Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a great privilege to provide Family First’s budget-in-reply speech. On Tuesday night the Treasurer delivered a budget which was all smiles on the outside but, beneath the surface, it was hiding a dark underbelly. The budget might be more aptly called a gangland budget—smiles on the surface but a dark underbelly. It is a budget that promises financial responsibility but abandons its responsibility to ordinary, hardworking Australians—or, as the Rudd government calls them, working families.

Family First welcomes the news that the budget figures are better than last year. We are pleased that the return to a surplus will come three years earlier than expected. But the question is: at what price has this come? Where are the cuts and what are the clawbacks the Rudd government has forced onto the Australian people? Fiscal responsibility is more than just balancing the numbers; it is knowing where to spend and knowing where to cut. We need to ask if the government has got its priorities right. The answer is a clear no, because the Rudd government has ripped into some of the most important items for ordinary Australians while looking after its own den.

Firstly, the Rudd government’s budget has ripped into child care. That is right: our kids; our future. It has ripped into our kids and their parents. Of course, this means that the government has abandoned its pledge to help its ‘working families’ when it comes to accessible and affordable child care. It has done this by slashing the childcare rebate and putting mums and dads out of pocket by an extra $278 per child per year. For a family of two children, this means that the family budget will be worse off by more than $500. Any parent who pays more than $57.70 in childcare fees per day for five days a week will be worse off under this budget announced by the Rudd government. It is a kick in the guts to mums and dads who are already struggling to pay their childcare bills as it is. What is more, on top of this, the childcare rebate will no longer be indexed to the CPI like it has been in the past. This means that, as the childcare expenses go up and up each year, Australian families will be left more and more out of pocket. Instead of listening to the recommendations of the Henry tax review which suggest giving low-income families a 90 per cent subsidy for child care, the government has gone out and done the exact opposite, by hiking up the childcare costs for those who depend on it most.

This latest attack on working families comes only a few weeks after the government broke its election promise by scrapping plans to build 260 childcare centres. These 260 new childcare centres were badly needed because there are already many families who have trouble finding an affordable spot for their kids. The Prime Minister claims he is committed to helping working families. But how are working families supposed to go to work if there are not enough childcare centres to look after their kids at an affordable price? If childcare is too expensive for them to afford, how are they supposed to be ‘working families’? We know where that promise of 260 new childcare centres has gone. It has gone to the Labor election promise graveyard.

The second dark underbelly of the budget is housing affordability. Family First believes that the government has missed the mark when it comes to addressing this core issue for ordinary Australians of housing affordability. People trying to enter the property market will find it just as hard to buy a house, as the government has done nothing to make housing more affordable. Housing affordability is a crisis that is getting worse and worse and is being compounded by the fact that the government does not seem to care.

Housing prices in my home city of Melbourne went up 28 per cent in the 12 months to March this year, and in the past eight months interest rates have gone up by 1½ per cent. Put in real terms, this means that first home buyers who could not afford to get into the market last year have had to stump up $98,000 more to afford the average median home this year. And those who were under mortgage stress last year are now under even greater pressure and have to pay $270 more to the banks each month. What about the great Australian dream? It is the great Australian dream to own your home, and we should be doing everything we can to make it easier for people to live that dream. Instead, we have a government that does not care about housing affordability—and this budget does not give any hope to first home buyers.

I would liked to have seen the government look at the idea of letting first home buyers access part of their superannuation to put a deposit on a house so that they can at least get a foot in the door and have that great Australian dream of owning their home. Instead of making people wait 40 years until they can access their super, this money should be allowed to be partly put to another good use like owning your own home. This would not cost the taxpayer any money in government funding but would help go towards solving a housing crisis that is spiralling out of control. This would be a lifeline to thousands of young families desperately trying to escape the rent rut.

The third dark underbelly of the budget is medical costs. Family First is at a loss to understand the government’s decision to increase the net medical expenses tax offset from $1,500 to $2,000. It sounds like an increase but it is a slug on Australian families and their medical costs. I understand that some costs need to be reined in if we are to get this budget back into surplus but why would you go out and increase basic medical costs for those who need treatment the most? Why would you go out and make those people who are already paying the most for medical bills pay even more? The Rudd government has done this in a mean and tricky way by raising the net medical expenses tax offset. It sounds like it is better; it is worse. It does not make any sense. It is a heartless policy that slugs the sick and unwell.

What makes it all the worse is that, while the government is leaving families short-changed with their medical bills, the Prime Minister has given himself an extra 86 staff on top of the 65 additional staff he took on in last year’s budget. How many more people do you need? It just stinks to think that this is the second year in a row that Prime Minister Rudd has increased his staffing levels by more than 60 people. It is a real smack in the face to all Australians who are struggling to stay afloat when they see the Prime Minister feathering his own nest. At a time when Australians are told to cut back and make do, this excess by the Prime Minister is obscene.

The government cries poor and says it does not have the money to keep the net medical expenses tax offset as it is but it has no problems splashing out $18 million of taxpayers’ money to boost the Prime Minister’s office budget. I find the government’s priorities in this gangland budget amazingly warped. I find the government’s priorities all the more disturbing given that it is willing to spend cash on itself but when it comes to our veterans community this government is once again silent and pretends it has empty pockets.

Once again there is no mention in the budget of plans to implement a more appropriate and equitable indexation arrangement for the military superannuation schemes. It is a national disgrace the way this government has chosen to treat our veterans community and failed to recognise the unique nature of military service—and I think the government is going to get a whacking at the ballot box at the next election.

Family First does recognise that the budget allocates more spending on health reform and it is certainly a good thing that more money is going into this area of health; however, it is not enough just to pour money into health and leave it at that. We have to make sure that we are spending this money wisely. We need to get the best bang for our buck and ensure that this money actually goes towards fixing the health system once and for all—not just splashing it out on ineffective and useless reforms.

I still believe we need to be looking at the basics—that is, how many doctors, how many dentists, how many nurses, how many beds, how many other resources and how many other health professionals do we need per thousand people or per thousand families? This is what we have got to start to see. Once we work that out we need to look at whether there are enough doctors, dentists, nurses, beds, other resources and other health professionals in each region. Rather than just throwing money at it, surely we cannot continue to allow things to happen where we are turning away thousands of our young kids from studying medicine when we keep on importing doctors. It is ridiculous.

We should do this demand and supply planning immediately and urgently. Then we can look at this on a city basis, on a regional basis, on an outer suburban basis, on a country area basis and then on a state basis. Then you can work out whether we have got real health reform. The money needs to go directly to where the shortages are so that we stop living in a first-world country with a substandard health system.

This budget does not do enough for families and it does not deliver on the key areas which affect ordinary Australians. This budget is disappointing and Family First look forward to sitting down with the government and working together with them on making it work better for all Australians.

Debate (on motion by Senator Arbib) adjourned.