Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a great privilege and honour to speak at the table today, alongside my friends and colleagues the Minister for Aged Care and the member for Swan, the reason being that, together, they helped build and craft the case for a new Curtin University medical school and medical centre. I was privileged to be able to join the member for Swan there, and also to represent the Minister for Aged Care, when we met the incoming class of students. These new graduates will go through the system. They will be out and about in WA and they will be assisting patients right across Western Australia. That's practical action. That's an exemplar of what we're seeking to do with this health budget.

Overall, the health and aged care budget, outlined by the Treasurer on budget night, comprises $99 billion, $102 billion, $104 billion and $109 billion a year, each year, every year—record funding. But it's built across a very simple conceptual model of four pillars: support for our primary carers, our doctors, our nurses and those working with medicines; support for our hospitals; support for mental and preventative health; and support for medical research, alongside record funding in aged care.

In terms of Medicare, we see overall funding go from $25 billion to $26 billion to $27 billion to $29 billion. But, perhaps most significantly, new and additional services are being provided in areas such as cystic fibrosis screening, 3D mammography for women and renal dialysis in remote Indigenous Australian areas. We are seeing prostate cancer support for men. So there's practical action right across the country. And it's coupled with record investment in terms of our medicines. In particular, we were able to list new medicines, such as SPINRAZA for spinal muscular atrophy and $700 million for Kisqali for breast cancer. These are incredibly important developments. Long-term funding, included in that medicines funding, with a billion-dollar contingency, is replacing that which was stripped out in 2010 and which left a subsequent hole in the budget.

In hospitals, what we see is a $30 billion addition over the course of the next hospital funding agreement—each year, every year, a record right across every state and every territory. It's an incredible outcome. We've already secured agreements with six of the states and territories, so we will be able to deliver what nobody has ever done before. That will include a doubling of hospital funding from when Labor was last in government to the end of the course of this agreement.

What we also see is that we are making profound changes in private health insurance. It was a shame to see Labor join with the Greens to take steps today which may delay some of those changes. I'm hopeful that we'll still be able to achieve them on time. In particular, the prospect that discounts for young people could be delayed is something that I'd ask the ALP to quietly reflect on as they consider the next steps forward. There is the lowest change in private health premiums in 17 years—a considerable amount lower than every year under the ALP. But there is more to be done. At the end of the day, the hospital system will only work if it is strengthened by strong private health insurance, not weakened by an attack which would drive up out-of-pocket costs, drive down coverage and put at risk small health funds in states such as Tasmania.

What we also see is record funding, with an additional $338 million for mental health—a passion of every member of this parliament, I say with confidence—and the $1.3 billion National Health and Medical Industry Growth Plan. That will deliver almost $250 million for rare cancer and rare disease clinical trials; $240 million for frontier science; and, through the Medical Research Future Fund, $500 million for the National Genomics Health Futures Mission over the next decade, which will change and transform treatment, diagnosis and prospects for Australians.

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We heard a lot prior to the budget about how this budget was going to be a great thing for older Australians and how wonderful it would be for those requiring access to the aged-care system. We heard all this rhetoric again on budget night in the Treasurer's speech. But the reality is, as we now know, something quite different: there is not one new extra dollar for aged care over the forward estimates than there was already going to be in the forward estimates.

We heard a lot about how the government was going to respond to the growing waiting list for home care packages. According to the government's own website, as at December last year over 100,000 Australians are waiting for a home care package so that they can get the services that they have been approved for and assessed for in their own home. They are waiting for level 3 and 4 packages for over 12 months, according to the government's own website. We know that; it's on the government website.

In this budget, the government claimed that it was funding 20,000 new home care packages. The reality is there are only 14,000 new packages in the budget over four years. That averages out at 3½ thousand new packages a year. That is, of course, not going to keep up with demand. As I've said many times in this place, the home care package waiting list grew by 20,000 in the last six months of last year—20,000 in six months. So 14,000 new packages over four years is hardly going to cut it.

The Minister for Health, who's here—and I would be interested in his views—actually went on Sky News post budget and said, 'It will be the status quo for a short period of time, and then we'll start to look at a range of other interventions that will reduce that list.' So I'd be pleased to hear from the minister exactly what other interventions he has and how they are going to reduce that list, because I'm sure that he is, like I am, getting many of the thousands of calls from around the country to electorate offices, to people's offices, asking for support for people who are currently waiting at home for home care packages who can't get them. I'm getting calls from the desperate children of older parents, saying, 'I need to get my mum,'—or dad—'a home care package; we're sick of cobbling together the support.' I know the minister is getting them; we're all getting them. I'm getting so much feedback from people saying this is a growing problem.

We know that the government actually has the data for the March quarter. Indeed, in estimates, the department officials weren't really sure and wouldn't put on the record whether or not that data was already in the minister's office. Bearing in mind that estimates were some time ago and the government made a commitment that the quarterly data would be released two months after every quarter, that data is now significantly overdue—significantly overdue.

The minister should come clean today, while he is here, about where that data is. What is the number of older Australians waiting for a home care package today? How many older Australians are currently sitting waiting for their packages at each level—level 1, level 2, level 3 and level 4 packages? We know the number continues to grow. It's not okay to sit on the data. The government should be up-front and honest with older Australians about how long it's going to take for those older Australians to get their package. It says on the website that it's going to take more than a year. What exactly does that mean? I'm getting instances still of some people who have been waiting much, much longer than a year for their package. It's not okay. We know what happens to these people: family members have to fill the void; they end up in emergency departments; and they end up in residential care when the don't want to go or before they want to go. It's just not good enough, Minister.

I know that you care about this, so would you explain to the chamber exactly what you are going to do. How is the government going to fix this? It knew that this waiting list would happen. It knew that it would continue to grow. It said it would address it in the budget, and it clearly has not. It has not done anywhere near enough for older Australians, their carers and their loved ones. It is playing a cruel hoax on older Australians, trying to pretend that, somehow, this budget is going to provide care faster for them, when we know that the response is completely inadequate, that those older Australians are going to continue to wait for considerable periods of time and that the government is not planning any further investment when it comes to home care packages. Those older Australians, their loved ones and their carers deserve much better than what they got in this budget. The minister should respond to my questions.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me say thank you, Minister, for the attention you gave the aged-care industry in the budget. You visited my electorate of Grey in the last six months. You accompanied me out to Ceduna, where we visited the aged-care facilities, and to Peterborough, where we have a few issues it must be said. We have talked extensively about the issues that they face and the difficulties of delivering comparable aged care in a regional setting, in a country delivery, because of the increased costs.

One of the biggest increased costs and the biggest impediment to delivering aged care in the country is the supply of skilled staff. Small units in particular are having to resort to the use of agency care, which is very, very expensive. We know the ideal size for an aged-care facility is a minimum of around 65 or 70 beds. In South Australia, in particular, we have smaller towns which are interspersed by large distances. That is not the status quo. We need the aged-care facilities in these small communities, and we need ways of recognising the fact that it's more difficult to provide that service in those communities.

I had a long history of working on hospital boards in South Australia before I came to this place. Many of the small towns built hostels. In our wisdom, the hospital boards and the hostel boards amalgamated in the seventies and eighties. It seemed a sensible thing to do, and it was. Then of course in the 2000s the Labor government in South Australia came along and got rid of the hospital boards, and in doing so they inherited a swag of small aged-care units that they had no particular interest in, because those are not their prime responsibility. Yet they have an investment that needs to be renewed, replenished and built upon. A number of those units are facing tough times. Peterborough is one of them. Peterborough, to remind you, Minister, is a standalone hostel now used for high-level care, and the facility, while functional, needs upgrading and expanding. It also needs shifting to connect to the hospital, for obvious reasons, which is basically a new rebuild alongside the hospital. There, there is mutual support, which strengthens both agencies. The community has some significant savings but needs help. Unfortunately, the centre is operated by Country Health SA, which presents the circumstances of the difficulty of the Commonwealth investing in what is a state-run facility. I know you've turned your mind to this, and I'm hoping we can find a way forward in the future.

To move on and discuss these issues further, I am part of the Select Committee on Regional Development and Decentralisation, which studied regionalisation and decentralisation around Australia. I asked Eldercare to come to Murray Bridge, when they were in South Australia, because I'd had a number of conversations with them. Eldercare operates a thousand aged-care beds across South Australia at 13 sites, three of which are in the country, on Yorke Peninsula, which is in my electorate. Their annual revenue is just under $100 million. In 2016-17 they had a net surplus of $1.4 million, so they're certainly not making a fortune—less than two per cent—but they are still viable and have very good assets. Of their three sites on Yorke Peninsula, one is at Maitland and is called The Village. There are 60 residential care beds and 17 retirement living units. The second facility is in Minlaton and is called South Park. It has 18 residential care beds, so it's a very small site. The third site is Elanora, at Stansbury, with 44 residential care beds and four retirement living units. They also run an aged-care home program across southern Yorke Peninsula, and the sites are responsible for day-to-day management.

Eldercare have had great difficulty in recruiting senior staff, particularly to the Stansbury site, and it's completely blowing their budget. In fact, this year they're on track to make an EBIT, earnings before interest and tax, of negative $380,000 from that site, which has over 40 places. That's a net loss of $9,000 or more per bed. The average care cost as a percentage of the ACFI at Stansbury is 112 per cent. Clearly, if not for Eldercare's city facilities, their country sites might well be gone already. So my question is, Minister: what is the government doing to ensure country sites like Peterborough and Eldercare's Yorke Peninsula can not only survive but also expand to meet the anticipated increase in demand?

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Indigenous Health. I note the Minister for Health referred to the MBS item number for remote renal dialysis. I want to thank the minister and the government for introducing this new schedule, but I do want to ask about the price that's been agreed. The budget didn't detail the MBS item price, but I understand the schedule is for $590. The national efficient price cost each year for the healthcare services provided by the Independent Hospital Pricing Authority for remote renal dialysis is approximately $690. The amount announced, and that I understand was agreed to, is somewhat less—$100 less, in fact. I understand that currently the amount per delivery of dialysis treatment at the national efficient price going to the NT government, as per the IHPA, is $671.27 for Flynn Drive in Alice Springs. For Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory, it's $731.83. Dr Paul Lawton, whom you will know, Minister, has been working as a nephrologist across the Northern Territory since 1999. He believes that anything less than $690 per episode of care will not cover the cost needed to provide the Medicare schedule item.

I wonder, therefore, Minister, if you could tell us how you arrived at the scheduled fee of $590. Why is it less than the national efficient price and why is it less than the amount of money being given for renal dialysis services in urban centres, like Flynn Drive in Alice Springs and Nhulunbuy in the north-east of the Northern Territory, when remote dialysis will cost more?

Secondly, if you wouldn't mind, Minister, could you comment on the proposed primary care funding model that you've announced in the budget? I understand the budget papers tell us that the new model will gradually be implemented from 1 July 2019 in consultation with the Indigenous health sector to ensure resources are directed to areas of need. The new funding model will be based on patient numbers, episodes of care, remoteness and need. Are you in a position now to detail what the model will be, how it will operate and who will be disadvantaged by it?

I understand that what the government is proposing may result in a massive disincentive to Aboriginal medical services to increase their uptake of MBS item 715. Higher performing Aboriginal medical services, like the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health and others around Australia, are deeply concerned that they are going to lose out with this model. So I would appreciate it, Minister, if you could tell us what considerations have been given to this possible disincentive and what you'll be doing to address the issue when you provide us with the details of the new funding model.

Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party, Minister for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll respond firstly to the aged-care packages. It's interesting that you refer to them as a hoax, Member for Franklin, because if you can read budget papers, you will see very clearly that 6,000 high-care places were provided in the MYEFO process. We've then allocated funding for the 40,000 that will be released on 1 July that will impact on the number of people on the waiting list. If we consider that we are moving from a figure of 87,000 to 151,000, then that is an increase of 64,000 over the next four years. I don't understand what you don't get, in terms of those figures. They are real figures within the budget. It is a $5 billion budget. Historically, your side did not do its homework. You did not look at the level of the people requiring aged-care packages; they were hidden in the process where people were allocated and had to wait for an aged-care provider to provide them. We've made it transparent. We'll continue to work through what is required in aged care.

There is also the combination of Commonwealth home support, and the option of residential care. In some cases, families make the decision to do residential care because they cannot provide the level of support to a family member on a daily basis. There is also a $60-million capital program that we have announced as part of the next round of ACAR places. I've announced those, and aged-care providers will be able to apply. When I was down in Peterborough, talking with the rural region, I gave a commitment that we would look at the regions and allocate ACAR places based on those regions, but with a mind to looking after people living in rural, remote and regional parts of Australia—because there is a significant need in places like Peterborough, and it's important that we turn our minds to it.

To your question in particular, Member for Grey, the discussions I've had with the state minister on the provision of aged care within South Australia have been very fruitful. We've talked about state-owned facilities, but also about the need for small country towns to be considered in the way that we allocate aged-care places. That work is ongoing and there will be a further discussion in Alice Springs in August to look at how we address all of these.

In terms of renal dialysis, we've made a couple of significant grants directly to organisations; in making representation for the MBS item, it's a great step forward. The work that we're doing around renal disease has involved many stakeholders. There's been a series of roundtables in which we are looking at the state's contribution, along with the Commonwealth, and at the way in which we coordinate that across the regions that need it. Giving $23 million to Purple House now enables them to provide services in your area, in particular to people who want to live on country. So we're making a concerted effort to focus on needs in rural and regional Australia for renal disease because, in working with the professionals, there is a need, also, to provide an MBS item that enables the AMSs to provide those services on the ground. In a discussion that both Minister Hunt and I had with her, Natasha Fyles was extremely pleased at the outcome of the MBS item, because it enables the Territory to work with us to provide a far better coverage than we have in the past.

The funding model for Aboriginal community-controlled health services has been a process in which NACCHO have been involved in two working parties looking at the distribution of the funding. They came to us with a proposition initially, around the way in which high-performing providers should be given encouragement to expand their opportunities of providing a much more comprehensive and better service, based on the Brisbane model. In those discussions, they've agreed to a formula. We've frozen it, in the sense that we are staging the new system. The community-controlled health services will work with us continually on that process, and we will make sure that they're involved in the co-design of that.

I thank you for your ongoing interest in the issue, Member for Franklin, and I certainly will continue the process I have with you in which I meet with you fortnightly, and I'll keep you informed on the matters that you raise.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Medicare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to go to some of the savings measures that are contained in the Health portfolio, but, first, I want to note a number of the spending measures that are contained within the Health portfolio. They are measures that, in general, we support. I don't want to hear the sort of nonsense we heard from the minister after the last budget around diagnostic imaging—around us not supporting budget measures. I think it would be undignified if he were to do that again. I also want to note that it was a year ago that the minister used this very forum to speak fairly disrespectfully about a respected health journalist. The minister was ultimately forced to apologise for that conduct, but we've since learned that there's a bit of a pattern of behaviour from this minister, so I hope that we can conduct the debate with a bit more dignity this year than we did last year.

The budget before us includes, in the Health portfolio, $1 billion worth of additional savings, and those savings include $416 million from the GP visa changes, which are attributed to the Health portfolio. Whilst the measure itself sits in the Home Affairs portfolio, the savings are attributed to the Health portfolio. The savings also include $336 million from increased use of generic and biosimilar medicines; $190 million from the MBS review; $78 million from improved use of blood products and antirheumatic drugs; and $40 million from MedicineWise and the National Return of Unwanted Medicines project. Frankly, compared to the fairly deep and terrible cuts we saw in the 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 budgets, $1 billion may not seem a great deal, but I think it does warrant some scrutiny here.

In particular, I want to go to the $416 million that is attributed to savings to the Health portfolio from the visa changes for GPs. The AMA, in particular, has argued that these savings will not be realised because patients will move to other GPs. The government is insistent that the savings will actually be realised. There is a problem here. Either the government is saying that, because of the visa changes, there will be $416 million in savings because of a reduction in Medicare service usage as a result of fewer GP services being billed in those areas, which are largely rural and remote areas, or it actually has a hole in its budget. That is the problem. Either the government has a hole in its budget or it is in fact counting on a $416 million reduction in Medicare service usage. As I said, the government is insistent that these savings will be realised, and, frankly, $416 million is equivalent to 11 million GP visits. That is a lot.

There is, of course, another question here: where is the money from these savings going? The government claims it will reinvest or redirect these savings into the entirety of the Health portfolio. There's no guarantee at all about how it intends to do so. An example of that is the $190 million that has been taken from the MBS review. We've supported that review. This removes some MBS items and changes eligibility or usage requirements for some MBS items, but the listings in this budget show that there are only $25 million of new MBS listings. Funding the projected growth in Medicare services is not funding new Medicare services nor funding new innovation in Medicare. It is funding the overall portfolio, but it is not funding new innovation, so that is in fact a cut to Medicare.

We know that the cuts to Medicare have had a substantial impact on out-of-pocket costs. We are seeing out-of-pocket costs going up substantially under this government, and that is forcing Australians to skip basic health care. This government does not have a plan to actually tackle those increasing out-of-pocket costs, which have largely occurred because of this government's freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule. I note that, as of today, not a single part of that freeze has been lifted. On 1 July, we will see some relief in relation to GPs and some specialists, but the remainder of the freeze, large parts of the freeze, continue until 2020.

I want to again draw the government's attention to reports around a trading of MRI licences for One Nation's vote on tax cuts. I want to ask the minister: instead of horsetrading with life-saving MRIs, will you support our plan to fund 20 new MRI licences around the country; and are you still insistent on your $416 million cut to Medicare services?

Damian Drum (Murray, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My electorate of Murray is one that I believe is not considerably different to many of the other regional seats in the House of Representatives. I think that my electorate of Murray mirrors a large portion of regional Australia in relation to its needs for health and medical services. The electorate covers over 16,000 square kilometres, and the countryside varies from the rolling hills of the Strathbogie Ranges to the very flat irrigation area of the Goulburn Valley, with extensive farming out to the west and the beautiful prime cropping area around the Dookie Hills. Murray has one major population centre, that being Shepparton, with an urban population of over 50,000 people, but there are many medium-sized satellite towns such as Echuca, with 13,000 people, and over 20,000 if you consider its twin town of Moama. Kyabram has over 7½ thousand people, Cobram 6,000 people, Yarrawonga 7,000 people and Tatura 4,000 people. We then move into a small range of towns, hamlets and villages such as Violet Town, Euroa, Murchison, Nagambie, Girgarre, Strathmerton, Merrigum, Pyramid Hill, Inglewood, Wedderburn, Boort and on it goes out through the west—smaller towns, each of them with their respective and different health needs and services.

I am painting this picture widely because of the diverse spread and demographics in this area, which has unique needs, particularly when it comes to health services. The populations and the tyranny of distance are great challenges in providing basic health services to the people of Murray, and I know this is just a generic snapshot of regional and rural Australia. Over recent weeks, I've had the opportunity to meet a number of healthcare providers, and over the two years that I've been in this job as the member for Murray I think I've visited every healthcare facility in the electorate of Murray. We have many aged-care providers, from Shepparton Villages, which is one of the largest aged-care facilities outside of the capital cities, right through to some of the much smaller ones. I've spoken to a whole range of pharmacists, who also provide amazing services. Only two weeks ago I had my annual flu shot in a pharmacy in Shepparton. General practitioners are also struggling to recruit and retain doctors for their practices, and this tends to extend the waiting times for patients to get appointments. There is a general lack of rural generalists, and this has been a problem for way too long.

This situation is bringing to light some of the investments that the government has made and the positive steps it has taken to try and address these shortages. We had a huge announcement last year by the then Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care, David Gillespie, in relation to the appointment of our Rural Health Commissioner, Emeritus Professor Paul Worley. The commissioner's first priority is to develop the National Rural Generalist Pathway, and he is well on the way to delivering that pathway. It must be understood that we do not need more doctors. We have, in essence, enough doctors throughout Australia. The medical students are actually worried about whether or not they're going to get a job. The biggest problem we have is the maldistribution of those positions throughout Australia. It has been the National Party's long-held belief that we need a series of end-to-end medical schools in the Murray-Darling region. This came to fruition when Senator McKenzie was able to announce that, in conjunction with the University of Melbourne and La Trobe University, we are going to be able to offer students from the Goulburn Valley the opportunity to do end-to-end medical training, to do an undergraduate degree to become a medical doctor and then to undertake a larger array of the specialist courses that one needs to undertake on the journey from being an aspiring medical student to actually having your area of specialty in the future. This $95 million commitment for the Murray-Darling medical school network has come to fruition now, and those students in the Goulburn Valley are going to be the beneficiaries. Minister, can you outline some of the benefits of having more doctors, more specialists, in regional Australia due to these medical schools?

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Medicare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When it comes to health, not only does the budget lock in another billion dollars of new savings to Medicare; it also seeks to lock in the Prime Minister's cuts to our public hospitals for another seven years. The minister and the government are desperately trying to deny that there are cuts here, so I want to take the opportunity to take you through some of the facts.

When we were in government we signed the National Health Reform Agreement, an historic agreement that ended the blame game when it came to the Commonwealth and the states in terms of hospital funding. That agreement was signed back in 2011. Under that agreement the Commonwealth committed to fund an equal share of efficient growth in hospital costs, ending that blame game and giving public hospitals long-term certainty. Ahead of the 2013 election, the Liberals promised they would 'support the transition to the Commonwealth providing 50 per cent growth in funding'. It's worth repeating the coalition's own so-called policy to support Australia's health system—a document I noted, when I first waved it around, the minister at the table had appeared not to have actually read. That policy promised that the government would fund 50 per cent of hospital growth. But the government has simply broken that promise. It is only funding 45 per cent of efficient growth, with a new 6.5 per cent cap on Commonwealth growth. The independent Parliamentary Budget Office says that the difference between 50 per cent and 45 per cent is $715 million, from 2017 to 2020, cut from the public hospital system. That cut is shared across every hospital in the country. It includes a cut of $2.9 million to Caboolture Hospital, a cut of a million dollars to the North West Regional Hospital and a cut of $8.1 million to Rosebud Hospital and Peninsula Health in the minister's own electorate. It goes on and on across the country.

The Australian Medical Association's 2018 Public Hospital Report Card shows that these cuts are hurting hospitals today—every doctor, every nurse, every patient. It reveals that bed ratios for older Australians continue to fall and are now at their lowest level on record. Emergency department waiting times have worsened, with up to half of urgent patients not being seen within clinically recommended times. Elective surgery waiting times remain too long, with most jurisdictions failing to treat most urgent patients within the recommended 90 days. The AMA highlights that this substandard performance is a direct result of inadequate funding. They say:

… public hospitals continue to face a funding crisis—one that is rapidly eroding their capacity to provide essential services …

The AMA has been critical of the formula that the government is using for its funding and for its cuts.

In this budget the government is locking those cuts in for another seven years. Between the next election and 2025, the budget would mean a further $2.8 billion being cut from Australia's public hospitals. Australians know that Labor is right, but, of course, they don't just need to listen to Labor on this issue. The AMA says:

The current funding formula will doom our public hospitals to fail, and patients will suffer as a result.

This is the minister's record funding for public hospitals, and the legacy he is prepared to inflict on public hospitals and public patients across the country. Put simply, contrary to the minister's claims of record funding, the independent experts say that the government's funding formula is not keeping up with demand. Doing better than the member for Warringah in the 2014 budget is not something to be proud of.

So, in the meantime, when we see that funding is going to continue to be cut from our public hospitals, I ask: will the minister honour his government's commitment to fund 50 per cent of growth in the efficient price of hospital funding? It is a commitment that you went to the election in 2013 saying that you were going to deliver. Will you deliver your own election promises? If not, can the minister finally admit, as his department has already been willing to admit, that 45 per cent is less than 50 per cent and that this cut is hurting every hospital, every patient, every doctor, every nurse and everybody in the country?

Ben Morton (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Local Sporting Champions grants program is extremely popular in Tangney and, no doubt, in Deputy Speaker Hastie's electorate of Canning, and it's appreciated by our communities. It's so popular that in Tangney each and every round is oversubscribed. I want to give you some statistics. In the 2017-18 Local Sporting Champions program, 126 local young athletes worked with their families to apply for only 36 grants available for the Tangney electorate. Recent rounds saw 53 applications for 22 available grants, and 35 applications for just six grants in the electorate of Tangney. Tangney athletes are very fortunate to receive 12 extra grants in the reallocation process, but 78 young athletes in Tangney who trained hard and applied effort still missed out.

There is such high demand in my community for these very important grants because the $500 Local Sporting Champions grants are a real financial support to these young athletes and their families. Athletes set their sights on national and international competitions. They train hard and ask families and friends for support, including financial support, to get them to competitions. Mums and dads and volunteers put so much time into their sporting clubs—running teams, doing rosters, coaching and umpiring. This $500 federal contribution means a lot when families are juggling the big costs of travel and competition—especially to those from electorates like Deputy Speaker Hastie's and my own, in Western Australia, when they balance their expenses. This government has supported such a wide variety of athletes in Tangney, including athletes participating in soccer, sailing, rugby, weightlifting, ice skating, hockey, cricket and rowing. At my Local Sporting Champions afternoon tea, hosted at my office, we have celebrated participation and achievements in basketball, badminton, cycling, volleyball and calisthenics. It's a real highlight to hear each of the athletes share their stories, compare training and share tips.

As part of the Local Sporting Champions review with the Australian Sports Commission, I made a submission asking for this important program to be expanded further and for fairer consideration of support for athletes that fly longer distances to compete. I'll give you one example. Young sportsmen and sportswomen travelling from my electorate on long flights to an event, for example, here in Canberra, with all their excess baggage full of equipment for their national competition, get the same $500 grant as kids that come from Sydney. Do you know the cost of a bus fare from Sydney? It is $64 return. Yet those kids from Sydney can get the same $500 grant as kids from electorates in Western Australia. So my submission included feedback from Tangney sporting clubs and young athletes who wanted to highlight the real cost differentials in relation to their expenses and also thank the government for the difference that the contribution makes.

Some of the best news in the federal budget for the young athletes in my electorate and for those who are passionate about local sport was the expansion of the Local Sporting Champions grants program. In my community, it's something we've been campaigning for. There has been a 56 per cent increase to this important program in the budget. On current funding, that represents 3,000 additional young athletes from across Australia, including Tangney, who will receive federal government support to attend these important competitions. I want to make sure the extra grants go to young athletes like the ones in Tangney, who, to compete, fly long distances at great cost compared to people who drive or catch a bus between eastern state capitals. The expansion of this important grant program is a great opportunity to support those young athletes who have the greatest need. A fairer distribution of grants that better factors in the distance of the competition will keep more young competitors involved in sport, competing at national and international levels.

Our Local Sporting Champions grant recipients are the next generation of world champions, and set ambitious goals. I want to make sure that we do everything we can to make their dreams of representing Australia come true. The extension of the Local Sporting Champions grants program is a great start which will keep more young competitors involved in sport and help them achieve their full potential. Can the minister update us on the increased funding in the budget for local sporting champions? Can the minister please confirm that this increase will support more WA and more Tangney athletes in their travel to international and national sporting competitions.

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the lead-up to this budget we heard a lot of rhetoric about how great it was going to be for older Australians and the ageing. One of the things this budget does is keep in some of the cuts that were made to the aged-care funding instrument, the ACFI, over previous years. In previous years we have seen billions of dollars cut from residential aged care through this government's cutting of the ACFI. Providers tell me that the cuts that were made will not be fully realised in residential facilities across the country till around Christmas this year. In this budget we saw some money for home care packages, but we know that that money came from residential aged care—indeed, I believe that $1.6 billion, on top of billions of dollars already cut, came from residential aged care. All of this, ironically, comes at a time when the government is trying to get a new quality framework through the parliament. I don't know how you can get a quality framework when you're cutting service delivery in residential aged care, because that's essentially what the cuts to ACFI and the cuts in this budget to residential aged care do. Those cuts mean fewer services for older Australians in residential aged care.

I wonder whether the minister agrees with the Prime Minister's comments in question time today, when he said that aged-care workers should 'aspire to get a better job'. It's an outrageous slur on workers in the aged-care sector, who are caring for more than a million people who are receiving aged-care services.

Government Member:

A government member interjecting—

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister directly said today that people in aged care should 'aspire to get a better job'. I wonder whether the government and the minister over there agree with this. We on this side of the house actually support aged-care workers. We admire the hard work that they do every day in residential aged care, day in, day out, supporting older Australians. It was an insult to them and an outrageous slur when the Prime Minister of the country stood up in question time today and said that they should aspire to get a better job.

Everything in this budget, this government's past cuts of billions of dollars to residential aged care, the fact that they've delayed action on the workforce and the fact their workforce task force doesn't have a workers representative on it show that this government does not support workers in the aged-care system, particularly those in residential care, and we heard that clearly from the Prime Minister today. Australians who are caring for older Australians, who are vulnerable, who need support, deserve some respect. They are not the highest paid workers in the country, that is true, but they work extraordinarily hard, day in, day out, trying to support older Australians, their loved ones and their carers.

I call on the Prime Minister to apologise for what he said in parliament today, and this minister should ensure that the Prime Minister does apologise for what he said in parliament today, because aged-care workers in Australia deserve better. They deserve much better than what we saw from this government today. The history of aged care under this government is one of a revolving door of ministers—it's up to three ministers—and cuts in the past. So to have the government say that this budget is so wonderful for older Australians and then to have the comments from the Prime Minister today shows exactly what this government thinks of older Australians and the people who work to support them. Quite frankly, it's extraordinarily disappointing, and I would have expected much better.

The Minister for Health, the senior minister here, said prior to the budget that it was going to be a very good budget for health, and for aged care in particular. We know now that not one extra dollar is going to aged care that wasn't already in the forward estimates.

Mr Hunt interjecting—

The minister might want to answer some questions instead of trying to be patronising, saying I don't know how to read a budget. I do know how to read a budget, Minister. There are over 100,000 Australians still waiting for home care packages. You know that, and everybody in this place knows that—but, importantly, older Australians and their loved ones know that. They know that they are still waiting for packages. You've been in government for five years, there have been three ministers, and billions of dollars have been cut. You need to take responsibility for the crisis that you have created whilst you have been in government, and you should stop perpetuating a hoax on older Australians. The Prime Minister should apologise for what he said today.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member. Before I call the member for Bennelong, I would remind members to keep interjections to a dull roar. Thank you.

John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to ask the minister about the government's efforts to promote preventive medicine and sport. I first got into politics because of my experience in this industry. My first career was in competitive sports. I played for a long while—not that successfully.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much; I was just looking for a compliment! After my sporting career, I got into the business of developing health clubs, in Adelaide, in Perth, in Sydney, in Canberra and in Auckland. In fact, the one in Sydney is in the electorate that I now serve, in Ryde. We developed the Sydney Olympic centre there, with the Next Generation Club. There were three criteria for the development of Olympic facilities. It had to house an Olympic event, it had to give service to the community afterwards, and it had to be viable. And I'm pleased to say that the Ryde Aquatic Leisure Centre of the Next Gen Club is the only one of the Olympic venues that met all three criteria. It remains viable, and one million people benefit from that each year.

This followed on from my father, who got involved in preventive medicine at a point in time and started an executive fitness club with Les Gonner, who was a physical trainer and trained a lot of athletes, and Dr Bernard Lake, who was Australia's first preventive medico. The idea was to actually extend life through exercise and diet, and this was to be judged on the basis of insurance companies and their projection of life expectancy, based on the criteria of blood pressure, cholesterol levels, fat levels, lifestyle and other factors. At the commencement of this enterprise—which still operates today; this was started in 1965—several of the men who were commencing the exercise program were actually older than their life expectancy. They were literally ticking time bombs. They had high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels, they were terribly overweight, and they had dreadful lifestyles of eating too much and drinking too much. But with an exercise program three mornings a week and a healthy breakfast, they turned their lives around and became exemplars of what healthy ageing should be. They were physically active, they were mentally active, they were engaged; they had a camaraderie amongst each other where there was a great penalty if anyone failed to show. So it was a very, very successful effort and it showed me what could be done. Hence my getting into politics, because this was one of my great interests.

To this end, in the local community, I've approached one of the pharmacies in the Macquarie Centre, the medical centre, and the Fitness First club to discuss the prospect of initiating a prescription of exercise so that people who present at the pharmacy can be advised, if they're in a modest condition, to go to Fitness First and engage in a fitness program—that is, they get a prescription of exercise. If they present in a worse condition, they should have medical advice and therefore a higher level of care when they are going to exercise, and be careful not to overexercise, until they get into shape.

This is an area that I think is very important. I would like to see this type of program rolled out because, when we often talk about the cost of exercise and the cost of these programs, it's a far greater cost if we do nothing. One of the biggest costs in our health system is that of treating lifestyle illness—illness as a result of poor lifestyle. So I look forward to this being rolled out across the country, and I ask the minister to elaborate on the government's efforts to promote preventive medicine and sport. Thank you.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Medicare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to now turn particularly to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and the National Immunisation Program. New listings on the PBS and the NIP are always welcome. The minister quite rightly points out that the new listings in the budget will help prevent and treat disease, including refractory Hodgkin's lymphoma, spinal muscular atrophy and breast cancer. I have personally congratulated the minister on the listing of SPINRAZA. I know many people in this place have met with people from the SMA community, including me. It's a very tragic disease. I also note that the government's investments out of the Medical Research Future Fund in prospective parent testing, and I met with the Murdoch Children's Research Institute to talk to them about that policy initiative prior to the government doing so.

I want to particularly make three points in relation to the pharmaceutical benefits schedule. The first—and I've made this point before—is that PBS listing, since the Chifley government introduced the PBS, is the business of government. It is what governments do. The last Labor government spent over $6 billion to add around 800 new medicines and vaccines to the PBS and to the NIP, and the Life Saving Drugs Program. But we, of course, understood that the credit for these listings does not belong to the minister of the day. They should not be treated as his personal gift to the nation. Credit belongs to the medicine companies that develop these new treatments, the patients, clinicians and researchers that help build the evidence for them, and the independent committees that ensure that these new listings are cost effective and are effective.

My second point is, whether they admit it or not, the government are having the same problems that Labor did in government: new high-cost drugs that are coming onto the PBS are increasingly difficult to fund. That is the reality of what's happening. It's happening in every single developed country across the globe. The minister's very fond of talking about the seven drugs that were listed by the last Labor government. All of these drugs were, in fact, listed within a year. Perhaps the mistake Labor made is that we were honest about the struggle we were had to find the money for those drugs. We were honest and up-front about it. But the government has exactly the same problem, and it serves nobody at all that the government tries to pretend otherwise, because this is a problem of reform that successive governments are going to have to deal with.

Looking at the drugs listed in this budget alone, we've seen substantial delays from the government between PBAC recommendation and listing. They are substantial delays, and I want to use some of the examples. The government delayed the multiple sclerosis drug for seven months from PBAC recommendation to listing, the Hodgkinson lymphoma drug for nine months, the whooping cough vaccine for pregnant women by 16 months and the second whooping cough vaccine by two years. Those delays exist under this government, and for the minister to pretend otherwise is simply dishonest. These sorts of delays are problematic for everybody. What's the government's response? The Medicines Partnership of Australia points out that the budget continues the trend of PBS expenditure continuing to decline in real terms. That's what they said. We understand the minister or his office got very angry about a press release the partnership put out clearly saying that these are the facts and asked that a second press release be issued. I think that's, frankly, pretty appalling. If you're not able to take criticism from the sector for decisions that you've taken, I don't know what that says about you. This sort of intimidation seems to be a bit typical of this government, but that's how it is.

The third point I particularly want to make is the PBS has been, and should always be, defined by a rigorous focus on clinical and cost effectiveness. Successive governments and oppositions have accepted the advice of independent experts on whether medicines should be listed and whether they are eligible for so-called special pricing arrangements. For the first time ever, this minister has rejected the PBAC's advice and granted a special deal. At Senate estimates last month, the minister's own officials described that decision as 'highly unusual'. We must not allow this minister or this government to politicise the PBS in this way. It is a very dangerous path to go down.

Frankly, for ministers who ignore or cherrypick PBAC advice, the recommendations of the independent committee risk chipping away at the trust in the drug-listing system that has served us so well. So I ask the minister: will you come clean about why you rejected the advice of PBAC on this drug? Is it, as was reported, because you wanted the manufacturer's support for a trial of new payment arrangements announced in the 2018 budget? How can the minister boast about listing all drugs when we've seen delays of up to two years from PBAC recommendations under the minister? (Time expired)

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll try to deal with a series of questions raised by members on all sides of the House. In relation to the member for Murray, I'm delighted that we have been able to provide once-in-a-generation support for rural and regional health within Australia. The package, which was $550 million of investment, is significant. It is built around a simple premise: delivering 3,000 extra doctors and 3,000 extra nurses to rural and regional Australia. It does that through additional support for teaching, through the Murray-Darling Basin medical school network—something I was privileged to be involved in, by working with each of the universities that are part of it in conjunction with other members of this parliament. It works, for the first time, in providing the equivalent of a rural provider number for junior doctors who seek to advance their careers in rural and regional Australia, by allowing them access to Medicare. I know that is something you yourself, Mr Deputy Speaker, raised with me as a proposition. It also ensures that there is additional support for doctors, nurses and allied health professionals through different workforce programs.

In relation to the issue raised by the shadow minister, there is a simple proposition: funding for Medicare is a record each year, every year. To lay out the budget figures: $25 billion, $26 billion, $27 billion and $29 billion. Those are the budget figures, each year a record. What we see is a series of important things here. In particular, we see a false claim that there had been no indexation. Indeed, the bulk-billing incentive has already been indexed and, I believe, in 12 days the next round in relation to general practice items and specialist consultations will commence. In addition to that—again, I point out the false claim—there is $4.8 billion of additional expenditure in the budget set out in relation to Medicare. No doubt, question or otherwise: every dollar is reinvested. Every dollar is part of that $4.8 billion of growth to record levels each year, every year, in relation to Medicare.

In the relation to the PBS, what this budget does is reverse the $1.9 billion of cuts to the PBS which were recorded under Labor in the 2010 budget with $2.4 billion of additional investment. There is $1.4 billion in listed new medicines, including for non-small-cell lung cancer. A new drug for non-small-cell lung cancer is something the Labor Party now opposes—in only the last case, where the department followed all the procedures, and it was only negotiated with the department. In addition to that, we also see $1 billion of contingency or headroom to deal with the very problem which Labor couldn't address but which the shadow minister acknowledged was the reason they deliberately failed to take action and announced that they would not be taking steps in their time on their watch. That's the difference.

In relation to hospitals, very clearly, each year and every year there is record funding: $21 billion, $22 billion, $23 billion and $24 billion. More than that, I am surprised that they raised the case of Caboolture, because the Caboolture Hospital is part of the Brisbane metro area. In the last full financial year the Commonwealth investment in that area went up $120 million. The Queensland Labor government went down $21 million. It's a little embarrassing, I would say, and I would quietly counsel them that it may not be the best example they could be using.

In addition to that, we see that Labor itself has walked away from its own funding formula. Can it guarantee that the so-called additional money will be allocated on an activity basis to every hospital in the country? Already we are seeing random allocations, which means that some areas will be robbed to pay for random projects that are being picked based on what is perceived to be an electoral need.

In relation to the Local Sporting Champions program, I can say with great confidence to the member for Tangney that there will be an $11.8 million increase, with 9,000 new grants, and the program will particularly focus on the needs of those travelling long distances and from rural and remote areas. All up, I think that's an outstanding set of outcomes.

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the things we've had bipartisanship on in this place has been suicide prevention. I want to talk about the serious subject of mental health and suicide prevention, and I want to put on record that Labor is committed to supporting measures that support those Australians who are living with mental ill health. We have had bipartisanship on this from the government in the past. Since the minister has come into the Health portfolio, there has been a distinct pattern of copying some of Labor's policies, which is fine because we obviously are very proud of our policies. Prior to the last election, we announced our mental health commitment on 20 June 2016, and the government announced its policy just six days later, in relation to suicide prevention trial sites. But the government committed to only eight sites. It was very good that, when the minister was first given responsibility for mental health, he funded another four suicide prevention trial sites, to bring it up to the 12 trial sites that Labor first proposed. Indeed, we welcomed this at the time, because it is good policy to have more trial sites.

As the government began rolling out the suicide prevention trial sites, it became very clear that the PHNs on the ground needed more time to implement the suicide prevention trial sites. Having been briefed on some of them and having met with some of the consultation groups, providers and consumers around the country, it became very clear to me that they were not able to deliver on-ground services until the last 12 months or so and that the suicide prevention trial sites would need to be extended for a further period of time, to allow proper evidence and data collection so that we could get the best data out of them to try to reduce suicide in this country. I wrote to the minister on three separate occasions requesting that the trial sites be extended. I publicly called on the minister, on numerous occasions, to do this, particularly for those trial sites that are being run in rural and regional Australia. I had great concerns that a lot of the money was going into administration rather than into on-ground services. We didn't see anything in the budget, and I was concerned about that and I raised that. I was pleased to see that the media release from the minister six days after the budget actually said that the suicide prevention trial sites are now to be extended. So I've got some questions for the minister around that.

I'm particularly interested to know whether or not the PHNs contacted the government and the minister about the suicide prevention trial site period; whether they requested an extension; how long an extension they requested versus how long they've actually been given; and whether or not there are any additional funds, particularly for the rural and regional suicide prevention trial sites, where they have spent a lot of money on administration and getting to the point, and they've got fewer on-ground services. I know that six Labor members and senators wrote to the minister—it came out of estimates—about the suicide prevention trial extension sites in their seats. People from both sides of parliament have taken great interest in this in their local areas because they are concerned to make sure that we get the very best possible evidence and data from these trial sites.

I'm keen to know when the minister actually made the decision to extend the suicide prevention trial sites, why it wasn't included in the budget and why we received notification six days after the budget that this was being extended. And, as I said, I would like to know about any additional money that's going to specific trial sites and what sites are going to get the additional money. I'm particularly concerned, as I said, about some of the trial sites in rural and regional Australia, such as the Kimberley trial site, because I know that they did spend a fair amount of their $3 million through the PHN on holding meetings and consultations and getting everything together in terms of the plan. I wonder if the minister could also let me know exactly when he expects to receive some of the initial reports from Black Dog Institute, who are doing some of the evaluations of the trial sites, whether those evaluations are going to be made public and whether we can receive a briefing on those valuations when they come through so that we know what is happening on the ground in the suicide prevention trial sites, because in this place we're all really concerned to make sure that this works.

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

This afternoon I'll be asking some questions of the Minister for Health. They may seem a little bit esoteric insofar as they relate to Defence and Defence personnel, but I believe that they're inextricably linked.

Not far from this place, we have the War Memorial. We've got to remember that there are tens of thousands of men and women who have served this country in uniform. In fact, in areas of my own electorate, we have our own much smaller war memorials. For all of those men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice, there are men and women who have served this country who have returned home bearing the psychological scars of their experiences, both at war and also serving in the military.

To the public at large PTSD is perhaps the most well known of these psychological impacts. Sadly, however, our clinical knowledge of the condition and its effective treatment, though growing, is not terribly great. While treatments are increasingly successful, with as many as three quarters of sufferers who receive treatment substantially improving within 12 months, the precise causes and mechanisms involved in PTSD remain unclear. It's likely that further research could yield more effective diagnostic tools and treatment approaches. The minister is aware of Dr Jim Lagopoulos and the Thompson Institute in my electorate of Fisher. They're currently working on proposals for further research into the physical changes in the brain which accompany PTSD. I look forward to my ongoing discussions with the minister as to how the government might support that work in the future.

In the meantime, I'd like the minister to please outline to the chamber what the government is doing to support research into mental health conditions, specifically PTSD, to help us understand and treat these conditions more effectively. One piece of research which the government has already commissioned is the transition and wellbeing research program study on mental health disorders' prevalence, which was released this year. It showed the true scale of poor mental health among veterans. Of transitioned ADF members, 46.4 were estimated to have experienced a mental disorder in the past 12 months alone—46.4 per cent of transitioned members. Of those, nearly one in five suffered from PTSD. Almost three-quarters are estimated, in the report, to have lived with a mental disorder at some point in their life. Among serving personnel, 8.3 per cent had experienced PTSD in just the last year. Unfortunately, conditions like PTSD among veterans can have the most tragic consequences. The same report found that in the past 12 months alone, 21.2 per cent of transitioned members of the ADF had considered taking their own lives. I know that the minister has taken a passionate and personal interest in improving the mental health of all Australians, including our ADF veterans. So, secondly, I'd like to ask the minister what the government is doing to support the mental health of our ADF veterans, because our ADF veterans are at particular risk of poor mental health because of high stress and traumatic experiences.

What we've also got to recognise is that our first responders, our ambos, our firies and our police will quite often see more death and carnage in a 20- or 30-year career on the streets back home than our soldiers, airmen or sailors might see in a career in the military. Our first responders, our emergency service workers, also suffer terribly from PTSD. My brother is one of them. He's been an ambo for 30 years. Just as we as a federal government look to repair our broken soldiers—rightly so—I'd like to ask the minister what we are looking to do to assist our first-line responders. I know some will say that's a state issue, but these men and women endure, without overplaying it, the worst of all horrors that we see in modern-day life, and we need to do more. I'd like to ask the minister what his intentions are to help our first-line responders.

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This budget was also an opportunity for the Minister for Health to commit to one of his own key mental health promises, and that was a specific plan for Australians who have eating disorders. In May 2017, the minister first recommended the Medicare Benefits Schedule Review Taskforce investigate options for Medicare coverage for the treatment of those living with an eating disorder. In this place last night, we heard directly from the Parliamentary Friends of Mental Illness about somebody living with an eating disorder and about her recovery and survival. It was quite a traumatic thing to listen to. Nearly one year later, the Medicare task force clinical committee finally met for the first time to look at this issue. The minister stated in March of this year:

… what I have done is requested that the MBS Taskforce consider extended eating disorder treatment, a new item of Medicare … they have my commitment and my support that if they propose we will announce this funding …

But, in estimates, the Department of Health could not confirm whether or not a new Medicare item was still being considered. Indeed, the departmental officer at the table said:

There is no advice in front of the government at this stage … There is no recommendation … The Eating Disorders Working Group is still considering what advice it wants to put forward.

The department also confirmed that to date there have been no costings undertaken at all by the agency or the government in relation to whether or not there is a Medicare item going to be developed for eating disorders. After the budget there was an announcement on eating disorders by the minister, and we understand that there's now an eating disorder trial that's going to commence on the Sunshine Coast, and of course we welcome that.

We know that eating disorders are a really serious issue. They know no boundaries and are experienced by men and women of all ages. There are serious consequences of eating disorders, and we heard directly last night about what they can do. They affect around a million Australians. We know that, of all psychiatric illnesses, eating disorders have a very high mortality rate, and they have a devastating effect not just on the individual but on their carers, family and loved ones.

So I'm keen to know from the minister exactly what is happening in relation to an Medicare MBS item for eating disorders, where the task force is at, where the eating disorders working group is at, whether or not the government is serious about this issue and whether or not the minister is actually going to commit to having a new Medicare item number if it's proposed. When does the minister expect to have some action in relation to this? How is the Sunshine Coast proposal going to work in terms of people accessing services and the funding? Is the government considering a trial anywhere other than the Sunshine Coast at the moment? I'm particularly interested to know whether or not trials are going to be located in particular seats around the country as we lead up to the election. I want to know: why the ad hoc nature of some of these announcements, and, particularly, why are they outside of the budget process? It would be very interesting to hear from the minister exactly what is happening when it comes to eating disorders and the MBS item that he made a commitment to—whether or not the government is going to deliver on that and how long this is actually going to take.

As we heard last night, people living with eating disorders are having terrible trouble trying to access services. I know the minister is aware of that. He would've heard similar stories from people around the country. It is very difficult indeed to get the allied health services and psychological support that people living with eating disorders need. They do often need more than just the eight or 10 Better Access visits that they can access. They often need care over many years, not just over a short period of time. It's a very serious illness and it has very severe consequences. I'm keen to hear from the minister and the government about when the government is going to act, how the Sunshine Coast proposal is going to work with the trial, whether or not there's going to be an evaluation of the trial, when the government expects to have that, when the MBS task force is expected to report to government and when we're going to get action.

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

One of the most exciting elements of the budget for people in central western New South Wales was the announcement of the Murray-Darling medical schools network. The Murray-Darling medical school proposal has been sought and pushed and advocated for by people in central and western New South Wales for about 10 years. Why have they felt so strongly about it? Why have we felt so strongly about it? The answer is simple: it's because country people die younger than people in the city. That's just the way it is. That's the cold hard truth of the situation: country people die younger than city people. Their health outcomes are worse at just about every single level. People in country communities know what it's like to go without medical services of all varieties. We know what it's like to not have enough doctors. In some of our country communities you can wait weeks or months just to see a GP, let alone a specialist. When existing GPs retire or move town, often there's no-one there to replace them.

So there has been a huge groundswell of support for the Murray-Darling medical schools network. The concept is very simple: to train doctors in the bush for practice in the bush, as they are doing at James Cook University in North Queensland, with about 80 per cent of places to be quarantined for country students. The idea is that if you take country people, if you train them in the country, they're more likely to stay in the country when they graduate. Indeed, Charles Sturt University has proved this to be true with their many other courses. We have toured their various campuses and faculties, and when you speak to the students, for example in pharmacy or dentistry, the ones from the country invariably say, 'When we graduate we're going back to the bush'. Indeed, if you look at the country workforce in New South Wales, 70 per cent of accountants in inland New South Wales are Charles Sturt University graduates. That's an amazing figure. So Charles Sturt University is literally training the next generation. It's training a country workforce. They have proved that this works across their health faculties and health services, but also with their new faculties such as engineering.

I would like to pay tribute to all of our members of the community who have fought so hard for a new medical school in central western New South Wales. Those folks have come from all walks of life. The support has been widespread from people in local government, from local councils, from Centroc, from groups like the Country Women's Association, the mighty CWA. There have also been a number of doctors, many in fact, who have supported this proposal. They haven't been as vocal as others have, but they have been there, nevertheless, working away, offering support and guidance. I think the result, this whole new medical school network, is something that will truly be a game changer for the practice of medicine in country New South Wales and country Australia. I think it will change the way medicine is practised in country New South Wales and country Australia, because in our part of the world you are going to have a curriculum specifically tailored for practice in the bush. We are training doctors in the bush for practice in the bush. It's a very simple concept, but one we've been fighting for for many years now. I've been pushing for this for as long as I've been in politics, which is since 2011. In fact, I mentioned it in my inaugural speech to the New South Wales parliament in 2011 as being something I'd like to see. It has been a true community effort, and I would like to pay tribute to everyone who's supported the cause.

My question to the minister is: can the minister please tell the chamber how the Murray-Darling medical school network came about and how it will affect the lives of people living in rural Australia? Before I close, can I also thank the minister for all of his hard work on this project. He got it over the line with the help of his ministerial colleagues, and we're very grateful.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Medicare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Following on from the comments of the member for Franklin about the promise the government made around getting an MBS item for eating disorders and the lack of progress there appears to have been on that, I flag that there have been a number of other areas where the minister has been pretty quick to try and shut down a media inquiry or to do things with stakeholders where he's made promises that haven't been delivered. I will highlight a couple of those in particular. One is in relation to catheter ablation, a commitment Hearts for Hearts believe that they had as part of the Prostheses List review. In fact, I remember being at a function where the minister said that he would deal with this issue, so that seems to be a substantially outstanding one. The other is the review of MRI licences, which was announced in response to a media inquiry. I point to the fairly outrageous fact that we have a One Nation senator claiming that they had done a deal with the government about an MRI licence for Kalgoorlie. That the government thinks it is appropriate in any way, shape or form to do a deal on $80 billion worth of tax cuts with One Nation in return for a vote on an MRI licence, is something that the government should reflect on very strongly. Frankly, if we had an independent corruption commission I would be referring that to such a commission. It's a very, very dangerous precedent to be setting.

In this debate there are a number of questions that have gone unanswered. The member for Franklin asked questions about the government's plan to deal with the issue of aged-care packages. There are a hundred thousand people waiting for aged-care packages, particularly for level 3 and 4 packages. The government made a promise that it would deal with this issue, and it has been totally inadequate in addressing it. We have had questions about the MBS item for dialysis and whether the amount of funding that was made available for that will be enough to deliver on making sure we have dialysis in rural and remote communities. I've asked questions about savings within the budget—particularly around the GP visa savings and whether that means that there's going to be a cut to services or a hole in the budget. The government has been totally unable to answer them, despite the fact that the AMA says that it is an issue. We've asked questions about MRI licences. And we've asked the government whether they'll finally admit what is absolutely and utterly self-evident to anybody listening to this debate: that 45 per cent is less than 50 per cent, and that means a cut in public hospital funding.

The minister is a clever politician in the way he really likes selectively to use funding and in the way in which he says, 'We've got record growth in funding.' Each government can claim to have record growth in Medicare and record growth in the PBS because each government, as a result of growth in population and growth in access to services—growth in usage under activity based funding—actually sees growth in hospital funding each year and in Medicare funding each year in particular. Every government can claim that it's got record funding. But what this government has done, and needs to own, is cut public hospital funding and Medicare funding. In each and every budget when we have stood here there have been new cuts within the budget. The government likes to say 'Oh no, it's not.' Own it. This is your budget; own it. This is what you've done, so say, 'This is what we're spending.' That's great. It will either be welcomed or not welcomed—that's fine. But say what you've cut as well. Actually be up-front and honest about that.

We've had the member for Franklin ask about funding in residential aged care and the crisis that is emerging there and the billions of dollars that have been cut. I am sure the minister does desperately care about these issues. I think he's a decent person. But his senior minister, who is responsible for finding money in the portfolio, for making sure, absolutely, that there is funding, is letting his junior minister down by not making sure that they fund aged care.

We've asked about the PBS processes. The straw man that the minister likes to put up—he likes to do the straw man around lung cancer—is a nonsense, again. It's beneath the dignity of this parliament to think about it. This minister is actually doing something very unusual when it comes to PBAC. It's something I've referred to the Audit Office, because it has very serious consequences for the ongoing confidence and sustainability of the PBS. It is something the sector is worried about, and the minister should be concerned that he thinks it's okay.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll try to answer as many of the issues raised as quickly as possible. In relation to the member for Bennelong, there is $230 million of additional funding for preventive health in sport. That includes a long-term $160 million Sporting Schools program, which will make a profound and continuing difference around the country. We have a $70 million infant- and maternal-health package. That's a very important thing and, hopefully, that will have the support of all members of this House. And there is a $125 million chronic disease health fund, under the Medical Research Future Fund, with a particular focus on cardiovascular and pulmonary issues and diabetes.

With regard to the issue of aged-care funding that was raised by the member for Franklin and, in passing, the member for Ballarat, yes, it is record funding, each year, every year: $21 billion, $21 billion, $22 billion and $23 billion. I am surprised that they feel this increase is in some way not an increase. It's a net increase of $5 billion over the forward estimates. For residential care, the figures go from 204,000 to 233,000 residential-care places. And for home care the figures go from 87,000 to 151,000 places. But this is a different practice, I admit, than that which was practised by the ALP when they were in government. I want to refer, for the first time, to the 2011-12 budget papers—I need to get a new hobby, rather than reading old budget papers! In that budget, under the health and aged-care section, we saw that, whereas we openly recognised that there was an underutilisation of some of the projected residential growth and transferred it to health care, the ALP took money out of residential and did not reapply it to home care. So they cut residential in the 2011-12 budget and did not reapply it. They said:

This measure will provide savings of $211.7 million over five years from 2010-11, due to the lower costs associated with delivering care at home.

The very thing that they accused of us—which we didn't do—is the very thing, according to their own budget papers, that they did. It was not just once but in 2010, 2011 and 2012. That's three consecutive budgets.

The next thing is in relation to mental health, and I respect the bipartisan nature of that. There was $338 million of additional funding delivered. I particularly want to note the points made by the member for Fisher on Veterans' Affairs. We see there was an additional $100 million of funding in this budget to continue reform of supports available to veterans, including mental-health treatment to reservists, with domestic or international disaster relief or border protection services or those involved in a serious service-related incident.

I want to acknowledge and address the questions around eating disorders. I had the privilege of being with the member for Fisher and the head of the Butterfly Foundation, who said—and I would gently point this out to the opposition—that this government has done more for eating disorders than any government. She made personal references on that front, and I was humbled and privileged to hear that. We have funded the Butterfly Foundation for their support of the ED helpline. We have worked with the InsideOut Institute at the Charles Perkins Institute on their support. Just last week we provided $3.2 million, through the Primary Health Network, for primary health funding. You asked about the time frame. Over a three-year period, that will see a 20-consultation and a 50-consultation program. It includes development and implementation of assessments with GPs, rollout of services and an evaluation period. All of those were actually announced last week—the very questions that have just been asked at this table. The information is publicly available, already announced. And it will include an evaluation.

In relation to suicide prevention, we worked with the different PHNs on the trial extension. I'm really pleased that we've been able to provide that extension.

Opposition Member:

An opposition member interjecting—

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will absolutely make the evaluations available on a bipartisan basis. I want to make that commitment. In relation to the MBS items, I'm really thrilled that the task force is considering that. I await the work of the task force and the clinical committee. If they recommend a Medicare item—and I hope they do—we will deliver it.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Education and Training Portfolio

Proposed expenditure, $2,274,824,000

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me start today by saying that the coalition government is absolutely committed to delivering the highest quality education outcome for our students, while at the same time ensuring value for taxpayer money. Everything that we have done since we formed government several years ago has been underpinned by those two objectives—high-quality education outcomes and value for money. Systematically and diligently, as a government we have taken on the task of reforming the education sector—in childhood, in schools, in vocational education and in higher education. We see education as a highway, starting with child care and early learning through to school, vocational education and higher education. Each part is critical to ensuring the success and prosperity of our nation. That's why we've taken a holistic approach to education reform and introduced changes where needed across the sector. The reforms that we have introduced are fair and will lead to greater prosperity as a nation.

Let me touch on some of those reforms. The coalition government is delivering real reforms to all Australian schools. We are delivering real funding increases, with an extra $24.5 billion over the next 10 years. Over 2018 to 2027, Commonwealth school funding will be a record $243.5 billion. Funding grows every year, from $17.5 billion in 2017 to $29.5 billion in 2027. Commonwealth school spending for all sectors—government, Catholic and independent—grows faster than costs. And, by appointing David Gonski to lead the Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools, this government has signalled very clearly that it's going to tackle Australia's declining education performance.

The Turnbull government will this week debate the higher education loans bill, which, 30 years on from Labor's introduction of income-contingent loans—introduced by the Hawke-Keating government—seeks to keep the loans system sustainable for another 30 years. It is still the cheapest loan that you will get. You pay no up-front fees and get access to higher education, irrespective of background or financial means. In the meantime, those opposing the bill pretend that we can keep printing taxpayers' money and no-one will ever have to pay the piper. That would be nice but, in the end, we all have to live within our means, and that includes the Australian government, which relies on the goodwill of Australian taxpayers to continue to fund services like higher education at record levels.

Our new early learning and childcare package balances the need for essential services such as early childhood education and care with the need to support families as they make decisions on where, how and how much they work, train, study and volunteer. We're increasing the subsidy rate from around 72 per cent to 85 per cent, benefiting more than 370,000 families earning less than around $67,000. Eighty-five per cent of families using child care will no longer be subject to the dreaded annual childcare rebate cap, meaning they can work as many days as they choose without exceeding the subsidy. High-income families will see their annual cap increase to just over $10,000. While we estimate that this package will encourage more than 230,000 Australian families to increase their workforce participation, it's equally important to note that our $1.2 billion child care safety net is designed to support those who legitimately cannot work for a range of reasons, including poor health. Families in casual work can estimate their activity over a three-month period and apply that consistently for that period. This enables these families to secure child care as they need it. Based on the income data and other details from families who have made the switch to the new system ahead of its start on 2 July, family budgets are set to be around $1,333 a year better off on average per child. Relief is on the way for families who have been struggling with the cost of child care.

In the few seconds that I have left, can I just say with respect to vocational education and training that the Australian government is absolutely committed to growing the number of apprentices that we have to meet the skills needs, both now and in the future. The Skilling Australians Fund has been signed by a number of states and territories and has indicated clearly that we are on the road to meeting our skills needs.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the assistant minister for her opening remarks. How very disappointing, however, to hear her talk about how we can't fund education properly because we can't keep printing taxpayers' dollars, and that we all have to live within our means. There's no question at all that if this government had its priorities right, it would not be making $80 billion worth of big business tax cuts and cutting education funding at the same time.

This budget is particularly disappointing when it comes to education because we can draw a parallel: between the $17 billion cut from our schools over the next decade, compared with what Labor's formula would have delivered for these schools. And there is the $17 billion of big business tax cuts that will go directly to the banks. I think if you asked the average person in the street whether they would rather spend $17 billion of their—indeed—taxpayers' money on a tax cut to the big banks or on proper funding of our schools, I'm pretty sure I know what they would answer.

This budget locks in a completely inequitable funding formula, with the government capping its share of funding for public schools at 20 per cent of the schooling resource standard and contributing 80 per cent for private schools. I don't know in what weird definition of 'sector-blind' this government came up with the idea that public schools should have 20 per cent of their needs funded by the Commonwealth and private schools should have 80 per cent of their needs met by the Commonwealth. In what world is that sector-blind? It actually could not be more sector-specific. This funding model is neither fair nor sector-blind nor needs based.

Incidentally, we've heard a lot about the second Gonski review and the 23 recommendations. The government, apparently, has accepted those 23 recommendations but there is nothing in this budget to reflect that. For example, one of the recommendations is for an evidence institute. Earlier this year, Labor committed to funding for an evidence institute. We set aside $280 million over a decade so that we do this properly. How much in this budget is set aside for an evidence institute? The government, apparently, has accepted the recommendations, they've said that they'll fund it, but what? Big fat zero in this budget. There is no new money attached to any of the 23 recommendations.

When it comes to universities, this budget locks in $2.2 billion of cuts that were made last December. Of course we don't think that's fair, and we've already said that we would return to a demand driven system. Modelling from the Mitchell Institute shows that the government's cuts—the capping of the demand driven system—means that about 200,000 more people will benefit from our plan over 12 years to uncap the system.

I'd like the government to explain how these $2.2 billion of cuts are going to benefit Australian students. Today is National TAFE Day, and there is another $270 million cut from TAFE in this budget. We've got skills shortages and unemployed people. We've got terrible youth unemployment and older workers retraining to meet the needs of a changing economy, so what does this government do? It cuts $270 million from TAFE. What an extraordinary decision, coming on top of $3 billion of cuts to TAFE training and apprenticeships! There are 140,000 fewer apprentices today than when these Liberals came to office. Bricklayers, carpenters, cooks and hairdressers have all been on the National Skills Needs List for the entire time this government's been in office. We could have trained a few more of those.

Labor have said that we will restore funding to TAFE, including scrapping up-front fees for 100,000 TAFE students who choose to learn the skills that Australia needs; guaranteeing that at least two out of three Commonwealth dollars go to TAFE; providing 10,000 pre-apprenticeship programs for young people who want to learn a trade and 20,000 adult apprentice programs for older workers who want to retrain; and $100 million to reinvest in modernising and upgrading TAFE facilities around the country. All of my colleagues who visit TAFEs see that, despite the great work TAFEs do, their facilities in many instances are very run down because of the cumulative effects of the Commonwealth government cuts and the state government cuts.

We've also said that one in 10 jobs on Commonwealth projects will be Australian apprentices and trainees. This government's also making 280,000 families worse off because of their childcare changes. What an appalling attack on families!

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

Recent reports that the Australian National University would be cancelling well-advanced plans for a degree course in Western civilisation and will reject a $2 million offer of funding from the Ramsay centre on what are undoubtedly ideological grounds demand that we ask a simple question: is the assistant minister concerned, as I am, about a growing perception that our universities are not open to debate and are not delivering on community expectations, despite being provided with record funding from the taxpayers who give them social licence to operate? What is particularly telling in this case is the simple fact that opponents of a degree course in Western civilisation clearly see it as self-evident that such a course would present an uncritically positive view of its subject matter. It says a lot about how these academics approach teaching their own courses. Surely academics who believed Western civilisation to be a bad thing would strongly encourage a critical examination of the subject. After all, we often say that those who can't remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

But staff at ANU oppose such a course because they know how their university really works. They know, for example, how ANU's equivalent Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies works. This is a body funded by the governments of Dubai, Turkey and Iran which changed its name from the Centre for Middle East and Central Asian Studies immediately following a particularly large Emirati donation. It's a centre which just five years ago hosted a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, Richard Falk, who dismissed summary executions, repression of women and general human rights abuses taking place in centre donor Iran as 'happily false'. It's a centre whose director, Amin Saikal, presents a single viewpoint so divorced from reality that he described Iran as providing 'a degree of mass participation, political pluralism and assurance of certain human rights and freedoms which do not exist in most of the Middle East', and he has suggested that the coalition operations in Afghanistan and Iraq were the result of a Jewish conspiracy.

The implication is clear. At ANU, to study a humanities subject is to have rammed down your throat whatever predominant groupthink position is supported by the donors. This is not education; it is indoctrination. It will not produce inventive, cutting-edge thinkers for the 21st century but slavish drones to whom new ideas are a threat rather than an opportunity. We can't afford to create a generation of Australians who have been denied the chance to think for themselves in a world where knowledge and innovation will be the economic drivers of our future. Would the assistant minister therefore please outline to the House the importance of a strong and intellectually rigorous university sector in an increasingly competitive world economy, and what threat is posed by the abandonment of intellectual freedom?

Those who've sought to restrict freedom or enforce agreement with their own ideas have always known that the first and most important task is to control the language of the debate. We see a version of it in political discourse in this place, sadly, all the time. That's why the Leader of the Opposition and members opposite insist on dishonestly describing the coalition's ever-increasing, record funding of schools and hospitals as cuts. They know, as the many advocates of a narrow, left-wing, anti-Western world view in our universities know, that he who controls the language of debate has gone a long way towards winning before it even begins. Sadly we're seeing the results in universities in my own state of Queensland, where UQ students report that they have been marked down in assignments for using words like 'mankind' or describing ships with the grammatically correct pronoun 'she'. It is also why, in a stunning piece of doublethink, ANU have claimed that their ground for restricting diversity of thought by rejecting a course in Western civilisation is that it constitutes a threat to academic autonomy. So, finally, is the minister concerned, as I am, by the apparent rising policing of politically acceptable language in our universities and the impact this will have on the diversity of viewpoints which can be properly expressed?

Our universities are the nurseries of Australia's intellectual future. They are the training grounds for our next leaders and the incubators of the ideas that will preserve our nation's prosperity. Rampant politicisation, intellectual cowardice and ideological enforcement— (Time expired)

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Schools) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What an extraordinary contribution from the previous speaker, the member for Fisher. I think it is worth reflecting on. How eloquent a summary he has given of the government's budget insofar as it relates to education! He had nothing to say about it, as the first government speaker following the Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills. I wish her the best of luck in responding to those questions and particularly in addressing them to the budget, which, no doubt, she's very proud to speak to.

The assistant minister opened her contributions by saying that the government is absolutely committed to high-quality education outcomes and value for money. Well, this is a government that has shown in this budget that it has no priority for education, whether it's for early years, for universities—as my friend the member for Griffith will touch upon—for schools or for TAFE on what is, today, National TAFE Day. What the education components of this budget do is bake in inequality. A government that spoke stridently and deeply inaccurately about aspiration in question time is denying millions of Australians the opportunity for social mobility and personal development, which should be the cornerstone of education at every level.

It is very disappointing. I have the greatest respect for the assistant minister. I think she should be a minister, but the fact remains she is not, and the minister who is responsible has not seen fit to come here. I'm very disappointed, for a few reasons. One thing the Minister representing the Minister for Education and Training has done is show that he is actually capable, from time to time, of engaging in cooperative federalism. Whether he can convince his party room of the merits of that, I don't know—in fact, I'm pessimistic. But that's the opposite of how this government has dealt with school education. It has shown an attitude that can only be described as uncooperative federalism. I'd be interested in how the assistant minister can inform me and constituents, particularly in Tasmania, the Northern Territory and South Australia, how the proposals which are baked in in legislation and evidenced in this budget will enable students in public schools in those states and that territory to ever reach the schooling resource standard, which is, of course, the cornerstone of the Gonski funding.

I want to briefly talk also about early years, because unfortunately the member for Kingston, the shadow minister, can't be here. Only a few days remain before unfair changes to child care and early years—and I was pleased to hear the assistant minister talk about early years as well as child care. I congratulate her for that. I wish her colleagues, including the Prime Minister, would do the same. But the fact remains that this budget does not acknowledge the benefits of early-years education. We see again only a one-year bandaid when it comes to kindergarten program funding. We see some real problems: 297,000 families will be worse off under these unfair changes. I wonder, in addition to recognising that and then explaining that, can the minister provide an update on the government's readiness for the 2 July rollout of the childcare package? Has all performance testing of the new IT system been completed? Are all 16 software vendors registered? What percentage of centres and providers have registered for the new system? What percentage of families, critically, have registered for the new system, and is this percentage in line with the government's expected registrations? How many families did you, Assistant Minister, plan to have registered at this point?

I wonder also if the minister could deal with deep concerns I have about schools. These concerns go to the question of appropriate funding for students with disability. If disability is a priority, can the minister explain why in the recent report handed down by David Gonski and received by government there is not a single reference to students with disability? It seems to me that that is an omission that needs to be remedied. As the shadow minister made clear, it could be remedied were there an evidence institute as recommended by Mr Gonski and supported and promised to be funded by Labor. But what we have from this government is a mess when it comes to funding for students with disabilities. We have inconsistent advice to government on the NCCD data process. We have inconsistencies and no apparent interest in progressing this. We had in November a statement by the minister advertising that the School Resourcing Board would look at the disability loading in November, but there has been not a single statement by the minister or the board in advancing that. So perhaps the assistant minister can tell us and parents of students with disabilities how this will be rectified.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will focus on the National Innovation and Science Agenda and how this year's budget has built on those initiatives. Obviously, there's fairly uniform support for a dynamic 21st century Australia. My colleague the deputy chair of the Standing Committee on Education, Employment and Training and I have done consecutive reports on whether Australia is well prepared in school, university and the employment sector itself to take advantage of our geographic position. We're basically in the same time zone as half of the world's middle class. The opportunities for Australia have never been greater as the geopolitics have moved into our neck of the woods. But, increasingly, we hear reports about school standards and reports about poor levels of collaboration between industry and the tertiary education sector, and these really threaten the obvious opportunities that lie ahead for Australia.

Because of the access to the global economy right now, people are concerned that Australians are not getting the education they need to move into work and that we're overly reliant on 457 visas and other solutions to meet those gaps. Both parties would have strong views about Australians being trained first for these highly skilled tasks. There's plenty of evidence around that says that the workforce is changing and everyone is going to be moving into higher tech jobs and that the jobs we all know of today won't exist in 20 years time. I'm not quite so bearish about that. I don't think we have to be so nihilistic as to think that jobs are going to vanish, but what will absolutely happen in the working careers of Australians leaving school now is that there will be not only way more stages in their career but a constant need to be able to adapt to the needs of innovation, tech, maths and STEM in whatever job they're doing. This is not just simply an argument, as the assistant minister would agree, about whether we can reshape TAFE, whether universities offer sufficient STEM emphasis or whether we can have enough workplace based learning so that universities have one foot in industry, but it's about having the agility in nearly every field of study to make sure we're ready for what's coming, be it automation or higher levels of STEM. There is going to have to be an extra arrow in the quiver, so to speak, to make sure that we're ready for those changes and that we can forecast them in advance.

Businesses, universities, research organisations, even CSIRO: the best in the world are fully capable of taking on these big questions, but we need to make sure that at a government level we're prepared to be an exemplar of it. Those areas that were identified back in late 2015, when the National Innovation and Science Agenda was formulated, are the areas that it's appropriate now, two or three years on, to be making sure that we're making progress in. We note already in Australia, as I referred to before, less connection between industry and tertiary education. There's some doubt about the quality of that data and whether areas like advertising and marketing are included or not overseas, as we do include them in Australian data. But, that set aside, we do know that in Australia there is a significant valley of death for early start-ups to move to a position where they have sufficient capital to take on the world. It's possibly the less risk-taking culture that we see in Australia that does remain a challenge for start-ups, even in our capital cities.

That investment of $1.1 billion back in late 2015, over four years, to incentivise innovation and entrepreneurship may not have been what everyone talked about at the water cooler, but we know it's the long-term decision that we have to get right if the next generation looks back and questions what we did to prepare for changes that were coming. Those four areas, culture and capital, embracing risk, incentivising, early stage investment in start-ups, convincing our massive SME sector to contemplate the possibility of partnering up with a university—actively asking the questions about how they can be helped by tertiary education and not just sitting there with folded arms expecting universities to go out and find every SME in the country and ask how they can help. It is about collaboration, particularly with the research sector, actively setting aside a component of their budget to make sure that they can operationalise and commercialise great research, and bringing together research that happens even within the same tertiary campuses.

Lastly, government is obviously an exemplar, leading by example and showing that we can manage data and transform data into useable information for the population. These are all objectives that I think are noble and would be supported on both sides. So my question to the assistant minister is: how has this year's budget continued to build on the government's National Innovation and Science Agenda?

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Preventing Family Violence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's 'World TAFE Day' today—I think it's Australian TAFE Day, but I have to elevate it to 'World TAFE Day'—as you are all well aware and you are, of course, Mr Deputy Speaker. On a day on which we recognise the importance of TAFE, I think it's useful to pick up a few of the points that the member for Bowman just made. He talked about the importance of training people in preference to temporary skilled migration. But there have been occupations on the skills list for longer than it would have taken to train people up in those occupations to remove the need to rely on temporary skilled migration. Bricklayers are the obvious, classic example. Bricklayer has been on that temporary skilled migration skills list longer than it takes to train bricklayers. It's absolutely ridiculous that in this country we have so failed to properly invest in vocational education that we have got occupations on the skills list that have been there for years that could have been trained up domestically. It's not a coincidence, because of course this government has no real interest in investing in vocational education and skills. This is a government that's cut $3 billion from vocational education and skills. At the same time, unfortunately, in this budget that includes $270 million in new cuts.

This is a very, very stark contrast to Labor's approach to vocational education. We want to see more apprenticeships. There are 140,000 fewer apprenticeships today than when the coalition took office back in 2013. We want to see that trend reversed. We're going to do it in a few ways. We're going to make sure there are opportunities for apprentices through procurement practices that require that one in 10 people working on government funded contracts be apprentices, for example. We also want to invest in vocational education. That starts with public TAFE. It starts with renewing and refreshing the equipment and facilities of public TAFEs. We want to make sure people have the opportunity to go to TAFE. We have committed to covering the up-front fees for 100,000 new TAFE students should we win government.

My question on TAFE is: what is the government going to do to make sure that those occupations come off the skills list by actually training people up so that we can have home-grown bricklayers, rather than having bricklayers coming in on 457 visas? My next question on TAFE is: will the government commit to stop making cuts to vocational education in this country and commit to properly funding vocational education with publicly funded TAFE to be at the forefront of that commitment?

Deputy Speaker, you would also be aware that this government, in the MYEFO announced on 18 December or thereabouts, cut around $2.2 billion from higher education. The government did that by basically implementing a university funding freeze to cap funding for the number of places for 2017 for the demand driven system so that there wouldn't be an increase in 2018 or 2019. Universities Australia estimated that that was about 9,500 places that that would be equivalent to in 2018. Universities have, of course, tried to absorb these massive funding cuts. I met with one university just this morning who told me—apropos of the member for Bowman's comments about the importance of the National Innovation and Science Agenda—that one of the ways they'd coped with the cuts was to cut courses in relation to improving teachers' ability to teach science. This is what universities are being forced to do. They're being forced to either not offer places that they'd previously offered for 2018 or, to avoid welshing on the commitments they'd made to prospective students, find other ways to make cuts to accommodate the massive funding cuts that this government imposed in MYEFO at the end of last year and baked into the budget in May this year.

I'd like to know whether the government will relent and lift its freeze on funding, and whether the government has any intention of ensuring that the freeze has some way of taking into account inflation. I'd like the assistant minister to confirm that the freeze means that a university cannot receive more dollars in 2018 or in 2019 than it did in 2017 for places funded under the demand driven system, the non-designated CGS places. I'd like the government to advise the year in which the freeze will end. This is a matter of crucial importance, not only to universities but to future prospective students and their families. I'd also like the assistant minister to advise exactly how the performance measures that were announced at the same time as MYEFO are going to work, and what additional funding will be available to pay universities in respect of those performance measures, and how those performance measures will be assessed in respect of university funding.

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to respond to some of the specific questions that have been put in this consideration in detail. Firstly, with respect to students with a disability, the government will invest an estimated $22.1 billion for students with disability over 2018 to 2027. On average, funding for students with disability will grow by 5.7 per cent each year over this period. In relation to child care, can I say that the transition to the new childcare package is well and truly under way. More than 850,000 families have now transitioned to the new system, and around 95 per cent of services have transitioned. The Turnbull government's sweeping reforms to child care are set to put money back in the pockets of working Australians. We can see this and the benefits of this—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 18 : 39 to 18:50

Before that division was called, I was speaking in relation to child care and the reforms, and I would like to make one update. I indicated that there were more than 850,000 families who had transitioned to the new system. It's actually more than 900,000, so it is still above the 850,000 but is now over 900,000.

We can see the benefits of this package across the country: in South Australia, more than 61,000 families will benefit, including more than 4,700 families in Mayo; more than 17,700 families in Tasmania will benefit, including more than 3,100 families in the electorate of Braddon; and in Queensland, nearly 200,000 families will benefit, including more than 7,100 families in Longman. As you can see, Mr Deputy Speaker, these are significant reforms that the Turnbull government is introducing, and ones that are fair and will, clearly, lead to greater prosperity in our nation.

There have been a number of comments made with respect to vocational education and training. I would like to put on the record some very relevant information about what the Turnbull government has done and will continue to do in the vocational education space. In the budget, we announced the Skilling Australians Fund. That Skilling Australians Fund will result in about 300,000 additional apprentices coming into the workforce. That comprises pre-apprenticeships, apprenticeships, and the higher apprenticeships, which are effectively at the associate diploma and diploma levels and are specifically designed to deal with the skills needs in the spaces that are emerging into the future in the advanced manufacturing space and the IT and finance sectors. So we as a government are looking at making sure that we are addressing our skills needs into the future. We have been very clear in the design of the Skilling Australians Fund that we are focusing on the priority skills needs areas for the future. Those include areas such as hospitality, tourism, health, ageing, the disability sector, manufacturing, and agriculture.

We know that we need to train for specific areas in the future. We are partnering with the states and territories to make sure that, collectively, we meet those needs. We have said to the states that we want to work with them to develop the projects that are going to change this space—and it's a space where change is very much needed. We need to make sure that we are addressing those skills shortages. We have put up a proposal in two parts, and I do intend to talk in more detail about that later. But at this stage, it is sufficient to say that we have partnered with five states and territories for the new Skilling Australians Fund National Partnership Agreement that commences on 1 July and runs for four years.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's no surprise to anyone in this room that what the government budget does in terms of education is critical not just for communities like mine in the electorate of Lalor but also across the country and at all levels, whether that be in early education, schools education or higher and post-secondary-school education or TAFE—VET, as we call it.

This government have now had five years where their attention to detail in education has been next to zero. Other than knowing what education should cost, but not understanding the value of it, there's very little that they can give us in the detail around what their cuts mean. If we remember what the original Gonski review suggested and then think about the reform that was put in place, it was based around a student resource standard. That was a base in schools education that was said to be the minimum requirement for Australian schools to meet the standards that we expect of them. Then there were layers around disadvantage that would have gone above that student resource standard. What we know from this budget and what we know from the Turnbull government is that very few state schools in this country will meet the student resource standard. Families are now confronted with the fact that this has been capped for state schools at 20 per cent of a contribution.

This government wanted to talk a lot about 'special deals', as I think the term was. How are those individual special deals going with each of the states and independent sectors, and the Catholic systemic sectors, and at what point will schools reach the student resource standard? I think that's a fairly reasonable question. What does it mean for equity measures when state schools are to be capped at 20 per cent? Is the federal government therefore abandoning equity measures altogether? Are we going to be putting in place the equity funding that would mean it doesn't matter which school your child goes to or which postcode they live in; they would have an equal chance at a quality education? And when will the state schools in Victoria—and my electorate—reach their student resource standard? None of them have as yet. And how long will it take the state government to make up the difference, given that that's now going to be capped at 20 per cent from a Commonwealth contribution?

I just want to make this point. It is not surprising at all that this government, in five years, have done nothing but reverse what was going to be the biggest reform that this country had seen in schools education. What they've put in place is almost a replication of the Howard era school-funding model, except there's probably a little bit more money in it because the population's bigger. They've also taken the opportunity to ensure that the independent sector will get 80 per cent of its student resource standard funded by the Commonwealth. This is absolutely outrageous. It can't possibly be determined that this has anything to do with needs based funding or with a system that's supposed to be sector blind. They're basically my questions. Other than that, what will it mean in the Catholic systemic system, and what will it mean to the family contributions or fees over the next two years for families attending Catholic schools in my electorate?

I want to go too to some of the things that were said today in question time as they relate to the budget. The Prime Minister said today in question time that we all need to be aspirational. The Prime Minister suggested a 60-year-old aged-care worker should get themselves a better job. On this side, we understand that getting a better job might require you to retrain, go to TAFE. The cuts that have occurred mean this is less likely. The cuts to university mean it is less likely that the 60-year-old might be able to aspire to get a better job. I would ask the assistant minister if she agrees with me that perhaps the 60-year-old childcare worker would be better to vote Labor and get themselves a better Prime Minister.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to be able to ask the Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills, who is representing the Minister for Education and Training, a question on this very important matter. I'm glad to say that relief is on its way for families in my electorate of Robertson who struggle with the cost of child care. In just under two weeks the Turnbull government will implement the biggest reform to child care in 40 years. Across the country nearly one million families are set to benefit from our new childcare package. In my electorate, over 6,500 families on the Central Coast will be better off, with support targeted to those who work the most and who earn the least. There are a lot of different pressures faced by families, and this action will overhaul a broken childcare system to deliver affordable, accessible and flexible services for families and children. Families in my electorate need to be able to make decisions about their work and family with certainty. I know that this package is going to deliver just that.

What this potentially means for families across the Central Coast is that they might be able to take on an extra day or an extra shift or they might be able to volunteer more of their time with the certainty that their childcare needs will be properly supported. Eighty-five per cent of families using child care will no longer be subject to the dreaded annual childcare rebate cap, meaning that they can work as many days as they choose without exceeding their subsidy. Higher income families will see their annual cap increase to just over $10,000. We're also increasing the subsidy rate from around 72 per cent to 85 per cent, benefiting around 370,000 families earning less than $67,000. The new system kicks in on 2 July, and family budgets are set to be around $1,333 a year better off per child on average. We estimate that this package will encourage more than 230,000 Australian families to increase their workforce participation.

It's also important to note that our $1.2 billion childcare safety net is designed to support those who are not able to work due to health or other significant challenges. In addition to our childcare package, the coalition government's Early Learning Language Australia, Early Learning STEM Australia, Little Scientists and Let's Count programs are supporting our littlest learners. Recently, I invited the minister for education to visit my electorate on the Central Coast to tour Kindy Patch in West Gosford. It's a long day care centre that's taking part in the ELLA program and teaching it's young students Spanish. In fact, around 600 young students are taking place in the program at 20 preschools across my electorate. Programs like ELLA complement the coalition government's $870 million investment in preschools over 2018 and 2019. Around 2,000 preschoolers in my electorate will benefit from $2.5 million of that support from next year. Many families across the Central Coast will be hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year better off under our reforms, but they do need to make the switch to the new system. I'm pleased to be advised that already around 75 per cent of families have completed their online form to transition to the new system. I think that's outstanding. With two weeks to go, it's important that all families complete the online form to make the switch. I know how busy these families are, so I'm pleased that already so many have taken the time to switch over to the new package. I'd also like to pay tribute to the outstanding early learning services in my electorate for supporting these families in their transition.

Recognising that this is the biggest reform in child care for 40 years, can the minister please update the chamber on the progress of implementation of the coalition government's new childcare package commencing in just under two weeks, on 2 July?

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Preventing Family Violence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

While the assistant minister is answering the question from the previous questioner, perhaps she could answer me this: will the assistant minister come to my electorate and apologise to the more than 2,000 families who will be left worse off by the coalition's early learning changes? On a related front, will the assistant minister also commit to going back to the minister and having a pretty firm word with him about the fact that universal access funding for kindergartens has not been committed beyond the end of 2019?

The assistant minister is, I'm sure, aware of the uncertainty that this leaves early learning centres and community run kindergartens in. I certainly have kindies in my area. We all do. I visit my kindies on a regular basis, and they're very concerned about the fact they don't have funding certainty beyond the end of 2019. I'm pretty surprised, to be honest. Every year, I think this is going to be the year that the Liberals finally see sense and give a five-year funding commitment for universal access funding for kindies and preschools. Every year, I think this is going to happen. But no, it's always a one-year extension. This is not good enough. You know the importance of preschool and kindy.

Mr Van Manen interjecting—

Don't make excuses, Member for Forde. The member for Forde is making excuses for why you cannot fund early learning in this country. You go back to your electorate and tell all the parents in your electorate why you can't commit to universal access for kindy funding beyond the end of 2019. It's a question about funding. Maybe tell them why you're choosing to spend $80 billion on corporate tax handouts for the big end of town rather than to fund early learning and rather than to fund specifically the universal access funding for kindies that parents are going to rely on. Explain to them why the priority should be helping out your mates at the top end of town and not helping out the families in your electorate. I'd love to hear that conversation; I don't think it's going to go very well for you, frankly.

When I asked the minister some questions previously, I did ask about the MYEFO cuts to university funding—the $2.2 billion in cuts. I didn't really get much of an answer. Obviously, the assistant minister had other questions that she had to answer in the course of her earlier response, and they were important questions. But perhaps the assistant minister could give some thought to those $2.2 billion in cuts announced in December last year and baked into the budget in May this year, because, as I said earlier, Universities Australia calculated that that would mean about 9½ thousand places in 2018. It'll mean something similar in 2019. Of course, these cuts were announced in December, weren't they? By then, a lot of the universities had already made their offers for 2018. Most of them didn't renege on those and say, 'Actually, sorry, you can't have that place at uni that we told you you could have.' They had to find other ways to absorb the cuts, didn't they? I was saying before when a different Deputy Speaker was in the chair that I spoke to a university just this morning who said that they'd absorbed the funding cuts by cutting courses. That's not really a shock. It's what they had to do. They cut some courses. They cut some psychology courses, which I thought was particularly disappointing—courses that had been created to help teachers skill up in teaching science. I raise that specifically because the member for Bowman came in before and asked some questions about the National Innovation and Science Agenda. Cutting $2.2 billion from university funding is not really consistent with a commitment to the National Innovation and Science Agenda. It's pretty inconsistent with a commitment to that agenda. It's pretty inconsistent with a commitment to families. It's pretty inconsistent with a commitment to young people who are looking to the future and trying to work out what skills they will need for the jobs of the future. It's pretty inconsistent with a commitment to mature-aged people who are thinking about reskilling, retraining and getting better qualifications so that they can, as the Prime Minister today suggested, get a better job. And it's pretty inconsistent with a government wanting to do the best for the Australian economy, because, when you fund higher education, you're not just funding something that, together with international tourism, is our most important service export. You're funding something that makes a massive contribution to our economy domestically, because, of course, education is not just great for dealing with inequality, for helping with social mobility and for helping people to get ahead regardless of the circumstances of their birth. It's also great for making our future workforce and our current workforce more productive. It's great for making our firms more productive. It's great for the research that is done that also contributes to the Australian economy. So I ask the assistant minister to explain what will be done to reverse the impact of these terrible MYEFO cuts from last year.

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Griffith actually indicated that I may be welcome in her electorate to speak about child care. I assure you I would be absolutely delighted to go to Griffith, because I can tell you that more than 6,400 families in Griffith are going to benefit from our childcare changes, and I would be more than happy to speak to those families. I would also be very happy to go to the electorate of Lalor, where more than 13,000 families are going to benefit from the childcare reforms that the Turnbull government is implementing.

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Would I be welcome there? Absolutely. Would I be happy to go there? Absolutely. I'd also be very happy to go to those electorates—and, in fact, to every electorate in Australia—and talk to them about vocational education. We've heard the opposition speak endlessly about what they claim to be cuts. Let me talk to you a little bit about what damage the opposition did to vocational education. They are at the point now of trying to make a virtue of fixing the damages that they inflicted on the sector. And I'm not going to let them get away with that, not at all. There were some significant declines in the numbers of apprentices in this country and they happened during Labor's last year in government. In 2012-13, we experienced in this country the single biggest decline in apprenticeship numbers. Twenty-two per cent or 110,000 apprentices were lost to this country, because Labor cut the employer incentive to take on an apprentice. They didn't just do it once, twice or three times—they actually did nine successive cuts. Labor took a total of $1.2 billion out of VET funding, out of apprenticeships, and they did, literally, bring the sector to its knees.

Labor also negotiated an agreement with the states, a national partnership agreement from 2012 to 2017. It was $1.75 billion worth of funding—$1.15 billion of that money went to structural reform in the sector; only $600 million went to training outcomes. Over the last four years, we have lived with the damage that Labor inflicted to the VET sector. However, the Turnbull government has successfully negotiated an agreement with the majority of states and territories, covering the majority of the population in this country, to make sure that we will get some outcomes in the sector. We have partnered with the states. We will be developing projects that will have key milestones, and payments based on those milestones, and we will be looking at absolute outcomes to increase the number of apprentices that we have in training—at the pre-apprenticeship level, so that we're starting the pipeline; at the apprenticeship level, where we know we have some significant shortfalls in apprenticeship numbers; and also at the higher apprenticeship level, where we know we have an emerging sector. I said right at the beginning that we see education as a highway, and we do. Vocational education is part of that highway, and it is a critical part of that highway for our future.

I am on the record as saying that universities have been extraordinarily successful in building and selling the dream of what a university degree can offer. And for many people, that is a reality. I'm very supportive of the work that universities are doing, and there are many people who study at university and go on to very worthwhile, rewarding careers, and that's great. But there are many people out there who would be much better served if they followed a vocational education pathway. The government is committed to making sure that those people do not feel that they are second-class citizens and that they are given every opportunity to succeed in worthwhile, rewarding, fulfilling careers. We have put money on the table—$1.5 billion through the Skilling Australians Fund. We are supporting the Australian Apprenticeship Support Network to go out there and make sure that we are getting the right people into apprenticeships and matching them with the right employers. We are building a vocational education strategy so that we can make sure that we can attract those students in the latter years of their schooling to follow a vocational education pathway—because we know that we need their skills, and we know that they need a fulfilling job for the future, and we're planning to make sure they get it.

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Preventing Family Violence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's refreshing to hear a coalition person reflect on the value of a university education. It's great that the assistant minister thinks that education can—if it's a university education—sometimes lead to very worthwhile work. It's in particularly sharp contrast to the Prime Minister's conduct today in question time, when he used the word 'educated' to refer to Labor members as though it was an insult, and when he was claiming that we don't understand aspiration—which I thought was quite interesting. At the same time as he was saying that we were educated elites he was also claiming that we didn't understand aspiration. He was implying that education was somehow insulting to us at the same time as he was claiming people needed to develop their aspiration to get ahead in life. He can't have his cake and eat it too. Either he thinks it's great that Labor members have gone from a situation like mine, where my parents didn't go past grade 10 and I did get to go to university and to go into a great middle-class occupation, that of being a lawyer—either he thinks it's great to have that sort of aspiration and for people from working-class backgrounds to get to move into middle-class occupations and have social mobility in this country or he thinks it's an absolute travesty, but he can't have them both.

He certainly can't claim that Labor members don't understand aspiration, because we exemplify aspiration. We have aspiration in our bones. It was Bob Hawke who thought about a fair chance for all, with the precursor to the HEPPP, the program that we now have today. There have been 25 years of programs aimed at getting equity into higher education participation. When you hear people like the assistant minister stand up and say, 'We just want the right sort of people at university and the right sort of people in vocational education,' unfortunately, sometimes that's just code for wanting middle-class kids at uni and working-class kids in vocational education.

I want a future where the poorest kid has as much opportunity to go to university as the richest kid, and where the richest kid has as much interest in going into vocational education as the poorest kid. I want to elevate the status of vocational education and elevate the opportunity to go into university. They are equally important—absolutely they are—but you don't get to just claim that if you're not going to fund public TAFE and vocational education properly.

If the assistant minister is looking for ideas on how to do something about the fact that, under the coalition's watch, there are 140,000 fewer apprentices now than when they took office in 2013 and that there has been a 40 per cent reduction in the number of apprentices in my electorate, she should look no further than the fact that, as well as being able to influence vocational education and opportunities for apprentices through regulation, legislation and government programs, government can also have an impact through its role as a purchaser of services, through procurement. Government could quite easily say that it is a condition of doing business with government that, for example, one in 10 people working on a government civil construction project must be apprentices. In fact, we know it's possible because it's our policy. Bill announced this more than a year ago. In his first major speech last year, the Leader of the Opposition announced that Labor's policy would be to make sure that there is primacy of publicly funded TAFE and to make sure that there are opportunities for apprentices, including through procurement policies, that say one in 10 workers on a government funded procurement project would have to be apprentices. Will the assistant minister take up Labor's policy of ensuring that one in 10 workers on government procured projects are apprentices? Will the assistant minister do that with a view to using government procurement as a force for better training outcomes and better training participation in this country?

This party is not a party that's in any way above using procurement and funding mechanisms. If you want an example of that, look no further than the Building Code, the Building Code that the Australian Building and Construction Commission enforced and, before it, the Building Industry Taskforce had an interest in. That code set conditions for workplace relations arrangements as a condition of getting government work. They've used procurement before. In fact, they did the same in universities. Remember the higher-education workplace relations requirements, the HEWRRs, they used to try to force academics off collective agreements and onto individual contracts? It was a very long time ago. This government is led by the Liberals, of course, who have got form in using procurement for, I would say, quite nefarious purposes. Will the government now consider using procurement for the forces of good?

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It would be nice for five minutes or so to talk about something positive that we're doing as a government. I always admire the contributions from those opposite, because they actually never provide any useful solutions to the problems that are before us. It's just a culture of whingeing and complaining.

It was interesting listening to the assistant minister's earlier answer. I want to thank the assistant minister for her ability to be across such a broad portfolio when there are so many things going on. It just shows again that as a government we're paying attention to detail. The assistant minister's door is always open for a discussion about a range of issues, and I'm very appreciative.

I'd like to focus on a couple of things. There is, firstly, education funding. I can say that, across the 42 schools in my electorate, I've had the pleasure of catching up with the principals over the course of this year. They're all happy. They're all happy with the funding that they are receiving and the resources that their schools are getting. Despite the complaints and misinformation and campaigns from those opposite, and from the Australian Education Union and others, the fact of the matter is that the principals and staff in the schools in my electorate of Forde are more than happy with the funding they are receiving from this government and they are going to receive in the years going forward. So my congratulations go to the Minister for Education and his representative, the assistant minister here today, on that. I know they've both been to the electorate at various times to listen to the concerns of the education sector.

I also want to touch on the program that we continue to roll out around Early Learning Languages Australia, otherwise known as the ELLA program. I had the pleasure in 2015 of attending the opening of that program at the Logan TAFE Community Child Care Centre. From memory, I think they were doing Arabic. That program is tremendous because it gives the kids an opportunity to learn a second language. We know from any number of studies that when kids are exposed to other languages and skills it helps them in their day-to-day learning. I'm also very happy to say that recently we announced that, in the second round of funding for the ELLA program, the Bethania Early Education Centre was successful in getting funding for its program. They are focusing on Mandarin.

Both of these centres are in areas we classify as low-socioeconomic areas, particularly the early learning centre. The opportunity for these kids at these early learning centres to learn this second language and use that as a foundation for their learning and building their skills and their capacity as students is enormous. We know that each and every one of these children is valuable and important and has tremendous skills and capability, and we need to create the opportunities for them to demonstrate that. We also see schools with kids in music programs. Typically, the kids in music programs are some of the top students in our schools. This program provides an enormous opportunity for these students to develop those skills.

Equally, I'm pleased with the budget announcement and the changes we've made in childcare funding. There are some 8,900 families across my electorate, and their children will benefit from the increased funding we're making to the childcare sector. That has been very well received. It is just another example of what this government is doing across the spectrum of education. And I haven't touched on vocational education. I think vocational education is tremendously important. We need carpenters and plumbers and electricians, because the average age of that workforce today is the mid-50s. We need a new generation to come through. Could the minister please explain how these programs are helping across our electorates and particularly in mine of Forde?

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

I have two questions for the minister. The first one is about the take-up rate of people embracing the changes in the childcare sector. I have a concern about the information message getting out to people. I do see government advertisements at the moment, but they're not on that particular change—unless I'm looking at the wrong TV advertisements, not that I see much TV. I'd be interested to know what the take-up rate is now. The 1st of July is coming very rapidly, and I'm concerned that people are going to get ambushed by that.

The next question is more to do with high school and primary education, particularly primary education, and the theme of question time today to do with aspiration. In my former life, after high school, I started as a high school teacher. I taught English for 11 years. Since then, I've always seen education as the great opportunity in life. I was the first person in my family, a family of 10 children, to get a university degree. Because of that, and the opportunity that came with education, I've always seen lives change by investing in education. We know the productivity gains that are there. We know that when we had a focus on what was wrong with our education system, or what we could do better, we had recommendations, and the expert panel said to look at needs based education funding that was sector blind. Irrespective of what the sign was over the gate of the school—whether it was a Christian school, a Catholic school, a state school, a grammar school, a private Aboriginal school like the Murray School in my electorate—what could we do that would improve the chances in life for those children? It was sector blind, needs based education funding.

I have a particular concern about the flow-on of funds coming from the Turnbull government decision to move away from sector blind, needs based education funding. I don't know about the Gold Coast, but I'm particularly concerned about some of the inner-city poor Catholic schools, as a good example. In my electorate that would be St Brendon's, Our Lady of Fatima, and even St Thomas More, the high school, to a certain extent. These are the sorts of schools that are taking battlers and that don't have a great fee base. In fact, the Catholic education system, because of their mission, are often carrying a lot of parents and not receiving any fees from some of those parents—not just in places like Palm Island, Thursday Island and Cunnamulla and some of those more remote parts of the Catholic education system, but even, as I've said, in schools like St Brendon's in Moorooka and Our Lady of Fatima in Acacia Ridge. They're doing it tough without a big fee base, and I think they're going to be particularly hit by the changes in education funding as it rolls out. I know there's been a bit of agitation about it. I think there are some articles in the papers today about this. I think there are also some Christian schools—some of those poorer Christian schools. Brisbane Christian College in my electorate is not quite in that category, but I think there'd be a few on the northern part of the Gold Coast that would be the new struggling Christian schools that don't have the systemic support. I think they're going to be hit significantly by these changes in education funding. I know Queensland education more than the other states, but I'm sure there'd be learnings from other states. I'd ask the minister if she could report back on how these schools have indicated they're prepared to accommodate these changes.

The Queensland Catholic Education Commission has a role for administering Commonwealth funds. The basic plan is that the Commonwealth gives them the money and they distribute it across the diocese so that, basically, some of the wealthier Catholic parents are supporting some of the poorer Catholic parents. It's not really in their prospectus, but it's the sort of thing that the Queensland Catholic Education Commission could talk to you about. I suggest you talk to Lee-Anne Perry, the head of the Queensland Catholic Education Commission. She used to be the principal of All Hallow's, an inner-city school that certainly had some wealthier parents but also had a few battlers. I should declare that it's my mother's former school. Lee-Anne Perry would be good to talk to about how they're getting ready for this change in funding, and I'd like you to report back to the parliament.

Chris Crewther (Dunkley, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Jobs are underpinned by Australian workers whose skills meet industry needs and we have a focus on apprenticeships, education and training, giving people the best opportunity to reach their dreams and indeed their aspirations. Those opposite are mystified by aspiration, confounded by aspiration, puzzled by aspiration and bamboozled by aspiration. But we know these skills are necessary, particularly for the people in my electorate of Dunkley. I want to mention the fact that I went to see students ranging from years 9 to 12 at the federally funded, $18.5 million, Chisholm Trade Training Centre in Frankston, who are trying to achieve their life aspirations through carpentry, cooking, plumbing, engineering and more. It is these people I've had the privilege to work with over a long period of time who want to reach their aspirations and achieve their dreams. The coalition, via the minister, is helping them to their dreams, whether it's that or via the apprenticeships drive we did last year, which saw in Frankston and the peninsula a 31 per cent increase in local apprenticeships.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.

Federation Chamber adjour ned at 19:31