Libby Coker (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Morrison government's approach to our biggest health and economic crisis has not protected Australians as well as it should have, and its budget will not navigate Australia out of the recession with the urgency, efficiency or innovation that a once-in-a-100-year budget should contain. Put simply, the Morrison government's response to the economic crisis has not served and will not serve the people of Australia or my electorate of Corangamite as well as it should. This government has a simple plan in place: wait for the media and Australians to point out big problems and then focus on the media response rather than any real solutions. It's not good enough. We need a better plan for recovery. Australians are suffering and they need a federal government that can step up. Labor's vision includes driving employment and limiting the impacts of the recession by investing in social housing, and establishing a centre for disease control to protect Australians.

We know three things right now: (1) there are 100,000 homes run by Australian governments that are desperately in need of repair; (2) there are hundreds of thousands of Australian tradespeople who will experience drawn out underemployment through the COVID recovery; and (3) we are in the middle of a deep recession, and the government must spend to shorten the length of economic underperformance. Knowing these three things leads sensible people to one conclusion: the government should invest in social housing. Concerningly, this isn't on the Morrison government's agenda, despite calls from community organisations and building industry peak bodies such as the Master Builders Association. The government is refusing to stimulate the building sector through a program of community and social housing works that could begin tomorrow. Labor is calling on the government to fix these houses, create jobs and shorten the recession.

The government should invest $500 million to fast-track urgently needed repairs. When I talk to plumbers, bricklayers, builders and sparkies in Corangamite, they tell me they are ready for more work but the demand just isn't there right now. The government needs to step up. Social housing works. It will create this demand, and these tradies have the skills. Most importantly, they can do these works to ensure all social housing residents have safe and secure homes to live in. This plan will generate jobs, including jobs for apprentices and young Australians.

Coronavirus took even the best prepared countries by surprise, but there is no excuse for the health and wellbeing of Australians suffering as a result of underpreparation by the federal government. Our response to the coronavirus pandemic was too slow, too reactive and too uncoordinated. Coronavirus has affected more than 27,000 Australians and killed almost 900. Each of these deaths is a tragedy. Lockdowns are vital to stop the spread, but we also know that lockdowns have significant impact on wellbeing. Restrictions have taken a huge toll on economic prosperity and mental health across the country and in my electorate of Corangamite. It is unacceptable that the last time the federal government ran a national pandemic drill was in 2008, 12 years ago under Labor.

Failure to prepare is preparing to fail, and by failing to run a national pandemic drill the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government failed to prepare for this devastating pandemic. Australia is the only country in the OECD that doesn't have a centre for disease control. An Albanese Labor government will correct this failure. Establishing a centre for disease control will ensure that we are never caught so unprepared as we were this time. To strengthen Australia's preparedness, the CDC will employ experts and build systems for current and emerging threats to the health of Australians. It will be monitored and acted on swiftly. It will work with state and territory governments and service providers to improve preparedness in the health and aged-care sectors; manage the National Medical Stockpile, ensuring supplies like PPE are available immediately to every medical profession, community organisation and person who needs them; run regular preparedness drills on the scale of exercise sustained in 2008; and work with other countries on regional and global preparedness.

An Australian centre for disease control is a no-brainer and so is investment in social housing. It is policies such as these that demonstrate that our Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, has a vision to create a fairer, safer and more prosperous Australia.

Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer has often said there is no economic recovery without jobs recovery, and the budget is all about jobs. In Western Sydney, our manufacturers are primed to unlock their potential and create more local jobs. We hold the key to the new era in Australian manufacturing. After handing down one of the most significant budgets in our nation's history, the Treasurer's first stop was at my electorate of Lindsay and to a proud Australian manufacturer. I brought the Treasurer to SpanSet, where Kristian and the team are creating high-quality safety harnesses to keep workers safe on building sites across Australia, and round slings with the strength to lift thousands of kilos, which are even used by the Australian Defence Force for heavy vehicles. SpanSet relied on JobKeeper to get them through the toughest parts of the coronavirus pandemic. They are one of 5,000 businesses in Lindsay that have been supported by JobKeeper to stay in business and stay connected to their employees.

Joining Kristian to welcome the Treasurer was another proud Australian business based in Western Sydney, Frank Zammit of Two Way Cranes. Frank's story is one of hard work and aspiration. In less than two decades, Frank went from purchasing his first crane to now having a fleet of 44. He employs over 120 people.

This is the type of aspiration that we are putting at the centre of our plan to lead our economic recovery and create more jobs. Small businesses are the job creators of our economy, and people in small business and Australian manufacturing, like Kristian and Frank, know this as well as anyone. Frank told me how they had also accessed JobKeeper during the pandemic to help them get through. Just like SpanSet and thousands of other Australian businesses in Western Sydney and across Australia, Two Way Cranes have the resilience to withstand the recent challenges and come out the other side ready to take advantage of the government support to help them create more jobs.

That's why we are putting in place the measures to support Australian manufacturers, which will help them become more competitive, scale up, expand and ultimately create local jobs. A key part of our plan is the $1.3 billion Modern Manufacturing Initiative. We are investing in medical products, defence, resources technology and critical minerals processing, food and beverage, recycling, clean energy and the space industry. To ensure we have the resilience to mitigate the impact of future shocks to global supply chains and address our critical supply needs, we are investing $107 million in the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative. This will build resilience in these critical sectors, reduce risk and increase our agility to respond to changes.

In Lindsay, the Treasurer also took part in a roundtable discussion with my Advancing Manufacturing Taskforce. I established this task force to address the barriers facing Western Sydney manufacturers and to explore the opportunities to create local jobs, because I believe we can deliver the best outcomes when we listen directly to manufacturers who are confronting these challenges on the ground every single day. Former Prime Minister John Howard describes Lindsay as a microcosm of Australia, with many hard-working small businesses and young families. At the budget briefing, the Treasurer fielded questions from local manufacturers and small business owners, representatives from the community, local swim schools, hotels, Aboriginal organisations and universities.

An important issue across all parts of our community is easing congestion and improving safety on our roads. From local families getting to work and school in the morning and back home in the evening, to the thousands of small businesses moving their products across our community and beyond, better, safer roads make our community an even more wonderful a place to live, work and stay. I fought hard during the election to secure $63½ million to upgrade Dunheved Road and an additional $63½ million in the budget to fully fund the complete upgrade of Dunheved Road. That's $127 million for a full upgrade to this road that is so important to our community. I brought members of our community who got behind me to meet the Treasurer. These are people who signed my petition and who really fought for this road upgrade, which will mean so much to them, their families and their small businesses. For Nicole, a local truck driver who has used Dunheved Road almost every day for the last decade, this important upgrade means that her business is not getting held up in traffic and can reach its potential. For Luke, the general manager of Penrith Valley Regional Sports Centre, this upgrade means that his commute to work and home again is going to be quicker and safer. For all of our community, I look forward to this budget measure and supporting you in the future.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There has been a lot of talk this week about the word 'integrity'. What does that word actually mean? Etymology-wise it's Middle English, from the French 'integrite'. The Australian concise Oxford dictionary defines integrity as 'moral uprightness, honesty'. The online Cambridge dictionary defines it as 'the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that you refuse to change'. Every person who serves the people of Australia in this House should have these qualities. Australians should have confidence that their representatives have integrity. However, without a powerful and independent national integrity commission, they can't be confident about their representatives' integrity.

The last seven years of coalition government have not filled anyone with confidence when it comes to integrity. Now in their eighth year in office, let's pick over the long trail of scandals scattered in the coalition's wake. I will only do the top 10 because I don't have enough time. They include using taxpayers' money to pay 10 times too much to a Liberal Party donor for a piece of land alongside the new Sydney Airport. That doesn't sound like integrity to me. A federal judge said that a minister had engaged in criminal conduct by unlawfully depriving an asylum seeker of his liberty. Criminal conduct is not your classic definition of integrity. Then we have overseeing a scheme where Services Australia illegally issued debt collection notices to more than 370,000 Australians, where more than 2,000 people died, some from suicide, despite the government being warned it was illegal. That's not integrity. The member for New England paid $80 million for water rights in the Murray-Darling Basin, a quarter more than the seller asked. That wreaks of something but it ain't integrity.

An unheard of company with a head office in a shack on Kangaroo Island was awarded a $423 million contract to run refugee camps on Manus Island—under a limited tender, the only company invited to bid. That's hardly integrity. The current Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction sought meetings with senior environment officials about an ongoing investigation by the department into grasslands part owned by the minister. That smells more like equine faeces than integrity. The Minister for Home Affairs intervened to have two au pairs who were about to be deported released from immigration detention after he was contacted by a former colleague—definitely not integrity. The Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction—him again—used a fraudulent document and couldn't explain how he got it, in an attempt to tarnish the reputation of the Sydney Lord Mayor—not integrity.

And who could forget the sports rorts saga, when changes were made to list of sports grant recipients by the minister in consultation with the Prime Minister's office, after entering caretaker period? Sports Australia had no knowledge of six of the grants and no application form. There's no hint of integrity there at all. Just this week we found out that an investigation into alleged branch stacking involving taxpayer funded electorate staff in the offices of two Liberal MPs, including the Assistant Treasurer, was outsourced to the Assistant Treasurer's old law firm. That is not even in the same suburb as integrity.

It's obvious to every Australian, other than those in the Morrison government, that we urgently need a national integrity commission right now. We must restore confidence in our national politics. A national integrity commission that is powerful and independent will go some way towards repairing the damage done by our stale coalition government.

The Prime Minister, who holidays in Hawaii while the nation is on fire and campaigns for a week alongside Deb Frecklington in the Queensland state election and builds a chook shed on his rent-free property, tells us that he is too busy dealing with COVID-19 to devote time to establishing a national integrity commission. But in June this year, in the middle of the pandemic, Prime Minister Morrison found the time to establish the Higher Education Integrity Unit—yes, a unit to ensure that students have integrity when it comes to them doing their university assessments, to stop them cheating. The Morrison government had time to draft legislation that provided harsh penalties, including imprisonment for students and strict liability in some cases, to provide a deterrent to academic cheating. They had time to introduce that legislation and have it pass through parliament and had time to announce funding on 24 June this year for the new Higher Education Integrity Unit. Student cheating warranted their time in this pandemic year, but apparently holding government members to account, making sure they spend taxpayers' money with integrity, is not important enough.

In December 2018, the Attorney-General and the Prime Minister announced that, for nearly a year, they had been working on a 'robust, resource real system that will protect the integrity of Commonwealth and public administration'. But, after nearly three years, there's no legislation, no commission and no integrity. When a government thinks that holding students to account is more important than holding their own government members to account, that is a serious problem. That is a government lacking in integrity.