Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, I do believe it. Let’s think about what else we have done. We have increased our hospital funding by 50 per cent. Senator Cormann from Western Australia is very critical of the government’s social policy agenda. The ideological position of our government is that we are a fairer government. We are investing in services and communities. We are investing for the future. What else have we done for Australia since we came to office? We have tackled the issue of our social support network by increasing the age pension for the first time by more than $100 for singles and $76 for couples. That is nothing to be sneezed at. It is a huge challenge for us to raise the pension for our ageing population and these are big decisions.

Let’s think about paid parental leave. How was the opposition going to pay for its alternative paid parental leave scheme? With a tax on business—not one that was welcomed by businesses, not one that was actually going to deliver outcomes for people and not one that was going to be fair or straightforward. Let’s think about that. We now have a government that, having come through the global recession stronger than any other advanced economy in the world, has managed to create opportunities for another 350,000 jobs in the last year. That translates into almost half a million more people working than when Labor took office in 2007. We have the lowest debt and deficit. That is not to be sneezed at in this time. When you think about what is happening in countries like Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Italy, when you look at their outcomes and their financial outlooks and you compare that with the stability and strength of the Australian economy, it is not to be sneezed at. Yet it is dismissed out of hand by the opposition. They refuse to recognise just that. We are going to bring the national budget back to surplus ahead of schedule and ahead of any other major advanced economy.

What about interest rates? Interest rates now are lower than they were before the Liberal government left office, and that is a powerful signal of the extent to which we are supporting our communities, our small businesses, enterprises everywhere and our families. We boosted the first home owners grant so that another 250,000 people were able to purchase a new home. We are strengthening the economy in every way that we can. We are funding services in every way that we can. We are driving our reform agenda around education and training. That is about skilling our nation for the future. These are very important things and we have done it despite the setback of the global financial crisis and despite the huge impact that the natural disasters have created for us all.

We have cut personal tax in the last three budgets. Let’s not forget that. We have made record investments in infrastructure—highways, rail and ports. We are embarking on the National Broadband Network. It has already been rolled out in Tasmania very successfully. We are creating 130,000 new education and training places and 50,000 university places. So we have a record of continuous reform and continuous investment that is about setting Australia up for the future. It is about capturing the strength of the boom, not squandering the benefits and products of the mining boom, which continues in Australia. We understand that but, unlike the previous government, we are not squandering that opportunity and that wealth. We are looking at how we can invest in and improve the situation for all Australians.

We are investing in closing the gap—that important issue of addressing Indigenous disadvantage. Let’s think about that and the dismal performance of the previous government, the desperate gap that has existed in life expectancy and health outcomes for our Indigenous brothers and sisters. We are determined to close that gap, to create opportunities for them in education, health and employment so that these people have a sense of their own place in our society, so they are not living on the margins and always living in the shadows. We have extraordinary wealth in our country in our mining boom. We have extraordinary wealth in our country in a highly skilled, clean energy economy that is self-sustaining and beyond our reliance on mineral exports. This is very important for us, so investment in a clean energy future is a critical part of that.

We are singularly working to ensure greater transparency, greater investment, greater certainty and improved services for our ageing population. We are trying to address the issues of the future. An ageing population brings with it stresses on our health system and our community service systems, and we are addressing the challenges of the future. We have not been complacent and we do not intend to be complacent. The concern that people might have about funding the retirement of our ageing population is being addressed by our commitment to increasing superannuation contributions to 12 per cent so that people have sufficient savings for their retirement. People may sniff at that, but it is actually going to make an important difference. Treasury modelling indicates that for a 30-year-old today it will represent another $108,000 for them in their retirement.

We had a previous government that ignored regional Australia at its peril. Our government has put regions front and centre. We are investing in regional infrastructure. We are investing in regional housing. We are trying to take the pressure off metropolitan areas by encouraging investment in the country. We have a new focus on Regional Development Australia. We have a new department for regional Australia—the Department of Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government. In fact, we have the chairs and the executive officers of the Regional Development Australia committees here in Canberra right now considering what should be the strategic approach to investing in regions for the next five years. We are moving to invest in regional health services to ensure that people, regardless of where they live, will be able to have access to the health services they need. That is something which has been remiss for a very long time. Now 7½ thousand rural nurses and 1,000 rural allied health professionals will be able to access professional development through a $34 million commitment, and there is $6½ million dollars for 100 clinical placement scholarships. That is about our regional communities getting the skills they need.

It seems to me that this motion that says that we are a government that has no direction and cannot find its way is far removed from reality. We are a government that are getting on with the job. We are a government that are about informing. We are informing in the regulatory space and looking to the issues. I will go to the issue I know so much about, and that is the abject neglect of the not-for-profit sector in the regulatory environment of not-for-profits in Australia. The fact is that for 20 years investments in not-for-profit organisations in transparency and in governance has really languished. There has just been no investment in understanding either how not-for-profit organisations in Australia work or their contribution to the economy and our society. The regulatory burden has got out of control. So what are we as a government doing? We have created the not-for-profit council. We have created a not-for-profit office. We are actually tackling the issue of a regulator for the first time. There are five different national inquiries into this. The previous Liberal government just would not step up to the plate and deal with the issue of a national charities regulator. Finally, we have a government that are committed to doing something about that.

These are very important reforming agendas that are going to make such a difference in our community. They are going to build productivity. They are going to build capacity in our communities. They are going to build a clean, vibrant economy and a healthy society. We are a government that has a social inclusion agenda. What have we had for those who have been parked on disability pensions as a way in which we can deal with people who live in those kinds of circumstances or for those who care for someone with a disability? This week the Productivity Commission has released its draft report talking about the issue of a disability insurance scheme, canvassing the options so that people who live with disability can actually have a life of dignity and so those who live with disability as a result of a catastrophic accident or injury are not going to be burdens for the rest of their lives and their families and carers are not going to be burdened for the rest of their lives, living a life of indignity and poverty. That is the circumstance for so many, hundreds of thousands of people in Australia, because we have not done anything about it. Previous governments did not do anything about it except to take the soft option of parking them on a disability pension, which is in fact a poverty trap.

It is not a reforming agenda unless you are prepared to take hard decisions, unless you are actually prepared to ask hard questions and unless you are prepared to listen to the answers that maybe you do not want to hear. There are opportunities in engaging in a very constructive debate. That is how we find a way through. I am just befuddled, I suppose, by the nonsense that we have heard in this debate in terms of all of the things that are happening across every portfolio.

I suppose the real issue we have is how we as international citizens here in Australia behave. Senator Cormann talked about how perhaps we should increase our production of greenhouse gas emissions here so we can get a global effect. But let us think about what the implications of that could be. We as global citizens and signatories to global conventions have a responsibility to lead by example, just as we are doing with the Millennium Development Goals. How long did it take for a commitment? It was certainly not given by the previous Liberal government. Only on Labor coming to power did we increase our overseas development assistance commitments to match the targets that have been called upon by the United Nations. A massive investment by us as global citizens in our international aid and development budget means we are helping developing countries to meet their commitments under the reduction targets.

None of this is ever simple. We have the challenge of a complex policy environment but, as a reforming government, we are prepared to step up to the plate. We are prepared to do what it takes. We are prepared to introduce a carbon price as part of a global initiative that is around addressing an inevitable and complex problem. We must play our part in doing this. We must do what we said we would do. We must face the tough decisions. We must have some targets. We must have strategies. We must ensure that the things that we are doing are about a reforming, vibrant, focused, highly skilled and knowledge based economy. Everything we are doing is about working to that ideal.

So we have to think more about our expansion. As a nation we are going to have an increasing population. There are displaced people across the world, a situation exacerbated by what is happening in the Middle East. We have to think about how we deal with those issues—and we are, as a government, confronting those issues. We have to think more than just fiscal and monetary policy. We have to think about how we have a place in helping develop economic stability in the region. What we are doing here, including maintaining low and stable inflation, and ensuring the stability of our financial system, will ensure that we have a strong economy in the future.