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

I rise tonight to express my frustration and—I have to say it—dismay at how out of touch this Labor government is with the lives of all Australians. As a Victorian senator I speak in particular of Victorians.

Every day my electorate office is contacted by people who are fed up. They are expressing their concerns about the increasing costs of living—in particular their increasing household bills—the reduction in health services in their areas and the increase in traffic congestion that they are dealing with. They comment to me that when they raise those concerns with their local member Anna Burke, the member for Chisholm, those concerns seem to fall on deaf ears.

They, sadly, feel neglected. And so they should feel that way. Only last week, after another week of broken promises from Labor, we were flooded with calls from families who were counting on receiving some $600 in family tax benefits, which they had been guaranteed would be a trade-off for the imposition of a carbon tax, which would, in turn, increase their costs of living and their household bills. They will not receive this money because, as we have heard only tonight, with the handing down of the budget by Treasurer Wayne Swan, this government cannot be trusted to keep its word, and it certainly cannot be trusted to manage the Australian economy. No doubt, many of these families after hearing of today's lacklustre budget will be calling my office again in the morning, further distressed at how poorly the government has been managing—or mismanaging—their hard-earned taxpayer dollars.

My electorate office is in Burwood East in Victoria, which is in the south-eastern corridor of Melbourne. It is within the seat of Chisholm, which is currently held by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ms Anna Burke. Only last Tuesday Ms Burke and the Gillard government broke a promise to no fewer than 6,647 families in Chisholm, families who Anna Burke had written to in the past promising that an increase to the family tax benefit part A was on its way and who were counting on her to honour her word so that they could plan their family budgets accordingly. Let me reiterate: that is 6,647 families who will not receive the helping hand they need because this Labor government does not know how to be fiscally responsible. That is 6,647 families who Ms Burke, the member for Chisholm, has left in lurch because her government is not interested in supporting families, small business or, may I say, it appears anybody else in the local community. We have heard locally what the Speaker, Ms Burke, is interested and concerned in. I can tell you quite frankly that it is not measures that will improve the quality of life for her constituents.

When the local paper recently asked Ms Burke, the Speaker, to nominate the No. 1 local issue for residents, do you know what she said? It was not about cost of living; it was not about accessing hospital beds at Box Hill Hospital, no. She said the No. 1 concern of people in Chisholm was 'ending the live export trade and animal cruelty'. I was pretty staggered when I saw that response given to the journalist of the local newspaper because I have received a lot of correspondence and a lot of phone calls from many people and some of those do express concern about perceived animal cruelty. But I can assure you that not one of them has suggested to me that it is the No. 1 core issue that is affecting their lives on a daily basis—not one of them. It is not even in the top 10 of the things that most impact their daily lives as they live in Chisholm and go about their daily lives. Their concerns are about the cost of living, about balancing their family budget, about having access to appropriate and sufficient health services and, increasingly, about the fact they have to spend precious family time being stuck on the Eastern Freeway—traffic congestion is a huge problem in this area—instead of spending that time with their families at home.

So what are the concerns of the Speaker, Ms Burke, may I ask? Granted, she did briefly mention cuts to health services to the local paper in an attempt to shift the blame for the cut in federal funding on to the state government, and we have seen this time and time again. It is a pattern of behaviour that we have evidenced across many portfolios. She even had the audacity to take out advertisements congratulating herself. She paid for an ad in the local paper to congratulate herself for restoring a fraction of the money that her government cut from health services. The traffic congestion issue on the Eastern Freeway is a huge issue in this area. Those who may be listening to this who live in Chisholm understand what I am talking about because every day they live the commute to work and back, and the commute to schools and back. They live it and they know what they have to deal with.

Ms Burke claimed in the Age only yesterday that the East West Link road tunnel—which has received huge backing from the state government and which has been assured through recent funding announcements in the state budget only last week—has not been raised in her electorate at all. I have to ask: where have you been, Ms Burke, that not one constituent has raised this as an issue and applauded the Liberal state government, the Napthine government, in determining that this is the No. 1 infrastructure issue for the state? She said that no one has raised traffic congestion on Melbourne's Eastern Freeway. All I can say is that she must have her head in the sand because it was the Labor Brumby government that commissioned Sir Rod Eddington to look into infrastructure requirements for a long-term strategy for the state of Victoria. It was Sir Rod Eddington in 2008 who was commissioned for this inquiry and who brought down a very commendable review that recommended that one of the key infrastructure projects that would put Victoria on the map and make it a far more productive state was the East West Link, which runs through and directly affects the electorate of Chisholm.

Whilst the Speaker, Ms Anna Burke, has clearly had her head in the sand about this, I have to say that the local residents of Chisholm have not. The federal coalition has pledged $1.5 billion to help get this critical piece of road infrastructure built. This Labor government has refused to work with the Victorian state government on the East West Link. Clearly, Ms Burke does not consider it to be a priority in the electorate and she certainly has done nothing to advance the cause for her constituents in the area. She certainly has shown that she has no concern about the families struggling with household bills or the employees working for over 600 manufacturing businesses in Chisholm, who are unsure about whether they will have a job down the track, such is the lack of security in the manufacturing industry in the area.

So I ask: what does she care about? What has become very apparent is that she cares about distancing herself from unpopular policy decisions made by this Labor Gillard government in an attempt to hold on to her seat. She is blatantly using—may I say, shamelessly so—her role as the Speaker to do just that. Just this month, she told the local paper—

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Kroger, I ask you to withdraw your reflection on the Speaker of the other place.

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

I will take your advice on that, thank you. Just this month, in an interview to the newspaper, the Speaker said she had 'grave concerns' about the federal government slashing $2.8 billion from the tertiary sector. A week later, the same newspaper quoted her—once again, I am using her own words—as saying she was 'deeply uneasy' with Labor's asylum seeker policies, but in the same interview she was quick to point out that she was unable to take a stand in parliament due to her impartial role as Speaker.

This has been well and truly reflected on the public record. She has conducted interviews, and in fact I attended such an interview with her, where she has claimed that she is uncomfortable with mandatory detention of asylum seekers, a policy that stretches back to the 1990s and the Keating Labor government. If she had her way, she has said, she would release asylum seekers into the community. She does not believe in the deterrence of offshore processing and would like it to be dismantled. In fact, I point out that before she was Speaker she voted for the Gillard government's dismantling of the Howard government's Pacific solution.

I would like to note, though, for those who are affected by the fiscal irresponsibility of this government and the impact it is having on the delivery of services in areas such as Chisholm, that this is a failed policy which has already totalled $6.6 billion in blow-out costs over the last four years, money that could have been very well directed into the East West Link, into health services in Chisholm and into many other projects. It certainly would have gone a long way to eliminating the Clayton Road level crossing that many local residents risk their lives at day in, day out because it is a notorious accident point that needs to be prioritised. It also could have been directed to the construction of the new Monash Children's Hospital, for which there is huge demand in the area. A lot of business cases have been put forward for it, but the government has certainly not prioritised or supported it.

The attempts by the Speaker to distance herself by virtue of her position as Speaker from the deliberations and policy decisions of the Prime Minister are transparent and misleading. That is because these policy decisions were taken before she was elected to the role of Speaker. It was the now Speaker, Ms Burke, who voted for the carbon tax. It was Ms Burke who voted for the dismantling of the Howard government's Pacific solution in dealing with border protection. Every single vote in this parliament was taken by the government before she was in the role of Speaker. So to suggest that she has no role in the decisions that this Gillard ALP government has taken is purely misleading. History will show this and the record speaks for itself. She has supported all the decisions that have brought us to where we are today and have lead to the type of budget that we saw brought down tonight.

The people of Chisholm and, indeed, the people of Australia deserve a lot better. I am determined that they be delivered a lot better. I demand that all those who are seeking re-election at the next federal election, on 14 September, including the Speaker, Ms Anna Burke, if she is one of those, come clean with the Australian public and be honest for once in their lives.