Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Human Services, Senator Ludwig. Can the minister confirm that the government is implementing its savings for Labor’s better priorities policy as it affects the proposed access card? Will the minister inform the Senate how cost savings achieved by not proceeding with the access card will ease the pressure on interest rates?

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Polley for that excellent question. I can confirm that the government has terminated the Liberal’s much flawed access card. Labor has long had concerns about the access card; in particular, concerns about the protection of privacy. The Liberals claimed that it was not a national identity card, yet it bore all the hallmarks of one. It was to have a photo. It was even to have a signature and it was vaunted to even include biometrics. They said that it would not be compulsory to have the access card, yet one would have to have had the access card to access services such as those provided by Medicare and Centrelink. It was an ID card by stealth and the opposition knows that and should fess up to it. It was one of those products of a government that was focused only on the card and not on the outcome.

In opposition, we were also concerned that the Liberals had underestimated the cost and overestimated the potential savings of the project. The KPMG report estimated potential savings of $1.6 billion to $3 billion over 10 years, compared with a cost of at least $1.3 billion. The legislation governing the access card regime had already been delayed twice, once by the previous minister, Senator Ellison, demonstrating the likelihood of further blow-outs in both time and money. If you look at Senator Ellison’s history with things like this, it is not surprising that he put the brakes on an IT project of this size and started to back pedal quickly. His last IT project, the Customs debacle, blew out from $30 million to in excess of $400 million and almost brought our wharves to a standstill. This government will ensure that that money is returned as savings for Labor’s better priorities policy rather than squandered—as it was going to be by the opposition. That is why I will return almost $1.2 billion to the budget for the Australian taxpayers.

I might note that the savings under the Charter of Budget Honesty were estimated at $1.49 million. I am proud to be able to say that my department has identified an additional $29 million in savings for 2007-08, bringing the total to $1.78 million. These savings amount to a significant reduction in public demand which will help put downward pressure on inflation and then downward pressure on interest rates. It is the financially responsible thing to do. It is the fiscally conservative thing to undertake. Some of the money will also go to ensuring the Rudd Labor government’s policies on the education revolution, and to improve services in public hospitals—what the opposition when they were in government did not do. The Rudd Labor government will ensure those priorities are met, that the education revolution will proceed. We are focused on the practical things that will make a real difference, like online services, the coordination between agencies and datamatching and data sharing. That is what the Rudd Labor government will focus on, rather than a card. (Time expired)