluses were only a mirage—nothing but a mirage.

This government is about putting in place responsible economic measures that will ensure that we get the budget back into surplus. We will be making multinationals pay their fair share of tax. We will be introducing a levy on the big banks so that they make a contribution to the task of budget repair. The major banks receive very significant support from the government through the guarantees that the government provided. I think it is only appropriate that the banks do their fair share of the heavy lifting with regard to the budget repair process.

I would love to speak for a moment on Landcare. There was $1.1. billion announced in this budget to continue the great work that is being done by Landcare. There are some 5,400 groups around the country and some 100,000 volunteers doing a great job in improving their local environment locally, but collectively all of those groups are creating real environmental differences at a national level. It is a really great program. There is lots of good work happening with local community groups on the ground and lots of work happening on farms. People are not widely aware of the fact that there is very significant work being done with regard to Landcare on farms—a partnership between farmers and the government in improving the quality of farmland and, in some cases, restoring degraded land. It is producing great outcomes. It is increasing our productivity, which is increasing our national wealth, and, at the same time, improving our environment. Landcare is a great program. I am delighted to see that additional funding in the budget is being realised. It is very important work that is being done.

We believe that we should support those in need. I spoke on the NDIS and with regard to those who receive unemployment benefits, for example. This budget makes provision for some significant additional obligations with regard to those receiving benefits, and, I think, that is only fair.

This is a budget that sets us up for the future. It is a very responsible budget. It is a budget that will create jobs and opportunities in regional Australia. It is a budget that is right for the time. Very importantly, it is a budget that will return us to surplus. It is a budget in which the measures are funded. This is in stark contrast to so many of the policies by the members opposite, which are spectacular in their lack of funding. I certainly commend these budget bills to the House.

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members may not be aware of this, but Tourism NT, an agency in the Northern Territory Department of Tourism and Culture, has commenced a new advertising blitz. Known as It's About Time … Do the NT, the campaign involves digital partnerships, including with the travel site Wotif. There are ads on buses and locations around the southern cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The campaign squarely targets older Australians, those of 50 years plus, with a slogan 'Stop Guessing, Start Doing.' It is a catchy phrase and fits well as a response to how this government approaches funding and development of the Northern Territory—stop guessing; start doing—but I digress slightly. Our NT tourism campaign is particularly enticing this time of the year as our southern brothers and sisters begin to shiver a bit. In the Top End we are experiencing our glorious dry season with sunny, warm days and low humidity. It is perfect every day.

I am incredibly pleased to see the NT tourism campaign has hit a mark very close to home here in the nation's capital. I am speaking about the Treasurer, the honourable member for Cook, who has announced he will finally be making a trip to the Northern Territory. We are all pretty excited about this, and we are very optimistic that this visit will help the Treasurer to stop guessing about the level of need in the NT, stop guessing about the incredible potential and talent in the territory and be moved to start doing. There are a range of much needed supports. He could maybe start with announcing a city deal for Darwin or maybe that one dollar of the NAIF will be spent developing the north. After months of lobbying, we are very happy that the member for Cook is visiting the cities of Darwin and Palmerston in my electorate. His interest has been piqued, and I like to think that the Tourism NT campaign and my several invitations to him have had a role. It is his first trip to the territory since becoming Treasurer, and I am glad that he will be able to experience firsthand what the Territory has to offer. From Darwin, he can do a day trip to the beautiful heritage listed Litchfield National Park, where he can relax under our wonderful waterfalls. He can visit the amazing Kakadu National Park. He can go down to the Darwin waterfront to learn about the Royal Flying Doctor Service or experience the bombing of Darwin with a 3D-goggle experience, which is incredible. Or he can go for a swim in the cage of death with a crocodile.

The Top End is much more fun when you are with a local, and I am sure that the Treasurer will rely on the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, senator for the Northern Territory Nigel Scullion, to show him around the traps. However, if Senator Scullion is not available, I would be more than happy to show the member for Cook around our amazing capital of the north. I would like to take him off the beaten path a bit and give him a ground-level view of how the government's budget priorities and policies are impacting on people in my electorate. I could take him to the holding cells of the Darwin local court and out to the Holtze prison facility so that he can see the disproportionate number of Indigenous detainees that are there. We can go along the foreshore and he can meet the people that live in the long grass. These are itinerant people, mostly from remote communities. Their numbers have increased hugely over the past few years as services and policies to close the gap and the CDP continue to fail. Maybe I would take him out on the water to show off our magnificent Darwin Harbour, five times bigger than Sydney Harbour. I can show him the site of the future ship lift facility, a great incentive by the Northern Territory government which has, at this stage, attracted not one dollar of Commonwealth funding despite the great economic benefits that it will bring to the Territory and to the nation.

Speaking of not one cent, I will lean over and ask the Treasurer, as we have our rods out over the water and maybe a beer in hand—I am quite happy to take the Treasurer for a fish—exactly what is going on with the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility. I will ask about that $5 billion fund that has been sitting there for a couple of years now, providing no benefit and no development whatsoever to northern Australia. I will take him around to meet some of our local businesses and industries. I do this when shadow ministers visit, such as the shadow minister for defence and the shadow assistant minister for defence, who have been visiting in the last months, meeting with local businesses to find out how we can make sure that local businesses and local people get a bit of a look-in with this increased Defence spending on infrastructure. The Treasurer can hear firsthand the problems of assessing the NAIF and the frustration of missing out on Defence contracts that seem unfairly weighted to large southern businesses rather than the local experts with capacity right there in the Top End to do the work. There will be plenty of people who will want to talk to him about the devastating, nearly $2 billion in GST cuts that are ripping the heart out of the Territory. What we need is for the Treasurer to put his money and the government's priorities where their mouths are when it comes to developing the north. That will help us to offset the damage done by that cut in GST revenue.

On our day out, the member for Cook will see firsthand the effect that this government's utter lack of interest in pursuing developing the north and closing the gap is having in the Northern Territory. The claims of wanting to reduce disadvantage, increase opportunity and unleash the huge potential of the north seem very empty. We have to stop guessing; we have to start doing. The 2017 budget delivered not one cent of new money for these agendas. I can take him past the unoccupied shopfronts on Smith Street. Because of no commitment by the federal government to sustainable population development in the north those shops are not being filled.

Today marks national public school day. I will make sure that, if I can act as a tour guide for the Treasurer, I take him to Anula Primary School. Twenty-two per cent of the students at Anula Primary School are Indigenous and around half of the students have a language background other than English. As noted in the House yesterday by the shadow minister for education, by 2027 Anula Primary School will get about $4,232 per child from the Commonwealth government. That is an increase of just $554 over 10 years for a government primary school in my electorate.

As we meander along Yanyula Drive, at 40 kilometres an hour because of the school, I will ask the Treasurer whether we can compare that to Trinity Grammar School in Sydney. With fees of up to $24,000 a year for primary school children being paid by those parents, Trinity will receive almost $8,000 per student, which is an increase of $2,734 per student over the same time period of 10 years. How does it get an increase in funding from the Commonwealth government that is five times larger than a local public school in suburban Darwin? I will ask him that as I show him around Darwin. How does an elite primary school in Sydney get five times more funding than our primary schools in suburban Darwin? I do not understand that, so I will ask him to explain it. In what way is that needs based funding? It does not seem like it is needs based to me.

The Northern Territory has the nation's most disadvantaged school system and yet we get the smallest increases in funding out of this apparently needs based system. That increase over 10 years for Anula Primary School is not even enough to cover inflation. We need to lift the horizons of our kids. The fact that Northern Territory schools do the worst out of this education policy is a national disgrace. We need to be lifting the horizons of our young Territorian kids, not just showing them that you do not really matter to us, that you do not really matter to the nation.

Before heading to the airport I will drive past the Australian Electoral Commission office. In the Northern Territory only 82 per cent of eligible voters are enrolled to vote, so 28,000 people in our small population are not registered and on the roll. That is a shocking statistic. It is the worst in the country. So what does this government do in this budget? It downsizes the Darwin office of the Australian Electoral Commission, including the Indigenous Electoral Participation Program. It is the only office in our country to be cut. I just do not understand that.

We have had lots of speeches this week in the House about the 1967 referendum about the importance of the first nations people of this country being part of our nation and equal opportunity. You take an AEC office of 15 people and cut the jobs, reducing it to three people, and then pretend you are going to somehow increase enrolment in the worst jurisdiction in the country for enrolment and participation in the democracy of our country. That does not make sense. I think that is a pretty fair comment to make: it just does not make sense. It is difficult not to think that there is a deliberate effort here to decrease enrolment of first nations people in the Northern Territory. I hope I am proved wrong and I hope that decision is reversed.

There is of course form from the other side of politics. It was in fact in 1996, when John Howard abolished the AEC's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Electoral Information Service. I just wonder what Sister Anne Gardiner, Senior Australian of the Year, who has dedicated her life to improving the opportunities for first nations people on the Tiwi Islands off the coast of Darwin, would think of this decimation of the AEC office in the NT. It just does not make sense.

Anyway, I will continue to head to the airport and make sure the Treasurer gets away safely. Our Darwin International Airport is shared by the RAAF base. When we are talking about defence, I will remind him that many veterans who live in our electorate live with the effects of their service to our country. Whilst there have been some commendable increases in services for veterans, we still have not been told whether we have a deputy commissioner for veterans' affairs. We are the only jurisdiction not to have a deputy commissioner for veterans' affairs. There was a commitment by the government to reinstate that position, but we are still waiting. I will continue to lobby for better services for our veterans.

We will also on the way to the airport call in to Larrakia Nation, who are looking after some of the most disadvantaged people in our country. We will pop in and have a cup of tea with people from the Tiwi Islands, who camp in the bush just near the airport and who drink water from Rapid Creek. We will see if there is an opportunity to get an update on the PFAS contamination issue. We hope that testing is rolled out very quickly. It is great that the RAAF base commander in Darwin has recently met with Larrakia Nation. We want that process to happen as quickly as possible so that Territorians can be made aware of where the dangers may be.

As a proud Territorian, I want to finish by urging all members to come and visit and experience our glorious dry season. Often people say that the politicians come up only in the dry season. Well, I say: come one, come all. It is a beautiful time of year up there, and everyone is extremely welcome to come up. But when you come up, I just want the opportunity to take you around to see the support that we need in my electorate and the capital of the north, to see the huge talent and to stop guessing and start doing.

John McVeigh (Groom, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I say to the member for Solomon, the former speaker, that it was great to be in Darwin just last week. Today I rise to thank the Treasurer, Scott Morrison, and his cabinet colleagues for their careful consideration of the needs and aspirations of the Groom electorate in the recent federal budget. This is a budget that delivers, in terms of the service needs of our community, infrastructure requirements that will underpin our economic wherewithal, and the investments and policies so important to securing our future in an uncertain world. In Groom, as elsewhere throughout regional Australia, we know full well that, despite growth in recent years and the exciting opportunities we have before us, there are still those doing it tough. This budget recognises that reality and reflects the fact that, given strong growth in important global economies, there are better days ahead. It is a budget that is practical. Our government has put up a raft of savings proposals that, whilst responsible, have unfortunately not received support from the Senate. Whilst we have been pleased to get many savings measures through, in the interests of the Australian people we must now meet our future funding challenges in other ways as well.

The government's $75 billion infrastructure commitment over the next 10 years represents unprecedented support for regional Australia, the powerhouse of our nation. This is the largest infrastructure budget in our history, with funding for critical airport, road and rail infrastructure projects across the nation. I am tremendously excited by the $200 million Building Better Regions Fund and the over $200 million committed to regional infrastructure. These programs will provide significant opportunities for our region to seek funding support for various initiatives.

The story of enabling infrastructure in Groom is one to be celebrated. Construction of the $1.6 billion Toowoomba Second Range Crossing continues, with an allocation of $247.6 million in 2017-18. It has been fascinating to witness the installation of girders on the viaduct from the top of the range near Mount Kynoch, eastwards along the Blue Mountain Heights escarpment. This will be a magnificent feature for our city in the years to come, an engineering marvel in its own right. I am in awe of those involved in this construction which is underway along the entire 41-kilometre route from near Helidon in the east to near Southbrook in the west, connecting the Warrego, New England and Gore highways and bringing about, more importantly than anything else, enhanced safety for our local and visiting road users.

One of the biggest investments we have seen in regional Australia is our government's allocation of $8.4 billion for the Melbourne and Brisbane Inland Rail, a dedicated fast track by 2024 for freight trains to get products from farms and factories to shipping ports in Melbourne and Brisbane. This is a nation-building project. It will pass through Groom, providing significant business opportunities for local businesses and many, many jobs. This investment will continue to unlock opportunities on the Darling Downs by allowing faster, safer and more efficient movement of freight. It also will create those jobs rights throughout the route which are essential for our continued growth as a nation. That is particularly the case in regional Australia. Preliminary work is well underway, and the announcement in this budget shows that this government is fair dinkum about getting on with the job of building the inland rail, something Labor simply talked about doing for years. I am looking forward to commencement of activity in our region once the corridor across the Darling Downs is finalised by Minister Darren Chester.

Road funding for the Groom electorate is in excess of $366 million in the 2017-18 budget, including $6.5 million for Toowoomba Regional Council projects. The government continues to support councils such as Toowoomba's through a variety of funding programs, including the Black Spot Program and Roads to Recovery. The Black Spot Program delivers improvements to sections of dangerous roads that have a crash history. In Groom, $300,000 has been allocated for the installation of a roundabout at the intersection of Wallace Street and Clairmont Street in Newtown. This project is jointly funded with the Toowoomba Regional Council, which will supply $100,000.

The Roads to Recovery program is committed to the construction, repair and upgrade of local roads. In Groom, projects to be completed in upcoming months include: $987,000 to install traffic lights at the intersection of Hogg Street and Tor Street; $600,000 to widen Jondaryan Mount Tyson Road; $525,000 to improve the intersection of Kingsthorpe Haden Road and Yalangur Kelvinhaugh Road; $920,000 to widen the Linthorpe Road at Pittsworth; $1.9 million to seal Pierces Creek Road at Emu Creek; $875,000 to construct Pierces Creek Road stage 2; $765,000 to realign the intersection of West Street and Drayton Road in Toowoomba; and $1.89 million to construct and seal a section of Wyreema Cambooya Road. Ongoing works supported in this budget include work on the Warrego Highway Toowoomba to Oakey duplication stage 2 project, which will continue with an allocation of $87.4 million in this budget, and the Warrego Highway Oakey to Dalby overtaking lanes project, which will continue with an allocation of $17.5 million in 2017-18, connecting the electorate of Maranoa to Groom. The government has also resumed the indexation of financial assistance grants to councils, which will result in an extra $836.5 million being provided over the forward estimates. I know that this will be welcome in Groom.

In the health budget, we in Groom welcome the fact that medical services for our community will be enhanced by significant bulk-billing incentives for our GPs. Last year almost 750,000 GP services in Groom were bulk-billed. That level will continue to grow, providing and ensuring affordability and convenience to those in our community who need it most. The 147 pharmacists in Groom will benefit from the government's agreement with the Pharmacy Guild to deliver medicines reform. In relation to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the government is providing $1.2 billion to ensure cheaper access to vital medicines.

Together with this government's investment in rural doctor, nurse and allied health training, these features will be of great assistance to regional areas such as Groom and the Darling Downs. The fact that the government, unlike those opposite, is, once and for all, ensuring the NDIS will be fully funded will provide the confidence and peace of mind for the many individuals and families in Groom who need and deserve our support. I am pleased to note also the increased assistance to our veterans, given the importance of the Swartz Barracks at Oakey and the Borneo Barracks at Cabarlah to Groom.

My electorate is blessed with 73 primary and secondary schools, including state, Catholic and independent schools and a number of boarding institutions. Each one of those schools, large and small alike, will see an increase over the next 10 years. Our schools will see an estimated $1.9 billion in Commonwealth funding over the period 2018 to 2027. Each of our schools will receive its fair share of funding, based on need, with more transparency and with ties to reform to boost our education outcomes. That is particularly important, given the needs of our community, our industry and our young people. I am as proud of this investment as I am of the childcare initiatives that this government announced earlier in the year and the ongoing assistance from our government to the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba to provide opportunities for students from remote and underrepresented cohorts in tertiary education.

The good folk of Groom know that we must have a social security system that is there for those who really need support. The best form of social security is, of course, a job, and in this budget there remains a clear focus on job creation and training opportunities. There will be an increased focus on mutual obligation, where those on unemployment support are encouraged to participate genuinely in programs aimed at assisting them back into the workforce. I am very pleased also to see pension discount arrangements back in place for those who may have lost them with the advent of pension asset testing.

It is a known fact that small business is the employer of the majority of people in our community. That is the case nowhere more than Groom. This budget's continuing support for small business, through responsible and fair tax relief, so that it can invest more, grow more and employ more is indeed welcome in Groom, as is the extension of the small-business asset write-off provisions.

The government's recent announcement about the cessation of the 457 visa program is all about ensuring that Australian jobs are prioritised for Australians first. New foreign worker visa arrangements will still allow access to uniquely skilled workers as required, but the scene is clearly set for more Australians to be focused on Australian jobs.

Another welcome feature of this budget for Groom, given our population growth, employment and lifestyle opportunities, is that of housing affordability. The low-tax savings scheme, allowing intending first home buyers to accumulate savings through the superannuation environment, will see them saving quicker and owning their own home sooner. This, together with incentives for older people to downsize from larger homes and invest part of the proceeds in superannuation, is another key feature of our housing strategy.

As one who attended the launch of the Salvation Army appeal in Toowoomba last week, I must also mention that the increased investment in homelessness assistance, to be coordinated with the states, will be very welcome in Groom.

As part of the government's integrated response to the Oakey PFAS water contamination issue, I welcome the funding to assist the Toowoomba Regional Council in providing town water supplies to affected properties. Make no mistake, the challenge of addressing the impact of declining property values is something I continue to lobby our ministers about, including lobbying the Prime Minister and Senator James McGrath, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, just this very week, as we work towards a result.

The responsible nature of this budget is perhaps best exemplified by the fact that our government is not touching the Future Fund, put in place by a former coalition government in order that we might meet our future obligations. Australians are rightly fearful that a government formed by our political opponents might raid that fund to support reckless and unfunded expenditure in the future.

In summary, I am so proud that we have a budget that in Groom is focused on stronger growth for more and better paid jobs. As I have outlined, our many initiatives are aimed at securing the services that Groom residents want and continuing to tackle the cost of living, all the while ensuring that our government lives within its means, which is in the interests of all Australians and future generations.

Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I speak on the appropriation bills, I would like to reflect briefly on the recent tragic events in Manchester, in the United Kingdom. Earlier this morning, I was privileged to attend a memorial service to the victims of the bombing attack in Manchester, at the British High Commission, hosted by Her Excellency Menna Rawlings, the British High Commissioner to Australia. I and many parliamentary colleagues, including the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, as well as members of the defence forces of Australia and the United Kingdom and members of the diplomatic corps, together offered our silent condolences to the families and friends of those brutally murdered in Manchester on Monday night. Together, we offered our support to the government and the people of Britain, who yet again face the horror of a terror attack in the heart of a vibrant city, an attack which strikes at the heart and soul of every society around the world—children, teenagers, young people and families. In Manchester, a city of music, a city with a great musical tradition, the attack earlier this week sought to ruin so brutally that which we as humans so enjoy, music and song. We may differ vastly in our tastes, but nonetheless music and song are part of our humanity. They lift our souls and they tell our stories. Music and song will continue as ever in Manchester, as they will everywhere.

Her Excellency Menna Rawlings reflected this morning on the relentless resilience of the people of Great Britain, a people who lived with war and then with the deadly terrorism of the IRA over many decades. It was just over a year ago that I had to relinquish and renounce my British citizenship in order to stand for election to this parliament. It was a sad day for me, as it felt like breaking a link with the memory of the life of my father, but of course it did not break anything. There will always be our connection to the people of Britain and my personal fondness for Britain and its people and their remarkable and relentless resilience. Today I pay tribute to that resilience and offer my sincere condolences to all those affected by this terrible bombing in Manchester. I stand, along with all of us in this place, in solidarity with the people of Britain at this very sad time.

An honourable member: Hear, hear. Well said.

Thank you. I will turn to reflect on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018 and related bills now. I, like many others in this place, am concerned about the impact that this year's budget will have on everyday people who are doing their best to get by. Hardworking people, students, parents with kids at school or TAFE or university, older Australians and people living with disability—this year's budget impacts them all. Like every budget, budget 2017 is a representation of the government's social priorities. They are the social priorities that reflect the direction the country will follow in the coming years. This direction will affect every person in this country, one way or another. People will be affected both by what is included in a budget that is supposedly reflective of social priorities and by what is, sadly, quite clearly lacking in that same budget: the social priorities which a just, fair and equitable society expect and deserve. Through this budget, we on this side see—as do the mums and dads, the pensioners, the students and the workers—how Prime Minister Turnbull and his government have prioritised their needs. We see how higher education funding, infrastructure funding and penalty rates have been prioritised—and by 'prioritised' I, of course, mean 'cut and ignored'.

The government has seen fit to cut funding to schools, to TAFE, to vocational education and to apprenticeships yet again. One of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's 2017 social priorities is to cut more than $600 million from TAFE and vocational education over the next four years, compared with current arrangements. This comes on top of an almost $3 billion in existing cuts to TAFE skills and training and a loss of more than 130,000 apprenticeships since 2013. The budget confirms that Prime Minister Turnbull will cut $22 billion from schools in an attack on education. This means that every Australian school will lose an average of $2.4 million over 10 years. It is the equivalent of 22,000 teachers losing their jobs.

However, it is with an ironic disbelief that I say that the Prime Minister has shown he is leading an equitable government when it comes to education—equitable in relation to attacks on education, that is. The government is not content with slashing funding to schools and vocational education; universities too have gone under the knife of this budget. Funding to universities will be cut by $3.8 billion, student fees will be hiked by eight per cent and graduates will have to pay back their HECS debt much earlier than before. We have heard the government try to defend their attack on universities and students, but have the government heard or listened to the reasons these measures are so damaging?

I can tell you that providing young people with the means to access a university education is a necessary foundation of any clever country. Higher education is a pathway to a world of opportunity. We should be aspiring to ensure that Australia is a country that does not limit that pathway and world of opportunity to only those who can afford it or whose families can afford it. Australia should be a better country than this. We should be a fairer country than this. There is nothing clever and nothing good about limiting access to higher education for students who are struggling financially. By increasing fees and financial pressures on university students and by lowering the threshold at which graduates have to repay their loans, this government is putting in place barriers to higher education for poorer students, their families and their communities.

Let me be clear: this government is not talking about denying access to university based on a student's academic ability and merit; it is putting a system in place that places barriers to higher education based on nothing more than an ability to pay or a future ability to pay. Due to increasing costs in this sector, students are having to seriously consider if higher education is something they can or should do. This is what people say to me every day in my electorate of Brand. They need to consider if it something they can afford or if higher education is now out of reach. These cuts to funding, the lowering of the repayment thresholds and the increases fees are a double whammy for students, because they are coming at the same time penalty rates are being slashed, damaging the wages students earn at work. In Brand, the challenges facing young people going to university are real. Through talking to families and young people in the electorate, I know high fees are a real barrier. An increase in fees is further enforcing the barriers, making it even harder for students and their families to consider university as an option.

Again, I want to be clear: increases to fees will not go to universities. They will not go to improving the student experience. Increased fees paid by students will not go to facilities that might improve students' learning outcomes. Increased student fees will not go to employing any more lecturers or professors, nor will it go to building facilities that might improve everything. This extra cost to students goes straight to consolidated revenue. It goes to the budget bottom line of these economic vandals who have tripled the deficit. This extra cost, borne by students and the young people of Australia, will go straight to a $65 billion tax cut for big business. It is a disgrace and it sells out young Australians. As a result of the lowering of the threshold for repaying student loans, young people will have to seriously consider whether or not the financial hit is something they can take on. At a time when they are looking to establish their adult lives, be that starting a family, buying a home or even just affording to rent a home, these young people will also have to find the money to pay off their HECS liabilities, at a lower income level than before—and with lower wages growth we know their wages will not be able to help much. There are no winners, only losers, when a government sees university education as the preserve of those who can most afford it. Society is the loser when universities become bastions of learning for the well-off.

We can see also how the Prime Minister's unfair 2017 budget will prioritise big business and the banks, delivering tax handouts to multinationals and millionaires while at the same hurting everyday families, workers and pensioners. Make no mistake, this budget does not care much about everyday people; it does not deliver on prioritising their needs, not by a long shot. It is a budget that rewards big business and the banks with a $65 billion tax cut, while it cuts funding for schools, universities and TAFE. It is a budget that increases taxes for those who can least afford it, while reducing the taxes paid by higher income earners, who can afford it. People earning $65,000 a year will pay $325 more tax in two years' time while someone on a million dollars a year will pay $16,400 less tax this year, with the withdrawal of the deficit levy.

Holding to ransom funding for the National Disability Insurance Scheme against the increased taxes of working families says a lot about the social priorities of this government. It says a lot about this government's attitude towards the everyday working people of this country. This is a government that is handing a $65 billion tax break to the big end of town instead of funding the NDIS for the benefit of some of the most vulnerable people in our communities. I really am mystified, and I know I am not the only one, about how this government can see no problem in hitting the everyday worker with an increased tax burden to fund the NDIS while there is a $65 billion tax break being handed out to big businesses and the big banks. These are the same people, the taxpayers living in our electorates, living in the cities of Rockingham and Kwinana, who are already struggling with cost of living pressures. These are the workers who are having to cope with massive stresses on their household budgets, thanks to underemployment, unemployment, increased cost of living pressures and cuts to penalty rates. This government continues to show its contempt for workers by supporting these cuts to penalty rates instead of showing the political will to stand up and protect the wages and living standards of those among us surviving on the lowest wages. It shows how really out of touch the Prime Minister and his Liberals team are.

This budget fails the jobs test, with the forecast for unemployment higher, while forecasts for employment growth, wages growth and GDP growth are all lower. Nothing in this budget delivers good jobs now at a time when the unemployment rate is the same as at the peak of global financial crisis, yet the government expects people to keep working on until they are 70 years old! It is an out of touch government that thinks labourers, brickies, childcare workers, and care assistants will be able to continue working well into their old age—until the age of 70, and beyond. There are not enough jobs as it is for those seeking work, without forcing people in their late 60s and 70s to remain in the jobseeker pool. It is a disgrace that Australia will soon top the list of having the oldest pension age in the developed world. This is a dubious accolade that the Prime Minister is seeking for our country, yet it is one that reflects the direction that this government wants the country to take.

The direction set out by this budget is harsh. It is one where people who have less, people who are struggling, will continue to do so. It is one that does not prioritise the needs of those who need assistance most. Prime Minister Turnbull's budget will axe the Energy Supplement to new pensioners, people with disability, carers and Newstart recipients, slashing $365 from a single pensioner or $550 from a couple's annual budget. New cuts to family tax benefits will leave thousands of families worse off. It is distressing that the Prime Minister's social priorities do not call for an immediate cancelling of the freeze on Medicare rebates. The government has delayed reversing its unfair cuts to Medicare for three years, meaning patients continue to pay more for health care. The costs incurred by doctors in providing medical services continue to rise and, with this freeze, it is patients who are having to pay more when they visit the doctor. Failing to drop the freeze on Medicare rebates immediately impacts on many vulnerable patients, including those needing critical oncology treatment, obstetric services, and paediatric treatment.

I might turn for a moment to investment in infrastructure, in jobs and in the future? What of this government's responsibility to build for the future needs of the country—to provide the roads, the ports, and the infrastructure required for economic growth, for future jobs and for progress?

This budget has in fact cut infrastructure investment by $1.6 billion in this year alone to $7.6 billion, and infrastructure investment will continue to fall to just $4.2 billion by the year 2021. It is no wonder the peak body Infrastructure Partnerships Australia has slammed the government's budget, saying that it 'sees infrastructure funding at its lowest level in more than 10 years'.

The trouble is that we cannot even trust the government to deliver on the little that they do promise. I would like to be able to hold the Liberal government to account for the election promises they made to the people of Brand, but you rarely see a senior Liberal deign to visit Rockingham or Kwinana, and they certainly do not care enough to make any election commitments to this community.

In 2016-17, WA was promised by the Turnbull government an investment of $842 million in infrastructure funding. This has not happened. We are $200 million short, according to the 2017-18 budget papers. The lauding of the previously allocated Perth Freight Link funding to WA as new infrastructure funding is a joke. It is not new funding; it is redirected old funding. It is funding redirected from a dud road to nowhere, a Liberal government project, to a forward-thinking, public-transport-congestion-easing Labor government Metronet project. We need to invest in infrastructure such as Metronet, a public transport plan that will improve the lives of many people across the metropolitan areas of Perth. It connects people by connecting them with jobs and services while reducing congestion on our roads.

I call on the government to consider other infrastructure projects that will work for the betterment of people not only in my area of Kwinana and Rockingham but also across the metropolitan area of Perth—infrastructure projects like the Kwinana Outer Harbour. It is a forward-thinking project which would be the catalyst for investment needed to generate jobs for generations to come. It will enable WA and the country to compete internationally, with a facility that will be on par with the best in the world. But, unfortunately, this much-needed infrastructure project is not a priority for this government, and neither are the many other social priorities that I spoke about earlier. It is a disgrace, and it is a sad day for Australia.

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

I rise to speak on the appropriation bills before the House, Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018 and the related bills, which will actively ensure fairness, opportunity and security for all Australians. I would like to formally congratulate the Treasurer on his commitment to delivering such a budget—a budget which includes some tough choices that are indeed the right choices to secure days ahead. Few people know the work that goes into delivering a budget, so I would like to commend and congratulate the Treasurer, the Prime Minister, the Minister for Finance and the respective officers for all their efforts.

I noted in the chamber last week, during the last sitting, that this budget was the 10th budget I have been privileged to see delivered here in the Parliament of Australia during my time as the federal member for Swan. It is a bit of deja vu because the first appropriation bills speech I did was in this very chamber. The member for Melbourne Ports was in the chamber at the same time, with the former member for Oxley. They toasted me after my speech and said it was the worst speech they had ever heard from a new member. But I am still here, Member for Melbourne Ports, and that brings back fond memories of being in this place and doing appropriation bills speeches over the years.

Before the member for Brand leaves—and I know she will be a good member because the former member for Brand told me that she would be a very good member for Western Australia and for Brand—I would remind her that in 2007 there was an election commitment from Labor, by Kevin Rudd, that promised to fix the GST. He also promised a $100 million infrastructure fund for Western Australia which never came. It never appeared. You have a very short memories. I just remind you. You mentioned it in your speech, so I am mentioning it in my speech.

Bearing in mind that six out of those 10 years were during the Rudd-Gillard years, when the budget was in the hands of the member for Lilley—and I am sure all Australians remember just how well that worked out—it is with great enthusiasm that I stand and get a chance to speak on another coalition government budget which is determined to deliver for all Australians. This week—Monday, in fact—marked the 75th anniversary of the great Sir Robert Menzies's famous Forgotten People speech. As our longest serving Prime Minister and a key figure in shaping our Australian postwar society, Menzies's insight still rings true. I would like to share part of that speech with the chamber. He said:

But I do not believe that we shall come out into the overlordship of an all-powerful State on whose benevolence we shall live, spineless and effortless - a State which will dole out bread and ideas with neatly regulated accuracy; where we shall all have our dividend without subscribing our capital; where the Government, that almost deity, will nurse us and rear us and maintain us and pension us and bury us; where we shall all be civil servants, and all presumably, since we are equal, heads of departments.

I find that it not only eloquently articulates our Aussie values but also encapsulates the decisions made in this budget—decisions which favour hardworking Australians and decisions which enable us to guarantee the essential services that Australians rely on.

This rings true for the people of Swan and across the great state of Western Australia. For years, our state benefitted from the mining boom, with the investment phase bringing much growth to our state. Now we have transitioned into much broader-based growth in our economy. As we do this, our nation's economy is still continuing to grow faster than every G7 economy, and our growth remains above the OECD average, which is a positive reflection on our transition.

But, in WA, times have been tough. Not everyone has been able to share in our nation's growth, and some have faced mounting financial pressures. As a result, and rightly so, the GST is always a bone of contention for us Western Australians. With the mining boom over, it's difficult to watch most of the GST earned in Australia head to the eastern states. I have noted before in the chamber that the current rate, about 34 cents in the dollar, is a hard pill to swallow. Over recent times, we have seen Labor and the local rags in my electorate and Western Australia come out to attack my fellow WA Liberals, members and senators, for not being active enough in fixing the state's share of the GST.

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

What about you?

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

Once again, it is short memories—I have been banging on about the GST since 2009. I was banging on to your Prime Minister about it, and I still did not get a reaction from him. Thank you, the member for Melbourne Ports, for reminding me about what I have been doing.

Mr Danby interjecting—

I do not recall Labor fixing anything, to be honest. The Opposition Leader said:

I understand why West Australians are so outraged. This is a matter which is partly dealt with the independent Commonwealth Grants Commission.

But, again, no offer of any sort of resolution and no guarantee that he will fix the problem if he ever becomes Prime Minister. Instead, we WA Liberals have consistently advocated for a better share of GST in WA—in fact, our federal Treasurer is so sick of me banging on about those three particular letters that he runs away every time I go near him! But, being the great politician that he is, he has listened to the issues at hand. He has got on with the job and announced that the Productivity Commission is to conduct a review into how the GST distribution among states and territories impacts national productivity and growth. The commission is due to report back to the government in January next year. I am sure that there is no member in this place who would have ever envisaged that the distribution of GST in Australia was designed so that any state would get as low as 30 cents in the dollar on the return of the GST. This is a massive step in the right direction in rectifying WA's share of GST.

In the interim, I would like to take this opportunity to remind the House about how the coalition government has continued to deliver for WA through GST top-up payments. In the 2015-16 budget, WA was given $499 million in GST top-up payments. Of that, $45 million was allocated to the Roe Highway and Berkshire Road grade separation, within my electorate of Swan, which has now been completed. The following year, 2016-17, a GST top-up payment of $490 million was allocated to build the Forrestfield Airport Link, all of which falls within the Swan electorate. I remember hearing the member for Grayndler say—and I am sure the member for Perth, who has just walked into the chamber, will agree with me—that there is no new funding for rail by any coalition government in Australia, but in the 2016-17 budget we allocated $490 million to a railway line and a railway airport link, all of which falls within the Swan electorate.

The rail link will connect residents to the airport and the Perth CBD, with three new stations—Forrestfield, Airport Central and Belmont—all within the electorate of Swan. I know that the member for Perth actually congratulated me recently for being so successful in getting so much funding for the electorate of Swan. He reminded all of the constituents in Western Australia. I'm pleased to update the House on this project, as it is now well underway. Subsequently, $676 million was invested in the Gateway project, which has also since been completed. I am proud to be part of a coalition government that continues to deliver for all Australians, and, of course, to Western Australia. I would like to remind those opposite of these top-up payments when they are waffling on about inaction. I have always enjoyed the saying, 'When you point your finger, three fingers are pointing back.'

The infrastructure this government has delivered and continues to deliver has been an integral part of this government's national economic plan. I welcome the Treasurer's announcement that the 2017-18 budget will fund the $86 million grade separation of the Roe Highway and Kalamunda Road intersection to crown a once-in-a-generation upgrade of High Wycombe road and rail. The agreement will see our coalition government fund $68.8 million to enable the Roe Highway grade separation to proceed, and the investment adds to the other major transport works funded in High Wycombe, including those I mentioned earlier. This is an important investment within the electorate, with Roe-Kalamunda currently being ranked No. 1 for crashes by Main Roads over the five-year reporting period, some of which have been very serious incidents.

In addition to this, a Commonwealth state funding agreement will see construction of a southbound on-ramp at Manning Road and Kwinana Freeway go ahead at last. This is a project that has universal support of the community in Manning and will have a positive impact on road safety and congestion along the Manning Road corridor and across the Canning Bridge. As I am sure those in the chamber are well aware, the Manning Road on-ramp is something I have been advocating for for more than nine years. In fact, it is a project that has been discussed since the 1980s. When I first became the federal member for Swan in 2007, constituents began to voice their frustration at the lack of an on-ramp at Manning Road to take the traffic south on Kwinana Freeway. In 2009, I put out a survey and received more than 1,000 responses, with almost unanimous support.

The project has become even more pressing over the years, as Perth has continued to grow. It is a key road to Curtin University within my electorate, which boasts more than 40,000 students at the Bentley campus. It is also an essential project to ensure ease of access to the new Fiona Stanley Hospital, with an increased demand from patients and even ambulances needing to head south to attend the hospital or emergency department. By way of background, Manning Road connects Albany Highway to the Kwinana Freeway in the southern part of my electorate. It is frequented not only by my constituents but by the broader population of Perth as well. It is currently a very difficult stretch of road. Drivers need to navigate a complex stretch and do a circle around the freeway, which involves heading north, and then drivers are required to merge and change lanes back across the Canning Bridge. Subsequently, you have to merge with the traffic coming off the freeway, only to get back on. It is not only frustrating but very dangerous, which is why I have been consistent in my advocacy for such a project. I even managed to take the Prime Minister en route around that particular drive, and he said: 'This is ridiculous. There is no reason why we shouldn't be funding something to fix this.'

Despite this, it has been knocked by Labor again and again. In fact, when the former member for Perth, Alannah MacTiernan ,was the WA minister for planning and infrastructure, she outright rejected the need for an on-ramp. Similarly, in the Senate, Senator Sue Lines has continued to criticise my campaign for the on-ramp. In fact, it was only last year that she suggested that I should have 'a good look at my electorate and start to focus on the issues that really matter'. Again, the 'three fingers pointing back at you' saying comes to mind. But we have done it, despite ongoing obstacles put in the way by Labor. The government has committed $28 million of the $35 million project, with the state government funding the residual $7 million.

As the member for Swan, the on-ramp was a priority which I have continued to raise with the federal Treasurer, which saw him include the project in negotiations with the new state government on the $2.3 billion infrastructure package for WA that was announced on budget night. I would like to thank the residents of Swan for completing my surveys and providing ongoing support, which has allowed me to put this issue forward in our parliament and deliver the funding. I would also like to acknowledge and thank John McGrath MLA, the member for South Perth, who put this matter on the state government's agenda and secured a funding commitment from the previous Barnett government at the last election. I assure you, my focus is now on ensuring that construction gets underway as soon as possible.

But it is not only the large investments that contribute to our electorates. On this side of the House, we know it is at the grassroots level that great things grow. That is why it is fantastic that, in this year's budget, the government has committed $22.5 million for a third round of the Stronger Communities Program for the 150 electorates across Australia. Within my electorate of Swan, a range of sporting clubs, not-for-profits and community groups have received more funding, between $5,000 and $20,000, to contribute towards capital purchases and activities, towards an improvement in local community participation and cohesion and to the vibrancy of our communities. Each electorate is allocated $150,000 each round, so I am very proud to have almost reached the full allocation over the last two funding rounds, with $298,087 provided to more than 20 community groups in Swan. I would like to thank my staff for the efforts they put in to making sure that all of the community groups were given notice that this funding was available.

This funding has included $20,000 for the Curtin University Boat Club, which was used to purchase a scull trolley and a trailer to hold even more boats for their new members. This also saw Manna Incorporated receive more than $16,000, which went towards the purchase of a transport van so they can continue to provide meals to disadvantaged individuals, families and children. It was great to see the local member for Victoria Park turn up to help me present the cheque to Manna Inc. in Victoria Park. There was another $16,914 allowed for Connect Victoria Park to complete their homestead project. These are only three of more than 20 projects which have helped build stronger communities within Swan alone. It is great to know that every single electorate across Australia is able to provide funding for community groups, which provide for clubs and not-for-profits to further participation and cohesion.

Similarly, the Volunteer Grants program is supporting the efforts of Australian volunteers working hand in hand with stronger communities to deliver for organisations giving back to their communities. The Volunteer Grants program provides small amounts of money to organisations, clubs and community groups, which can be used to help their volunteers. The program offers grants of between $1,000 and $5,000, which can contribute towards the purchase of much-needed equipment, volunteers' fuel costs or even training. In 2015, there were 20 successful applicants, who received a total of $77,382. That is $77,382 that went directly to supporting the very important work of our volunteers in Swan. In the last round, which was the Volunteer Grants 2016 program, there were a further 13 successful applicants, who received more than $45,000. In fact, the Minister for Social Services joined me in my electorate office last week for an afternoon tea to present successful recipients with their grants. It was a fantastic opportunity for the organisations to network and share their experiences as volunteers over a wide range of sectors.

I am proud to be part of a government that is supporting grassroots clubs within our community and supporting hardworking Australians, not only in Swan but across the country, and of a government that is investing in infrastructure, is driving jobs and is committed to our national economic plan, which delivers for all Australians. The bills before the House are honest; they do not skirt around the issues ahead of us. The government sure does not pretend to do things with money we do not have, nor does it make grand promises for cheap political points. These bills are clear.

I wish I had more time; I am running out of time. There is so much exciting news in the budget for the constituents of Swan. I support the budget and I support the appropriation bills.

Tim Hammond (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What an honour it is to be following the esteemed member for Swan in this debate on the appropriation bills. I wish I could speak for the full time that is allocated to me on the way in which this budget delivered measures they will have a positive impact on my local community. Unfortunately, I cannot. The reason I cannot is that this budget does anything but deliver any form of meaningful, positive impact on my local community in Perth, regardless of the waxing lyrical that my friend the member for Swan might make you believe is the case for his electorate, just south of the river.

I will touch on five points in relation to the way in which this budget fails to deliver a meaningful outcome for my local community: firstly, the flawed assumptions upon which this so-called march to surplus is due to land; secondly, the way in which this budget fails local communities on education; thirdly, the ways in which this budget fails to deliver to communities, in relation to some flawed analysis as to revenue that it is thought will be raised from the banks; fourthly, address this place in relation to the ways in which this budget falls down insofar as my portfolio responsibilities are concerned; and, fifthly and perhaps most sadly, focus on the way in which Western Australia misses out under this budget.

The situation we find ourselves in is incredibly stark. Growth is down, wages growth is down and unemployment is up. The real concern we have is that the figures that are projected by the Treasurer to be relied upon in relation to this budget's supposed march to surplus are based entirely upon a false premise. The false premise in relation to growth relies upon wages growth being in the range of three per cent to four per cent. The problem we have is that growth at the moment is going backwards: we are barely at two per cent. What would be required would be for us to get to a position of wages growth that would see us at or about levels we have not seen since the construction phase of the mining boom. We all know the truth in relation to that: those days are gone, and we are unlikely to see them again in any shape or form that otherwise resembles the massive influx of demand for employment, mainly as a result of the enormous hive of activity happening off the northwest of Western Australia—Gorgon, Wheatstone, Browse, North West Shelf, and the like.

We are going to see gross debt pass the half a trillion dollars mark in the coming months; a total of $20,000 for each Australian man, woman and child. It is going to continue to rise and we will see the deficit for this year triple since the Liberals' first budget increase from $10.6 billion to $37.6 billion. We have also seen net debt blow out by over $100 billion since the Liberals first came to government, and it will be at record levels for the next three years. It is in that setting that we see the decisions that have been made by this government really show it up for what it is. By choosing to focus on such significant tax relief for major corporations, we see a flawed set of assumptions that will not land us a surplus. To the extent that there is any relief in this budget for any aspect of the community, that relief is going to major corporations.

But I hear you ask, Mr Deputy Speaker, how can this be the case when all we read about in the mainstream media is a purported $6 billion levy that is supposed to be deducted from the banks in order to fund the measures in the budget? Well, like most things about this budget, all is not what it appears to be. The supposed $6 billion saving to be gained by the bank levy is falling apart at the seams in relation to the design and the implementation of the levy. Let us have a look firstly at the dollar number that is likely to be gained as a result of this levy. It is looking more and more like a black hole every day. The most recent figures see that black hole being as much as $2 billion, or, putting it another way, $2 billion out from the supposed $6.2 billion saving over four years.

We see now that Westpac, the Commonwealth Bank, ANZ and NAB have released estimates that suggest only $965 million will be raised after tax in the first year of the operation, and things do not get much better from there. This was reinforced by the Commonwealth Bank only yesterday, when Ian Narev, the CEO of the Commonwealth Bank, told a luncheon in my hometown of Perth that the onus is now on the banks to refute the claim that they can absorb the levy because they are very profitable. When we look at the question as to who are 'they', Mr Narev actually does put it relatively well; that is, at the end of the day, the 'they' we are talking about is every one of us—mums, dads and shareholders. Using a breakdown of CBA's $13.1 billion income in December as an example, Mr Narev argued that the tax would inevitably affect individual Australians and the national economy, on the basis that the breakdown included $3.1 billion for salaries for 50,000 staff, $1.9 billion for tax, $2.6 billion in expenses—including to about 5,000 small to medium enterprises—and $3.4 billion in dividends to about 800,000 families.

Mr Narev's commentary proves the point that the opposition has been making right from the get-go: the design of this levy is more likely than not simply going to affect the community in the form of affecting mums and dads who are paying higher fees and charges, or retirees or those who are trying to get ahead by investing modest sums in blue-chip shares via reduced dividend payments. There is no confidence whatsoever from anything being said by the government that this so-called $6 billion bank levy is at all likely to deliver any form of net benefit to the community.

As if that were not bad enough, as if the design of this levy were not poor enough, we then look at the overall package in relation to the treatment of the banks. What also gets missed by the mainstream media when looking at the low-hanging fruit of a supposed $6 billion levy is the overall treatment of the banking industry insofar as tax cuts for companies go. It has been made abundantly clear that, over the course of 10 years, there will be $65 billion in tax cuts as a result of reducing the company tax threshold for companies with turnovers, on a sliding scale, of up to $1 billion.

What will that deliver the big four banks? While on the one hand they purportedly have been slapped with a $6 billion levy, on the other hand they will create $7 billion in savings as a result of the benefits gained from the tax cut. So, even if the government had got their act together and were not rushing something through to try desperately to salvage a couple of Newspoll points that might stave off the inevitable, which is the slow-moving car crash that you could otherwise describe as the Prime Minister's clumsy and desperate grasp on his leadership—even if this were not designed to try to stave that off—what we see here is a $1 billion net benefit to the banks either way. This defines in such sharp detail that we can muck around with all these notions of how to shave a bit here or prop up a bit there in the banking sector, but the best way through all of this, to give some clarity and confidence to the community, is a royal commission into the banking sector. Again, that has been a very consistent narrative from the opposition, both prior to the election and after the election, and it reflects the needs and desires of the community.

We have already heard in very stark fashion of the diabolical cuts to the education system in public schools and Catholic schools, which will have a profound impact upon our kids and the ability of our families to have confidence in our school system being able to deliver the education that our children deserve. There will be over $22 billion in cuts, if the Labor model is compared to the paltry offering we have seen from the government in this budget.

I said that I would move on to issues that are pertinent to my portfolio insofar as the way in which these budget bills, Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-18 and related bills, are letting the community down. Firstly, after all the criticism that we levelled—in my view, fairly—at the government, it was good to see on page 33 of Budget Paper No. 2, under 'Strengthening penalties under the Australian consumer law':

The Government will increase the maximum financial penalties under the Australian Consumer Law 2011 by aligning the penalties with the competition provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 from 1 July 2018.

In layman's terms what does that mean? It actually is a good thing. It is something that Labor advocated for prior to the election and continued to advocate for after the election, because it means that corporations that breach the Australian Consumer Law and engage in conduct that is likely to, or does, mislead and deceive will not be hit with the maximum penalty available at this stage, which is about $1.1 million per breach, but up to $10 million per breach. That is a good thing for corporations to have to realise. A $1.1 million maximum penalty, regardless of how profitable your corporation might be, can be absorbed into the cost of doing business, as opposed to a $10 million penalty, which is more likely to have a meaningful impact in making companies think twice before they engage in conduct that will mislead or deceive or that is likely to mislead or deceive. The government should be applauded for taking up that initiative in relation to changes to the Australian Consumer Law.

What would be lovely to see, though, is action on the tranche of recommendations that sit behind that change to the Australian Consumer Law. The recommendations were recently reviewed and made public by the consumer affairs departments of Australia and New Zealand in their formal review of the Australian Consumer Law, and they were endorsed by the Productivity Commission in their review, which was also released around March this year. There are a whole suite of recommendations that, if implemented, could strengthen the Australian Consumer Law, giving consumers more of a level playing field when it comes to seeking redress against manufacturers and others who sell faulty goods. I will not be holding my breath, but it would be wonderful to see a bit more action and a little less conversation in relation to those reforms.

In the remaining time I would like to address another matter very dear to my heart. My other area of portfolio responsibility is resources. I must say again—bouquet before the brickbat—it was heartening to see that there will be money spent over a number of years on feasibility assessments for how we might be able to solve the current gas crisis. We see about $20 million over four years for the Gas Market Reform Group to accelerate reforms and $7.6 million in 2017-18 for some prefeasibility studies about pipelines. This is good stuff, but I have to say that I do quiver with fear about the government's Western Australian representatives and wonder how much confidence we can have in them making sure that Western Australia gets its fair share.

Our foreign minister, a Western Australian herself, quite frankly, should have known a bit better. She gave an outwardly confident answer in question time the other day about a wonderful $45 billion LNG project led by INPEX in the Browse Basin. 'This will be a great story not only for WA but also Australia,' the foreign minister said. She also took ownership of it on the basis that she said:

This project came about because of positive engagement by the then Liberal Western Australian government and the coalition federal government, underpinned by long-term supply contracts.

One might have thought as a result of the foreign minister's answer that this would be delivering great results for Western Australia. There is just a slight problem—the pipeline does not go anywhere near Western Australia. The project the foreign minister was talking about goes completely around and bypasses Western Australia. Whilst it might start in the Browse Basin in north-west WA, it goes all the way to Darwin and not a single cent goes to Western Australia. So here we have a senior government figure spending so much time overseas that she does not get her basic geography right in relation to her home state. On that basis, my real concern is: what hope do we have for Western Australia?

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is great to be here today. Infrastructure, schools, jobs, support for the vulnerable and relief from the rising costs of living are all key priorities that received a boost in the 2017 federal budget. Just days after handing down the budget the Treasurer, Scott Morrison, the member for Cook, was in the electorate of Petrie to hear feedback on how it would benefit local people. The Treasurer outlined major road improvements. There is $650 million that will assist those living in Petrie, Longman, Lilley, Dickson, Fairfax and Fisher in particular—all in Queensland—allowing people to move more freely around the region. The investment will boost business efficiency, making businesses more productive, as they will not be stuck in traffic and they will not be paying wages while people are sitting at red lights. It will also make it a more logical base and usher residents around more safely.

We are boosting the Bruce. I go back to 2014, when the former member for Longman and I started a campaign to boost the Bruce Highway. We wanted to see improvements on the Bruce Highway. In some ways, in relation to infrastructure in this budget, the member for Longman is probably the biggest winner nationwide. It is a Labor seat now, but there is now a plan for six lanes to go all the way to Caloundra. At the moment the six lanes stop at Caboolture. They will go all the way to Caloundra, which will make a big difference to Petrie, Longman and the Sunshine Coast seats of Fisher and Fairfax. People in my electorate who are travelling north for holidays or going to the Sunshine Coast will benefit from a six-lane highway all the way to Caloundra, and people travelling from the Sunshine Coast down to Brisbane will also benefit.

Longman and Petrie will also benefit from the $120 million in funding that was allocated in the 2017 budget to upgrade the Deception Bay overpass. The Deception Bay overpass is a small two-lane bridge that will become a six-lane overpass with turning lanes. This will be great for the people of Deception Bay, who have been neglected by Labor state and federal governments for years. I am glad that the coalition has been able to secure this for Deception Bay, but I have asked the state member for Murrumba to make sure the state government can contribute 20 per cent to these vital projects in the Queensland budget when it is handed down in a few weeks time.

All schools in my electorate will also benefit from this budget. I spoke on the education bill the other day. I was not able to get through the advantages for all schools. But every school—whether they are Catholic, independent or state—will see an increase in education funding, which is great. As federal members, we spend a lot of time in schools. I know I certainly do. Whether it is talking to students about different issues, presenting flags, talking about leadership or encouraging students to do their very best, we all spend a lot of time in schools.

The other day I was mentioning in the House of Representatives how the bill will benefit each school. I got up to Redcliffe State High School, a great high school on the peninsula in my electorate of Petrie. They will receive next year alone an additional $189,500 from the Commonwealth. There will also be additional state funding that will go to Redcliffe State High. There will be an extra $189,500 next year, and that is why I will be voting, along with my coalition colleagues, for the education bill—to benefit my electorate. Scarborough State School, a primary school—P to 6—in my electorate, will receive an additional $91,800 next year alone, taking their federal government contribution alone to $1,883,600 next year. And there is 80 per cent extra funding coming on top of that from the state government. So that is good news for Scarborough and good news for Redcliffe high.

Southern Cross Catholic College will receive an additional $538,000 next year alone. They have three or four campuses. They have a lot of students. They will receive an additional $538,000 next year alone, taking the federal government contribution to over $15 million for Southern Cross Catholic College. So this is a big win for them. That is why I will be voting for this bill, if only those opposite would also vote for it. If they do not and it does not get up, I will have a lot of stuff to campaign on. That is not a problem in relation to that.

St Paul's School, an independent school in the southern end of my electorate, next year alone will receive $314,400 extra. This is not a 10-year target I am talking about. This is just next year. The Lakes College at North Lakes, an independent school with just a small number of students—just 677 students from P to 12—will receive another $197,700. That is a great local school. I have had lot to do with them and been out there a lot. I have been to their fun run. They do a great fun run through North Lakes.

Woody Point Special School is a great little school at Woody Point. I lived just around the corner from them for five years. They have only 79 students. Obviously the children there are those with a disability. The staff there do a great job—the teachers as well as the admin staff. They will have a $33,700 increase next year from the federal government alone, which will take the federal contribution to $691,600 next year. Over the 10-year period, Woody Point Special School will receive over $2 million in additional funding on what they were forecast to receive. Somehow those opposite say that is a cut. I cannot get my head around it. But I will be voting for the education bill, and I am very pleased that it is in the budget. Schools have had a big win.

We also had a big win in the Moreton Bay region. With funding for increased preschool places combined with an investment in the Moreton region university, our young people will have access to education that basically allows them a cradle-to-career pathway close to home. Not only are we increasing funding for preschool and, from 1 July 2018, seeing big increases in child care, P to 12 in schools right around the nation and the 40 schools in my area; we have managed to secure $100 million plus low-interest loans for the University of the Sunshine Coast as well to build the first decent university in the seat of Dickson that will benefit Dickson, Petrie and Longman and all the students who live in the Moreton Bay region. At the moment, for many students it is 'out of sight, out of mind'. They will be able to live close to home and be able to see that university, which will offer all sorts of different subjects, and that is great news. We have been able to secure that, so that is really good news.

In the budget, in relation to university, I say this to the people of my electorate: at the moment the federal government pays 60 per cent of all costs upfront in relation to university. Every student that goes to university pays 40 per cent. They can pay that 40 per cent upfront or they can HECS it, as we know. That means that, whether they are disadvantaged or come from a poor family—and plenty do in my electorate—there is no reason why a student cannot go to university. The taxpayer pays 60 per cent up front and 40 per cent is from the student. They will not have to repay it, under our reforms, until they earn over $42,000 a year. At the moment it is $54,000 a year. We are reducing it to $42,000 to try and get a small contribution back and to start to repay that government loan. It is $6 a week or something, so it is very small.

We hear often from those opposite that higher education funding is going up and somehow it is terrible, and people will not be able to go to uni. But let me say this: if the federal government is paying 60 per cent, or whether it is 55 per cent contribution, in total why would we want to increase the cost of university—when we are using taxpayers' dollars for over half of the contribution for every course?

There is also great news in this budget for young people and for seniors in particular. For seniors there is $5.5 billion over the next two years for the Commonwealth Home Support Program, which is helping Australians to continue living in their own homes longer. We are guaranteeing Medicare. Let us remember the 2016 election. I know the member for Leichhardt and the Speaker will remember this: remember Labor said we were going to privatise Medicare? That was 341 days ago that they said that we were going to privatise Medicare.

Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was a lie.

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was. I thank the member for Leichhardt for that interjection. It was a lie. We are guaranteeing Medicare. There is a Medicare guarantee fund that starts from 1 July this year, which those opposite did not support, where we get funding for Medicare, outside the NDIS funding, and say, 'Let's put that aside and let's guarantee Medicare.' The PBS is going through the roof. We have record numbers of drugs on the PBS. We are funding public hospitals, we are funding medical research and we are investing in mental heath. All of this benefits seniors in my electorate of Petrie, which is great news.

We are also making it easier for seniors who might want to downsize their home. If they are over 65 they might have a home that is worth $799,000. The kids have moved out of home and they want to go to something smaller, like a unit. They will be able to do that. They might have a super fund. Let us say they buy a unit for $400,000. From 1 July next year they will be able to get that $399,000. They sell their house for $799,000. I guess, after commission and all that they might end up with an additional $350,000 on top of the unit. They will be able to get that $350,000 and put it into their super fund as a non-concessional payment above what you can normally put into super, so that is a good thing.

We are also helping young people in relation to getting into their first home. Homes in my electorate are relatively cheap, I guess, compared to Sydney and Melbourne. A young person who wants to save $30,000 over two years for a contribution for a deposit on their home effectively would need to earn $45,000 gross at the moment. If you are getting taxed at 32 per cent and you earn $45,000 gross, after tax that will leave you $30,000. What the government is doing is saying, 'You only have to pay about 15 per cent,' because we are going to enable them to put it into their super fund for two years and then pull it out—once only—if they have not already bought their first home. This effectively means that they would only have to save about $35,000 gross and then they will be able to pull out around $29,700, or something, when they are ready to buy their home. That is a good step for young people, which, I think, is really good. We have not heard a lot about it so far. I think we are going to have to get cracking on promoting that to young people in my electorate a bit more.

We are also assisting veterans. We thank both veterans and current members of the Australian Defence Force, men—particularly my age and younger—and women, who do extremely well in relation to mental health and have a much lower suicide rate than the Australian population, but whose risk doubles when they come out of the ADF and go back into normal jobs in society. I want to thank the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Dan Tehan, and the Treasurer. We are ensuring that veterans are looked after. We are improving access to mental health support, reducing claim and wait times and putting veterans first. I say—and I know that members opposite such as the member for Dobell would say the same thing—we appreciate the Australian Defence Force and our veterans for the work that they have done.

We are also are having a fair go for families. Preschool nationally will see a $3.2 billion boost, as I was saying before, with funding to the electorate's 40 primary and secondary schools up by $369 million, ensuring the next generation gets the best possible start. We are protecting Australia. The member for Leichhardt has a lot of the ADF current members up there. We are putting Australia and Australians first, guarding jobs and adopting a sensible approach to immigration consistent with the values that make Australia great. We are reforming citizenship to protect Australian values. Citizenship in Australia is not a right for everyone around the world; it is a great opportunity, and we want people to be able to come here but want them to be able to adopt the Australian values and the Australian way of life. I think extending the waiting period for permanent residents from 12 months to four years is quite okay, and we want them to be able to read some English and speak some English. We just want to ensure that they adopt Australian values really well.

We are also increasing funding to the AFP and our security agencies, which is really important, given the recent attack in Manchester. We do not live in fear in this country. We go about our lives and we continue to live in the best country in the world. I believe the Australian government has the core responsibility to ensure that we are safe at home and are protected. We are all over that. We are doing a great job, and I want to thank the Minister for Justice as well as the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. We are driving jobs and growth. We know that government does not create jobs, so we are supporting those businesses that do, and that is important not because we want to give businesses a tax but because we know that they will reinvest it in jobs, and there will be more jobs and more security for local people in my electorate.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 13 : 28