Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Prime Minister for Social Inclusion) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009 , Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2008-2009 and a related bill and to make the point that the Rudd government’s first budget is making social inclusion a reality. It proves that this ambitious new agenda is far more than rhetoric. The 2008-09 budget includes a range of important measures to increase participation in Australian life, to tackle disadvantage and to build social inclusion in our communities. Some of these initiatives are focused on increasing access to work, which of course is very important. But the budget also supports participation in education, training, civic life, sport and recreation. We believe that every Australian deserves the right to play a part in the life of this great nation. The problem is that many people face barriers to their participation, barriers which require innovative new policies developed across all levels of government in partnership with the business and not-for-profit sectors.

The 2008-09 budget represents the Rudd government’s first critical down payments and initial steps to meeting the challenges of social exclusion, and these social inclusion priorities cannot be implemented soon enough. As Professor Tony Vinson has told us in his publication, Dropping off the edge: the distribution of disadvantage in Australia, some 1.7 per cent of postcodes around Australia account for more than seven times their share of the major factors that cause poverty and disadvantage. We know that about 100,000 Australians are homeless every night and one in four jobseekers have been out of work for five years or more. We find these facts both morally and economically unacceptable. We see other examples of our lack of social connection every single day: infants dying of neglect, pensioners dying in loneliness—and we know that is just not good enough. So it is all the more important that we develop policies that build social inclusiveness in our suburbs and communities, giving everyone the chance to engage and encouraging everyone to care.

The budget honours our election commitments with a significant focus on areas such as early childhood education, school retention, employment services, homelessness, literacy and numeracy and Indigenous health, education and employment. I will turn to the Working Families Support Package, which is such an important initiative. The Rudd government’s budget, as opposed to 11 years of coalition budgets, places Australian working families at its core. We want to help those families that are under pressure, at risk of not falling into social exclusion. So the budget’s $55 million Working Families Support Package will do exactly this, providing assistance to those Australians who are working hard but are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. Personal income tax cuts in the budget are worth $46 billion over the next four years to ease pressures from rising costs, and we have brought in an education tax refund, worth $4.4 billion over four years, to help mums and dads with the rising cost of educating their children. And the $1.6 billion childcare tax rebate will help parents who are struggling to get their younger ones into affordable and accessible child care.

The government are intent on ensuring that we have measures to lift and enhance educational opportunities, because we recognise that these are crucial to achieving our social inclusion priorities. Schooling is the key to improving a child’s life chances and directly impacts on their employment opportunities, their financial independence and social inclusion. So this budget is the first instalment of the Rudd government’s ongoing work on the education revolution, an enormous investment of $19.3 billion delivering commitments for early childhood, schools, vocational education and training and higher education.

Through the government’s $2.1 billion digital education revolution, we are building tomorrow’s workforce through access to a world-class education. Round 1 of this digital revolution has seen 116,000 new computers for 896 secondary schools—and this is just the start, as we drive the computer-student ratio from one to eight, or worse, to a new national benchmark of one computer for every two students. We will improve school enrolment and attendance with a $17.6 million pilot program with our state and territory governments. Among our other budgetary investments are $520 million for universal access to preschool for all children in the year before formal school and $32.5 million for a home interaction program to help disadvantaged children prepare for school. The government is committing more than $577 million over four years to deliver a national action plan on literacy and numeracy, starting with those schools and students most in need of help. We recognise too that many Australian adults also lack literacy and numeracy skills, which is a major barrier to participation in Australian life, so in the last few days the Deputy Prime Minister has released an adult language literacy and numeracy skills discussion paper to address this important issue. Improving language, literacy and numeracy skills will play a key role in driving the Australian government’s social inclusion agenda, because equipping individuals with language and numeracy skills greatly improves their chances of engaging in broader training and work. Financial literacy is important, too, as we see so many families now under increased pressure from inflation and higher interest rates and from the mortgage stress that comes with that environment.

The 2008-09 budget also delivers on the Rudd government’s promise to establish trade training centres in secondary schools, upskilling Australia’s young people to ensure that they can play a part in the future of our economy. As well, we want to help the most disadvantaged Australians find work through a simpler, more effective, better targeted and modern employment services system—again, another critical social inclusion priority. The budget provides $3.7 billion over three years to deliver services to help job seekers find suitable employment, to drive efficiencies and to reduce waste. The fact is that if we are to make Australia’s future economic growth more sustainable we must bring back into the fold those people excluded from the workforce because of barriers like disability, poverty, mental illness, or drug and alcohol abuse. So the new employment services system will be rolled out from 2009 and will emphasise work readiness, giving every Australian the opportunity to reach their potential. The reforms will reduce administrative red tape for employment service providers, allowing them to spend more time delivering real outcomes for job seekers. Under the Howard government, the system was characterised by waste and inefficiency, and our new government, the Rudd government, has been able to find savings of $350 million by simply streamlining the system and making it much more accessible.

The government is also delivering a national mental health and disability employment strategy, which will be released later this year. The strategy is being developed in close consultation with consumers, peak bodies, employers, state and territory governments and experts. It aims to address the barriers faced by people with disability and those living with mental illness that make it harder for them to gain and keep work. It is quite a travesty to know that Australia is ranked 13 out of 16 OECD countries when it comes to the employment of people who receive disability benefits. We must do better, and the Rudd government will do better. We will further support the employment of people with disability by extending access to wage assessment tools for businesses in this budget at a cost of $25.7 million over four years.

Our Fresh Ideas for Work and Family program will support small businesses and increase workforce participation and productivity. Over three years the program will invest $12 million to encourage small businesses to implement practices that help employees balance their work and family obligations. And the 2008-09 budget will invest almost $50 million over four years to help migrants—another group at high risk of exclusion—gain the language skills needed to join the workforce.

The budget also addresses the issues of housing affordability and homelessness. Every single person in the Rudd Labor government, from the Prime Minister down, sees homelessness as one of the greatest social challenges facing Australia. Over the next four years the government will allocate spending of $2.2 billion to not only build new homes for the homeless but also put homeownership within the reach of more Australians. We will build 600 new homes for the homeless, with a $100 million total investment over the next four years and another $50 million in the out years, 2012-13. The funds will be used for the construction of new accommodation, spot purchases or the renovation of suitable public housing properties.

The A Place To Call Home strategy will reduce the number of homeless people turned away from shelters each year and it will help them to break the cycle of moving in and out of homeless support services. We want to replace the revolving door with a place to call home. The government also understands the need to draw out fresh ideas and solutions to tackle homelessness in the long term. Our homelessness green paper, Which way home?, will inform the development of the first ever homelessness white paper, to be released in September this year. This white paper will lay down a national strategy to fight homelessness over the coming decade.

As rental prices rise, we recognise more families are at risk of losing the roof over their heads and falling into poverty and exclusion. The government will therefore create up to 50,000 new rental properties, through the new National Rental Affordability Scheme, at a cost of $622.6 million over the next four years. This scheme will increase the supply of affordable rental housing and reduce rental costs for low- to moderate-income households. On housing affordability, the budget includes a number of initiatives to give more Australians the opportunity to achieve that elusive Australian dream.

The Housing Affordability Fund will invest $359 million in this budget period, totalling $512 million over the next five years, to lower the cost of building new homes with an emphasis on proposals that improve the supply of new entry-level housing. The government is also establishing first home saver accounts to help people save for their first home in which to live. The accounts will provide a simple, tax-effective way for Australians to save for their first home through a combination of a government contribution and lower taxes. The government is providing $1.2 billion over four years to deliver on this important election commitment.

The budget also delivers for Indigenous communities. Tragically, we know Indigenous Australians are some of the most at risk of social exclusion. The Prime Minister’s national apology, which turned a new page in our history, was far more than words. We are committed to our targets of closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Those targets are: closing the 17-year life expectancy gap within a generation; halving the mortality gap for children under five; closing the gap in literacy and numeracy achievement within a decade; halving the gap in employment outcomes; and halving the gap in Year 12 retention by 2020—ambitious targets but targets we believe we can deliver. The Rudd government is delivering $1.2 billion over five years, including 37 measures in the budget, towards these targets.

One year on from the Northern Territory intervention, we are spending $666 million in the Northern Territory on initiatives, including early childhood development services, expanded education opportunities, community safety and policing, welfare reform, and health services. Across Australia, $554 million has been allocated to building better literacy and numeracy programs; improving child and maternity services; strengthening Indigenous drug and alcohol services; fostering improved Indigenous early development and learning; establishing an Indigenous Mothers Accommodation Fund; addressing the drivers of Indigenous chronic disease such as tobacco; and building a stronger Indigenous health workforce. These are some of the measures—and all are essential—if we are to make a real difference in the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Our social inclusion agenda forces the government to realise that promoting economic participation, reducing welfare dependency and developing partnerships based on mutual respect and responsibility are critical to tackling Indigenous disadvantage. Closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians requires more than just extra resources; it involves developing the right policy settings and effective solutions for achieving long-term change. The Council of Australian Governments has adopted the Commonwealth’s targets and established a working group on Indigenous reform to develop a detailed work plan for meeting the targets.

The government is committed to supporting our carers and older Australians as well. The nation’s carers and older Australians are also an important focus of the social inclusion agenda, and our budget includes a number of initiatives to ensure they can make ends meet. As of last week, 430,000 carers and 2.7 million senior Australians started to receive more than $1.8 billion in bonuses from the Australian government. Pensioners will receive a $500 bonus; recipients of carer payment and certain veteran care pensions will receive $1,000. Carer allowance recipients will also be paid $600 for every eligible care receiver and, where possible, these will be made directly into bank accounts. Eligible seniors and carers are also receiving the $125 June quarter utilities allowance payment. This is their second instalment of the utilities allowance which, under this government, has gone up to $500 per year—a permanent increase. This is also the first year that carers will be receiving the utilities allowance. This is all about relieving some of the pressure for carers, and the government will continue examining ways of providing them with greater security.

Older Australians will also benefit from several other budgetary measures, including national transport concessions, free internet kiosks and portability of concession cards when travelling interstate and overseas. However, we appreciate that many seniors remain under financial pressure, and that is why, apart from our budget initiatives, the current tax review will examine how Australia’s social support system, including that for older Australians, provides for their future economic security.

We are supporting our volunteers. Australia’s volunteers are the lifeblood of our not-for-profit sector, and therefore are an integral part of the social inclusion agenda. The nation’s 5.1 million volunteers are out there every day, at the sharp end of service delivery, changing the lives of disadvantaged Australians. Where disadvantage divides communities, volunteering unites us, and the Rudd government will continue to sponsor and support volunteering efforts.

The budget provides for the government’s new and expanded $64 million Volunteer Grants Program, providing assistance to an extra 6,000 not-for-profit organisations to help volunteers, for the first time, pay for their petrol. The program will also help not-for-profit organisations buy important equipment and facilities. We are also extending funding for voluntary resource centres across Australia with a $5 million budget allocation so that these centres continue to provide support and training for our volunteers.

I believe this budget truly strikes the right balance between delivering for families and investing in the future. Through investments in this important budget, as well as the Australian social inclusion board, the social inclusion committee of cabinet and the social inclusion unit that we have established in the centre of government in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, we are delivering coordinated reforms and innovative programs that will make a real difference in the lives of disadvantaged Australians.