Helen Kroger (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to incorporate, for the information of honourable senators, the Leader of the Opposition's response to the budget speech, delivered by Mr Abbott in the House of Representatives earlier this evening.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

The job, Mr President, of every senator of this parliament is to help shape a better Australia.

It's to listen carefully to the Australian people, respect the hard-won dollars they pay in tax, do our honest best to make people's lives easier not harder, and honour the commitments we make to those who vote for us.

If that's how we discharge our duties as members of parliament, politics is an honourable calling, the public can respect their MPs and MPs can respect each other even when we disagree.

My values are the product of an Australian life, a real life much like yours, with Margie, raising three daughters in suburban Sydney, paying a mortgage, worrying about bills, trying to be a good neighbour and a good citizen; appreciating that no one has a monopoly of virtue or wisdom, and grateful that our country has normally been free from the class struggle that's raged elsewhere to other countries' terrible cost.

In a healthy democracy, people need not agree with everything a government does but they should be able to understand its purpose and to appreciate why it could be for the long term good of the nation as whole.

The fundamental problem with this budget is that it deliberately, coldly, calculatedly plays the class war card.

It cancels previous commitments to company tax cuts and replaces them with means-tested payments because a drowning government has decided to portray the political contest in this country as billionaires versus battlers.

It's an ignoble piece of work from an unworthy Prime Minister that will offend the intelligence of the Australian people.

So on behalf of the Liberal National Coalition, I assert these fundamental truths:

Government should be at least as interested in the creation of wealth as in its redistribution.

Government should protect the vulnerable not to create more clients of the state but to foster more self-reliant citizens.

The small business people who put their houses on the line to create jobs deserve support from government, not broken promises.

People who work hard and put money aside so they won't be a burden on others should be encouraged, not hit with higher taxes.

And people earning $83,000 a year and families on $150,000 a year are not rich, especially if they're paying mortgages in our big cities.

Australia needs more successful people and more opportunities for people to succeed, yet this government's message is: the harder you try, the harder we'll make it for you.

Mr President, from an economic perspective, the worst aspect of this year's budget is that there is no plan for economic growth; nothing whatsoever to promote investment or employment.

Without a growing economy, everything a government does is basically robbing Peter to pay Paul.

With a growing economy, it's possible to have lower taxes, better services and a stronger budget bottom line as Australians discovered during the Howard era that now seems like a lost golden age of prosperity.

As this budget shows, to every issue, this government's kneejerk response is more tax, more regulation and more vitriol.

The Treasurer referred just once on Tuesday night to what he coyly called the carbon price before rushing to assure people that it wouldn't affect them.

If the carbon tax won't hurt anyone why is the government topping up compensation in this budget?

If the carbon tax won't hurt anyone, why did the Prime Minister promise six days before the last election that there would be no carbon tax under the government she led?

If the carbon tax won't hurt anyone why are Labor senators now frightened to go doorknocking even in their heartland?

Let's be clear about this: no genuine Labor government would be hitting the families and businesses of Australia with the world's biggest carbon tax at the worst possible time.

No genuine Labor government would be hitting our economy with what amounts to a reverse tariff making Australian businesses less competitive and Australian jobs less secure compared to our overseas rivals who face no such tax.

It doesn't matter how many times the Treasurer refers to a Labor government with Labor values, the real Labor people with whom I mix beyond the parliamentary triangle despair of the politicians who have sold their party's soul to the Greens.

Mr President, I applaud the Treasurer's eagerness to deliver a surplus – but if a forecast $1.5 billion surplus is enough to encourage the Reserve Bank to reduce interest rates, what has been the impact on interest rates of his $174 billion in delivered deficits over the past four years?

How can the Treasurer be so confident of next year's skinny surplus when this year's deficit, forecast to be $23 billion in last year's budget, has now grown to $44 billion?

How can he be confident that next year's surplus won't evaporate completely given that it's already shrunk from $3.5 billion in last year's budget and the cumulative budget bottom line has deteriorated by $26 billion in just 12 months?

The forecast surplus relies on the continuation of record terms of trade even though growth in China is moderating and Europe is still in deep trouble.

Yet on Treasury's own estimates, a decline in the terms of trade of just four per cent would turn the surplus into a $1.9 billion deficit next year and $5.1 billion the year after.

As everyone who's managed a household budget knows, shuffling costs from one year to another, as the Treasurer has, doesn't make them go away; and a tiny surplus in one year doesn't outweigh huge deficits in other years.

Even if the Treasurer is right, it will take 100 years of Swan surpluses to repay just four years of Swan deficits.

Mr President, I know what it's like to deliver sustained surpluses because I was part of a government that did; indeed, sixteen members of my frontbench were ministers in the government that delivered the four biggest surpluses in Australian history.

By contrast, no one will know whether the Treasurer has actually delivered his micro-surplus till late next year; is it any wonder that he seems to be suffering from surplus envy.

If the budget really was coming into surplus, it stands to reason that the government would have no further need to borrow.

If the government really thinks that a surplus can be delivered, as opposed to being merely forecast, why is it proposing to add a further $50 billion to the Commonwealth's debt ceiling?

I challenge the government to stop hiding this massive lift in Australia's credit card limit in the Appropriation Bills and to present it, honestly, openly to the parliament as a separate measure where it will have to be debated and justified on its merits.

Mr President, just two months ago, the Prime Minister said that “if you are against cutting company tax, you are against economic growth. If you are against economic growth, then you are against jobs”.

In dumping her commitment to company tax cuts, the Prime Minister has reinforced her trust problem: why should this year's budget commitments be any more reliable than previous ones, especially when so much is such obvious spin.

The Treasurer boasted about his aged care changes but failed to mention that everyone who is not a full pensioner faces up to $10,000 a year more for in-home aged care and up to $25,000 a year more for residential care.

He hailed the delivery of the National Disability Insurance Scheme but neglected to mention that it was short-changed $2.9 billion from the Productivity Commission's version.

He trumpeted more money for the states' dental schemes but not his plans to abolish the Medicare dental scheme.

He highlighted more spending on the Pacific Highway but not the get-out clause that it has to be matched 50:50 by NSW, not 80:20 as agreed with the previous NSW Labor government.

The Treasurer insisted that military spending could be cut, breaking more commitments in the process, without harming our defence capability even though defence spending, as a percentage of GDP, will soon be at the lowest level since 1938.

Mr President, the Australian people deserve better than this and they're looking to the Coalition for reassurance that there is a better way.

The Coalition has a plan for economic growth; it starts with abolishing the carbon tax and abolishing the mining tax.

Abolishing the mining tax will make Australia a better place to invest and let the world know that we don't punish success.

Abolishing the carbon tax would be the swiftest contribution government could make to relieving cost of living pressure; it would take the pressure off power prices, gas prices and rates; it would prevent more pressure on transport prices.

Abolishing the carbon tax would make every job in our economy more secure.

It would help to ensure that we keep strong manufacturing, vibrant agriculture, growing knowledge-based industries and a resilient services sector – as well as a mining industry – in a vigorous five pillar economy.

Mr President, Australians understand that a tax reduction to compensate for a tax increase is not a real cut; they know that the only sustainable tax cuts are based on a permanent decrease in the size of government or a permanent increase in the wealth of our nation.

Under the Coalition, there will be tax cuts without a carbon tax because we'll find the savings to pay for them.

The Howard government turned a $10 billion budget black hole into consistent surpluses averaging almost one per cent of GDP; it turned $96 billion in net Commonwealth debt into $70 billion in net assets.

The Coalition identified $50 billion in savings before the last election and will do at least as much again before the next one.

It's not as if savings are impossible to find.

Why should the government commit nearly $6 billion to power stations that the carbon tax would otherwise send bankrupt rather than just drop the carbon tax?

Why spend billions to put people out of work rather than into it?

Why does the Defence Materiel Organisation need 7000 bureaucrats especially when major equipment purchases are being put off?

Why does Australia need to spend millions to join the African Development Bank?

Why spend $50 billion on a National Broadband Network so customers can subsequently spend almost three times their current monthly fee for speeds they might not need?

Why dig up every street when fibre to the node could more swiftly and more affordably deliver 21st century broadband?

Why put so much into the NBN when the same investment could more than duplicate the Pacific Highway, Sydney's M5 and the road between Hobart and Launceston; build Sydney's M4 East, the Melbourne Metro, and Brisbane's Cross City Rail; plus upgrade Perth Airport and still leave about $10 billion for faster broadband?

And why spend another $1.7 billion on border protection cost blow outs because the government is too proud to admit that John Howard's policies worked?

Mr President, the Treasurer boasts that our economy will be 16 per cent bigger by mid 2014 than it was in mid 2008 before the Global Financial Crisis.

What he doesn't mention is that over the previous six years growth was 22 per cent; and over the six years before that – spanning the Asian Financial Crisis, the Tech Wreck and September 11 – the Howard government achieved growth of 26 per cent while still implementing far-reaching economic reforms like the GST.

Strong economic growth will be the over-riding aim of the next Coalition government; we've done it before and can do it again.

We'll cut business red tape costs by at least a billion dollars a year by requiring each government agency to quantify the costs of its reporting and compliance rules and delivering an annual savings target.

Public service bonuses won't be paid unless these targets are met.

There'll be a once-in-a-generation commission of audit to review all the arms and agencies of government to ensure that taxpayers are getting good value for money.

We will respond carefully but decisively to the problems that the community has identified in the Fair Work Act so that small businesses and their staff can get a fair go and our productivity can increase.

We'll restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission, the successor of the Cole Royal Commission which I established, as a strong cop on the beat and the guarantor of $6 billion a year in productivity improvements in a vital industry.

And Mr President, where union officials and business people commit the same offence they should face the same penalty; what's more, unlike the government, we didn't need the Fair Work report into the Member for Dobell to realise that some unions are corrupt boys clubs.

We'll work with the states to put local people in charge of public schools and public hospitals because they should be as responsive to their patients and to their parents as businesses are to their customers.

Our objective is to bring to the running of public schools and hospitals the “have a go mindset” that the move to the Job Network, that I oversaw, brought to employment services under the former government.

Mr President, the Coalition wants more Australians to be economic as well as cultural contributors.

That's why work-for-the-dole, or some other serious undertaking, should be mandatory for long-term unemployed people under 50.

Welfare quarantining for long term unemployed people should be extended from the Northern Territory to the rest of the country.

Where unskilled work is readily available, unemployment benefits should be suspended for fit people under 30 – as recommended by Warren Mundine, a former Labor Party National President.

And yes, there will be a fair-dinkum paid parental leave scheme, giving mothers six months at full pay with their babies, to bring Australia into the 21st century, finally, and to join the 35 other countries whose parental leave schemes are based on people's pay.

Parental leave is a workplace entitlement not a welfare benefit so should be paid at people's real wage, like sick leave and holiday pay.

Plus there'll be a Productivity Commission inquiry to consider how childcare can be made more flexible and more effective, including through in-home care, so that more women can participate in a growing economy if that's their choice.

I will continue to work with Noel Pearson to help shift the welfare culture that's sapped Aboriginal self-respect and with Twiggy Forrest to get more Aboriginal people into the workforce.

I will keep spending a week every year volunteering in Aboriginal communities and I hope that a tribe of public servants will soon have to come with me to gain more actual experience of the places we are all trying to improve.

That's what good social policy does: it empowers people to make the most of their lives and to prove to themselves what they can do rather than what they can't.

That way, it reinforces good economic policy.

Mr President, in a productive and competitive economy, it should be easier to get things built, provided they meet the best environmental standards – so the Coalition will allow the states to be a one-stop-shop for environmental approvals.

The Coalition will reward conservation-minded businesses with incentives to be more efficient users of energy and lower carbon emitters.

Our policy means better soils, more trees and smarter technology – unlike the carbon tax which is socialism masquerading as environmentalism.

There will be a standing Green Army, an expanded version of the Green Corps that I put in place in government, to tackle our landcare problems so that beaches and waterways can be cleaner and land more productive.

The next Coalition government will fund infrastructure in accordance with a rational national plan based on published cost-benefit analyses.

We'll also find the most responsible ways to get more private investment into priority projects so that the new roads, public transport systems and water storages that we need aren't so dependent on the taxpayer.

Mr President, too often, government's focus is on the urgent rather than the important; on what drives tomorrow's headline rather than on what changes our country for the better.

We are supposed to be adapting to the Asian century, yet Australians' study of foreign languages, especially Asian languages, is in precipitous decline.

The proportion of Year 12 students studying a foreign language has dropped from about 40 per cent in the 1960s to about 12 per cent now.

There are now only about 300 Year 12 Mandarin students who aren't of Chinese-heritage.

Since 2001, there has been a 21 per cent decline in the numbers studying Japanese and a 40 per cent decline in the numbers studying Indonesian.

If Australians are to make their way in the world, we cannot rely on other people speaking our language.

Starting in pre-school every student should have an exposure to foreign languages.

This will be a generational shift because foreign language speakers will have to be mobilised and because teachers take time to be trained.

Still, the next Coalition government will make a strong start.

My commitment tonight is to work urgently with the states to ensure that at least 40 per cent of Year 12 students are once more taking a language other than English within a decade.

Mr President, the Coalition can find responsible savings to cover tax cuts without a carbon tax and emissions cuts without a carbon tax because, at least until the budget has returned to strong surplus, our plan for a stronger economy and a fairer society involves more efficiency rather than more spending.

Mr President, there is little wrong with our country that a change of government wouldn't improve.

On day one, a new government would order the carbon tax repeal and accept Nauru's standing offer to reopen the detention centre.

Within a week, the navy would have new orders to turn around illegal boats.

Within a month, the commission of audit would be making government more efficient.

Within three months, the parliament would be dealing with carbon tax, mining tax and border protection legislation.

Within a year, national infrastructure priorities would be agreed and there would be more cranes over our cities.

Every day, with every fibre of my being, I would be striving to help Australians be their best selves.

Mr President, as someone whose grandparents were proud to be working class, I can feel the embarrassment of decent Labor people at the failures of this government.

As Ben Chifley famously said, the goal of public life, our “light on the hill” should not be making someone prime minister or putting an extra sixpence in people's pockets but rather “working for the benefit of mankind, not just here but wherever we can lend a helping hand”.

I regret to say that the deeper message of this week's budget is that the Labor Party now only stands for staying in office.

Everyone knows that the Prime Minister is a clever politician but who really trusts her to keep any commitments?

She said she'd never challenge the former Prime Minister but did.

She said there'd never be a carbon tax but has imposed one because, she claimed, the Greens made her do it.

The Prime Minister told Andrew Wilkie: “there will be mandatory pre-commitment under the government I lead” but now tells clubs and pubs “there will be no mandatory pre-commitment under the government I lead”.

This week, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have constantly invoked Labor values.

Were they Labor values the Prime Minister showed in carpet-bombing Kevin Rudd's reputation; or in turfing Harry Jenkins as speaker for Peter Slipper; or in protecting Craig Thomson, the Member for Dobell, to this very day despite Fair Work Australia's findings?

Because by a government's actions will its values be judged.

Budget week hasn't just been about the budget – under the circumstances how could it be; it's been about the Prime Minister's integrity and judgment.

As long as Labor keeps voting in this parliament to protect the Member for Dobell and keeps paying his legal fees, his suspension from the caucus won't end the sleaze factor paralysing this government.

Decent Labor people shouldn't be bluffed by the deal with independents into keeping a leader who is trashing a once honourable political party.

Before this government dies of shame, it should find a leader who isn't fatally compromised by the need to defend the indefensible.

Then this parliament can once more be a proper contest of ideas between those who see bigger government and those who see empowered citizens as the best guarantee of our nation's future.

As budget week has demonstrated, minority governments are too busy managing the parliament to manage the economy properly. While they're surviving, not governing our country is drifting, not flourishing.

With each broken promise, with each peremptory change, with each tawdry revelation, with each embarrassing explanation, the credibility of this government and the standing of this parliament is diminished.

But a shrunken government diminishes us all; that's why our country needs a change.

I want to reassure the people of Australia that it does not have to be like this; we are a great people let down by bad government that will pass.

There is a better way.

The Coalition stands ready to restore hope, reward and opportunity so that, once more, all Australians can face a bright future with confidence.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to respond to the federal budget 2012-13 and, in so doing, I pose the question: what is the role of a federal budget? Is the budget just a spreadsheet of numbers, dollar figures, where some allocations go up and down? Have we come to the view that the federal budget is only an event where we gather to find out who are the winners and who are the losers, who will receive the cheques in the mail? Is it now a reflection of the massive ideological shift described by Eva Cox as a shift 'fromthepoliticsof social change tothe veneration ofthe market that focused on an economy of individuals', rather than a society working together for better outcomes for all of us collectively? Is it an occasion for a managerial report on our economic credit card and its status on the debt-to-surplus trajectory, reporting that it is in the black while hiding behind our backs the ecological and social credit cards that we have put into debt to achieve that black line?

The federal budget is the most value laden document a government produces. It is the economic tool that underpins and enables the government's hopes, aspirations and priorities for the nation. Through the numbers, we should be able to see what the government think about our place in the world; about the global and national challenges facing our people, our society and our environment now and into the future; and about how to respond to those challenges immediately, over the forward estimates and beyond. Unless the numbers tell a strong, clear, consistent story, people are left wondering what the government stands for: where is the nation heading?

In Tuesday's budget, we saw from the government a fundamentally confused and internally conflicted picture. Having said that, what we just saw from the Leader of the Opposition's reply to the budget was a picture of irritating static and no ideas for the future. On Tuesday night, we saw a government that wants to make Australia the country of the fair go by handing out cost-of-living payments while at the same time cutting benefits to single parents and saying it cannot afford to increase support to our poorest, most vulnerable people to help lift them out of the cycle of debt and unemployment.

We see a government that wants Australians to be healthier, working with the Greens—at the Greens' instigation—to get a serious downpayment towards a national universal dental care scheme. But, at the same time, the government could not find $340,000 to support the successful Bsafe domestic violence program to assist women and children who are at risk of domestic violence to remain safely living in their communities.

We see a government moving to tackle accelerating global warming—that huge, overarching challenge that confronts us this century—by introducing, as a result of the agreement with the Greens, a legislative package that will for the first time ever see polluters paying for the damage they do and investing revenue in clean renewable energy, helping householders and businesses to cut wasteful energy use, and supporting Australians to meet rising costs. It is the first time we are seeing a shift in the taxation system to shift responsibility for pollution and inefficient resource use and take it off personal income. That is the 21st century way in which we are going to address the sustainability crisis. At the same time, however, this budget allocates yet more billions to the fossil fuel companies, causing the problem in handouts to make diesel cheaper, to make mining cheaper and to help them export more and more polluting coal, every tonne of which comes back to us in the form of worse floods, more intense fires, cyclones and drought. We are on track for an increase of at least four degrees of global warming because of what we are doing.

We see a government that wants to invest in building a better future for us all; but, in the middle of a boom, holding the purse strings of the most robust economy in the world, it is saying, 'Sorry, we can't afford long-term investment in nation-building right now.' That long-term investment is needed to prepare the nation and get it moving away from the resource based economy it is dependent on and towards a creative, brain based, service and information based economy.

There is a better way, and it is about understanding that we live in a society, not an economy. It is about appreciating that the economy is a tool for the benefit of our society, for the health of our community and for guiding our relationship with the environment that sustains us. If we sacrifice our welfare, our health and our future on the altar of one economic measure, we have fundamentally misunderstood why we humans created this idea that we call 'the economy' in the first place. This is especially so if the economic tools actually measure the wrong thing. For instance, this budget contains forecasts for gross domestic product; that is the metric by which the government's success in managing the economy is currently judged. But the GDP is quite inadequate for this task. It covers only market activities, excluding work done in the home and by community volunteer groups. GDP makes no allowance for how income is distributed across society. It does not capture the health or happiness of our people or the quality of our environment. As Robert Kennedy put it:

… it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.

What we need are genuine progress indicators. We need a significant shift in how we measure and report to the nation. The Treasury actually has a wellbeing framework—not that anyone in Australia would know that—

which looks not just at consumption possibilities but also at the distribution of opportunities. It looks at sustainability, it looks at the risks being borne by the community and also it looks at the complexity of life. The government should put more resources into constructing broader measures of economic wellbeing which capture these measures.

A summary measure of social progress that tells us whether quality of life is improving would be very welcome in the Australian community. We already have a national balance sheet, but it should publish an adjusted GDP, for example, which allows for a reduction in the value of our natural resources from mining as well as counting the value of our mining exports. Environmental degradation should also be brought into account. European Commission President José Manuel Barroso expressed the problem when he was calling for relevant measures and said:

We cannot face the challenges of the future with the tools of the past.

Our bank balance as a country, our surplus or our deficit, is important. We can borrow money to invest in a better future, we can put money away for big costs which we know are coming our way, but it is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end. If reaching the surplus this year is going to hurt people who are struggling now, if it has the potential to drive South-Eastern Australia into recession, throwing people out of jobs, if it means we do not make the kinds of investments in health, education and a clean environment which we know we need to make urgently, then now is not the time to reach a surplus. It is not just the Greens saying that; the former Treasury Secretary and Reserve Bank Governor Bernie Fraser described the commitment to deliver a budget surplus next year, irrespective of the economic circumstances, as 'a dud policy'. ANU professor and former Reserve Bank Board member Warwick McKibbin called it 'purely a political decision which could be very dangerous' and Professor John Quiggin described the commitment as 'ill-advised'. Economic journalists have called it 'risky 'and 'reckless', as have bank economists, and business spokespeople have made the same comment, including even the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who has said that there is 'no point in pursuing a surplus at all costs'.

There are many paths to a budget surplus, but the Gillard government has no straight path. Its budget is a contradiction that is great for teeth but bad for brains. It sets up some big reforms and ignores others in its drive for the surplus. The surplus is not a vision for the nation; it is not an end in itself. Having said that, the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, has suggested his path this evening, and it would be a disaster for Australia. It is a straight path to environmental degradation and wreckage of the economy, since he intends to keep all of the benefits but has not said how he would raise the revenue or the extent to which he would cut the Public Service.

The Greens have a vision for Australia. Ours is a vision for a fairer, cleverer society, a society which understands itself and its place in the world, a society that is truly living within its means. We have a vision of a budget that can make this a reality, paying for vital investment in our future by making our tax base fairer, healthier and more sustainable in all senses of the word.

Looking at the budget delivered on Tuesday night, the first question which comes to mind is: what does it reflect of our place in the world in terms of Australia's place in the Asian century? The Treasurer, Mr Swan, said that Australia's place in the world is being closer than ever to the epicentre of global growth as the weight of activity moves to Asia. Yet as one of the richest nations in the region we have reneged on a global commitment to 0.5 per cent of gross national income in overseas aid by 2015, leaving our nearest neighbours in 18 developing countries, including PNG, East Timor and West Papua, wondering what sort of neighbour we really are in this Asian century in taking $3 billion away from them and, as the peak body for overseeing overseas aid and all the groups associated with it has said, not saving the lives of 800,000 people.

The Greens are opposed to the overseas aid cuts in the budget. As a wealthy nation and one of the few nations within reach of a budget surplus, we have an obligation to meet our international commitments on aid. Having said that, the Leader of the Opposition has also indicated that the opposition will not meet its obligations on overseas aid, and a commitment that has been made by the Leader of the Opposition to 0.5 per cent without a time frame is a completely meaningless and disingenuous statement.

I heard tonight the Leader of the Opposition saying that Asian languages are how he would position Australia in an Asian century. Nobody should believe that, because I can inform the Senate that in 2002 it was Prime Minister Howard who cancelled all the national Asian languages programs in Australian schools. I will say that again: the centrepiece of the Leader of the Opposition's, Tony Abbott's, reply to the budget tonight was an investment in Asian languages. He was here when former Prime Minister John Howard did not see Australia's place in the world as being part of an Asian century and cancelled that. While it is true that many people in Australia do not speak Asian languages, you can point the finger back to the person who cancelled the programs in Australian schools a decade ago.

This budget has also seen the biggest increase to our permanent migration intake since the Second World War, yet the government has again failed to give a fair go to some of the world's most vulnerable people. With the humanitarian intake capped at 13,750 places for the fourth year in a row, it makes up only six per cent of the total migration places compared to 18 per cent under both the Keating and Howard governments. Our reputation in the region is further undermined by our mandatory detention system for asylum seekers, which is so far from the fair go the Treasurer talked about in his budget speech. And we heard tonight from the coalition leader that his vision for Australia in the Asian century is people speaking Asian languages, while they turn the boats back. The government continues to spend billions on offshore processing rather than allowing vulnerable people to live in the community. In fact, there is a billion dollar blowout in immigration detention centre costs. The average cost of a community release program is $10,400 per person compared to more than $137,000 if an asylum seeker is kept indefinitely in a detention centre. How does this fit with our place in the region? How does it fit with Australia's sudden new commitment of an American base on Australian soil? Having said that, we do welcome the cuts to the defence budget. It is a bold decision by the government and a good decision, even though we would like to see some of deferred projects scrapped or rethought entirely.

What are the challenges in this century? The overwhelming one, as I mentioned before, is climate change and the fact that the planet is reaching its ecological limits in terms of being able to provide natural resources or absorb wastes. The Treasurer referred in his budget speech to Australia needing to live within its means. We agree, but this means living within our ecological means as well. Our fate as a society is intrinsically linked to the health of our environment, including our productive land and biodiversity. I am very pleased that this budget delivers on the Biodiversity Fund and the Carbon Farming Initiative that the Greens negotiated as part of the Clean Energy Package. Last Friday $271 million was announced as being dispersed across the country from the Biodiversity Fund, much of that money going to NRM groups, other community groups and landholders to steward the country. I am also pleased that the second phase of Caring for our Country has been funded, but I am very disappointed that there has been an effective cut to the program by the inclusion of the Tasmanian Forests Intergovernmental Agreement, which ought to have been a one-off on top of that money, and there are other cuts through biosecurity and other measures that have been left in to come out of the Caring for our Country funds.

If we accept that climate change is the major issue that it is, then the budget must demonstrate consistency in addressing the challenges alongside the implementation of the carbon price, and that is missing. There is more than 12 times more spending on roads than rail in this budget. If you are serious about climate change, you have to act on it and you have to take into account peak oil. This is a ridiculous figure. While we welcome the funding for a national transport planning and high speed rail unit—for which the Greens have achieved a $20 million investment—where is the plan for funding the implementation of high-speed rail? You can keep on planning things for years, but where is the money going to come from to deliver it?

There has also been a deferral of funding to upgrade the grid for renewables, and that is out on the never-never. You cannot roll out renewables and energy efficiency if you do not have the money. There has also been the scrapping of the green buildings program. It is quite wrong of the government to think that the carbon price will be enough to drive the greening of commercial buildings, when evidence around the world highlights the array of non-price barriers to this action. We need to provide better incentives. It is also bad faith when an industry which agreed to defer this measure because they wanted to get it right are now being punished for due diligence. This is one aspect of the budget that we are very unhappy with and that we will continue to press the government to address.

In thinking about where our nation will be in another 10 years, consideration of our water resources is essential. Protecting and preserving our precious water is another long-term challenge that we have little faith this government is committed to addressing in a sustainable way. The Greens will continue to ensure that at least 4,000 gigalitres is returned to the Murray-Darling system. This leads me to mention rural and regional Australia.

The greatest challenge for rural and regional Australia is to lift productivity without access to more land and without access to more water. That means massive investment in research and development. I am pleased there is money for the Beale review but disappointed there is not more R&D money, particularly for the apple and pear industries, which are now having to respond to competition from New Zealand apples. More generally, people in rural and regional Australia need money spent on R&D to lift productivity. They also need an investment in mental health services, because there are huge consequences for individuals and communities in rural and regional Australia, who have very limited access to mental health services, and they are entitled to their fair share.

Any vision for Australia that respects its place in the world has to start with a true reconciliation with our first people. As a nation we were proud of the apology to the stolen generation. We have been proud of the recognition in the Constitution that we are working on for Indigenous people. But the government has outlined a 10-year funding plan for its extension of the Northern Territory intervention and, while long-term funding for community based service provision for Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory is welcome, it is very troubling that much of that money seems to have been cut from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander programs for the rest of the country. Furthermore, the government's funding commitments are made in the context of extending the intervention, particularly income management regimes, and we will continue to strongly oppose those. There is no clarity in this budget on how the government intends to move on reconciliation when there is no new money for Indigenous languages, for example. If we are not addressing one of the fundamental causes of the loss of cultural identity and the ability of people to actively engage through education, how do we as a nation reconcile?

I do want to mention the additional funding for SBS at this point, because this is something that the Greens fought hard for and we welcome, in particular the funding for SBS to establish a free-to-air Indigenous television service with national coverage. SBS has a vital role to play in creating a more coherent and inclusive society. Another incredibly important part of building a society which is confident of its place in the world is investing appropriately in the arts and cultural institutions. The arts tell our story as a nation and I am very pleased that in the budget we have been able to secure $40 million to offset the efficiency dividend so that the National Gallery, the National Museum, the National Library, the Film and Sound Archive and other cultural institutions have been protected from ongoing cuts.

How do we pay for nation building if we are going to invest for the longer term? A fair country ensures sufficient revenue through progressive taxation that benefits the whole community. In this budget the government took notice of the Greens and abandoned its tax cuts for big business, but we would like to have seen that money invested in long-term, permanent, systemic change, not just the old solutions of cash handouts and funding the surplus through cuts to social services and to service delivery. Big reformist investment in education, innovation, clean energy and infrastructure needs to be made and we have to raise money, and the Greens are the only party in here with a revenue-raising proposal. We have sought that from the coalition and they have failed very badly. We would have supported a company tax cut for small business and we still will. We will have a good look at the loss carry-back scheme proposed in place of the tax cuts, and we want to talk to small business about how that might work.

We also support the National Disability Insurance Scheme and we welcome the billion-dollar investment in the first stage, but we ask the government and the coalition: where is the money coming from to roll it out in full? That is why you have to be prepared to raise money. The Greens would have supported a properly applied and developed mining tax. We would have abolished the diesel fuel rebate and other concessions for the mining industry. We would have introduced a millionaires tax similar to that supported by President Obama and championed by the new President of France but rejected by the government.

The Greens want a fairer society and we are worried by the increasing inequality in our community. We were pleased to be able to secure from the government the new dental reform, a reform that actually addresses the waiting lists. The $345 million for a public dental waiting list blitz that will help 400,000 Australians is extremely welcome and we look forward to working with the government to bring permanent change, because permanent Denticare, like Medicare, is something this nation needs if it is going to offer equal access to good health to all.

This budget contains other elements of fairness but they are undercut by a lack of consistent vision. For example, we welcome the additional support for families, but it is delivered on the back of cuts to support for single parents, which we will oppose. With its measly $210 allowance, the government gives the perception of caring for those people on income support, but what is needed is a $50 a week increase in Newstart and increases in other payments to help people get out of poverty.

The Greens remain committed to a vision of Australia that includes addressing and relieving poverty. It is unclear to the Greens from this budget whether the government actually shares that vision of addressing poverty. It is my view that Australians are anxious that they are not keeping up with the demands of modern life. I do not believe people are aspiring to be wealthy; they just want a better quality of life and they want to be confident that they are not being left behind. Cash handouts do not relieve that anxiety. They actually increase and entrench it by cementing the feeling people have that they are struggling but only being given temporary, one-off relief. And it plays straight into the fear campaign of the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, which is responsible for so much of the nervousness and discomfort in Australian society. What is needed is system-wide, long-term change which guarantees high-quality education and health services for all, adequate support for the unemployed and for people with disabilities, no matter how acquired. It is for this reason we are disappointed the government has not embraced the Gonski review and committed to the education reform and funding needed to ensure that all students everywhere can access high-quality public education.

We are disappointed that, at a time when we need innovation in our economy, the government is doubling the fees—taking $316 million out of the pockets of students around the country—for maths and science students in universities. We worked hard to secure $54 million for maths and science education. We are pleased we did that, but where is the incentive when university fees are doubled? The fact is that you cannot be a clever country, you cannot be an innovative country and you cannot change from exporting things you dig up to exporting the product of brain and human capacity unless you invest in education, and that is seriously missing from this year's budget.

I wanted to mention some specific measures. The Greens were pleased to see the doubling of the liquid assets test for people on Newstart. It is something we have advocated for a long time and it is a good, fair initiative from the government. We also welcome the announcement of a National Children's Commissioner to operate under the Australian Human Rights Commission, which my colleague Senator Hanson-Young has been calling for for a number of years. We also welcome the lowering by four-fifths of the number of cigarettes that can be bought duty-free. It is a positive revenue and health measure.

My colleague Adam Bandt, the member for Melbourne, has worked hard with the Greens to ensure that people benefit from the $20 million investment for the restoration and redevelopment of the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton and $1½ million over four years to roll JobWatch out nationally, giving it a future beyond just supporting Melbourne's workers. This is the type of systemic change that the Greens try to bring about. This is not just about one place; this is about enhancing the environmental and social capital for the nation.

On Tuesday night, Treasurer Swan told Australians:

A surplus provides our best defence against dramatic changes in the global economy.

But my question is: is it a defence against changes in the global environment from which you cannot hide? With respect, this statement is one of the greatest and clearest demonstrations that the Labor Party has its priorities wrong. At the beginning of this century we are in the critical decade for addressing the biggest challenge facing us—that is, how we are going to address climate change in the time frame.

The Greens believe that our best defence against, our best preparation for, dramatic changes in the global environment as well as the global economy is to invest in a healthy, well-educated, fair society. We envisage a society trained and working in a clean economy, transitioned out of fossil fuels to zero net carbon, understanding and valuing our place in the world and accelerating our transition away from a dig-it-up, cut-it-down economy to one which aspires to be a highly productive nation and a socially just, compassionate nation driving substantial social change in the region, assisting with capacity building in the region and driving peace and cooperation in the region—instead of driving climate change, which will lead to so much conflict and movement of people. I conclude by saying that the economy is a tool for the benefit of our society. Only when we embrace that fact will we begin to build the kind of country that we want to live in. The Greens have a very clear vision for that country that we want to live in. We are prepared to work for it, we are prepared to raise the money to deliver it and we are prepared to make long-term investments in nation building as well as long-term investments in moving away, as I said in my opening remarks, from the politics of the veneration of the market that focuses on an economy of individuals, and moving to a society that works together for better outcomes for all of us collectively.

John Madigan (Victoria, Democratic Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to talk about the budget delivered by the government on Tuesday evening. As you are aware, I am the only parliamentary representative of the Democratic Labor Party. As such, my resources are limited and a complete review of the implications of this budget for my constituents will take some time. However, I do have several issues I would like to bring up with regard the 2012-13 budget. Two days after the budget was handed down there has been plenty said by both sides of this house. For one it is the salvation of the Australian economy; for the other it means sackcloth and ashes for all. Political opinion obviously plays a major part in how the budget is seen, and while I will attempt to be as unbiased as possible, it is my role to mention some of the concerns I and the DLP have with this budget.

It appears that Australia's long-suffering manufacturing sector will have to suffer even longer before it gets any substantial relief. I have struggled to find much in the way of advantage, help, support or even thoughts towards the development of the manufacturing sector, which is crucial in the employment of so many people and for the future of our country. The mining tax is a linchpin of the government's economic figures, and as long as there is a boom that may prove to be a positive thing. However, the money that is raised from this tax is not being poured back into the infrastructure so desperately needed not only to save the manufacturing sector we still have but to encourage the development of new Australian owned and based manufacturing industries.

Regional communities across Australia are feeling abandoned and forgotten by this budget and this government. The introduction of the carbon tax is looming, yet there are no concrete measures in this budget to assist the communities that will be the hardest hit, especially in regions such as the Latrobe Valley in Victoria. An extra few hundred dollars in the year for children's school expenses may be welcomed by some, but for families trying to survive when factories are shutting down around them it is almost a slap in the face.

One area where the government could have made a significant positive impact was in the defence manufacturing area. Unfortunately, with the loss of the Bushmaster contract by Thales Bendigo and the loss of government support for the Tasmanian shipbuilder Incat, the further cut of some $5 billion from defence spending has simply rubbed salt into the wounds. Australia needs a credible deterrent. We can pour billions into inefficient and unreliable wind turbines but not into the material support needed for our defence forces. We can pour more than $44 billion into the National Broadband Network, but we can cut materiel supply to the people who defend our nation. I assume if Darwin is ever bombed again we will be able to see it in superfast broadband time, but there is not much we will be able to do about it.

The wealthy countries of the world manufacture. Manufacturing is the hub around which our economy should be turning. Mining provides great support for the economy, but in the end, if we rely solely on mining, we are simply and literally digging a deeper hole for ourselves. Something must be done. I do not know if the coalition will win the next election, but most pundits suggest they will. At that time, I will be reminding them of their promise to repeal the carbon tax. I will also be pushing for a review of the mining tax to make it fairer and to see the revenue collected by it being used more constructively for the future of manufacturing. In the meantime I hope to work with the government of today to advance the cause of Australian manufacturing.

The Democratic Labor Party attempts to put the community and family first in all things. Whilst examining the figures put out by the government, I was dismayed to find that a change to the qualifications for the family tax benefit has been made that may affect thousands of Australian families. In last year's budget the reform of family payments aligned family tax benefit part A with the youth allowance age of independence. The youth allowance age of independence is 22, which meant that family tax benefit part A was payable for students aged under 22. This year the government has changed the age of eligibility for family tax benefit part A to under 18 years of age. Or, if the young person remains in secondary school, family tax benefit part A will be payable until the end of the year in which they turn 19. However, the youth allowance age of independence remains at 22.

Initial reviews appear to indicate that family tax benefit part A payments will not be payable to thousands of 18- to 21-year-old university students who are living at home. These same 18- to 21-year-olds will not be eligible for youth allowance as they are under 22, meaning they are fully dependent on the income of their parents or their own earnings. The only thing many of them can expect from their university years, apart from a hard-won education, is a substantial HECS debt.

If our initial examination of this is correct, then this 'family-friendly' budget looks far less friendly. I have yet to complete a comprehensive review of these figures and will hopefully find it is not quite as bad as it first looks. However, if this is correct, I will be asking for a detailed explanation from the government of how this benefits families who are trying to educate their children at a time when their daily cost of living is about to be hit by the carbon tax. The economy is there to serve the people; the people do not serve the economy.

Debate adjourned.