Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Decision making; that is right. But there is a gap in my knowledge there that I am sure the minister will be able to fill in the next Senate estimates.

The government is increasing the level of debt the nation has. Their efforts in the last budget were to try to achieve what I call a technical surplus. There was a bit of fudging and moving things around between financial years to at least enable the Treasurer on budget night to, not deliver, but to forecast a technical surplus. A lot of the changes in the legislation before us were designed to help facilitate that technical surplus—pulling a bit of money back here and a bit back there. The objective was to be seen to be forecasting a surplus. It is an illusory surplus.

We know from each of this government's budgets that what they forecast on budget night cannot be relied upon. I well recall Mr Swan's very first budget, where he proudly pronounced that the budget was forecasting a surplus—I think he said it was the biggest in a decade as a percentage of GDP. He said it was in excess of his 1.5 per cent of GDP target for a budget surplus. As we know, that surplus was not to be. Of course, as always, it was for reasons completely beyond the control of the government.

They are a very unlucky government, as you have probably come to appreciate, Mr Acting Deputy President. They are in this chaotic universe where they are always the victim of circumstance; it is always issues beyond their control. They always try their best but, darn it, something always gets in the way, and it is never their fault. We saw that in Mr Swan's first budget. The global financial crisis was cited as the problem then. Those who take the time to look back over the budget papers will appreciate that the reason the budget was in deficit that year, and has been in deficit for the three financial years since, is not because of revenue write-downs from the global financial crisis but because of policy decisions by the government. By policy decisions, I mean spending decisions.

The government has not done a bad job at conveying the impression that the budget deficits are due to revenue write-downs. You know how it goes: consumer confidence falls, business confidence falls, tax receipts fall and therefore the budget, beyond our control, goes into deficit. That is not true. It is not why the budget is in deficit. The budget is in deficit because of the spending decisions and policy decisions of the government. Look back at each financial year and that is the case. The revenue write-downs are not enough, in and of themselves, to see the budget in deficit. It is spending decisions.

That is why in the budget that Mr Swan presented not long ago—and this amendment bill seeks to give effect to some of those measures—he was so desperate to finally, ultimately, be in a position where he could forecast a budget surplus. I would place a bet with you, Mr Acting Deputy President Edwards—although you are probably not a betting man; not in this place but maybe you are outside—that the forecast budget surplus will not come to be. The last budget, as with Mr Swan's previous four budgets, is a work of fiction. As I pointed out before, Mr Swan has been very helpful. In taking the treasury bench, he changed the colour of the budget papers to differentiate them from the Costello budget papers. The Costello budget papers were all in classic white. Mr Swan changed the colour of his budget papers to blue, which is very convenient because I have all the budgets for the last 15 or so years on a shelf. It makes it very easy to point out the surplus budgets from the deficit budgets—they are basically colour coded. That is something helpful that Mr Swan has done.

I return to one of the elements of this legislation—changes to the disability support pension—to make the point that I think we have expected the disability support pension to do a number of different things. We have expected it to be an income support for people whose disability means that they will never work, people who have an extremely profound disability. We have also expected the disability support pension to serve as an income support for those people who have been injured or have a condition from which they can recover, so we have expected it to be a transitional payment. We have also expected the DSP to be more than income support. We have expected Australians who have profound disabilities to use some of that money to buy aids and equipment, to purchase supports which they need compared to other Australians.

The DSP was never designed to be more than income support. That is one of the reasons why it is so critical that a national disability insurance scheme comes into being. People who follow Australians with a disability know that there are waiting lists for supported accommodation and waiting lists for aids and equipment, as Senator McLucas knows very well. I think there has been a misapprehension that the disability support pension is designed to enable people to purchase some of those things. It was never designed to do that; it was designed to be an income support.

The Commonwealth has had traditional responsibility for income support for disabilities. It is the states and the territories who have had the prime responsibility for providing those other supports—for providing respite, aids and equipment and supported accommodation. Over time, the states and territories have funded about half of what needs to be funded. Hence we have the waiting lists and the rationing. I make the point, as we are talking about legislation which seeks to make some changes to the disability support pension, that I think there has been a misapprehension as to what the role of the DSP is meant to be. It is meant to be purely income support and that is why we so greatly need a national disability insurance scheme—so that we do not expect the DSP to continue to do more than it was designed to do.

As I am talking about the National Disability Insurance Scheme, it is appropriate to acknowledge this is one of the areas where there is cross-party support. Whenever I look at a piece of legislation in the social security area, it always reminds me what the core business of government should be—providing assistance to those citizens who find themselves faced with additional challenges for reasons beyond their control. We may often disagree across this chamber about what is an appropriate role for government, but one thing I know we all agree upon is that the core business of government is providing support for people who face additional challenges for reasons beyond their control. It is Australians with disability who most clearly fit that definition. A point well made by the Productivity Commission in their report on a national disability insurance scheme was that, if you are designing what it is that government does from scratch, one of the first things you would start with would be proper support for people with disability.

The opposition will not be opposing this bill. It has some useful technical amendments but we also acknowledge that it is reducing payments to some people for the purpose of achieving a technical surplus. As I indicated before, we on this side think that there is a better way. I conclude my remarks there as I know there are a number of colleagues who have contributions to make and we are operating in a time limited environment as the guillotine will kick in in the not too distant future.