Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A letter has been received from Senator Moore:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

The Abbott Government's vicious attack on low and middle income Australians.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last night the Abbott government launched a vicious attack on low- and middle-income earners in Australia. The Abbott government's first budget attacks Australians who work hard. It attacks families struggling with the cost of living. It attacks parents who want a better future for their children. It attacks young people studying to improve their skills and to strengthen the nation's future. It attacks the elderly, age pensioners and self-funded retirees. It attacks Indigenous Australians by widening, not closing the gap, and it attacks the weak and the vulnerable: people who are sick, people with disabilities and their carers.

Budgets are a demonstration of a government's values and its priorities. The decisions governments make in budgets reveal what sort of country they want—what sort of economy and what sort of society. The decisions made in budgets also reveal the character of those who lead governments. Revealed in last night's budget is a government with the wrong values and the wrong priorities. Revealed in last night's budget is a government which has only been in office for eight months but which is light-years out of touch with low- and middle-income Australia, a government which denies the cost-of-living pressures on Australian families, a government which is hitting middle Australia hard yet is giving $50,000 to millionaires for having a baby.

And also revealed in last night's budget is a government which has collectively failed the test of character: a Prime Minister exposed as telling serial lies to the public, a Prime Minister breaking not just one promise but virtually every promise he made, a Prime Minister who sat behind his Treasurer last night, smirking and gloating as every cut and every tax hike was announced. Mr Abbott promised no cuts to health and education, and now he is cutting $80 billion from schools and hospitals. Mr Abbott promised no new taxes; now he is hiking petrol tax, imposing new GP and medicine taxes and increasing the top marginal rate of income tax. Mr Abbott promised no change to pensions; now he is cutting pensions. Mr Abbott promised no increase to university fees; now he is increasing university fees for students and their families. And Mr Abbott promised no cuts to the ABC or SBS, and now this Budget will cut funding to the public broadcasters by $240 million, and regional services will be the first to go.

Mr abbot said his government would not slash foreign aid, but this budget slashes foreign aid by $16 billion—a move which will hurt the world's poorest people. As the head of World Vision, Mr Tim Costello, has said:

This is devastating because there is a disproportionate impact on those who are most vulnerable.

There has been virtually no promise unbroken and no stone unturned in the Prime Minister's search for ways of hurting people. You have to search far and wide to find a promise that this Prime Minister has not broken.

And it is not just the Prime Minister who has failed the character test. We have a Treasurer who does not understand or care about people who live far from the leafy environs of Sydney's North Shore. We have a finance minister who promised less tax and now he has circulated budget papers showing the government will lift its tax take by $96 billion over the next four years. This Treasurer and this finance minister were caught out puffing on celebratory cigars after putting together a budget that hikes taxes, cuts pensions and cuts family payments. This Treasurer was caught out dancing in his office to the song Best day of my life after putting together a budget that slashes funding from schools and hospitals and paves the way for an increase in the GST.

In question time today the Minister for Finance claimed this was an 'honest budget.' On the contrary; this is a dishonest and deceitful budget. If Joe Hockey had stood up last night and given an honest budget speech, this is what he would have said. This is the speech Mr Hockey, if he had given an honest speech, would have given:

'Tonight the Abbott government is showing its true colours. We went to the election last year promising no new taxes, no cuts to schools, no cuts to hospitals, no cuts to pensions and no cuts to family payments.

'Well, those were lies.

'We inherited a budget with one of the lowest debt-to-GDP ratios amongst all advanced economies and with a AAA credit rating from all three international ratings agencies.

'Then we spent months fabricating a fictional budget emergency to justify breaking every promise we made.

'So, in tonight's budget we unveil a comprehensive plan to hit low- and middle-income earners at every stage of their lives.

'No matter how hard you work, or how much effort you put in to better yourself and your children, or how much you deserve a helping hand, this government will attack you with higher costs and by ripping away support.

'The Abbott government's cuts will hit child care, they will hit school children, they will hit university students, they will hit people in the workforce, and they will hit working families.

'The government's tax hikes will hit people when they go to the doctor, when they go to the chemist, and when they go to the hospital.

'We will hit people when they go to the petrol pump and we will hit them when they go to the supermarket.

'For those struck down by illness or disability and for those who lose their jobs, this government will cut social security, replacing the helping hand with a slap in the face.

'For those who have retired after paying taxes all their life, this government will cut the age pension and make people work until they are 70.

'For self-funded retirees, this government will give out more Commonwealth seniors health cards with one hand, but with the other hand we will slash the concessions and benefits the card entitles you to.

'And when advancing years and declining health see you move into a nursing home, this government will not forget you either. It will honour your great age and your contribution to society by cutting aged-care funding by more than half a billion dollars.

'And when we are finished with you, we will light up our Cubans and we will dance in our offices.

'Because, with this first budget, this Abbott government is looking after the well-off, but for everyone else it is delivering broken promises, increased costs, higher taxes and no hope for the future.

'With this first budget the Abbott government is implementing the coalition's real agenda, that is, the one we hid from you at the last election.

'It is an agenda for making this nation more unfair, less equal and less caring.'

If the Treasurer was, indeed, giving an honest speech last night that is what he would have said, because this budget is a cruel assault on middle Australia. It will cost Australians and it will hit Australians every time they need to see a doctor and every time they fill up their car with petrol. It will cost Australians when they send their children to school or university. It will cost Australians who rely on family payments and pensions to make ends meet.

We are being lectured by this government about how important this budget is for children, how important this budget is for the next generation. So important are the children of this nation to this government that they will ensure that you have to pay more to take your sick child to a doctor, you will have to pay more to get your sick child a prescription, and your child will have less money at their local public school and less money invested in their local public hospital. This government is saying, 'We care about children, but only some children.' If you are a child of a middle-income family or a poorer family, well, guess what? you are on your own.

This budget fatally undermines fairness and decency in our society, and it is a budget that will damage the strength of our nation and the future of our economy. That is why those on this side of the chamber will fight every step of the way against the unfairness that is at the heart of this budget.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The age of hypocrisy is with us, and it will be here whilst this opposition is on the other side. The question of the age of entitlement has been raised by Treasurer Hockey, and it caused me to reflect on when the age of entitlement began. For those young enough and, perhaps, for those whose memories go back, the age of entitlement in this country commenced with then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. It was during the Whitlam years, and from the Whitlam years, that in this country we saw the creation of, and then the maintenance of, the age of entitlement. We saw a Whitlam government that said to everybody—whether it was with money that they had, or with money that they borrowed, or, indeed, with money that they were to illegally borrow offshore from one Khemlani and his scaly mates—that the age of entitlement in this country started. I think it is absolutely amazing. It is good fortune, indeed, that Mr Whitlam lived long enough to see a government worse than his own. That government has been the last six years of the Rudd, followed by the Gillard, followed by the Rudd governments in this country.

When I speak of the age of hypocrisy, I find it absolutely amazing that the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, in fact, the then finance minister of this country during a Labor government, could come in here and lead the speeches on behalf of the opposition about apparent vicious attacks on low- and middle-income Australians. The age of entitlement is over. It started with the Whitlam era and it is over with the Abbott and Hockey terms.

I can explain to you, for those who are not knowledgeable in this area, that in 2007 this Labor Party inherited no net debt in this country. We were probably the only developed country in the world that had no net debt. It had $20 billion to $30 billion on account of taxpayers' money. Mr Costello, after having paid back the $96 billion of Mr Keating's debt, then had some $6 billion of saved interest which he could spread into the Australian economy at the time. Where are we now in contrast to that no deficit, no debt and no interest being paid? Indeed, there was about $1 billion a year interest coming in. Isn't that amazing that an Australian government could ever have $1 billion of interest coming in?

Let us contrast that with what Labor left us in September last year. There was $190-plus billion of accumulated deficits and there was a debt rushing to $667 billion. But the figure that I want people to focus on is that we are currently paying interest alone of nearly $1 billion a month.

Let me put that into perspective for people: that is $30 million a day, every day of the year. What does it equate to? It costs $15 million to build the new primary school that is close to my office. A new primary school in Australia every 12 hours is what we are foregoing as a result of paying the debt. The new Fiona Stanley Hospital, a major teaching hospital in Perth, cost two months worth of interest on the debt—not repayment of the debt but interest on the debt. Imagine that, a new teaching hospital in every major city in this country every two months. But no, that money has been foregone as a result of the haphazardness, the hypocrisy and the poor management by the then Labor government. But worse than all that is the fact that what they squandered was borrowed money, money from lower-income families, money from middle-income families, money from high-income families and money from business. They borrowed against the future grandchildren of this country. And Senator Wong has the audacity to come in here this afternoon and talk about a vicious attack on low- and middle-income Australians when what the Labor government left us with was debt into the future and interest payments well and truly taking away from the very needs of all Australians, but particularly low- and middle-income Australians.

The opposition, together with the Greens, have in this place twice now refused to allow this government to do what it said it would do in a mandate to the Australian people and that was to get rid of the carbon tax. Which families are those most affected? The lower- and middle-income families, who would immediately have a $550 per year burden lifted from their shoulders in direct costs apart from all of the other indirect costs that we see coming through.

If you wish me to be specific about what this government did provide in the budget last night, Mr Kevin Andrews, the finest minister that this country has probably had—certainly in recent times in the social services area—delivered $19.3 billion to support families with the cost of living through family tax benefits. So we apparently have, from Senator Wong, a vicious attack on low incomes. There will be $19 billion for families through the family tax benefit—targeted, however, to those who actually need it. There will be $28.6 billion to maintain current childcare rebates and childcare benefits. The paid parental leave scheme paid for by business, not paid for by the tax payer, will help women have their children and spend that necessary time with them before they go back into the workforce. There will be a new $750 annual supplement for single parents for each child aged six to 12 years. Single parent families will receive $750. That will benefit some 86,000 families—through you, Mr Deputy President, to Senator Siewert, who has an interest in this.

The family tax benefit part B for children under six years of age will phase out but it will have a grandfathering clause. From 1 July 2015, we will see the primary earner threshold for families to be eligible for family tax benefit part B reduced from $150,000 to $100,000. It is a large family supplement that recognises those families with four or more children. Child care, as I mentioned, will receive $28.6 billion.

Recognising the importance of volunteerism in civil society in this country, the government has announced that we will abolish the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, a body that simply put red tape around the very necessary and voluntary work of so many people in our communities. The government is investing $6 million over four years to re-establish the community business partnership to promote the culture of giving and volunteering, which we know is so often directed at low- and middle-income earners. For the aged, there will be strategies to keep people in their homes. Ninety-two per cent of aged people do not go in to aged care. Opportunities and funding will keep people in their homes where they want to be.

In the education space, there will be $20,000 loans for young people to do apprenticeships. We will increase the opportunities for young people to get access to universities through Commonwealth scholarships and the like. We see right through this budget the excellence of the Abbott government and we also see the fact that the age of entitlement is indeed complete— (Time expired)

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, there is probably one thing that I agree with the government about—that is, that this budget has changed and will change society. But it will be for the worst, by far for the worst. I think Senator Back must have been reading different documents to the ones we have been reading. Oh yeah, single parents are going to get $750 extra—when you have taken $3,000 off them, when you have taken the indexation off them and when you have taken the education supplement, which, by the way, they just got back in March, off them. No, single parents will not be better off. I can tell you that, for sure.

This is after you dumped single parents onto Newstart. You have not fixed Newstart or raised it so that people can stop living in poverty. What this budget will do is drive young Australians, older Australians, single parents and the most vulnerable even deeper into poverty. Some of them are already struggling and living in poverty. This will drive far more people into poverty and drive those that are already in poverty into deep and persistent disadvantage, which has intergenerational impacts that will take a long time for these families to recover from.

These cuts take out over $12 billion from low-income earners—from families, pensioners, single parents and young people—and overshadow the other aspects of this budget. This is a fundamental change in our community to make it a much tougher community, to make these people suffer, because that is what this government is trying to do. It is almost as if they deliberately sat down and thought about how to make it the toughest for the most vulnerable members of our community. Let me tell you, you succeeded. How could you conscionably think that it is acceptable to take young people off Newstart for six months and give them no means of support? That will change our community. Those young people will have nothing. They will not be able to pay for any medicines, for going to the doctor, for any absolutely necessary things. What are they supposed to do? Just under 30, go back and live with mum and dad, come and go from mum and dad when they get back onto Work for the Dole? It is on top of your normal six-week waiting period, then you get six months waiting period with no payment, then you get Work for the Dole for up to 25 hours and then you are back off again, living on nothing. How do you pay for food? How do you pay your rent? How do you pay for the absolute necessities of life? You can't. That is a mean, cruel and harsh society. Is that your vision? That is what you are going to achieve. It is not a vision, by the way, that we, the Greens, share and we never, ever will.

How does this government think it is going to be building a better society? Who is doing the heavy lifting? It is the most vulnerable: older Australians, younger Australians, single parents and the vulnerable—that is who is doing the heavy lifting. As I said, single parents are copping cuts all over the place. Younger people will be far worse off. They will have the compulsory job readiness activities for those who can find work. It is almost as if the government is sitting there thinking, 'All these young people are just sitting there on the couch collecting their easy welfare.' Have they never seen how hard it is for young people to find work? They are not out of work because they want to be, they are out of work because there are no jobs. So just making them poorer and dropping them literally into poverty, because they will have no means of support, how do you think that is going to make it easy to find work? How do you think they are going to find clothes to even turn up for an interview? How do you think they are going to be employed if they have no proper attire to even go for an interview? I asked the Assistant Minister for Social Services, Senator Fifield, yesterday what evidence he had that living in poverty provides an extra incentive for people to find work. He could not provide one because there is none. The evidence shows that in fact dropping people into poverty provides yet another barrier to employment. These are demeaning policies. They are designed to have the deserving and the undeserving, and if you are unfortunate in this country, from now on you are the undeserving.

The government had made their promise to pensioners and now they think that Australians will be fooled to think that they have kept it. They have raised the retirement age by 2035. They will be changing indexation of the pension and it will make up to $100 difference a fortnight, but it will be after 2017. In the meantime there are lots of other little cuts that are already going to impact on older Australians.

This is cruel and it is mean—and I have not even started touching yet on the impacts on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. First off, the government have taken $534 million out of the budget because they are supposed to be getting the administration better. The problem here is that the budget conveniently does not say which programs are surviving and which programs are not. Aboriginal organisations have got a letter that says, 'Well, we have made these cuts and we are making a decision about which programs and contracts will continue for, say, six months or 12 months. Hang by the phone, folks, and we will tell you whether in less than two months time your organisation's work will continue, your contract will continue, or whether it will finish.' They have also cut funds completely into national congress, showing what complete disregard the self-professed Prime Minister for Aboriginal affairs has for self-determination and for elected Aboriginal people representing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I say this to the government: if you have in fact genuinely found $534 million worth of savings, why aren't you putting that back into Aboriginal programs? We are nowhere near closing the gap and a lot of indicators are not being met. So we will not under this budget be meeting our close the gap commitments to close the gap within a generation. Again, this is mean, cruel and tricky to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. What I should also mention is that the cuts to Newstart, the changes to Newstart, the changes to Youth Allowance and the increased health care costs are going to disproportionately impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people—on top of the cuts, a double whammy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Senator Di Natale has already outlined today some of the impacts of the cuts to health care. The cost of basic medical care will throw up a huge challenge to the most vulnerable and those on income support and low incomes. For those living on $255 a week a hit of $7 for visiting a doctor is huge to your budget. I will stop here again and just say that when you are living on Newstart you are already living in poverty. Every single dollar counts. When you are living below the poverty line you think about every dollar you spend because you have an extremely low and fixed income.

Increasing the co-payments for prescription medicines for those on low incomes will also be a burden. We already know that many people on low incomes are not filling their prescriptions. In fact, when we had an inquiry into section 100 of the PBS process, the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs found that Aboriginal people would share prescriptions because they could make them stretch longer. Of course, that is completely unacceptable.

This is the sort of thing that we are going to see under this government. This is going to fundamentally change our community—and not for the better. It will be a darker, meaner, crueller future that the coalition and the Abbott government foresees for the most vulnerable members of our community. We the Greens will not be a part of it. We will not help this government do in the most vulnerable members of our community.

Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on this matter of public importance debate that the Abbott government's budget is a vicious attack on low- and middle-income Australians. Across the nation this morning, low- and middle-income Australians woke up to the news that life was going to get a whole lot tougher for them. For some, life will be just a little bit tougher; for many, the savage cuts in this government's budget will make it near impossible to make ends meet. For these and others, the changes slated as 'tough measures' will drive them into poverty, drive them into homelessness, drive them into poor health and drive them out of engagement with their community.

This is a government that is happy to cast people aside in its pursuit of a society comprised of the haves and have-nots. The pain in this budget falls almost solely on low- and middle-income Australians, while not only sparing company owners but also giving them three tax cuts. While low- and middle-income Australians do the heavy lifting, Prime Minister Abbott is cutting the company tax rate, cutting the carbon tax paid by fewer than 500 of our biggest polluters and cutting the mining tax paid by a very small number of mining companies who make super profits.

For me, the simple question that we have to pose to ourselves is: what kind of a country do we want to live in? I believe our country is wealthy enough to ensure there is a quality set of public services to care for Australians at times of need and to give all Australians an opportunity to release their potential. By 'all' that means all of us. For this government, 'all of us' really only means low- and middle-income Australians. Those opposite obviously believe that low- and middle-income Australians have it far too easy—those on a pension, those on a minimum wage, those with a full-time job with two kids. This government obviously believes that these people have it easy relative to those 'battlers' with wealth in the millions. 'Battlers' whose tax concessions in areas like superannuation, property and fuel were left completely untouched.

What if young Australians who are battling the fiercest job market in memory cannot get a job? They will no longer get any unemployment benefits for six months, but they now have to pay at least $7 extra to go to a doctor, at least an extra $5 for medicine and a few extra dollars to put petrol in a car if they are lucky enough to have one. If they cannot find a job in their hometown, this government believes that they should just up and move to remote parts of the country—away from family, away from friends—to get a job. So they have to beg, borrow or steal to raise the funds to move and then, when they get there, if times get tough and their business puts them off, what happens? What happens to them?

If they are under 30 this Abbott government will wipe their hands. 'Go and find another job,' they will say. 'You're lazy; go and do some more study,' they will say. And if no-one actually says it to these kids, it will be what is floating around in their minds. It will be what is eating away at them—'I owe mum 500 bucks; I owe nan two tanks of petrol; I owe my housemate two months rent.' They will think that as they try to get some sleep at night. For this government that is part of life. If your family cannot look after you—tough! If luck does not fall your way at every step—tough!

What does this budget mean for those in our community with a disability? Thank goodness, the government did not touch the National Disability Insurance Scheme fund—well, not yet. Mind you, there are no great plans for how the next stage of the rollout will progress. But, at the very minimum, the NDIS fund is intact. There has been no news on the plans to extend the Tasmanian trial to children aged zero to 14, but we waited with bated breath.

For those trying to survive on a disability support pension, there was plenty of news last night. The big news flash was that this Abbott government thinks most of these Australians are faking it. The government thinks that they can work in any job and they are just being lazy. Thousands of Australians with a disability are going to have the tortuous wait while they are reassessed for the disability support pension. Many of these young Australians will also be forced to complete compulsory work activities, compulsory activities that may be totally unrelated to the hopes and aspirations of the person—penalising someone based on their circumstances; penalising someone based on luck.

The Liberal government has also totally cut all specialised support for young Australians with a disability who are at school. Despite promising to deliver extra funding for students with disability, the Abbott government has, true to form, cut all dedicated support. On Monday I attended a briefing from the Australian Education Union and the organisation Children With Disability Australia, who were concerned that these promised programs would be cut in the budget. On Monday the CEO of Children With Disability Australia, Stephanie Gotlib, said to that forum:

A typical school experience for students with disability involves limited choice of school, discrimination, bullying, limited or no funding for support and resources, inadequately trained staff and having to contend with a culture of low expectations.

There was a bipartisan commitment to these programs. Both sides of politics have made commitments to young people with a disability, their families and their school communities. But this cruel budget shows that only one side of this place is prepared to do the heavy lifting to give an opportunity to all. Those opposite are prepared to cut these young people adrift, deprive them of the specialist support they need to fulfil their potential and condemn them to a life on the disability support pension and a life of compulsory work activities instead of achieving their dreams.

And what of compulsory work activities? Well, this of course is code for an expanded work-for-the-dole scheme. My home region is north-west Tasmania, and the electorate of Braddon. From his first budget as the new minister, what was the headline measure that Mr Brett Whitely spruiked in today's local daily, TheAdvocate? Work for the dole! It is in their DNA. They do not want people to find meaningful work; they are happy for Australians who find themselves unemployed to waste away in a work-for-the-dole scheme. And I say 'waste away' because, time and time again, studies are released showing that work for the dole does not lead to long-term employment.

North-west Tasmania is one of the most disadvantaged regions in our country: high unemployment, low levels of education, high rates of chronic disease and high levels of dependency on Commonwealth payments. It is also home to some world-leading advanced manufacturers, and the most fertile soils and plentiful ocean in the country. The budget still lists the $100 million Tasmanian Jobs and Growth Plan announced by Labor last year as on track to be spent. The funds were allocated by the previous government to partner with businesses in the agricultural and manufacturing industries, and to create jobs in our region. But this government is drip-feeding the announcements, leaving many businesses uncertain of their status and leaving job seekers to see news of only work-for-the-dole schemes.

The region is also the gateway to and from Tasmania, with two of Tasmania's major ports located at Burnie and Devonport. Under Labor, expenditure on freight and passenger subsidies from Bass Strait was indexed and increased every year we were in government. The Abbott government has actually cut the funding for next financial year then frozen the pool over the forward estimates, despite Tasmania being an island state totally dependent on those subsidies.

This Liberal government, whose new member for Braddon promised to have a huge 'open for business' sign in the middle of Bass Strait, has actually cut around $30 million of Bass Strait subsidies over the next three years. Meanwhile, their increase to the petrol excise is not slated to fund a single kilometre of road in north-west Tasmania. No, the petrol excise increases paid by the people of Braddon will be used to fund some of the incentive payment to the state of Victoria to sell the Port of Melbourne. This cut to Bass Strait subsidies and the sale of the Port of Melbourne will be a double whammy on low- and middle-income families in north-west Tasmania. It is a simple fact that over 98 per cent of goods freighted in and out of Tasmania must go through the Port of Melbourne. Privatisation is likely to see an increase in fees as the new owner seeks to maximise profit. Those increased fees will flow through to Tasmanian consumers and businesses who, along with their increased petrol prices, will be paying more for almost everything they buy. The impact on Tasmania has been totally ignored in this ill-thought-out, privatisation-at-all-costs policy decision. In the lead-up to the federal election, the new member for Braddon said, time and time again, 'We are open for business.' Has he deceived those who voted for him? (Time expired)

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in the debate on the motion before the Senate on:

The Abbott Government's vicious attack on low and middle income Australians.

I think this debate is actually a debate between reality and fallacy. That is what the difference is between the coalition government and those opposite—the reality of the coalition fixing Labor's mess versus the fallacy of Labor believing there is nothing to fix; the reality of the coalition budget ensuring the fixing of the economic mess left by Labor versus the fallacy of Labor pretending that we are sticking it to low-income earners.

Labor claims to be the champion of low-income earners, but it appears to be unrequited love. None of the seven federal electorates with the lowest median weekly incomes elected a Labor MP at the last election. If the ALP's economic game plan was what low-income earners wanted in this country, then someone forgot to tell the low-income earners of Australia! If the false hopes and pipe dreams peddled by the previous government were what low-income earners wanted, then why did they reject the ALP and the Greens? That is because low-income earners in this country tend to be tough—they are tough people, and they knew that tough measures were required, and they understood how much $1 billion in interest payments could actually deliver for their communities. If I go through the ranks in the 2012 electoral divisions, No. 1 was Hinkler with a median income of $940; then there was Cowper with $970, Lyne with $978, the electorate of Page in New South Wales with $999, Wide Bay in Queensland with $1,008, Lyons in Tasmania with $1,029, and Mallee in Victoria with $1,069. They are the seven lowest median income level communities in our nation, and all of them have elected coalition members as their local representatives.

The MPI not only claims that there is a government attack on low-income earners; it claims that it is 'vicious', which means that it is with malicious intent, and that is the fallacy. The reality is that our only intent is for a stronger future, a sustainable future, a self-reliant future, for our nation.

Labor has some nerve, coming in here accusing us of attacking low-income earners! Let us have a look at the reality of how the last Labor government treated low-income earners. It was the last Labor government that put an extra 200,000 Australians on the dole. It was Labor that ripped off regional students with drastic cuts to youth allowance. It was Labor that sabotaged our border protection policies, resulting in more than 1,000 asylum seekers drowning at sea. It was Labor that slashed $700 million from payments to single parents, and it was a Labor MP who spent the union dues of the country's lowest-paid workers on champagne and prostitutes. That is the reality. It is easy to expose the fallacy of Labor's claim that the budget is characterised by malice against low-income earners. There is no tax increase on low-income earners, but a temporary debt levy—

Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. Senator McKenzie is besmirching the name of Labor through the remarks she just made in her speech, and I ask her to withdraw them.

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order. You are debating the issue.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no tax increase on low-income earners but a temporary debt levy on high-income workers, those who earn more than $180,000 a year, and it is a levy I am more than happy to pay. I also support the pay freeze for federal parliamentarians and Public Service department heads.

These are hardly vicious attacks on low- and middle-income Australia. This is an honest federal budget, something Australians have not been used to for awhile. We did not fiddle the figures and we did not put all the spending beyond the forward estimates. It is an authentic, realistic budget, compared to the fallacious surplus of the previous Labor government, promised 500 times but never delivered.

It is a tough budget; it had to be. Labor inherited a string of budget surpluses and no debt. In fact, $60 billion was in the bank and, in just six years of Labor government, that money was wasted. We ended up owing $667 billion. That is the reality. That is half the Defence budget. It is about what we spend on aged care and it is more than we spend on universities.

Senator Singh interjecting—

You do not like to hear it, but these are the facts. The coalition did not create this Labor mess, but we have a duty to fix it. The Australian people elected us to fix it. We are the firefighters and Labor are the arsonists. The Abbott-Truss government's Economic Action Strategy will reduce the Labor deficits by $44 billion over the forward estimates. If we do nothing to the budget, as Labor planned, then we will not be able to afford the welfare and the education, health and defence systems that we currently enjoy.

There is good news in the coalition budget for low- and middle-income Australians. The budget has plenty of good news, including infrastructure. Infrastructure benefits all Australians but particularly job seekers, as better infrastructure means more employment. We will invest $50 billion in infrastructure by 2019-20, strategically to grow our economic potential, to grow jobs.

The budget includes major reforms to education, particularly in higher education. The deregulation of the university system has allowed Labor to screen $200,000 arts degrees, but the fact is—

Opposition senators interjecting—

and you do not want to hear it, that the cost of some degrees will go up and the cost of some degrees will come down, depending on demand. Deregulation will allow our universities to compete with the best on the planet, by giving them the freedom to innovate. It has been welcomed by the vice-chancellors of the very universities that service the lowest income earners in the nation. The Regional Universities Network has come out in support of the education initiatives that this government handed down last night.

When we talk about health, how will the $7 co-payment for GPs visits affect low-income earners? We are actually making sure that there are safeguards within the budget to protect the most vulnerable. The Medicare safety net threshold will be adjusted to ensure that those most vulnerable in our society will still be able to access excellence in health care.

The fact is that the Medicare surcharge and the Medicare levy only funds 20 per cent of our Commonwealth healthcare spend. It is unsustainable. If we want to enjoy state-of-the-art X-rays, state-of-the-art diagnostic tests and world-class health delivery from our GP right throughout the hospital system, 20 per cent of our federal Commonwealth government collection is not going to cut it.

Older Australians will also be able to make a modest contribution. The pension age will rise to 70 but not for two decades. So that is time to prepare all you 35-year-olds to put some money away. That is the reality and it is a fallacy to believe that the working population in the future will be able to support a huge number of Australians living upwards of age 100.

To conclude, the reality is that it is a tough but fair budget. However, Labor's claims that it unfairly targets low- and middle-income Australia is demonstrably false. Just get real! (Time expired)

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not know what is in the water today. You had better check, because it would seem that the briefing notes that the government senators have been provided with for today's debate were written last night over a few glasses of red!

Senator Whish-Wilson interjecting—

And a cigar or two! Let me just say one thing: Senator Back is here in the chamber, so this is a good place to start. The way that the budget affects people on high incomes of $200,000 or more—people like you and me—is that we are going to pay $400 a year extra tax. That is $7.60 a week. It would not even buy you a cheap bottle of red.

Consider the single parents who are out there, with two children, whose parenting payment has just been cut to the tune of $65 a week. Their weekly income is about $600 a week all up. What does that $65 a week get them? Guess what? It does not get them a doctor's appointment, it does not get them a visit to a GP, which in my home town currently costs $76, and it does not even get the kids their antibiotics prescription, because that will now cost $47 under the announcement made yesterday. So we have a family—a mum with kids, trying to decide what on earth to do. Will she consult Dr Google, and even that will not get her a prescription? She actually has to get to the doctor to get a prescription for her sick child. What will she do? Sixty-five dollars is more than some people pay for food for their whole family for a week. These are the kinds of decisions that last night's budget is actually going to force people to make. It is a disgrace. This is a budget that hurts so many people and helps so few.

Andrew Leigh, member for Fraser, wrote an article yesterday and it was very thought provoking:

In an environment when the three richest people in Australia have more wealth than the bottom one million, the government is cutting foreign aid and student support to make room for tax breaks to multi-millionaire superannuants and multinational firms.

That is the truth of it: this budget is a clear victory for Australia's one per cent.

If you think that people are not gutted by what they heard last night—and I have to say it was a gut-wrenching read, and I join with Senator Siewert in the rage that I felt—people know that single parents and parents with disabled children will be the hardest hit under the changes announced last night. One woman rang my office this morning in tears. This is what she said:

I have four kids and they all have disabilities. This budget, in every way, kills my children's future—their ability to get an education, their ability to be part of society, their ability to earn a living. They are penalised because they are disabled and because they are young.

As Senator Urquhart said, the whole commitment to supporting kids with disabilities and mainstreaming kids with disabilities in schools, worth $100 million a year, has gone.

If that were all that is gone, people could maybe manage. It is such a stress. On one hand we are trying to force people into work and on the other hand we are taking away every mechanism there is to help them get work. Outside school hours care and child care are critical issues in this whole debate, and there was a $450 million cut last night. For Indigenous children and family centres, $78 million a year is gone. And $500 million a year has been taken out of the universal access to preschool program. The thresholds are frozen for the childcare benefit and for the childcare rebate the cap is frozen. That is fundamentally going to change the lives of Australian families.

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

I would like to preface my remarks with a compliment, and that is that there are some on the other side of the chamber who I respect highly. Senator Stephens is one of those, but I have to say that in this instance I could not disagree more fully with what she has said if I tried. One fundamental difference between the discussion and debate about the budget that was brought down last night is the very fact that the moral obligation for any government is to govern in the interests of all Australians, and you cannot do that by continuing to spend money that you do not have and ratcheting up the deficit for our future generations to pay. They will be the ones who will have to support the dreadful and appalling legacy unless it is dealt with. So, as I said, whilst I do respect—

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

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

I have to say, I sat here quietly. I may not have agreed with what was said, but I did respect the rights of those on the other side of the chamber to be able to speak without being interrupted so that they could be heard. I am sure that they will afford me the same respect and opportunity.

It is a moral obligation for any government to provide an economic, fiscal and social structure that is sustainable—and 'sustainable' is the operative word here—and responsible, not only for today but, most importantly, for future generations. A responsible government should adjust its spending priorities by taking into account changing global circumstances, along with local influences that impinge on the national income. Sadly, I have to say, those changing circumstances that Australia has experienced were not accounted for or factored in in any considerations by the previous Rudd and Gillard governments. Not only were they not factored in with appropriate spending adjustments but, rather, they responded with a continued chequebook approach to every challenge that emerged. It was this irresponsibility of writing a cheque to deal with whatever circumstances arose that has dramatically accelerated the situation that every Australian is now faced with. To put it simply, Australia is living beyond its means—there is no other way to put it—and it is a situation that will significantly impede our national potential unless it is addressed. Opportunities and economic prosperity for decades are at stake.

I stand here today and commend the Abbott government and the Herculean efforts of the Treasurer, Mr Joe Hockey, and the finance minister, Senator Mathias Cormann, in not shirking the enormous responsibility but, rather, confronting it head-on so that future generations have an opportunity to thrive. The motion of the opposition, suggesting the government is attacking low- and middle-income earners, typically and predictably misses the point. Sending $900 cheques to 21,000 dead people, overseeing a disgraceful installation scheme that cost more to fix than the cost to implement it, not to mention the cost of dismantling effective—and I have to stress 'effective'—border protection measures, are sadly just small examples of the fiscally reckless behaviour of the former governments that we are now responsibly seeking to fix. No government takes this on lightly and it is certainly no fun to be left with the legacy that the coalition has been left with. But I have to say that nations that are blessed with the resources that Australia enjoys should not find themselves in the situation where the projected national debt in a decade will rise to $667 billion if the previous government's spending patterns continue. As we have heard, that amounts to a staggering $12 billion, or $1 billion every month, to service that debt. To put it into context, that is the same amount we spend on aged care and it is the same amount that we use to fund our universities. And this is what we would have been looking at if we had continued on the trajectory that was set by the former governments.

As a mother, but also as someone who is very, very responsive to those who walk in the door of my electorate office, I do not believe that we should be burdening our children and our future generations with a noose of debt that will strangle them for their lifetimes. And we are beholden to do something about it now. Whatever happened to the Australian ethos? Aussies were known for their fierce independence, their self-reliance, the drive to do one's best and achieve one's own potential while working hard to ensure that family and friends were looked after. What has happened to that ethos? What has it been replaced with in the last few years? Instead we seem to have developed—and we have heard it today—a patronising culture where individuals are being told the government knows best and is best placed to make decisions for them—whether it is about their health, their education or even telling them how to run a business.

The budgetary decisions have not been made lightly and they have not been easy. But what is missing here—and we have not heard it from the other side—is that it was the right thing to do. We all know we have to increase workforce participation to build a more prosperous economy while living within our means. We all know that we have an ageing demographic. We all know—certainly on this side—that the status quo cannot continue. I urge those on the opposite side—

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time for the discussion has expired.