Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Morrison government's response to the health and economic challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic has been world-leading. When we look at the challenges other countries have experienced, the impact that COVID-19 and the associated issues continue to have is sobering. Millions of lives have been lost, health systems have collapsed and many national economies are in freefall. Australia's position is the envy of the world, and this hasn't happened by accident. It's because of the strong, decisive leadership that Australia's health and economic outcomes have been amongst the best in the world. Nothing is more important than keeping Australians safe, and our government will continue to prioritise our health and our safety, whether you live in the city or the bush.

I'm proud to be the representative for the electorate of Braddon in the great state of Tasmania, and I've often said that I represent the best people in the best region in the best state in the best country of the world. Strong management at both federal and Tasmanian government levels means that Tasmania is currently one of the safest places to live in the world. The Tasmanian economy is also continuing to rebound strongly.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, $291 billion in direct economic support has been provided across our nation by the Morrison government. Across the electorate of Braddon, which covers the north-west, the west coast and King Island, JobKeeper alone provided an economic lifeline to around 2,800 businesses and 12,100 employees. This payment helped to keep Braddon's great businesses afloat through the pandemic and kept workers connected to jobs and employers. I have no doubt that JobKeeper was the single most important economic support mechanism in the first phase of the management of the pandemic. It has provided the framework for our region's ongoing recovery. The tax incentives provided by the federal government have also helped keep local businesses afloat. The tax-free cash flow boost helped around 2,900 small businesses in my region, providing around $127 million in payments.

Recent figures show that the Morrison government's economic support measures have worked well for Tasmanians. Recent ABS data shows that retail trade is now 2.7 per cent higher than in March last year, which is higher than the national average of 2.2 per cent. Tasmania has also recently recorded the highest number of building approvals in a 12-month period in more than 25 years. Preliminary job vacancy data for April, released by the National Skills Commission, shows that job vacancies in Tasmania are 71 per cent higher than the pre-pandemic level, which is the biggest rise in our country. Tasmania has a strong local economy. Our buoyant retail trade and historic building approvals, with the government backing our jobs on the ground, is rebounding our state and proving that the Morrison government plan for the region is working.

Although Australia is in a much better position than the rest of the world, there is still a lot of work to do. Our government is committed to continuing to guide and support Australians through the COVID-19 pandemic and to respond to ongoing challenges as and when they arise. The federal government's 2021-22 budget focuses on that commitment. It builds on the success to date to secure our recovery and leverage off the opportunities that are ahead of us. It is a plan that creates jobs, guarantees essential services, and builds more resilience and security into Australia.

Keeping Australians safe is the Morrison government's No. 1 priority, and that's why we are allocating $1.5 billion to this budget to extend our range of health responses to protect Australians, alongside the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines. Protecting Australians, especially our most vulnerable communities, from exposure to COVID-19 is critical. I am pleased to report to the House that more than 23 per cent of Tasmanians have now received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccines are effective, they're free and they're voluntary. Having your vaccine will help you to prevent death and serious illness within our local communities. I encourage all eligible unvaccinated people across the north-west, the west coast and King Island to please consider booking in for their vaccine today.

Over the past 12 months, telehealth services have also helped and been life-changing for those living in rural, regional and remote areas. Since the introduction of telehealth in March 2020, nearly 230,000 telehealth consultations have been conducted across the electorate of Braddon. As part of the 2021-22 budget, the Australian government is investing more than $114 million to extend this critical service until the end of 2021. This extension will ensure that everyone across our region can continue to see their general practitioner, to renew their scripts and seek mental health support from the safety of their own home, if they wish to do so. This ensures that our vulnerable continue to be protected and supported during these unprecedented circumstances. The extension of telehealth includes services for regional practitioners, medical practitioners, specialists, consultant physicians, nurse practitioners, participating midwives, allied health providers and dental practitioners. Importantly, I also welcome the Morrison government's commitment to continue to work with peak bodies to co-design permanent post-pandemic telehealth as part of the broader primary care system.

Tasmania has Australia's fastest-growing ageing population. That's why I welcome the Morrison government's record funding in aged care. Nearly 21½ thousand seniors living across the electorate of Braddon are now set to benefit from this important, once-in-a-generation reform. Our government is committed to ensuring that those who have contributed so much during a lifetime—our nation-builders, our parents and grandparents, our founders and protectors—receive the respect, the care and the dignity that they rightly deserve. In response to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, the government's unprecedented investment will deliver more home-care places and more funding residential for aged care. Importantly, this funding also increases the amount of time residents are cared for, as well as strengthening regulators to monitor and enforce the standards of care. The funding will include $630.2 million to make the aged-care system more accessible for seniors with special needs, including people in regional, rural and remote areas, including in Braddon. This new support will include $397 million for aged-care providers to undertake capital works to build new facilities and improve existing facilities to make them more accessible, providing local jobs as well.

Accessibility and affordability in child care is important as we strive to increase the number of people getting into jobs. As part of this support, our government is increasing the childcare subsidy for families with more than one child under six years of age in child care. It is estimated that this measure will benefit around 710 families living across the electorate of Braddon alone. The government will further support families with children in care by removing the $10,560 cap on the childcare subsidy.

Investing in education and investing in our children is investing in our future. I have said many times in this place that everyone has the right to quality education, no matter whether you are five or 55, or whether you are looking for your first job or looking for a change of direction in your life. The Morrison government is continuing to demonstrate that commitment. As part of our 2020-21 budget our investment in our region's schools is continuing at record levels. Whether you go to school in Smithton, Shorewell, Moriarty, Miandetta, Currie or Cooee, the federal government is increasing funding at your school. Over the decade from 2009-10 to 2018-19, the Commonwealth funding for our schools grew in real terms by 47.8 per cent. The Australian government share in total public funding has increased from 10.8 per cent in 2009-10 to 15.6 per cent in 2018-19 for government schools and from 73.1 per cent in 2009-10 to 76.2 per cent in 2018-19 for non-government schools. For example, in my electorate is the East Devonport Primary School. It is estimated that the total Commonwealth recurrent funding for that school will increase from around $950,000 this year to over $1.2 million by 2029. If you look at the individual school level, the students at Wynyard High School will receive an increase per student from around $4,900 this year to $6,400 by 2029.

The Morrison government knows the importance of local government, and that is why our economic recovery partnership between the Morrison government and our local councils has been further boosted in the federal budget. An additional $1 billion investment for phase 3 of the Local Road and Community Infrastructure Program has been allocated. The LRCI program is targeted to support the resilience of our local economies by delivering jobs directly into each of Braddon's eight great local government areas. It is important to remember that when government spends money, it's not the government's money that we are spending; it's taxpayers' money, and we are cognisant of that. That that is why the Local Road and Community Infrastructure Program is so powerful. It guarantees that everyone living across the electorate has a portion of their hard-earned taxes spent back in their local communities. This is crucial. It will continue to support our local businesses and create local jobs in our regional communities.

What this program means is that councils can deliver more funding to upgrade roads; build bike paths; heat community halls; revamp playgrounds, parks and sports grounds; as well as improve access to public facilities. Across all three phases, over $18 million will have been distributed across Braddon's eight councils, in Burnie, Central Coast, Circular Head, Devonport, King Island, Latrobe, Waratah-Wynyard and West Coast. Across Tasmania, in total it is a figure of almost $74 million. This funding isn't a commitment that will appear one or two years down the track; it's there now. The money has already been delivered and, to their credit, councils are currently rolling out dozens of projects right across their municipalities. They are doing a great job.

Our most important part coming out of this pandemic is to get people back into jobs or into their first job. I welcome the budget's key initiatives that are focused on achieving this goal, including personal income cuts, business tax incentives, encouraging businesses to invest in new apprenticeships and training initiatives, and more infrastructure investment. This means that our part in delivering this package will secure our region's recovery and drive our unemployment rates down.

Putting money back into the pockets of hardworking taxpayers is important to our Morrison government. It means that individuals have an even greater incentive to get a job or pursue a better job or higher skills. It also means that individuals and families have more to spend at the local shops. Again, this helps our circular economy. It is estimated that the tax cuts announced in our budget will benefit around 37,900 taxpayers across the electorate. Further data also predicts that Australia-wide this measure will create an additional 20,000 jobs by the end of 2022-23. This announcement is on top of the $25.1 billion of announced tax cuts flowing into households from 2021-22 under the Morrison government's legislated personal income tax plan. With the additional year of the low- and middle-income tax offset, our personal tax plan will provide tax cuts of up to $7,020 for singles and $14,040 for dual-income households in total over the period 2018-19 to 2021-22. When stage 3 is implemented in 2024, around 95 per cent of taxpayers will have a marginal tax rate of 30c or less.

The Morrison government is continuing to invest in our people and our communities right across my electorate. Everywhere you turn, local governments are spending that money wisely on projects that they are delivering—from roads to bridge maintenance and infrastructure projects, small and large, and from small capital grants to supporting volunteers in local junior sports. It's all important to our government.

Thank you to everyone living in the electorate of Braddon on how you have responded to these challenges and how you are wisely spending this money. Our region have always had a glass-half-full approach to any problem that they have had. I look forward to working with everyone in the years to come as we continue to support you as we exit this terrible pandemic.

Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on Appropriation Bill (No.1) 2021-2022, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2021-2022 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2021-2022, which provide appropriation from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the annual services of government for 2021-22. I do so as Victorians are again in a lockdown, the fourth lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. The incredible efforts of the Australian people can't be left unremarked, in particular the people of Victoria for their heroic and Herculean efforts in seeing off this pandemic. Ever since this modern plague hit our shores in early 2020, the Australian people have met this scourge head-on. They have made enormous sacrifices, barely imaginable by the public in a democracy and forecasters alike some time ago. It has been quite a remarkable transformation in the way in which people are dealing with the public health menace that we are confronting. It says a lot about the Australian people that, unlike in some other countries, they have adhered to the very onerous restrictions that they have been required to undertake to protect their fellow community members.

Again, on behalf of all of those in this chamber, I thank the people of Australia and Victoria for the sacrifices they have made to keep each other safe, because we know what the consequences are. People can see it by flicking on their television screens at night when a country is not taking appropriate measures to protect its population. Some of the images that you see on television are very, very confronting. So Australians know that they need to take these actions to keep our community safe.

I also think, though, that what our community wants when we've been asked to make these sacrifices—we have asked the Australian people to make sacrifices—is a government that gives them clarity. Where are we going to collectively? We ask collectively as a government through the national cabinet and through each state government for people to stay at home, not to send their children to school, not to attend work. What concerns me very greatly in watching the fourth iteration of this lockdown in Victoria and the apportioning of blame or people seeking to apportion blame—if I were a person in the outer suburbs in Cranbourne, Clyde, Narre Warren South or Hampton Park, I would be watching this and thinking, 'Can someone please tell me what's going on?' Where is the direction? This person is saying this has been done. This person is saying something else should be done.

I am concerned from a federal perspective that the people in Holt, the south-eastern region of Victoria, Victoria generally and Australia don't have a clear sense of direction out of this challenge that we are confronting. We don't know when all of Australia is going to be vaccinated. We know that that is a key to protecting as much of our population as possible, but we don't have established timelines. Unfortunately, I saw something extraordinary today, with an aged-care minister not being able to identify how much of the workforce that he has some measure of responsibility for has been vaccinated. How many of the workers have been vaccinated? They were all supposed to be vaccinated by now.

So I come back to the point. We ask, and the Australian people have delivered to us as policymakers and legislators who have put some of the most onerous restrictions on movement of the public, including a curfew. The very least that our people could have back is a clear sense of direction and responsibility taken for actions. There's nothing more demoralising for a democracy—and you see people losing faith in parliament and in governments—than when a government says it will do something but, when it doesn't hit a target, starts pointing the fingers. Responsibility has to be taken.

Particularly given that I had been speaking to some government members post the challenges of the bushfire, I thought that, through the auspices of a national cabinet, there would be responsibility taken. The Prime Minister would speak to the premiers and the relevant health ministers, and there would be a national effort on the scale that we have seen in the United States, for example, where 50 per cent of the population has been vaccinated, and other countries like the United Kingdom and Israel, where there has been that focused, concentrated effort. America is a very porous, disparate and discombobulated political system. Even in that system they have got a 50 per cent vaccination rate, and yet we are still in the single digits. It may be a matter of conjecture whether it is somewhere between two and four per cent. Perhaps it is more than that now; say, five per cent.

But it shouldn't be this way. Because of the sacrifices that the Australian people made, we had a great a window of opportunity to vaccinate a lot of people. But what really concerned me—what do the people say who are living around Cranbourne and who last year couldn't leave their houses after 8.00 pm in the evening, had to wear masks, couldn't see loved ones, couldn't attend the funerals of loved ones that had passed away and couldn't attend weddings? I think of the number of occasions where I had friends and people that I knew who were having virtual online ceremonies or had to postpone their weddings or who couldn't attend funerals.

The incongruity and the thing that concerns me the most about this is what this government has asked of the Australian people versus what it has given to the Australian people. Have they provided JobSeeker and JobKeeper? Yes. The Labor opposition provided that as a pathway forward. It was taken up by the government. There are flaws. I'm not going to get into microdetail of criticising the government. They did that. But again, particularly with public health experts, we said to the Australian community, 'If you take these measures then the economy opens up.' So the public then say, 'Okay, government, then what do we need to ensure that we will have a standard of living and a certainty in this COVID normal?' That's another thing that I want to take issue with this government about.

I can recall the Prime Minister saying effectively, particularly when he was at odds with the Victorian state government when they were easing out of the first lockdown, 'Get out from underneath the doona—business as usual.' How could it be business as usual? Do you think it's business as usual in the Northern Hemisphere, including in India, as we speak? Do you think that people within India believe that? We have a very large and wonderful diaspora of people from India in Australia. Do they think it's business as usual in India? Do they think it's business as usual here? We're going through the rigours, the torment and the struggle of another lockdown in Victoria. Do you think they got out from underneath the doona, went out and went their own way, with business as usual? It can't be business as usual, and a government that says that it's business as usual and pretends that it can be is not speaking honestly with the Australian people. It can't be. In every discussion that I have—and, I would suggest, in every discussion that other people, including this government, have—it is a COVID-normal. It's not business as usual. It can't be. Every time the government try to intimate that or criticise states that impose measures, they are damaging the national effort to defeat the scourge of this plague, this COVID pandemic, in the first place. It cannot be business as usual. It's the COVID normal. COVID normal doesn't mean that life goes back to what it was. It can't, until we have vaccinations that prove to be effective. We have a portion of the population, but we also don't know, with the different iterations and mutations of this COVID-19 virus, what might happen.

So I think the government has to be straight with the Australian people. It's COVID normal. States have a right to take protective measures to protect their populations when there is an outbreak. It's quite remarkable, I think, that the Prime Minister is quite aware now. In the second lockdown, I'll never forget the Minister for Health and the Treasurer in this place savaging politicians like me, who were representing their constituencies in Victoria, and the Premier for taking measures to protect Australian lives. I will never forget that as long as I stay in this place. I was very heartened, in listening to the health minister speaking yesterday, that he may have learnt a lesson: that it's perhaps not a good idea for the federal government to be attacking the state government when it's taking appropriate public health measures to protect its population.

What that did during that time, I think, is create confusion. When you don't speak with one voice as a government, what happens is that you allow confusion. You allow conspiracy theories. You energise conspiracy theories. We see some of the worst elements of when we look at the growth of right-wing extremism in this country and its connection in some ways with COVID conspiracy theories. When you have a government that's not firm, that passes blame to other levels of government, that doesn't take responsibility and that doesn't give direction, what do you have? You have confusion, fear and a lack of direction, and you create a vacuum, and vacuums will be filled, often by voices of hate, not by voices of reason or voices that want to bring the community together. That is what has been happening. It should be our daily mission to challenge that. The growth and proliferation of right-wing extremism in this country is a cancer. We have dealt with Islamic extremism. We've seen the horrifying consequences of that being unchecked, and we have devoted enormous resources to protecting the Australian community. I have been part of that through my role on the PJCIS. Equally, we must do the same with right-wing extremism.

The danger with that, though, and the reason I raise this in the context of the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, is that some of the things that people say in this government and elsewhere energise some of those right-wing extremist movements, particularly when they dispute the science—the science of the COVID-19 pandemic and the science of climate change. The governments need to speak with one voice when we're asking the community to make a sacrifice to deal with a once-in-a-century pandemic. The government needs to remember this, particularly if they try to take cheap shots at state governments for taking measures to keep their borders safe and then retrofit their explanations after those measures have been successful to say, 'We always supported them.' No, they didn't. They didn't support the Premier of Western Australia, and they certainly didn't support the Premier of Victoria when he took the necessary actions to protect the Victorian population from the scourge and the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like I said—I could speak all day, Deputy Speaker Freelander, and I'm sure you're glad that I won't—the issue is that what Australian people deserve is much more clarity from this government about where they're going. I remember watching as Ford, Toyota and Holden left this country and thinking: 'You know what? Australians make things. They make great things. They make great cars. We used to make great washing machines. We used to make a lot more in this country.' I meet a lot of people. You speak about what used to be made in this country and the fact that, for example, there's still a design element of Ford's high-end vehicles in Australia. So, if the government is talking about this once-in-a-generation pandemic, why doesn't it do something like bring motor manufacturing back into this country?

We live in a very uncertain region, but here's one thing that they could do to provide certainty. Whilst this government almost campaigned against electric vehicles at the last election, I would invite the government to have a look at President Biden hopping into an electric Ford 150 pick-up truck, which they said would never happen, and shooting down the runway in the US, which occurred about a week and a half ago. The future of motor vehicle transportation will certainly be in terms of electric vehicles and perhaps hydrogen. They should look at that. If they really want to do something, they should bring them back here. They should get Tesla to actually make cars here. GMH and Ford have said that they will move into the production of electric vehicles. Do it here; come and do it. I invite the Prime Minister: we have plenty of space in Cranbourne West. If they want to build something for the south-eastern region around the Dandenong region, bring car manufacturing back with electric vehicles. I'm quite sure there would be a number of very receptive voices. I know that some of the people that I've spoken to have an appetite for this. Australia is a stable beacon of opportunity for other countries looking to invest into south-eastern Asia on a stable platform.

There's much more I could say. Let me say this to the government: be clear. Give Australian people a pathway out and not just an injection of money that doesn't last the distance and that will fade away. Provide direction, provide certainty, provide accountability, and provide hope. Continue to do that, and we will have a better Australia coming out of this COVID-19 pandemic.

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

I'm very pleased to rise in the Federation Chamber this afternoon with regard to Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2021-2022 and the related bills that are before the House. It has been eight long years, and there have been more than eight reports now that have detailed the grave situation facing Australian women in terms of both their safety and lack of economic independence and security in this nation. In addition to those very detailed reports warning this government over the last eight years, we have heard the very powerful testimony from women like Brittany Higgins. We heard her allegations of rape just metres from the Prime Minister's office in this building. We have had tens of thousands of women around this nation march for justice—indeed, descending upon the lawns in front of Parliament House in this capital. We have seen Chanel Contos's petition, which was circulated amongst schoolchildren and schoolgirls in particular, and the horrific experiences she has been detailing. I defy anybody in government to say that they have not been suitably warned about the dire situation facing so many Australian women in terms of their safety and lack of economic independence. This government scurried around and there was a lot of talk going on just before the budget. Then someone rang up the PM's office and said, 'No joke, we've got a women's problem.' What was the solution? He amassed all his Liberal women and passed the problem on to them. He passed the burden on to his Liberal women to form a task force to try to figure out what to do. They made an effort to try to put some renewed focus on it. The budget before us was going to hit the reset button for women. But, on the night, my goodness, what a disappointment!

Yes, we see the return of a women's budget statement, which is one very, very tiny step in the right direction. I say 'a tiny step' because this was not a women's budget as Labor would understand a women's budget statement to be. This was not a gendered analysis of the budget. This was not running a gendered lens across all of the revenue collection and spending decisions of this government, so it should come as no surprise to any of us that this budget, in the end, failed to address any of the structural inequalities for men and women in Australia.

Why is it important that we should have a gendered lens on these budgets? I'll tell you what happens when you lose sight of monitoring and auditing of the way in which government spends its money. Some of you may recall in this House that Australia once led the world in gender-responsive budgeting. We led the world when Susan Ryan, the Labor minister for women at the time, lodged the very first women's budget statement in the Australian Parliament on budget night. That tradition and that analysis of budget expenditure and its differential impacts for men and women was continued right up until 2014, when, with his election as Prime Minister, Tony Abbott—who, let's not forget, made himself minister for women in Australia—decided we didn't need a women's budget statement anymore. We didn't need one. It was unnecessary.

To the eternal shame of Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and, indeed, Scott Morrison, till this year they have never ever honoured that agreement to return proper gender-responsive budgeting to the Australian parliament. Why is that important? It is important because we have no way of tracking anymore how we're actually going internally here in the Australian parliament. But we do have global rankings about gender inequality, and I have to say that Australia has now plummeted to 56th position, I think it is, out of 156 nations participating in the global Gender Inequality Index rankings. This is the absolute worst we have ever been. Having once led the world, we are now No. 56 and going down each and every year. That should ring alarm bells for any woman in Australia listening today.

There was the failure of the government to take an opportunity to ensure that, when we looked at the road to recovery out of COVID, we were going to not only adequately recompense women, who bore the brunt of the impact of COVID-19. Let's not forget all those female-dominated caring economy jobs that got lost and heavily impacted. Women lost jobs more quickly, they lost hours more quickly and they wore the primary caregiving and educative roles in their households—all of that. And what did we see out of this budget? We didn't see anywhere near the kind of backing we needed to see for Australian women. We didn't see our domestic violence and frontline services getting the adequate support they need, despite the spike in increased demand.

Frankly, women now have nowhere to go. I've spoken in this parliament before about this issue. My crisis services are maxed out. You cannot get into a women's refuge in Newcastle and, once you are there, you can't move on to permanent forms of housing and accommodation, because there are zero properties on the rental market that you can afford to actually take up. So we have a massive housing crisis with literally nowhere to go for women fleeing domestic violence and family violence.

I have a service called Jenny's Place in my electorate which turned away 558 women last year. Let that sit with you for a minute. We have a shortfall of 3,100 homes in social housing in Newcastle alone. People are waiting 10 years on average to get into a social housing property. As I said, there's a 0.3 per cent vacancy rate in the private rental market, which utterly fails vulnerable Australians. The government is not funding those frontline services to the degree they need to. I mentioned Jenny's Place turning away 558 women. They are seeking a very modest $300,000 in order to be able to run a telephone service. This government shoved it back to the states. The states are shoving it back. The Liberal governments in New South Wales and at the federal level don't care. They cannot find $300,000 in the so-called women's budget to help a frontline women's service run a telephone advice and resource centre. We have seen them cut the funding to the working women's centres in the Northern Territory. It's a diabolical situation. This cannot continue.

You don't get to stand up and congratulate yourselves about delivering a budget for Australian women when you have failed dismally to address any of the deep, systemic, structural inequalities that have existed for decades, continue to exist and are getting worse under your watch. We are not seeing a dent in the gender pay gap. We are not seeing increased opportunities for women here at all. So it's a very, very disappointing budget on that front.

I will end on this on the women's budget statement. For all the spruiking from the government, we actually saw less than one per cent of targeted investment into specific women's services. Let's not crow about counting $1.7 billion for child care, which is not a women's issue. It should be a parental and family issue more broadly. They are spending $1.7 billion dollars on childcare funding, which is delayed, as we know, until 2022, but they have given $18 billion in tax breaks to government business write-offs. So when you start to compare and contrast who gets what in this budget there is no-one that could in all good faith stand up here and talk about this having been a reset moment for the government in dealing with their so-called women's problem in Australia. We're not going to buy it. Australian women have got this government well and truly clocked.

In the remaining few minutes I would like to talk a little about the shambles and the irresponsibility of this government when it comes to the national vaccination rollout and the quarantine issues in this nation, particularly as the vaccine rollout is playing out in the aged-care sector right now. This is not a Victorian problem. I want to make this very clear in this chamber. While we have a focus on Victoria and we indeed are thinking very much of our Victorian colleagues and the men and women in Victoria now, I know that in my hometown of Newcastle, while we have ensured that most of the residents in aged-care facilities have, after a very long and complicated process, been vaccinated—some fully but not all—it is most likely that less than a quarter of the aged-care workforce has been vaccinated. This is appalling. I cannot tell you how stressed out my aged-care facilities are at the idea. They know full well that they have workers coming and going across multiple facilities. Vaccinating residents but not their aged-care workers is deeply problematic. It fails to provide that protective shield that they are in fact seeking to do—and through no fault of their own. One of the aged-care facilities where they have managed to have their staff vaccinated—what was the solution? What did they have to do? They had to pack up all their staff and go to Sydney. It was a 2½ hour drive down the M1 to get to the mass vaccination centre to their staff vaccinated. That's what they had to do. What a shame.

We have an aged-care minister being asked questions today, over in the other house, in the Senate, who has got zero idea how many workers are vaccinated or not. He hasn't got a clue. There is no national register. There is no way of tracking this. It is appalling. You had two jobs you had to do this year, Mr Morrison. What were they? A national vaccine rollout and quarantine. Well, we know our quarantine system is leaking and we've known this for some time. You have been warned time and time again about the airborne nature of COVID-19 and yet failed dismally to respond, to lift to the need for purpose-built facilities, to actually stand up and take responsibility for quarantining in this nation—as is your constitutional obligation. How dare you stand by and shirk off your responsibility in this place again and again and again.

You cannot have this both ways. You made all the states and territories do all of the heavy lifting when it came to combating COVID-19. This is the Commonwealth's response. It is your job now to stand up and ensure that the recovery out of COVID is the best it can be. What are the two ingredients we absolutely must have in place and sorted out? One is the national vaccine rollout. Fewer than two per cent of our citizens are fully vaccinated. Shame on you. It's not an issue of supply anymore. We know that. So what is it? Why don't you come clean with the Australian people? Why don't you give access to some very transparent, open data about what is going on with vaccinations? Why aren't there mass vaccination hubs everywhere? Not everybody has access to a GP. We know that. Even if you do, not every GP gets to have access to this vaccine, not in any even-handed or orderly manner that's for sure. It is absolutely unforgiveable that this government has completely failed to protect our citizens. You've had 12 months to think about how you were going to ensure a secure quarantine system and ensure every citizen was vaccinated. You've failed. You've failed us badly.

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

In making some remarks about this budget I want to concentrate on the complete lack of support that is being given to infrastructure and, in particular, addressing the infrastructure deficit that exists in outer metropolitan areas and specifically, in my case, north-west Sydney. I know, Mr Deputy Speaker, you will be acutely aware of this with south-west Sydney's growth certainly comparable to north-west Sydney and, in particular, the importance of investing in health infrastructure in those growth areas.

It was certainly disappointing, but not surprising, to see the headline in the Sydney Morning Herald on 16 May: '"Nothing" in the budget for public hospitals under pressure'. I quote from the Australian Medical Association President, Dr Omar Khorshid, who said there was 'nothing' in the budget for public hospitals. He agreed with that statement. He said:

Although, yes, the government is spending 45 per cent of the cost of running public hospitals, and they seem to think that absolves them of any responsibility for how they're run, every state and territory has public hospitals in crisis. So regardless of whose fault that is, the only solution is a national solution.

And nothing could be more true.

Part of my frustration with this budget is that, despite racking up a trillion dollars in debt, spending $100 billion of new money, the Liberals and Nationals have not dedicated a cent to specifically improving health infrastructure in my community. As I said, north-west Sydney is one of the fastest-growing places in New South Wales, if not Australia, yet we have federal and state Liberal governments on an appalling go-slow when it comes to infrastructure spending. You can look at other projects in my area, like the Schofields commuter car park, which is a prime example of neglect and incompetence. It is a project that was supposed to be delivered in 2020 and is now, allegedly, to be delivered this year. It's not the multistorey car park that was promised but an at-grade car park, and we are still waiting for it.

One of my biggest sources of frustration is the supposed Rouse Hill Hospital. I use inverted commas for 'hospital' here because I'm not sure you could even call it that, given it will not include an emergency department. It has been announced and re-announced so many times that we have lost count. It was announced, with much media fanfare, in the lead-up to the 2015 state election. This is so typical of the Liberals when it comes to essential infrastructure in our local communities: all announcement, no delivery. They're always there for the photos and the media opportunities, but when it comes to actual delivery they are nowhere to be soon. Once the posters and the bunting came down and the election buzz petered out, what were we left with? Just crickets.

In the lead-up to the 2019 state election there was another announcement as the New South Wales Liberals finally decided on the site for the new hospital. You might think: 'Well, clearly they were spending those four years doing all of their due diligence. Surely they've spent their time working with landholders, engaging with the community, making sure they've picked a suitable site?' Alas, no. Jump forward to March this year, two years after the last state election, and the New South Wales Liberals send out another media release: 'We've picked a new site, ladies and gentlemen.' Why did they have to do that? Because they hadn't undertaken the studies necessary to making sure the first site was viable in first place. So what were they doing for those four years? It really makes you think.

But get this: only in the last week was the New South Wales Liberal government forced to clarify that the proposed new site they'd chosen wouldn't clash with a major residential development proposed for the same site! You couldn't make this stuff up, Mr Deputy Speaker. At the same time the New South Wales Liberal government was hosing down suggestions that there was even a clash, the hapless local Liberal member was firing off to constituents a letter saying: 'Don't worry. We'll just acquire the land if we need to. Don't worry about it.' If you're confused, Mr Deputy Speaker, you're not alone; so are the people of north-west Sydney, whom this New South Wales Liberal government treats like absolute mugs. Locals have had enough and I've have enough. The frustration is also levelled at this Morrison government, which, it would seem, doesn't care much for improving health care in our community.

Assuming the New South Wales government can get its act together—and that's a big assumption here—imagine what federal investment could do for a new Rouse Hill Hospital. It could maybe even broaden the project to include—God forbid!—an emergency department. We're talking about an important piece of health infrastructure that, in particular, will ease pressure on Blacktown hospital. We know, Mr Deputy Speaker Freelander, that it has its own specific challenges, which I've raised in here many times, and this government seems happy to ignore them. If you live in Grantham Farm, Riverstone or Schofields, you should not need to travel to Blacktown hospital in an emergency. That's why I've launched—and it is receiving incredible support—my Rouse Hill Hospital petition calling on the federal and state governments to get on with the job of delivering the health infrastructure that we desperately need in north-west Sydney. I have already had scores of locals joining this campaign to send the government a message, which is: 'Get on with it. Build the Rouse Hill Hospital you promised. Build it with the emergency ward that residents deserve.'

Having had time to digest this budget, many Australians are no doubt scratching their heads about what the actual point of this government is. Where is the long-term vision? Where is the willingness to address complex problems with visionary policy proposals to take us to the next stage, beyond the pandemic? Where was the strategy to support local jobs and local workers?

Unlike this stale, eight-year-old government without a plan, Labor does have a strong vision to support working and middle-class families and create an economy that works for everyone. Take, just as one example, Labor's childcare policy. Under this Prime Minister, childcare costs are going through the roof. It's placing serious financial pressure on families in my community. In fact, many parents in Western Sydney aren't able to work additional days without being penalised. We have all met that constituent who says, 'I would like to work four days a week. I would like to work an additional shift, but it's simply not worth my while. I end up losing money because of the cost of child care.' That should not be the case. This is an economic issue. This is a drain on Australia's productivity when you have citizens—and, by and large, they are women—who are forced to exit the workforce or not fully participate in the workforce as a result of childcare costs.

Months later, after this announcement, this government woke up and, after eight years of being in power, decided, 'We'd better have something to say about this.' But, as with all things when it comes to this government, you always need to read the fine print. The fine print is that only eight per cent of families will benefit from the federal Liberal childcare proposal, compared to Labor's, where 92 per cent of families will be better off. It seems that yet again this so-called Liberal family-friendly budget is anything but. It is all smoke and mirrors.

Further to Labor's vision of a fairer and more productive Australia is our Housing Australia Future Fund, a proposal developed by my good friend the member for Blaxland. An Albanese Labor government will create a $10 billion off-budget housing fund to build social and affordable housing and create thousands of jobs now and in the longer term. It is notable that in the first five years the investment return will build around 20,000 social housing properties, with 4,000 allocated for women and children fleeing family violence and older women on low incomes at risk of homelessness. I think those two points are really important.

I have initiatives and community groups in my local area. In some cases they have been formed as part of specific cultural groups, but they cater to all people. In particular, I want to call out the Harman Foundation and House of Sakina, two groups I have been closely associated with. These are people who are often having to battle the impact of family violence in a culturally specific community. In many cases family violence is still seen as something taboo, as something that cannot be called out. In some cases, unfortunately, there are circumstances where someone trying to flee a situation is told, 'You actually can't. You have no rights.' It is really a depressing situation that I have seen in so many cases. The important thing to note here is these people who are running these organisations receive little or no government funding at a state or federal level. They are eligible for some grants here and there, and I want to thank the local councils—in particular, Blacktown City Council—but also many community organisations, including our local clubs. Blacktown Workers Club, for example, was a major sponsor of the Harman Foundation's recent fundraising efforts.

The point is that these organisations are essentially renting on the private market to provide women's refuge services for at-risk, vulnerable women, who in some cases can't even speak English, who don't understand their rights and who are in an environment where they really do feel trapped. These are some of the most vulnerable people you can think of, and the only people they are able to turn to are these organisations that are receiving little to nothing in terms of government funding. That is why I think that targeting this is so important for those community groups to remain viable.

Secondly—and I did not fully appreciate it until I was educated in this—I note the fastest-growing and unfortunately biggest group of homeless in Australia is in fact older women. That's for a variety of factors—women whose marriages may end later in life, who haven't accumulated savings or superannuation, who haven't worked for a while. They find themselves, literally overnight, sleeping on other people's lounges or sleeping in their cars. This is an area that I think has been overlooked for far too long. So I commend this policy for having the foresight to address these key issues.

I think it's also really important that the fund will also go towards the construction of 10,000 affordable housing properties for the heroes of this pandemic, the frontline workers who have kept Australia running over the past 18 months or so. It will directly support over 21,000 full-time jobs across the construction industry—

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. It being 1.30, the debate is interrupted in accordance with the resolution agreed to on 13 May. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for a later hour. The member for Greenway will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.

Sitting suspended from 13 : 30 to 16 : 01