Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I regret feeling the need to stand here and maybe give those opposite a lesson in economics 101. The fundamental basis of it is that you cannot just keep spending money and constantly putting more and more programs into your public budget if you cannot actually afford to pay for them. Senator Brown made the comment that we need to support and encourage our young people. The best way that we can support and encourage our young people is to allow them to be able to get a job. The best way for them to be able to get a job is if we put confidence back into our economy so that our businesses start employing people, and, if they employ people, there will be more jobs for our young people. By spending more and more money in the public sector and constantly putting more and more pressure on the public purse to pay back the interest that is on the money that we owe is no way to run our economy.

As someone more famous than me said: 'You can't tax your way out of a recession.' And the public sector cannot spend its way out of a recession. We need to give business the confidence, the incentive and the tools so that they can make our country more prosperous. Instead of standing opposite and talking about all the things that may not have been in the budget that you would have liked to have given people so that you could buy their vote at the next election, maybe a more responsible approach would be to come up with suggestions about how you are going to deal with the debt and deficit problems this government has inherited from you.

I think that the budget that was brought down last night was eminently sensible, balanced and reasonable. I do not believe that in any way it was unfair. I am a small-business person. I come from a community that is run on small business. Many people in this chamber, if they actually bothered to have a look, would realise that small business is the engine room of this country. By putting in some programs and some initiatives and allowing them a 1.5 per cent tax cut, maybe small businesses—remember that every big business was a small business once—will have the confidence and the incentive to employ more people. Employing more people, Senator Brown, will mean that young people will have greater opportunity and access to a greater job market.

It is not just tax relief of 1.5 per cent that is being given to small business—it is a whole package of $5.5 billion. With accelerated depreciation, those of you who have been involved in small business, as I have, will know that one of the greatest things to give you the encouragement to make that decision to purchase a new piece of equipment is knowing that you are able to depreciate it over a much shorter period of time. If I had to go and buy myself a lawnmower and I knew I could depreciate it over the first 12 months of owning it, I would be much more likely to buy it. But that does not just benefit me because I am able to get that depreciation benefit immediately; it also benefits the local dealer who sells me the lawnmower. Of course, this continues to have a flow-on effect in our economy. This is what you call stimulating growth. You are not putting a blanket on growth by just trying to use the public sector to spend your way out of the situation, you are using business and using your economy to drive the growth of the Australian economy. Certainly, the small business package is something that has been welcomed in the electorate and in South Australia, because it is seen as a stimulus to our economy.

The other area that was particularly welcomed was the $4.4 billion families package. Certainly, in the discussion after the last budget in relation to the Paid Parental Leave scheme it appeared that the women of our country were keen for childcare support and believed that it was an important way of assisting them to get back into the workforce. We need to look at this as a productivity measure and encourage the 50 per cent of our population, or thereabouts, that take some time off to have children to get back into the workforce. Up until now, they have found it particularly restrictive because they have not been able to access child care at affordable levels. For those opposite to come in here and say that this is an unfair budget, when they were advocating that child care be included in the budget, seems rather ignorant. It is contradictory for them to come in here and say that the childcare and $4.4 billion families package is unfair.

I want to touch quickly on my home state of South Australia. I would like to put on the record that annual Commonwealth funding to South Australia will increase by $2.4 billion over the next four years. That is an increase in hospital funding; it is an increase in school funding. I would like to put that on the record. It does not matter how many advertising campaigns Premier Weatherill in South Australia decides that he is going to run to try and bluff the South Australian public into believing that the federal government is somehow cutting funding to South Australia, he cannot cover up the fact that he has been a totally incompetent fiscal manager in our state. The budget measures and the fiscal inadequacies of his government are the reasons he has had to cut programs in South Australia. The federal government has not taken money out of the South Australian bucket. As I said, it has increased overall funding. It has increased school funding and increased hospital funding. For Premier Weatherill to spend millions of dollars of South Australian taxpayers' money running what would have to be described as misleading at best and dishonest at worst advertising campaigns, and to suggest that the federal government is in any way to blame for the fact that he is no longer able to fund some of the initiatives that are the purview and responsibility of the South Australian government, I think is reprehensible and entirely recklessly irresponsible on his part. To add insult to injury, we had a question today criticising this government about hospital funding. It is the South Australian government who intends to shut down the repat hospital for our veterans in South Australia. This is a fair budget, and it is ridiculous to say otherwise.