Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I was saying in the House, hidden in this budget on budget night was what the Treasurer did not tell Australians: the cuts to pensions. It is not just that this government is raising the pension age to 70—working until 70 will make it very hard for anybody working in a trade. It's hard for a bricklayer and it's hard for a carpenter to work until they're 70, or even for someone like a nurse or a teacher to work until they're 70. Yes, Australians are living longer. However, when it comes to working age and profession, that's what needs to be considered when we talk about the pension age. Lots of people in my electorate understand that and are opposed to the government's push in this budget to increase the pension age to 70.

But what was also hidden in the budget was a cut to the pension. The government is cutting the energy supplement. That is a straight pension cut; that is $7 a week for people trying to survive on the smallest of incomes. Now, let's just remember who our pensioners are. When a lot of our pensioners started working there was no such thing as super. It didn't exist. They paid a higher rate of tax than all of us, and it was a commitment—a social contract—that when they retired there would be decent retirement income: a pension for them to live on.

With the government now cutting the energy supplement and cutting the pension it will hit these families and households hard. They will struggle to pay their energy bills if this measure proceeds. It's just another example of the cruelty and the meanness of this government's policies. But the Treasurer promoted, loudly, that he'll allow pensioners to take out a loan. These are people who they acknowledge need support and income, so they're saying, 'Let's let them take out a loan that they may never have a chance of paying off.' That is just pure cynicism from this government.

Another area where this government should be condemned is their con around the commitment to aged care and home care packages. There are over 100,000 people currently on the waiting list for home care packages, including lots of people in regional areas. People who are waiting for a home care package level 4 in my part of the world have been told that they will be on the waiting list for longer than two years, and to try to take a level 2 package. There's confusion in households where there's a couple and one might be assessed at level 2 and the other at level 3. They can have access to the level 2, but not access to the level 3. These are complaints that we are hearing time and time again from people in our electorates. Yet what the government did on budget night was to commit funding to 14,000 extra places only over four years, not the 100,000 that are waiting. And they're taking that money out of residential aged-care services to fund those packages. What a disgrace!

Yesterday, we had aged-care workers here in Parliament House talking to MPs and senators about the crisis occurring in aged care. Overnight, it is becoming a for-profit sector, and we are seeing the quality of aged care go downhill very quickly on this government's watch. United Voice, HACSU and HSU brought their members here to tell the story. I was actually quite shocked. They weren't asking for a pay rise, even though these workers are undervalued and therefore underpaid. Their first priority is their residents. There are some people who are allocated—as the Bupas of the world and other for-profits have said—$6 per resident, per day to be spent on food. That's the price of an expensive cup of coffee in Melbourne. There is a crisis in our aged-care sector on this government's watch, and they're doing very little to meet with the frontline workers to understand that crisis and to work with those workers to resolve it.

It's not just aged care where the government has let the community down when it comes to this budget. There's also a hidden attack on early childhood education. The National Quality Framework has delivered real reform in the ECEC sector. I note the contribution that Deputy Speaker Gee made last night in his House of Representatives adjournment speech about how important those quality years are, particularly for those in the regions—and he is right. That is why it's disappointing that this government is cutting the funding that underpins the National Quality Framework. We know that access to early childhood education really makes the difference, yet in this budget—hidden on budget night—is a funding cut to the organisation and structure that sits underneath and underpins the National Quality Framework.

I did have the opportunity last week to actually meet with early childhood educators—people who, in fact, work in a centre in the Prime Minister's electorate. Their comments are quite compelling. It is disappointing that the Prime Minister has not been back to this centre to meet with those workers to learn firsthand their story. Take Luke's case: Luke has had to move back in with his parents. He said he simply can't afford, on the wages of an early childhood educator, to support himself in Sydney. It's just not possible for a single person working in early childhood education to survive in Sydney. He is someone who is weeks away from completing a degree in early childhood education—that's a fantastic effort. Luke is about my age. He has worked in early childhood education since he was at university, and he really enjoys his job. He's very good at his job and, through the years, has upskilled to the qualification that he now has. Yet he has not received any extra support from this government when it comes to closing the pay gap that exists. Educators received zero dollars from this government in the federal budget. There are people throughout Australia educating our next generation, and their skills are not being recognised, their qualifications are not being recognised and they are being paid the minimum wage. Urgent action is needed.

The government also should be condemned for their cuts to TAFE in this budget; $270 million cut was from TAFE. If we are ever to get a chance to close the gap between the jobs that we have, with the skills that are required, and having to recruit overseas workers, then we need to train people up. I was horrified just to go out into my community and discover that some of our advanced manufacturers have turned to backpackers—people who are here on a working holiday and 457 visas—to help fill gap shortages. These are fitters and turners, boilermakers and the good old-fashioned trades where we used to have apprenticeship schemes and systems established. Once upon a time, you could go to the railway yards and you could go to ADI in Bendigo, where they had a cohort of apprentices and we trained up the next generation. Because of the funding cuts to TAFE under this government and the funding cuts to skills and vocational education under this government, we have seen a collapse of our apprenticeship sector. Now we have good, local Australian companies who are increasingly looking overseas to recruit workers. Why would you, when we know we have a skills shortage, cut money from TAFE? It's just a disgrace.

There's also the continued funding cuts to our schools. In Bendigo, in next year alone, that is worth just under $19 million to schools in the Bendigo electorate. We have a large Catholic footprint in Bendigo that gives every child who wants a Catholic education such an education. They ensure that it is not about your parents' wealth that determines whether you have a Catholic education. The same can be said about our public schools in Bendigo. They ensure that every child receives an education, regardless of the money that their parents earn. We have a school like Lightning Reef, which, under this government, had its funding slashed to $34,000. That's what the government's version of Gonski means for this school. Yet Girton Grammar, which is up the road—a great school; nobody wants to take away from that school—will get $500,000 from this government. That's not a school in need. Lightning Reef is a school in need.

I do want to acknowledge that in the budget the government did make an effort to help increase the medical places with the Murray Darling Medical School. They are looking at helping people stay in the regions from their first day of studying medicine to their last day of studying medicine. They will now be able to do that in the regions. They will also now be able to do their next stage—the registrar positions and the junior doctor positions—in the regions. This is welcome, because in the long term it will help encourage people to stay in the regions to work in our GP practices. However, it doesn't make up for the university places that the government have cut from regional universities, because of the cap that they imposed at the end of last year. The cap that they imposed on universities disproportionately affects regional universities. It limits their ability to grow. It limits the ability of a town like Bendigo to become a truly university based city. It is narrow-sighted by this government. It is just a blunt instrument.

This government is letting down areas like Central Victoria terribly. This government is engaging in horrible political rhetoric and character assassination as opposed to engaging genuinely with our communities in areas of health and education and ensuring that we have apprenticeship opportunities and well-funded TAFE opportunities for young people going forward. This government is letting down our aged care sector. It's letting down our early childhood education sector. It's letting down our pensioners. And it's letting down working people. This government has again delivered another budget shocker, and I ask again that it engages properly and listens to the people of Central Victoria.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Turnbull government's continuing economic plan for a stronger economy includes tax relief for hardworking Australians, backing business to invest and create even more jobs, guaranteeing essential services, keeping Australians safe and ensuring that the government lives within its means. For those reasons, there are now over one million extra jobs in the economy since the government was first selected. Whether it's the $75 billion infrastructure spend outlined in the budget, the $24.5 billion more being invested in schools right across the country—$24.5 billion more based on genuine need—or the $78.8 billion in this budget that the government is investing in the nation's health system, they are all really critical parts of our strong economic plan.

In my electorate of Forrest and across the south-west, the specific story is one of a once-in-a-generation type of investment. I'm very proud of this. I've fought hard for my community and, because of the government's strong economic policies, we're in a position to be able to invest in rural and regional areas like my own, in projects like the Bunbury Outer Ring Road. This is a $560 million investment. You can only do that, Mr Deputy Speaker, with sound economic policies to get you to the point where you can invest in this type of critical infrastructure. The RAC in my state listed this road as 'critical infrastructure', given the amount of traffic that is there and expected in the years ahead. I fought for this for many years. I know that stages 2 and 3 will be completed, and this will be a massive boon in the south-west. It will help improve road safety and travelling time, and it will also facilitate the development and the expansion, in time, of the Bunbury Port and south-west industry.

The other project that I'm particularly pleased about is the funding for the Myalup-Wellington water project. Given the dry nature of south-west Western Australia, water, as we know, is one of the most precious commodities we have. This project will divert high saline inflows upstream from the Wellington Dam for desalination. It will improve the quality of the water stored in and released from the dam for agriculture and industry and other purposes. This is a real major project, and another one that I've worked on for some time.

With the Bunbury Outer Ring Road, the efficiencies in the supply chain are critical—as we know on our side of politics—especially with the number of free trade agreements that the government has completed. This is a very sound investment. We also need to connect to the other investment we've made in the Busselton-Margaret River airport. These are a critical part of our freight networks, and we have invested nearly $10 million into that airport, to get it up to international freight standard and to be able to take tourists. Everybody wants to come to the Busselton-Margaret River region, but, equally, the amazing produce that comes out of the region needs to get to the rest of the world as well.

The Myalup-Wellington project will actually create jobs as well. It'll provide economic uplift in what is the underdeveloped Collie River Irrigation District and further out to the broader region. Anyone who understands irrigation understands the capabilities of irrigated agriculture. Currently, just 6,500 hectares of the available 34,600 hectares of the Collie River, Harvey and Waroona districts are irrigated. This project is an industry-led initiative. It will see saline water from the east branch diverted from the Wellington Dam into a mine void, and it will be desalinated. A new, smaller Burekup Weir will be built upstream to enable environmentally sound, gravity-fed water to be delivered. The irrigation channels will be replaced with new pressurised pipe networks. It's a simple concept: it's about desalination, it's about piping, it's about a delivery network with fit-for-purpose uses.

When I look back on the history of the dam, it was built in 1933—with Commonwealth funding. This particular upgrade is very important, and a real key part of the history of what this dam has provided right throughout the region. When you seriously look at it, each year the east branch is delivering between 60,000 and 110,000 tonnes of salt into the Wellington Dam. That's really a key part of this project—that is, the desalination—and it is so important to the quality of what can be grown beneath the dam. There is a proportion of farmers who don't actually irrigate their properties, or irrigate as much of their land as they could or should, because the productivity just isn't there. As a result, the quality of their pasture and production is different to that further north in the irrigation sector. This piping system will make a huge difference, and I can see greater production and greater productivity coming out of the region. Around 10 gigalitres a year of potable water from the desal plant will be sold to Water Corp's Great Southern Towns Water Supply Scheme and stored in the Harris Dam. This is a really good, sound result. This is a fantastic irrigation system: a series of dams in the hills with water delivered in a gravity-fed pipe and channel system. It's simple, it's effective, it works, it delivers, and we're going to see more development with the $190 million between a grant and a concessional loan. It is a very sound investment.

I also want to talk about the very good investment—$175.3 million—in new listings on the PBS and the Medicare Benefits Schedule, guaranteeing the essential services that everyone around Australia relies on. This means that new life-saving drugs and services are going to be provided for thousands of Australians. Since October 2013, when we were elected, 1,741 new or amended PBS items have been, or soon will be, listed at an overall cost of around $9 billion. That is an extraordinary commitment by this government—

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a dividend of good management.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and it shows a dividend of very sound economic management. This means the government is averaging 31 new and amended listings per month—approximately one a day. If you're an Australian person out with your family, living in my rural and regional area or wherever you are in Australia, this is fantastic news, because it saves lives and gives access. That strong economy allowed the government to subsidise life-changing breast-cancer medication Kisqali. That treatment would have cost $71,820 per year. Now it will be covered by the PBS, so those who need it most will be able to access it. This is a life-saving budget. That's what I call it.

From 1 November this year the Australian government will include two new time limited items on the Medicare Benefits Schedule for three-dimensional breast tomosynthesis, often called 3D mammography. The proposed MBS fees for the interim items are $202 for both breasts and $114 for one breast. Approximately 240,000 patients each year are expected to benefit from the new items. The existing mammography items on the MBS will still be available; the 3D mammography items will be used for diagnostic testing of women where malignancy is suspected, and that's often identified through a screening mammogram.

This is the sort of decision we can make through our sound economic dividend. This is a critical part of the budget itself. We can do this only through our strong policies and sound economic decisions—not always easy. In this budget we've also invested even further in regional education. For families in regional areas—as you would know, Mr Deputy Speaker Gee—there's an additional significant cost when a student has to leave to study in the city. We saw some dreadful decisions by the previous government, where students from what was deemed to be inner and outer regional areas often missed out on any government support. We've done an extensive amount of work and made some significant changes. There are even more improvements in this budget: $152 million for the Regional Student Access to Education Package announced in the 2016 election. Part of this is the Rural and Regional Enterprise Scholarships. We're increasing opportunities for students to enjoy education in the city where they need to and have to travel.

We're going to increase the parental income cut-off for youth allowance. I've worked on youth allowance since coming into this place. To me it's an equity-of-access issue for young people in rural and regional Australia. I was devastated, as were families, when Labor made the changes it did during its time in government. So many of our young people could not follow and pursue their higher education dreams. We're going to increase the cut-off in the independence criteria from $150,000 to $160,000, plus a $10,000 increase for each additional child in the family. It's expected that 75 per cent more regional students will qualify for independent youth allowance under this criteria. That's a great result if you're a young person whose family lives in a rural or regional area. I know these measures will be welcomed by families and young people in my electorate. It will go a long way towards enabling students to attend university. Sometimes they're the first in family to do so.

Many of these young people in my part of the world have no choice but to leave home to study. The courses are not available in regional areas. We are focused on this issue. We even reduced the amount of time that a young person can use to qualify for independent youth allowance from 18 months to 14. That means in a single year they can qualify for youth allowance and head off to university in the subsequent year. That is the best news for young people in rural and regional Australia. I know they have to work when they get away to university. They have a range of other needs. It's not just the accommodation costs; there are all sorts of additional costs for young people who have no choice but to leave home to study.

These are very sound decisions by the government. All of the measures here are not possible unless you have sound economic management and sound policies. As I said, the extra one million jobs that we've seen—achieved ahead of time—are the dividend from sound economic decisions. So, our record on managing the nation's finances is outstanding. We've probably overdelivered, in a sense. When I look back, I was sitting in the parliament that night when the member for Lilley rose on budget night and uttered those—what will I call them?—infamous words.

An honourable member: We all laughed.

We did laugh then; we didn't realise the joke was on the Australian people, though. The member for Lilley said, 'The four budget surpluses I announce tonight …'. As we all know, the last time Labor delivered a surplus budget was in 1989, when the Berlin Wall still divided Germany. That was the last time a Labor government actually delivered a surplus. As the Treasurer and the Prime Minister have said, the promises of the opposition cannot be trusted. We saw that with the member for Lilley. That was a promise that was never, ever delivered and was never likely to be delivered. It was an amazing hoax, and I can remember how supportive the members of the other side were for it.

But we, as a government, are living within our means. We are continuing to back business to invest and create jobs. We're guaranteeing the essential services that Australians rely on. And the government is keeping Australians safe. We should never, ever underestimate the importance on this role. These are the hallmarks of a coalition government: sober and prudent economic management which leads to an overall strengthening of the economy. I commend the budget bills to the House.

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This government likes to talk—a lot—about aspiration. I've listened rather intently every time somebody from the coalition government talks about aspiration and aspirational Australians, and the contexts within which those terms and those phrases are used.

I am the daughter of a migrant bus driver, who became a single parent on welfare, who became a casual worker on minimum wage, who became a professor with an international reputation, who stands in this chamber today. I think I know a little bit about aspiration, or at least the kind of aspiration that people like me contend with every day. Let's talk about aspiration. Let's talk about Roxanne. Roxanne suffered some horrific injuries as a result of a car accident, but she's a determined and gutsy woman and she's now, finally, realising her dream of studying psychology at the University of Western Australia. Roxanne called the Prime Minister's office after the budget speech, concerned about her ability to finish her studies. The response from the Prime Minister's office was to tell her to either leave university or get a job at Coles.

Let's talk about Callum, who aspires to finish his university degree while working in retail. Callum has had his penalty rates cut, which means that he'll have to put on hold his dreams of finishing his university degree while he increases his hours of work. Let's talk about Tim, who I met the other day. Tim is in his 60s and he aspires to retire in a few years time, but is now facing the prospect of having to work until he's 70. And let's talk about Jackie, who suffers from cystic fibrosis. She doesn't aspire to much. She aspires to live long enough to marry the love of her life, to have children and to grow old watching over her grandchildren. And let's talk about Lara. Lara aspires to also grow old, with dignity, within an aged-care system that looks after her best interests and after her health.

So when this government talks about aspiration and about aspirational Australians, what exactly are they talking about? They are talking about the aspiration to be able to pay an accountant a million dollars to reduce your tax bill to nothing; the aspiration of the big banks to pay less tax; the aspiration of multinationals to continue to pay no tax; the aspiration to give an $80 billion tax cut to multinationals and the banks. But I know of a different kind of aspiration that dwells in the hearts of Australians. It's the aspiration that I see in the faces of the children in Cowan, my electorate. An aspiration to become a teacher, a doctor, a police officer or nurse, a footy player or a dancer. It's the aspiration I see in the faces of new Australian citizens at citizenship ceremonies in Wanneroo, Joondalup and Swan. It's the aspiration to contribute to the social, political and economic life of their adopted land; the aspiration to be and to be accepted as Australians.

What does this government think of their aspirations? What does this government want for Roxanne, Callum, Tim, Jackie and Lara? First of all, they want to axe the energy supplement for pensioners. On top of that they want people to work until they're 70. The majority of people in my electorate of Cowan are employed in the trades and in professions like teaching. It might be okay for a banker to work until he or she is 70, but what about a roof tiler or a carpet layer who is on the waiting list for a knee replacement?

What does this government want for people like Lara, for older Australians? Yesterday I met with aged care workers, and they told me stories of the challenges that they are facing in our aged care system, where they have just two aged care workers to 35 residents in residential care. This government is offering 14,000 more home care packages over the next four years. That won't even put a dent in the waiting list of 100,000 people waiting for home aged care. There is no more funding for aged care at all—no more funding for those extra 14,000 places over the next four years. That is money siphoned off from residential care.

What does this government want for Jackie? When my son was nine years old we were faced with the prospect that he might have cystic fibrosis. He was showing some signs and some of the side effects that are carried with cystic fibrosis. In the two weeks that it took to wait for his tests to come through, I learnt everything I could about this terrible disease. I scoured medical journals and the internet and read through piles and piles of journal articles about cystic fibrosis. I thought I knew everything there was to know about this disease until last week, when I attended the Conquer Cystic Fibrosis ball in Perth. It was there that I met people like Jackie and Taryn: Jackie who was living with cystic fibrosis, and Taryn, whose two-year-old son has cystic fibrosis. I got to see the human side of this disease. I was honoured, because it was a very eye-opening experience. Taryn and Jackie have been lobbying for access to a life-saving drug called Orkambi. But they have got nothing from this government—no assurances from this government that the $250,000 it costs for them to access Orkambi, which will increase their life expectancy by 23 years and improve their quality of life, will be made available to them.

That evening I also met not just an aspirational Australian, but an inspirational Australian. I got to meet Adam D'Aloia, who has lived with cystic fibrosis all his life, and who recently got a lung transplant. But Adam continues to live with the side-effects of cystic fibrosis and continues to face the prospect of a life cut short by a terrible disease.

But what about students? What about those who, like me, aspired to social mobility through education? Indeed, there were opportunities afforded to me through education, doing first a postgraduate degree and then a master's degree, and then eventually, after some years, a PhD. One might say that I'm a bit addicted to education—just a little bit. But what about those students? What about those young people who aspire to improving their lives through access to education? Unfortunately, under this government's funding freeze, announced in December 2017, the University of Western Australia will lose $38 million in funding. Overall, universities across Western Australia will lose $208 million, and that's going to force students to pick up the bill. According to this government, TAFE is only for basket weavers and energy healers. Well, there was once a time when I worked at TAFE. In fact, I worked with aged-care trainers in helping to ensure the success of quite a number of newly arrived migrants in the Certificate III in Aged Care. I think we saw about 30 new aged-care carers graduate through a six-month program—and, I can tell you, they weren't studying basket weaving or energy healing. As for schools, as for all the thousands of kids in Cowan who aspire to be something and the millions of young people in Australia who aspire to more than just having rich parents, well, this government ripped $17 billion of funding that was allocated to fully fund schools and handed it right back to the banks.

On all accounts, this budget fails the fairness test. But it also fails another test. It fails the test on the merits of it providing any kind of assistance to aspirational Australians. It is uninspiring to millions of Australians who looked to this government for leadership and instead got a Prime Minister who is held to ransom by the right wing of his party on the issues that matter to the everyday lives of Australians—of hardworking Australians and aspirational Australians.

But it's not enough for me to just stand here and talk about what the government doesn't do. I think it is also my responsibility to talk about what Labor can do and what we're putting forward as an alternative to this government's budget. We can do better. We can do better than the government on delivering a better future for our children and for our children's children. Labor can deliver on these commitments because, unlike the government, we are not committed to giving $80 billion in tax handouts to big business and to the banks. A Labor Shorten government will achieve budget balance in the same year as this government has said it would. It will deliver bigger cumulative budget surpluses over forward estimates as well as substantially bigger surpluses over the 10-year medium term. And it will put the majority of savings raised from our revenue measures over the medium term towards budget repair and to paying down debt so that our grandchildren don't have to pay it. We will also be guided by clear fiscal principles, including repairing the budget in a fair way that doesn't ask the most vulnerable Australians to carry the heaviest burdens, more than offsetting new spending with savings and revenue improvements and banking changes in receipts and payments from changes in the economy to the bottom line if this impact is positive. That's because Labor has made the tough and big calls on tax reform, on negative gearing, on CGT, on trusts, on dividend imputations and refundability, in order to close loopholes to those who need them least. I often remark that I'm astounded that the percentage of my wage that went to tax when I was a single parent working in the casual labour force on a minimum wage could be actually less than the percentage of my wage that I pay in tax now as a high-income earner with the privilege of being able to negatively gear some properties and take advantage of all the loopholes that this tax system offers us.

Labor's plan is for a fair and more responsible budget. That's because we've made the big calls and because we've got them right. More importantly, it's because we understand aspiration. We know what it means to be aspirational. We know that it doesn't mean having rich parents—

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. I'll take the member's interjection that this is inspirational, because I hope it will be. We understand that aspiration towards social mobility doesn't mean wanting to pay less tax or find more loopholes in the tax system. It means the things that I hear from young people, middle-income earners, families and older Australians in my electorate every day—the ability to contribute and live a life that means more than just how much you earn and how much money you've got in your pocket, being able to live a life that is meaningful to you, your family and your community.

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

It certainly gives me great pleasure to rise today and speak about the fantastic job-creating budget Treasurer Scott Morrison delivered in the House. No doubt those opposite will disagree. That is what they do. Through deceit and by peddling mistruths they like to scare people into voting for them. I will give more on that a little bit later.

One of the key measures announced in the budget is tax relief for hardworking people in my electorate. More than 75,682 people across Cairns and Far North Queensland will benefit directly from these tax relief measures. Hardworking Far North Queenslanders will receive immediate tax relief of up to $530 a year under our plan to reduce cost pressures on the household budget. We want Far North Queenslanders to keep more of their hard-earned wages. Our plan is responsible and, most importantly, it is costed, unlike the plans of those opposite that rely solely on raiding the pockets of our self-funded retirees.

I have been in this place for more than two decades and I can say with confidence that, when those opposite run out of money, they'll come after yours. You can bet your bottom dollar that we'll still be paying for these Labor promises in a generation. Since the change of government in 2007 we have been trying to solve those problems. I personally wouldn't trust those opposite with a church collection, let alone a nation's multitrillion dollar economy.

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

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

Ouch! This budget also includes record funding for hospitals and schools. Only recently our esteemed deputy opposition leader rolled into town for about two hours, I think. She proceeded to peddle mistruths and deceit about education funding. However, she looked a little bit like a goose the next morning when the local paper ran a story that showed funding per student in that particular school that she targeted actually will increase substantially over the next four years. I'm sure that the member for Sydney didn't care too much about that fact. The whole objective of her visit was to basically scare people into voting for the party that she represents. Far North Queenslanders are no mugs and they can see through the proverbial from a mile away.

She was the latest in a whole line of no-name shadow ministers who have recently paid a fleeting fly in, fly out visit to my electorate. I suspect that has got something to do with the change in the temperature, with the onset of winter. We always get this migration heading north. Technically, the member for Whitlam was the last one to visit, but absolutely no-one knew who he was. That was a rather interesting visit, which in no way whatsoever had any substance. I don't mind the no-name shadow ministers coming up to my neck of the woods for their fly-in fly-out visits, because the next morning my phone rings off the hook, with constituents saying to me, 'Warren, you must do something, anything possible, to ensure that Bill Shorten doesn't become Prime Minister.' It really frightens them. It frightens the children up there when these guys fly in for five minutes and make outrageous claims. However, I think it really strengthens our position. My constituents often say to me that they can't afford Labor to be in charge: 'Look at what they did to our economy last time. Our country can't afford to have them back in charge.' So I say: 'Please keep coming. I think we can really showcase to you how to do things in Cairns and Far North Queensland.' We can highlight the stark difference in prosperity with the cranes. We've got about eight cranes in the skyline now—the first in 20-odd years. So there's a really positive feel in Far North Queensland now; it's a stark difference to the years 2007 through to 2013.

The announcement in the budget was extremely well received in my electorate. There were a number of things in there that were specific at the time. There was the announcement of the $50.9 million investment for the Indigenous ranger groups across Cape York and the Torres Strait. I travel right through these areas and see what this work does in the communities. I've certainly seen firsthand the work they do on a day-to-day basis. There are ranger groups such as the Eastern Yalanji Rangers, the Yirriganydji Rangers, the Mapoon Land and Sea Rangers and the Lama Lama Rangers—just to name a few. The work that they do not only on country but also in the adjoining sea is quite amazing. They do a lot of work in relation to ghost nets, for example. These nets take a terrible toll on sea life. The rangers are doing work in relation to feral pigs and their predation on turtle nests and things like that. They also do a lot of fire management up there. There have been major changes, particularly in Cape York, with over 57 per cent loss of our grasslands because of changes in fire regime. You get this proliferation of broadleaf tea tree and narrow-leaf tea tree coming into what was originally open grasslands. By re-establishing those traditional fire regimes, we are starting to help manage the integrity of that landscape. The funding will allow some 23 Indigenous ranger groups to continue their great work in protecting and conserving threatened species, marine systems and cultural places. As I said, this will also address environmental threats caused by feral animals, invasive weeds and, of course, marine debris. The work also continues to be done across the Cape; it goes right across to the Torres Strait. We see the work that is being done up in the Torres Strait area, with all the rangers there in each of the communities. This investment provides real skills and employment opportunities in all of these areas.

As you can appreciate, being the home of two World Heritage areas, plus Torres Strait and Cape York, people in my electorate are extremely passionate about environmental issues, especially given the two iconic natural wonders that are in our backyard. Sadly, there are various internationally-funded groups and inner-city organisations that continually talk down the reef and use emotional blackmail to try and get the opposition leader back into The Lodge. That's why I was absolutely overjoyed and immensely proud that this government has announced the biggest single investment towards the protection of the Great Barrier Reef. This investment will protect thousands of jobs, improve water quality, tackle the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish and scientific reef restoration. It's certainly a game changer in the conservation of the Great Barrier Reef, and reinforces the environmental, economic, social and environmental importance of the Great Barrier Reef.

I have to say, while I welcome this investment and it's great that we are doing this as a means of continuing to build our credential as being the world's best—not one of, but the world's best—managers of a reef system, I think it's also important that we realise this is not about saving the reef: this is about the ongoing conservation and management of a very, very healthy ecosystem. Only a year or so ago, we announced a $2 billion initiative; this is another half a billion dollars. Most of this has been targeted at land users—at farmers, for example—and it's always about the run-off into to the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. This has been great, but the farmers have done a massive job over an extended period of time and really need to be acknowledged for the work that they've done. It has been absolutely brilliant. There are other areas and, as I say, we need to look outside the square a little bit here too. One of the biggest contaminants into the Great Barrier Reef lagoon comes from our coastal cities and from the flow of our sewerage systems and urban drains, et cetera. We need to take a broader view rather than just continually targeting the agricultural sector. As I said, the agricultural sector is one that has been doing the heavy lifting for a long period of time in addressing environmental concerns.

We recently launched an initiative in Cairns where we're focusing on stormwater—that is, measuring the contaminants in streams that are coming within the city boundaries and what they contain. This is a fabulous initiative. By measuring the water quality of these streams—this is continual measurement, not just occasional sampling—we know exactly what has been flowing into there. That will then allow us—through the wonderful work of James Cook University, which is a partner in this—to be able to actually create a process where we can capture those and improve the water quality coming out of these watercourses that flow through our city. It's good to see that we are focusing on something other than agriculture, because this is a major area as well.

I'd also like to see onshore facilities being considered and made available for reef operators in areas where we have large reef fleets where, at the moment, all the disposal from their toilets is basically disposed in the ocean as they are returning back. Now, again, nutrients—as you can appreciate—end up in the lagoon. The reason that they have to do that is because there's no onshore sewerage facilities and the current onshore sewerage facilities aren't able to take it, because they use saltwater and that would contaminate it. There needs to be a new system. With this amount of investment, it would be good to investigate the prospect of putting these in those areas in Cairns, Port Douglas, Hinchinbrook, Townsville, Mackay and the Whitsundays. Those are areas where you have reasonably large reef fleets where they have the option of being able to tap into an onshore facility for the disposal of sewerage waste rather than, as they do at the moment, dispose it into the sea. All of these things will help us to build our recognition as the best reef manager and also would have a significant positive impact on the reef. I think we have an important obligation to do that.

Another investment I was pleased to see in the budget pages was the ongoing support for the Junction Clubhouse. The Junction Clubhouse, which is very capably run by Dorothy Dunne, is a clubhouse for people who have gone out of intensive mental health rehabilitation. It's basically a transitional clubhouse that supports them back into the mainstream community. It's a fabulous initiative. The Cairns community actually owns our own clubhouse up there. It is very, very strongly supported by its club members. But it will be a couple of years before we will see a full run-out of the NDIS, so it is important that we continue to support the amazing work of Dorothy and her team. It is amazing to see that we've got there.

I would also like to say that there are about 19,600 Cairns and Far North Queensland businesses that are going to benefit directly from business tax measures we announced in last week's budget. Everybody, except those opposite, obviously, knows that small- and medium-sized businesses are the driving force of our economy. I have to say that Cairns and Far North Queensland are home to some of the most fantastic family-owned businesses. Last week Craig Laundy, the Minister for Small and Family Business, and I visited one of those marvellous family-owned businesses, Cairns ZOOM and Wildlife Dome, which is an amazing part of the CaPTA Group, which is the Woodward family, who have an amazing array of tourism products. Charlie Woodward, who was the head of the family, sadly passed away a year or so ago, but his legacy lives on in our city.

The instant write-off was another one—the $20,000 instant write-off, which I think is absolutely fantastic. This is a great opportunity to speak on this, but unfortunately we don't have enough time to go through all of it. But I have to say that the budget was extremely well-received in my electorate. I think most people see it as a very responsible budget, a budget that sees us living within our means for the first time in a long time, in that all of our obligations are being paid for through the budget and not through borrowing additional funds. That's the confidence that we're looking for—my people are looking for—as we move forward.

Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A budget is a statement of the government's priorities. What we have in this budget is an example of how the government thinks it is more important to deliver $80 billion worth of tax cuts to the biggest companies in Australia while leaving our schools, our hospitals and our TAFE system struggling, unable to provide the services that Australians expect of them. And off the back of the best global and economic environment that the Australian government has seen in decades, we see a government that is making no inroads into net debt. In fact, net debt at the end of this budget period is going to be double the level of debt that they inherited when they came into government. Debt is growing faster under this government than under any previous Labor government. Their economic credibility is completely and utterly shredded.

I want to talk about tax for a moment. When you give $80 billion worth of tax cuts to some of the biggest companies in the country, you have less money left over to do other things that people expect of you. I want to talk about aged care. In my electorate at the moment, there are over 900 people on waiting lists who have been assessed as needing an aged care package so that they can continue to live in their homes. They have been assessed as needing it, yet they are unable to access those packages because there are none available. In fact, looking at the situation around the country, there are over 105,000 people in exactly the same position and that number is increasing as an additional 5,000 people every year are assessed as needing a service but are unable to get one. Every year, another 5,000 people are assessed as being in need but are unable to get a package. So the government expects us to give them a pat on the back for putting a measly 3,500 additional care packages in the system each year? Frankly, we're not going to do that. And to make matters worse, they are robbing Peter to pay Paul; they are pinching money out of aged care—the residential system—to pay for the additional Home Care Package places, ensuring that the needs of both the home care and the residential sectors are not being met.

Frankly, the older people of Australia expect more from this government, and are getting much less. They should not be surprised because, if you look at the other initiatives that are baked into this budget, you can see that that the government are persisting with their reckless plan of ripping $14 a fortnight away from single pensioners in the form of the clean energy supplement. That $14 is helping pensioners pay for their electricity bills, which are going up and up and up, particularly as we go into winter, yet this government wants to reduce their pension payment by up to $14 a week for a single person pensioner. In addition to that, in every single budget this government—which thinks it's got the locked-on support of pensioners—has sought to cut pension payments. This is on top of the plan this government has to ensure that Australia has the oldest retirement age of any country in the Western world.

Only a bloke who's spent his life in merchant banking thinks that you can work to the age of 70 and not have your body give up on you. Well, I tell you, there are a lot of labourers, there are a lot of people who have worked in the mines and a lot of people who have worked in manufacturing and construction in my electorate who can tell a different story. By the time they hit their mid-60s their back is starting to go, their knees are starting to go, arthritis is starting to set in and there is simply no way that they're going to be able to continue on doing the same job until they're 70. It might be okay if you're pushing numbers around a page as a merchant banker, but people who are doing real work, with their backs and with their bodies, know that this is not the case. We're calling on the government to deliver a better deal for the pensioners and the seniors of this country—a better deal than the one that is on offer.

We are seeing another round of budgets with another round of cuts to hospitals. The Liberals are already cutting $11 million from hospitals in the Illawarra and Shoalhaven area. Hospitals are under stress. We need a better deal from the government. It's why, in his budget reply, Labor leader Bill Shorten announced that a Labor government would invest in over 500,000 more places for scans funded by Medicare over a first Labor budget. Labor would invest $2.8 billion in more beds and shorter waiting times for surgery, and Labor would also be investing over $80 million to boost the number of eligible MRI machines around the country and approve an additional 20 new licences. So, while the Liberals are cutting $11 million from the hospitals in my region and much more from hospitals around the country, we see Labor willing to invest over $2.8 billion in a fund to reduce waiting times for surgery and put more beds in hospitals, to invest in new MRI licences and to ensure more people can get the scans and the healthcare services that they need. There is a clear distinction.

This government likes to talk a big game about its investment in infrastructure, but when you look through the details of this budget there is not one new cent for investing in infrastructure throughout the country. And at a time when rail experts are saying that the Illawarra line between Sydney, Wollongong and Nowra will reach its capacity by 2021, there is not a plan from the state government, and not a cent from the federal government, to improve rail services to the people of the Illawarra and South Coast. There was not even a mention of the Maldon-Dombarton rail link, though report after report said that it is essential to getting freight off our roads and freight off the Illawarra line to ensure that we can have better passenger services and better freight rail services to the people of the region and to western New South Wales. So, they talk a big game on infrastructure, but they are delivering very little indeed.

I have not been surprised to see members from regional areas—whether they are Liberal Party members, whether they are National Party members or whether they are Labor Party members—condemning the failure of this government to include funds within the budget for another Mobile Black Spot Program. We had the minister telling people that the job is already done. Well, there are over 10,000 black spots on the publicly listed database identifying the mobile phone black spots throughout the country. The government's funded a little over 800, and yet they say the job is done. Well, our message to the government is that the job is far from done when it comes to delivering better mobile services to the people of Australia.

People are keen to ensure that we bring the budget into balance, but that where we have the capacity to return money to wage and salary earners that we do it in a fair and equitable way. At a time when wage increases have been flatlining, through policies for which the government is directly responsible, we're seeing penalty rates cut from ordinary workers who are working over their weekends, and we're seeing immense pressure on wages. We think that there is a need for a better deal for ordinary workers. That's why, under Labor's alternative tax proposal, everyone earning under $125,000 a year will receive a better tax cut. More than four million Australians will be better off by over $398 a year than they would under the Liberal Party plan.

A teacher, for example, who earns $65,000 a year will receive a tax cut of $928 a year. A couple earning $90,000 a year and $50,000 a year respectively will receive a tax cut of around $1,855 a year, leaving them clearly in a better position under the Labor proposal than under the Liberal and National Party proposal. The reason that we're able to do this is that we aren't giving $80 billion to the biggest companies in the country. It's why we're able to do more in terms of schools, hospitals and aged care.

I want to talk about TAFE, because this budget has seen yet another attack on TAFE, with $270 million ripped out of the TAFE system. The minister describes it as 'the basket-weaving section of the education system'. We think it's something very different; not basket-weavers, but plumbers, electricians, carpenters—in fact, the tradespeople who people throughout Australia are relying on. It strikes us as absolutely ridiculous—it is absolutely ridiculous!—that at a time when we are having to import skilled tradespeople from other countries, the government is attacking the very institution which will enable us to train the next generation of skilled tradespeople.

So, by contrast to the government, which has cut well over $3 billion from the TAFE sector since it has been in government, Labor will scrap up-front fees for around 100,000 TAFE students who choose to learn skills that the Australian people need the most. Labor will also invest another $100 million in modernising our TAFE facilities right around the country after conservative governments, federal and state, have ripped the guts out of those TAFE campuses. And Labor will ensure that one in every 10 jobs are created to be filled by Australian apprentices on every Commonwealth priority project.

So we will walk the walk and talk the talk. We will ensure that when the federal government is investing in large-scale infrastructure projects, that one in every 10 jobs on those projects will have to have an Australian apprentice on it. This is the way you address a skills crisis, by ensuring that one in every 10 jobs on a priority project is for an apprentice. This is the way you address a skills crisis, by ensuring that you reverse the cuts that the government has made and by investing money to scrap the up-front fees in 100,000 TAFE student places.

The government thinks the TAFE sector is full of basketweavers; Labor thinks the TAFE sector is absolutely essential to ensuring that we are training the next generation of skilled tradespeople, whether they are carpenters, electricians or builders. These are the trades that Australia needs and these are the trades that we should be investing in.

If you want a rolled-gold example of the government's priorities, if you want to look at the difference between Labor and Liberal when it comes to budget priorities, it's here: $17 billion in tax cuts to the disgraced big banks; $17 billion in funding cuts to our schools. In my electorate today there are more than 115 classrooms that are temporary demountables; there are schools that lack the specialist teachers to help those kids that are struggling get up to standard and reach their full potential. It's why Labor will return every single cent of that $17 billion that has been cut from schools and ensure that we fund that by getting our priorities right. So we'll give $17 billion to our schools, not $17 billion in tax cuts to the big banks, which have been utterly disgraced by their appalling behaviour to Australian consumers over the past decade.

We will deliver a budget that is more in tune with the priorities of ordinary, everyday Australians. Contrast that to the budget that has been delivered by the Turnbull government, which is arrogant, out of touch and not meeting the basic needs of everyday Australians. When it comes to a fair tax cut, when it comes to decent hospitals, when it comes to decent schools, universities and a TAFE system, this is what the Australian people expect from a budget and from a government, and they'll get it from a Labor government.

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

I move:

That the debate be adjourned, and the resumption of debate be made an order of the day for a later hour of this day.

Question agreed to.

Andrew Gee (Calare, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with the resolution of the House yesterday, this meeting of the Federation Chamber is suspended and the chair will be resumed at 4 pm.

Sitting suspended from 13 : 27 to 16 : 00