Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Senator Moore's motion regarding the fuel tax. I rise and wonder, and I put the question to the Abbott government: how much more money are they going to take out of the purses and wallets of Australians? How much more money, and when can Australians have some certainty that the robbing of family budgets that is going on currently will stop? I also pose a second question, and that is: do the Abbott government really understand the effects of their harsh and cruel budget? It seems to me that the government are the only people in Australia who continue to support their budget, although we are seeing, by degrees, that they move away from sections of it each week. They obviously have no understanding of its real impact in the Australian community.

Every one of the Abbott government's broken promises has an effect on the household budgets of Australians, especially low-income Australians, Australians who live on benefits and Australians who live on the age pension. Every action from this 'no surprises' government takes us by surprise and it takes its toll. Whether it is the higher education reform package or whether it is this new fuel tax, they have an impact on the budgets of Australian families. What a sneaky move and what a fast move the fuel tax is, because it will take effect in the next pay packet of Australians. So, this week is the last pay packet that most Australians will get before they have to pay additional money at the petrol browser. The fuel tax could come under a number of the Abbott government's glib statements. Is it a broken promise, or is it a 'no new tax', or is it 'we'll be a government of no surprises'? It is probably every one of them, but what really matters is that it adds to the battering of household budgets by the Abbott government.

Remember when Mr Abbott became the Prime Minister—'remember when' is almost becoming a slogan in itself—and he kept saying in those early weeks that he had a mandate for this and he had a mandate for that? He had a mandate for everything, seemingly, according to the Prime Minister. For those who believe that, for those who believe in mandates, the Abbott government certainly had no mandate to hit Australians with a fuel tax, because Mr Abbott repeatedly said, 'There will be no new taxes under my government.' Yet, what he has done is sneakily impose this new fuel tax.

Seemingly, the partners in the coalition, the Nationals, say that they are there as the party of the bush, to stick up for regional and remote Australians. I am not quite sure when the last time was that they fuelled their cars and paid for it out of their pockets, but regional and rural Australians do that weekly. We all know that fuel in the country, fuel in the bush, fuel in remote areas, is incredibly expensive.

Maybe what the Abbott government—and indeed the Nationals—have missed is that there are low-income earners in the bush. Not everybody owns a farm or has access to some sort of tax write-off. There are aged-care workers who live in the bush, there are early childhood educators who live in the bush and there are roadhouse workers who live in the bush—and they earn very meagre wages. They earn $18, $19, $20 or $21 an hour. But the Nationals, who in partnership with the Abbott government have imposed this sneaky deal, seem to have completely forgotten about those folk. Many of those workers, particularly the ones who work in aged care, work part time—and they drive a significance distance to work each day. Their part-time wage has to stretch across a family budget.

Every time Mr Abbott says this is a small increase—and we have heard several government senators say that in this place today—it shows that he fails to understand that low-income earners, pensioners and others living on benefits do not completely fill their cars. Why is that? It is because even now they cannot afford to do that. They buy the exact amount of petrol they need in order to get to work or to do the family errands.

This morning I had the privilege of attending a meeting of the Parliamentary Friends of Early Childhood with some of my former comrades from United Voice. There were a number of early childhood educators there. Predominantly women, these educators work in a professional capacity but unfortunately do not get paid a professional wage. That is bad enough, but some months ago the Abbott government took money out of their already thin pay packets when they cancelled the Early Years Quality Fund. Early childhood educators earn $20 to $21 an hour.

Many of these women have children of their own and struggle with their mortgages. Believe me: they never have the money to fill up their cars—never, ever. They put enough fuel in their cars to get them to and from work, to pick their kids up and to run them to places. There are no additional funds available for any extras. From 10 November, this increase in the fuel tax will hit those educators, those women I was meeting with this morning, in their pockets. After that, when they next look at that fuel bowser after they get their next pay packet, they are going to have to recalculate their family budget—and something else will drop off it. They do not earn enough right now to live a decent life, they do not earn enough to put their own children into quality care and very few of them—especially if they are single-income earners with children—earn enough to buy a house. But all of that goes completely over the Abbott government's heads, which is particularly noticeable when the Prime Minister keeps standing up and saying, 'This is a small increase.' Every time he says that, he sends a message to ordinary Australians—those struggling on low wages—that he is well out of touch with their family budgets.

I am very surprised that the Nationals, who know the high cost of fuel in the bush, would accept such a deal from the government. But wait, there's more! I seem to recall that earlier in the year the Liberals tricked the Nationals, their own coalition partners. That's right! They let it slip out that they wanted to put a tax on diesel. They knew of course—it was very predictable—that the Nationals would blow up about that. But that just meant that the Liberals could achieve their fallback position—a fuel tax hike—without the Nationals complaining. After all, the Liberals told them, the money had to come from somewhere. The Nationals wiped their brows and said: 'Phew! We dodged a bullet there on diesel' and then they agreed to what the Liberals wanted all along.

All of this shows that they are out of touch with what happens when people fill up their cars in Halls Creek, Kununurra, Esperance or Waroona—name any remote town in Western Australia. People in those places all know that they pay a significant amount more when they put petrol in their car—not filling it, just putting in enough to get them to work. That completely passes the Nationals by, and then we have the Prime Minister of the country standing up and saying, 'It is only a small increase.' Keep saying that, Prime Minister Abbott, because every time you do, you remind Australians that you are completely out of touch.

One government member has been brave enough to stand up and call it as it is. Senator Macdonald is on the public record saying that this is a low move, that this is going to hurt low-income earners. He had the courage to tell the truth on this matter. The rest of the government have obviously chosen to put up with it and shut up, but not Senator Macdonald. He has called it as it is—and he is not the only one. Another is the chief executive of the Australian Automobile Association, Andrew McKellar.

Automobile associations are not the radical fringe. You cannot attack them as you do the unions. They are pretty conservative groups. They are pretty polite because they know they rely on governments of whatever political persuasion to be nice to them. But even Mr McKellar has come out and called the petrol move 'weak, sneaky and tricky.' Why did he do that? He did it because the government has avoided any scrutiny of this sneaky move by using the customs tariff. It did that because it does not want to come before this parliament and have to answer questions about why it is imposing this tax hike. It does not want transparency. It does not want the scrutiny of the parliament. It is a government of surprises—quite contrary to Mr Abbott's words when he stood up and said, 'I want to be a government of no surprises.' There are in fact constant surprises with this government. Every day there are more surprises.

Let's not forget where else the Abbott government has attacked working Australians. We had that sudden freeze on superannuation. We heard in this chamber today from government senators that somehow that freeze on superannuation has been good for workers because they will have this additional invisible money in their pockets to spend each week. That just shows the absolute ignorance of the government in not understanding how industrial superannuation is paid. It comes from the employer through to the workers. When the Abbott government puts a freeze on industry superannuation it lets the boss off, so the boss saves money and the workers miss out. Nothing actually goes into their pockets. Freezing retirement incomes is the most ridiculous move I have seen from the government. Why would you do that with an ageing population? Government senators have said today that the money that has been frozen is going to magically go out of the boss's pocket and into the worker's pocket and the worker will have more money. That is a complete myth and just demonstrates total ignorance about how the superannuation system works, just like suggesting that this increase in fuel is not going to cost Australians very much at all. It will and they will not forget who has done this to them.

Let's not forget the threats we have had from Senator Cormann when he said that if Labor did not support this move we would be held responsible for giving money back—that somehow money that had to go back to fuel companies would be our fault. The Abbott government likes to scapegoat Labor almost on a daily basis, and if it is not Labor it is the unions, but it is mostly Labor. Seriously—it is a sneaky decision that the government has taken, a decision that has avoided the scrutiny of the parliament to increase the cost of fuel for everyday Australians, and the government is going to try to say it is all Labor's fault. Who is going to believe that? That is the most ridiculous assertion I have heard in a long while.

Where is this budget emergency that the government talks about? Sixty-three leading Australian economists have said that there is not one. What is the money going to go into? Apparently it is going into roads—not public transport, but roads. How is that moving the country forward? How is putting more roads in place of assistance to those who rely on public transport? You would think that if the government were going to do this it would look at a better spend for its dollar, but, no, it is so out of touch and it is so opposed to public transport. The government said a few months ago: 'That's a state government responsibility. It's not an area that the federal government gets involved in. So we're going to continue to fund roads.' I can tell you that people in Western Australia do not need more roads; we need more public transport. In Western Australia, we do not even have public transport to the airport. I will tell you what: if you live in a suburb and you want to get to another suburb at the other side of town, it is a two- or three-hour bus trip, if a trip is available at all. We clearly need expenditure on all forms of transport, but seemingly that is not going to eventuate under this government. This is just another sneaky attack on the purses and wallets and the cost of living of every Australian. It is also a sneaky attack on the parliament and a total disregard for the Senate, but that seems to be one of the things that the Abbott government excels in: being sneaky and disregarding parliamentary processes.

This is not just about the fuel tax; it is a demonstration of the lengths to which the Prime Minister and his team will go to undermine the parliament and sneak increases into Australian families' costs. Maybe what the Abbott government are hoping is that, because this has not gone through the parliament and because it has avoided the public scrutiny that the parliament provides, somehow Australians might blame the fuel companies. I am sure the fuel companies have already outsmarted the Abbott government on that and I am sure that they are not going to accept responsibility for this increase.

We know that raising petrol excise taxes is regressive. As The Conversation said:

Higher fuel prices will raise the cost of living for consumers on low incomes who are not financially able to upgrade to a fuel-efficient vehicle. Nor are they able to reduce kilometres travelled if they live in an area that has limited access to public transport. Consumers and businesses entitled to claim a tax deduction for higher fuel costs may not be discouraged from buying high emitting vehicles and reducing kilometres travelled.

Many educators, aged-carers, disability service workers and hospitality workers do not live in the hearts of our cities. Why don't they live there? Because the rents are too high. They cannot afford to live there. Most workers that I know live at least an hour's travel away from their workplace. Added to that, many of them are shift workers. They might start at 5 am or 6 am in the morning. That is often at a time when public transport is not running, so they have little other available option than to take their car, and they will fill it only with enough fuel so that they can do their shifts with a little bit of fuel spare. If you want evidence of that, I would ask you to look to the Fair Work Commission and the submissions that were put forward as part of United Voice's low-pay bargaining application. Submission after submission from aged-care workers tells the story of how difficult and almost impossible it is for them to balance their budgets on their meagre incomes, and now the Abbott government has gone completely behind their backs and the backs of other low-paid workers in this country—pensioners and those on benefits—to hike up the cost of fuel without a single care for those struggling the most in our community. This is a government that is absolutely out of touch. It looks after the elite and the wealthy in our community and shows scant regard for anyone else.