James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Dastyari, for very kindly arranging to assemble a crowd for my speech. I forgive senators if they go back to their tasks at hand. I know there is a lot of work being done tonight in this building and I am sure there are very important duties that must be returned to.

Well, colleagues, what a cynical and petulant display we have seen from the Australian Labor Party tonight. They have mustered filibustering, talking it out, trying to keep us here as late as possible so they can demonstrate to their unions that they have at least put up a fight, they have tried their best, they know they do not have the numbers, but they are going to go down kicking and screaming in true Labor Party style. I have only been here for a year but I have seen it more often than I thought I would—tokenistic debates to drag out the time this afternoon to put on this petulant display.

Let's introduce some facts back into the debate. Let's remind those opposite of the situation they left this government in which has forced it to do the responsible and necessary thing of ensuring that important social reforms like the one proposed in child care this week by the minister, Senator Birmingham, can actually be paid for and delivered. I hate to have to remind those opposite, but these are the facts. The federal government this year is headed for a budget deficit of about $35 billion, just as it was last year. Gross debt is well on its way to $500 billion. That is the legacy this government was left by the previous government and that is the legacy that this government is trying to deal with. Unfortunately, we have had very little assistance from those opposite in dealing with that task. We would very much like to have fixed this task and dealt with it much sooner, but every reasonable attempt we have made to negotiate and propose different solutions to get the budget back into surplus and to get the debt paid down has been refused.

Let's remember it was those opposite that broke the budget during the global financial crisis with reckless stimulus spending. We now know with hindsight that it was clearly excessive and unnecessary to keep the economy going. Let's remember it was those opposite had bedded into the budget long-term spending initiatives with no capacity or plans to pay for them. They knew, of course, that they were on the way out and it would never be their problem—it would never be up to them to balance the budget. This government wants to keep in place many of those important social reforms that we supported, such as the NDIS and good funding for schools, but this government is not willing to put the tab on future generations. This government knows that we have to pay today for the spending we incur today. We know that it is morally wrong to leave future generations to bear the burden of the excesses of this generation. Every dollar we spend today that we do not have is a dollar that will have to be paid back with interest by our children and grandchildren.

The young people who will benefit improved initiatives in this childcare package are also the ones who will have to pay the full cost of that and many other things the government spends money on today. That is because those opposite left the budget in such a state of disarray and worked so hard to obstruct this government's attempt to return to surplus. I think that is morally wrong. I want to see improved, better-targeted, quality child care, as the minister has devised. I would like to see families receive the benefit of better-targeted child care and subsidies to ensure the money is going to those who need it most and not to those who do not need it—those highest income earners. In order to do that, we have to pay for it. It is not responsible to continue to put it on the credit card.

Let's remember that those opposite took to this election a childcare policy which made no changes to the broken system. They simply planned to pump more money into a bad system that everyone in the sector and every expert said was broken and needed to be fixed. Let's remember that it was this government and the minister, Senator Birmingham, who proposed a solution to that—a reform which has been widely praised within the sector and by experts as being better targeted, as going to those who need it most and as an initiative that will encourage workforce participation. The reform will ensure that families do not run out of childcare subsidies halfway or a third of the way through the year and are then faced with the difficult decision of having the second income earner continue to work or to stay at home and look after the children, even if they prefer to be working.

That is the reform proposed by the government, which those opposite suggest they support to some extent, although they have not been clear whether they will actually vote for it. I eagerly await to see how they will exercise their votes this week. I will go through some of the initiatives that this government has proposed for funding this program. I think they are incredibly reasonable initiatives. Of course, no-one in government ever likes to cut back or to rein in spending but any responsible government knows that it is not right to send more money out the door than you are collecting. That is what those opposite propose that we do.

This new bill contains three measures from the original omnibus bill. The first is maintaining income-free areas and a means-test threshold for certain payments and allowances at their current level for three years. That is not taking anything away and that is not cutting anything back; it is simply maintaining the status quo for the next three years. It is a modest and reasonable measure. The second is automating the income-stream review process to improve the accuracy of income-support payments and reductions in customer debts. We know the trouble those opposite have in ensuring that the right amount of welfare is paid to those who are entitled to it, but not a dollar more. We know the protests that they have put in place against the government's attempts to recoup the debts which were incurred during their time in office, but which they made no reasonable attempts to recover. We know their desire to stop a successful program which today is discovering people who have been wrongly paid welfare they are not entitled to, and we know how much they have fought efforts to ensure those taxpayer dollars have been put to good and appropriate use.

The third measure extends and simplifies ordinary waiting periods for the parenting payment and for youth allowance for a person who is not undertaking full-time study and is not a new apprentice. The bill also includes a new schedule to maintain the current family tax benefit payment rates for two years at their current levels from 1 July 2017. This measure will achieve savings of about $2 billion over the 2017-18 forward estimates, which will build to $5.5 billion over the medium term.

It is really important that we note for the record here tonight and for anyone who might be watching that under this new measure there will be no cuts—that is, no cuts—to family tax benefit payments. You could be forgiven, having listened to some of the emotional speeches from the other side, for thinking that that might be the case, but it is not. Indeed, over the two-year maintenance period, many families will in fact see an increase in their payments as a result of increases to particular income thresholds for family tax benefits. As the minister said in the other place earlier this week when introducing this legislation, the government has also reversed a previous decision to increase FTB payment rates to offset, in part, the effect of the phase-out of FTB supplements, which was a measure contained in the original omnibus savings bill. Not proceeding with that increase in family tax benefit payment rates will, compared with the previous social services omnibus savings bill, reduce the cost by a further $2.3 billion over the current forward estimates period and reduce the costs over the medium term by about $11 billion. So we are not proceeding with an increase that was actually included in a previous bill, which those opposite indicated they would not support.

The bill further builds on the $6.3 billion in budget improvements over the forward estimates achieved through the original omnibus bill, which passed the Senate earlier this year. Here I give due credit to those opposite. They did vote for one initiative that reduced spending and helped get the budget back to surplus, but they should not be too proud of that, because all that initiative did was take the savings measures they proposed during the election and put them in a bill that was introduced into this place. Of course, it was not an easy process. They did kick and scream on the way to voting for their own savings initiatives, promised at the election.

It is the government's intention to secure the passage of both this bill and the childcare bill through the Senate this week. If we are able to do that, Australian families will be able to rely on a childcare system that better suits and targets their needs and that helps control the cost of child care, which families have told us is the No. 1 pressure on the household budget. That is what this government has been seeking to do since the election, and that is what this government has been frustrated in its attempts to do by this chamber, in particular those opposite. I hope, through the long debate tonight and probably tomorrow night, that those opposite take the opportunity to reflect on the fact that they are standing in the way of a better childcare system which better targets the scarce resources that the government has at its disposal. The bill will ensure child care is more affordable for families and better targeted to those middle-income families who rely on it most and on whom it will have the most positive impact in terms of workforce participation. I hope those opposite reconsider their decision to delay, obstruct and prevent it from being implemented.

We have heard loud and clear from Australian families, particularly those with young children, that this is an important and overdue reform, and we are doing our very best to fix the broken system that was presided over by our predecessors. It is disappointing, but not surprising, that those opposite are not assisting us in that task, but I hope they have cause to reflect on that over the duration of this debate.