Nova Peris (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to talk about how the Abbott government's budget will hurt the Northern Territory. This budget will hurt all Australians but I believe it will hurt people in the Northern Territory the most. This budget puts up the cost of living in the Territory and it cuts vital health, education and infrastructure spending. This budget is targeted at those who can least afford it. This is a budget that even the government's mates in the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory have condemned, particularly in the areas of health, education and infrastructure. If they can't even convince their own, how do they expect Territorians to believe that their budget is fair?

I will briefly go through each area, but the aspects that will particularly hurt Territorians include the fuel tax, the GP tax, the $80 billion cuts to health and education, the $500 million cuts to Indigenous affairs, the cuts to pensions, the increased university fees and the lack of infrastructure spending. Firstly to the fuel tax, a broken promise. Territorians already pay on average 24c more per litre on petrol. Increasing the cost of petrol increases the cost of everything in the Territory, with freight required to travel such vast distances. The Abbott government promised to cut the cost of living. Everyone in the Northern Territory is now, quite rightly, asking how increasing the price of petrol twice every year can possibly cut the cost of living. I will be voting against the new fuel tax. I urge all representatives of the Northern Territory in this parliament to do so as well. Today the Treasurer announced he will undertake modelling of his new fuel tax in rural Australia. You do not need modelling to know that we already pay 24c more per litre for fuel. He will model it but not change it.

The Northern Territory already has very low rates of bulk-billing. Especially in the bush but even in Darwin we have a low number of GPs and many people already go to our overcrowded emergency departments. The GP tax will make it worse. The GP tax hits everyone but I believe that the effect it will have on Indigenous Territorians is extreme. Aboriginal medical services have said they will absorb the tax, which means millions of dollars will be slashed from preventive and awareness programs like nutrition, smoking prevention and programs that warn women of the dangers of drinking while pregnant. We are meant to be closing the gap. This is the exact opposite.

And it is not just the GP tax. The $80 billion in cuts to health and education are going to hurt most in the Northern Territory, where we have the poorest health and education outcomes in this country. The Northern Territory Chief Minister has already talked about the impacts these cuts will have. However, he is being completely hypocritical because he has slashed his own health and education budgets. The combined cuts of the Commonwealth and Territory governments mean less support for our hospitals, schools and health clinics.

The cuts to health and education are made even worse by the $500 million in cuts to Indigenous affairs. As the jurisdiction with the highest proportion of Aboriginal people, these cuts will hurt the Territory the most. And we know that the claims by the Minister for Indigenous Affairs that these cuts won't affect frontline services are wrong. We know that because the department let the cat out of the bag at the estimates when they revealed that the cuts involved direct funding cuts to frontline services.

The cuts to the pension will hurt seniors in the Northern Territory more so than down south. That is because the pension will now be linked to the national rate of inflation. In the Northern Territory our current and forecast inflation rate is the highest in the country by far, almost double the national rate, so the pension in the NT will only be increasing at half the rate the cost of living is increasing. Of course the increases in tertiary education fees will hurt every young Australian who wants to get a tertiary education, but for the younger, smaller universities like Charles Darwin University it is going to be particularly difficult. They simply won't be able to charge the same fees as the bigger established universities, and as a result of the government's changes that means they get less funding.

The Treasurer, Joe Hockey, came to Darwin just last week and effectively admitted that Darwin was being short-changed when it comes to infrastructure spending. We are getting less than one per cent of the national budget over the next seven years. His response was that people in Darwin should not be jealous of the funding they are providing to other states. Remarkably, the member for Solomon, Natasha Griggs, who was standing next to him, agreed. What happened to developing the North? You can't develop the North with 99 per cent of the budget going down south. This budget hurts the Northern Territory. It breaks promises made to the people of the Northern Territory. On behalf of the people of the Northern Territory I condemn this budget.