Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senators, I inform you that at 8.30 am today two senators each submitted letters in accordance with standing order 75. Senator Siewert proposed a matter of urgency and Senator Moore proposed a matter of public importance for discussion. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I inform the Senate that the following 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 Prime Minister's pre-election promise there would be "no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS".

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 in relation to speaking times for today's debate, and I will ask the clerks to set the clocks accordingly, with the concurrence of the Senate.

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to the MPI that we have just agreed to in relation to the Abbott government's set of broken promises. What we have seen from this government is broken promise after broken promise. These promises that have been broken go to the heart of the budgets of ordinary Australians—whether they are working Australians, whether they are pensioners, whether they are Australians who rely on benefits, or whether they are families with children. There is hardly a group in our community that the Abbott government's broken promises have not affected. The big end of town seems to be okay, but every other group in Australia has been really hit hard by these broken promises. They are very serious because, prior to the election, Mr Abbott gave absolute—what we thought were cast-iron guaranteed—commitments that there would be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no cuts to pensions, no rise in the GST, no cuts to the ABC and no cuts to SBS.

We have seen quite the contrary on display from the government. Every single one of those allegedly cast-iron promises to the Australian public has now been absolutely broken, slashed and burned, cut up into little pieces and is now lying on the party room floor. It is an absolutely disrespectful way to treat Australians. I want to focus in particular on what the Australian public have to look forward to in the area of public health if Mr Abbott's government's cuts in that area make it through the parliament. What we have seen is an $80 billion cut to Australia's public hospitals and education. In relation to health we have seen the imposition of a GP tax, a tax on being sick, a tax on ordinary Australians when they visit their doctor. That will cost Australian families $3.5 billion a year in out-of-pocket expenses. For every single Australian, regardless of their income—whether they are a pensioner, an average income earner or have got children—that is the hit to their pocket. It is a hit on the most vulnerable in our community. People who should be supported by a safety net have seen that safety net ripped out from under them.

It is also the government's plan to end Medicare. Right back as far as Malcolm Fraser the Liberals and the Nationals have not supported Medicare. Why? I have no idea. Australia's Medicare system is a proven system, it is a good system, it is valued by countries right around the world. But it seems that this government and successive Liberal-National governments want to slash and burn Medicare. As a young parent, as a low-income earner, I absolutely struggled when I was forced to take out health insurance under the Fraser government. What that meant was that I took my children to emergency departments and went without appropriate Medicare for myself because of cost. We should never impose that on Australians. We have had that strategy before. We have seen that it does not work. It is a failed strategy. The GP tax will say that the government decides who does visit a doctor and who does not. That is not right. I have lived through those days and I would not want to put that on anyone else. It is an unfair process. Our Medicare system should be available to every person in the community regardless of personal circumstances. It is not for governments to come between a medical practitioner and their patients.

What is more, there is no evidence in Australia that GP services are being overused by patients—none whatsoever. In fact, we do want people who are vulnerable or have got persistent health problems to be visiting their GP. GPs are at the front line of our health services. They are the gatekeepers of our health services. But the Abbott government's broken promises do not stop there. We know that if you get a referral for an X-ray or to a physio there is likely to be a tax on that. If you get a prescription for pharmaceuticals there will be an additional tax on that. Out-of-pocket expenses for ordinary everyday Australians will just go on and on and on. We will see Australians lining up at emergency departments just as I did when I had young children. We will see pensioners going without the medical services they need because they will be too scared of the cost. This is extremely unfair. It is a complete broken promise. It is time the Abbott government admitted it and turned its back on this unfair tax.

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

Bravo, Senator Lines, for making it through another repetitive effort from the great strategists opposite. They sit down every morning and say: 'What's the biggest thing on our agenda? What are we really passionate about raising on behalf of the Australian people?' We once again have this very predictable and extremely repetitive effort. Bravo, Senator Lines, for having another swing. To everybody from Labor who is going into bat today, well done! I hope we have not had to recycle too much! Unfortunately, from listening to that, they have no idea.

Minister Johnson today in question time had it right. It is a very predictable MPI because there is no idea on the other side. We have blank space, blank heads, a blank page. It is a classic Labor tactic. It is not about broken promises; it is like a broken record. And the thing with a broken record is that people stop listening to it; they just turn it off; it becomes white noise in the back of everybody's day; nobody is listening. With your own reputation in tatters after six years of broken promises and incompetence, you are trying to tar us with your own brush. Labor is saying: 'We know we were dishonest, we know we were useless, but Tony Abbott and his mob are just as bad.' But the problem is that that claim is absolutely false. It is a classic tactic of Labor to go out with a media release, press conferences, statements in the chamber and questions through an inquiry that actually do not match the facts. In fact the shadow minister for employment released press releases during estimates which completely falsely represented what was happening in the estimates hearing at that particular time. It is a tired old tactic. The Australian people can obviously see through it. Despite your denials about the election results, there is no denying that they were emphatic about getting rid of the rhetoric and false claims of Labor.

Let's talk about broken promises. Labor promised to consult on climate change and instead delivered a carbon tax. Labor imposed the world's biggest carbon tax—a $9 billion a year hit to our economy costing average households over $550 per year. Despite the emphatic result of the election over a year ago, Labor still supports a carbon tax. Labor senators voted to the keep the carbon tax in place last July, although they do not talk about that back in their electorates. They are in denial about the election result—a broken record long after the audience has left the dance floor.

Labor promised a budget surplus—in fact, they did not just promise it once; they promised it 500 times—but Labor have not delivered a budget surplus in over a quarter of a century. In fact, Wyatt Roy, the member for Longman, was not even born when Labor last delivered a budget surplus. Labor promised less debt; Labor government debt blew out to over $320 billion and was projected to reach $667 billion in 10 years. Labor promised more jobs; under Labor, the number of unemployed increased by over 200,000, productivity declined by 0.7 per cent a year, working days lost to strikes doubled and business red tape increased, making it a bit hard to deliver on that promise by Labor of more jobs. Another promise by Labor was to cut company tax; after the election, Labor scrapped the tax cut. Labor promised to give $2.1 billion for a transport link in Western Sydney; it never happened.

Labor promised to build an NBN. It would have cost at least $29 billion more than we were told, and hardly anyone signed up. The government is getting the NBN back on track with more than twice as many homes and businesses now receiving NBN services than a year ago. Under a coalition government, NBN Co met its rollout target for the very first time. That is good management. Labor promised to build 2,650 trades training centres in schools; 2.409 of them have not been built. Labor promised safe and secure borders; over 50,000 illegal arrivals came in more than 800 boats, causing a cost blow-out of over $11 billion. Labor promised to support the Australian Defence Force, and the Defence Force budget fell to the lowest level as a percentage of GDP since 1938.

This MPI goes to education, health, pensions, the GST, and the ABC and SBS. So let us look at the reality versus the string of Labor lies. In relation to education and schools under this government, Commonwealth spending for schools will reach record highs and increase over four years. That is the reality. It is black and white in the budget papers. In the recent budget, the Australian government kept its commitments and is investing record recurrent funding of $64.5 million in government and non-government schools over the next four years. That is an increase of $4.6 billion, or 37 per cent, during this period. They are the facts. There will be no cuts to education funding for schools. I quote ABC Fact Check:

The Government did not cut $30 billion from schools in the May budget … Ms Ellis is spouting rubbery figures.

It is black and white, and it is simple: we did not cut funding to education. No matter how many times you say that we did, no matter how many MPIs you bring before the Senate, and no matter how many times you trot shadow ministers and backbench senators out for press releases and media releases, it does not make it true.

That is only one component of the Education portfolio; let us turn to universities. Labor's campaign on university reform is perhaps the most dishonest yet and I am sure that we are going to have a right royal stoush over the coming weeks about the reality versus Labor lies on that particular campaign. Let us look at Labor's record and at Senator Carr's record. Senator Carr's record on universities is that he proposed cuts to higher education and research of over $6.6 billion, which the department confirmed at a Senate inquiry last week, including $28 billion on one day in April 2013. Labor's current scare campaign on $100,000 degrees is plain wrong. The University of Western Australia has set fees for 2016 which are less than half of what Labor is claiming. No student will need to pay up-front, nor will they be prevented from attending universities for financial reasons. What we do know about the proposed reforms under the government's higher education legislation is that there will be a range of fees charged. To say there will be $100,000 degrees is simply wrong. We are increasing funding to universities, as was confirmed in the Senate inquiry last week.

The story in the Health portfolio is very similar. Again, Labor is spouting rubbery figures. I know that those opposite do not like to hear this, but the budget papers show that the Abbott government is increasing funding to hospitals by $5.3 billion, or 40 per cent, over the next four years. That is the reality; that is the fact. Labor's trickery is that it promised increases beyond the forward estimates which it knew it could never afford, but Labor did not have to worry about that because the promises do not appear in the budget papers. What is in the budget papers, what is projected over the forward estimates and what the government proposes to spend over a given period of time is what we can argue about, because it is the reality; it is not dream time. This is known as Labor's budget time bomb.

The MPI goes to cuts to pensions. For the record, there are no cuts to pensions under this government. Pensions will continue to increase twice a year and the family home will continue to be exempt from the pension's asset test. Older Australians now have lower bills following the abolition of the carbon tax but still get to keep their energy supplement. The income thresholds for the Commonwealth seniors health card were indexed from 20 September 2014, enabling up to 27,000 additional people to qualify for the card. I could go on in relation to this government's arguments around no cuts to pensions, no cuts to health and no cuts to education.

If Labor's claims are about $100,000 degrees are the most dishonest, then Labor's claims about the government's alleged secret plans to raise the GST are the silliest. We said that we would not be making any changes to the GST, and we are not. Again, just because you say that it is so does not make it so. The Australian people are interested in fact, not fiction, as demonstrated by their absolute support of the coalition's agenda at the last election.

We have key achievements. When we look at the promises that we took to the federal election, by any measure, the Abbott government is delivering on its promises. (Time expired)

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This motion goes to the issue of broken promises, but what it really goes to the issue of trust and integrity. What we seen from this government is an enormous breach of trust. It is an enormous breach of trust because the changes to these commitments that were made during the election campaign and that are now no longer relevant are so significant, so severe and so blatant that there is no hiding from it. Sometimes in politics we find these areas of grey. We see one side saying one thing, another side saying another and the truth is somewhere in the middle. But on this issue there is simply no excuse for what has occurred. There have been a string of broken promises and there has been a breach of trust.

This is a government that campaigned on the issue of trust and was relentless in its prosecution of the lies told about the carbon tax—to use their words. This is a government that promised in opposition that it would be open, honest and accountable and—to use the Prime Minister's words—that they would do what they say and say what they do. How is it that they could effectively reverse position on so many issues of fundamental importance to the Australian community? The answer is straightforward. The changes announced by this government in this budget are so unpopular, they are so brutal and they are so necessary that, had they promised these things in the election campaign, people would never of bought it. The government would not have been voted into office. They simply did not have the courage to put this narrow, brutal and ideological world view to the Australian community. They did not have the courage to do it.

They did not have the courage in education to stand up and say, 'We are going to make it harder for a young kid to get a university education.' They did not have the courage to say, 'If you are unemployed, we are going to kick you off welfare for six months. If you cannot cope, well, that's tough.' They did not have the courage in health care to say to people, 'You know what, we're going to make it harder for you to see a doctor. You might be struggling, but we are going to put a whopping great co-payment for when you go and see the GP; but we are going to add another co-payment on top of the existing co-payment for your medicines. We are going to make it harder for you to go and get a x-ray done because there will be costs associated with that as well.' They did not have the courage to put those issues to the Australian community.

They are based on a lie. In health care, we are told that the health system is unsustainable, that it is out of control and that we have got some sort of emergency or crisis. Let me tell you what a crisis looks like: over the last decade, Commonwealth spending on health care has been stable. It has not changed. If anything, it has decreased. We saw the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's report announced a month or two ago for the year 2012-13. There was the lowest growth since 1990 and 1991. I will say that again: we have seen the lowest growth in health spending for over two decades. When it comes to the amount we spent on health care, we are somewhere near the bottom of other OECD countries and half what the US spends on health care. That is what a crisis looks like and that is what unsustainable health spending looks like this government.

It is totally confected and their solution is: 'We are going to whack in a great big co-payment, making it harder for people to see a doctor and particularly for those people who can afford it least.' But just as importantly, there are massive cuts to the way our hospital systems are funded. Over the next decade, we are going to see $50 billion taken out of our hospital system. Anyone who thinks that somehow that is a way of improving the health of the Australian community needs their head read. We have got a situation now where people already struggling through the public hospital system to be seen in a timely way in emergency departments. We have got long waiting lists for elective surgery and we have got people who are unable to get access to life-saving treatment. This government's response is to rip out $50 billion from the Australian hospital system.

When you combine the cuts to education, New South Wales stands to lose $25 billion over the next 10 years when you include those cuts to hospitals and education. In Victoria, over the next three years and this is when we take out that huge figure, we are looking at almost $400 million. This is a great breach of trust to the Australian community and the government did not have the courage to put it to the Australian people. (Time expired)

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to contribute to the matter of public importance on the Prime Minister's pre-election promise that there would be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to the pension, no change the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS. As we know, Mr Abbott went to the election promising all these things and telling the Australian people that he would not change the pension, there would be no change the GST, there would be no cuts to education and there would be no cuts to health. He told them these things because he wanted to get elected. He wanted the Australian people to trust him.

It did not take long for the trust that the Australian people put in Mr Abbott to be shown to unfortunately be misplaced. What we have seen from this government is a systematic targeting of those that can least afford to be targeted and those with the least amount of money. What we have seen is a substantial cut to pensions. In my home state of Tasmania, where we have around about 98,000 pensioners, they will be worse off and they know they will. The letter that Mr Abbott spent over $1 million on was to tell people that his election commitment was not based on a lie, but they know the truth and they know that they will be worse off. They have seen the work and they have seen some of the modelling produced by ACOSS. They know that they will be worse off. They know the Prime Minister has broken this commitment to them, and they will not forget it.

Mr Abbott, it appears, will unfortunately say anything to get into government. He has a list of lies and broken promises—and the list of lies unfortunately gets longer by the day. The massive cuts that he wants to inflict on Australians target pensioners, families, students, the poor and the sick. They give little hope for the future and take away so much from Australians.

Labor will continue to fight against these cuts and continue to speak up for those whose voices are not heard by this government. The effects of Mr Abbott's twisted priorities are worrying. They are frightening Australians, particularly, as I have mentioned, in my home state of Tasmania. The cuts to education will be extremely harsh for Tasmania. A good education can lift people out of poverty and give them hope and optimism for the future. We need to lift our students' performance. If Tasmanian students are to achieve in line with national standards Mr Abbott needs to keep his promises.

His first budget failed to fund the vital fifth and sixth years of the Gonski reforms and instead ripped $80 billion from our schools and hospitals. Tasmanian schools will lose $682 million—the biggest ever cut to our schools. But where are the Tasmanian Liberal senators, and where are the federal Liberal members in the House of Representatives when it comes to these cuts? They remain silent.

Every Tasmanian school will suffer. Their funding will be cut although parents, teachers and students were promised improvements by Mr Abbott and Mr Pyne. These are savage cuts. They will leave the average school $3.2 million worse off and rob every student of $1,000 in individual support per year. The quality of education for Tasmanians will suffer. Parents, teachers and students have been betrayed.

How can we expect Tasmanian students to improve their results when Mr Abbott is cutting funding for the resources and staff they need to help them? These cuts are the equivalent of sacking one in seven teachers, and they are already having a great impact in our classrooms.

Now I come to the cuts to health. We know that Tasmania has a higher burden of chronic disease. Mr Abbott's $1.1 billion in cuts to public hospitals in Tasmania will seriously affect health outcomes for Tasmania. I am running out of time, but Tasmanians know that Mr Abbott came to this election— (Time expired)

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I feel the need to defend my Tasmanian colleagues in the face of that outburst, which suggested that Tasmanian senators and members of the lower house have not been out there talking up the important aspects of the federal budget and the federal policy positions that are now being implemented, which were promised at the federal election in 2013. I have heard, many times in this place, senators from Tasmania and the three members who represent Tasmanian electorates in the lower house out there talking up the importance of Tasmania. They support their home state. I would just like to put it on the record that unless Senator Brown has a hearing problem she should listen a little harder to her colleagues from Tasmania, even if they are from the other side of the chamber, when they support their home state.

Before I go to the substance of what I would like to say today in relation to the matter of public importance on the Prime Minister's election commitments, I would like to draw the attention of the house to the extraordinary scaremongering that continues to go on. The ABC has a fact check; maybe we need a fact check in this place, because some of the things that were said while I sat here and listened to the contribution of those opposite astounded me. They are actually incorrect. It is not just that they have not heard; they actually made statements that were factually incorrect.

Those statements, and the scaremongering that is going on, is creating a very negative and uncertain environment out there amongst voters. That is really not fair. If there are hard messages to sell, let's be honest about them and tell the voters the truth; do not beat it up with a whole heap of scaremongering.

I would like to draw an interesting comparison between the federal coalition government and a current Labor government that is in existence in this country—the state Labor government in South Australia. Labor has been in power in South Australia for the last 12 years. In that time we have seen South Australia become somewhat of a laughing stock for the rest of the country because the environment in that state does not encourage business. It does not support business growth. It is the highest taxed state and it is the state with the highest debt.

It is really quite interesting to draw a parallel between the state government and what is happening federally—the positive things we are trying to put in place, despite the resistance and blocking that we see in the Senate. We have been trying to get some of the initiatives that we took to the election campaign through this place, but we are blocked, despite the people of Australia having voted for this government on exactly those mandates.

I draw to the house's attention the fact that the South Australian Labor government is a classic example of what happens when you do extraordinary things with budgets. That is exactly what we inherited when we came into government in 2013. Currently in South Australia the 2012-13 budget deficit is $940 million. That is the highest on record. When you consider the population in South Australia, on a pro rata basis it is an extraordinary amount of money that is owed by every man, woman and child in South Australia to pay for the budget deficit in that state.

The government of South Australia has delivered budget deficits for the past four years. Over the past year, the projected deficit has blown out to $1.2 billion—the largest budget deficit in over 15 years. But the really annoying, dishonest and unscrupulous thing that is going on at the moment is that the Weatherill Labor government in South Australia is trying to con the South Australian public into thinking that this is all the federal government's fault. I just have to put on the record that the $14 billion debt bill that was projected by the Weatherill government out to 2016 was on the books well before we were elected to government in 2013. So it seems a little bit rich that we have a situation at the moment where the Weatherill government is spending millions of dollars of South Australia's taxpayers' money—it is actually not South Australian taxpayers' money because they probably had to borrow it, like they borrow everything else to spend in South Australia—to fund a campaign to blame the federal government for something that, if you look at their budget figures, they acknowledged was already in existence well before the Abbott government was elected to this place.

Worse than the budget deficit in South Australia are the election promises that the South Australian government made to the South Australian public about the creation of 100,000 jobs. In the time that they have been in government and with the creation of their 100,000 jobs policy, we have seen 8,700 more jobs, not 100,000. We need to be very careful that we get the facts on the table. As those opposite have mentioned in relation to particularly education and health, Mr Weatherill is trying to make the suggestion that the federal government are cutting health and education. As we well know—and as you would well know, Madame Acting Deputy President Lines, as you sat on the education hearings in relation to higher education and you sit on the Education and Employment Legislation Committee—education funding has not been cut. I repeat: education funding has not been cut. So, for Mr Weatherill to somehow blame the federal government for cuts in funding that are going to South Australia—when in fact the amount of money that is going to South Australia, not just for education but also for health, is increasing—makes his lie and deceit even worse.

The fact is that the South Australian government have created their own debt and deficit problem. The blame lies firmly with their policies and the implementation of their policies. It seems extraordinarily rich that Mr Weatherill would suggest to blame us and then spend additional money in creating a false campaign. You do not have to entirely take my word for this—

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would take your word for it.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Payne. She was going to take my word for it. This morning in the paper a letter was revealed from the Essential Services Commission in South Australia, ESCOSA, which is the independent economic regulator in South Australia. The chief executive of this regulator, Dr Paul Kerin, who had been appointed by the previous Labor government to this position, resigned the week following the South Australian election. In his letter, Mr Kerin states:

I have voted Labor most of my life and I chose to join the Commission under a Labor government …

However, having seen that government from the inside, I have no appetite to deal with it for another four years.

In relation to the reforms and his oversight of particular agencies in South Australia—undergoing the water industry's economic reform, the commission's role in driving that reform, the independence of government, government legislation et cetera—Mr Kerin went on to say: 'My experience over the past three years has shown that the understanding in relation to those economic activities was incorrect. Instead, 'the government and its senior bureaucrats have clearly demonstrated that they have no interest in genuine reform, nor in serving the long-term interests of consumers. Indeed, they have stymied all efforts on those fronts at every turn.' Further, he said he had been 'appalled by the behaviours that both ministers and senior bureaucrats had engaged in to stymie' those reform efforts.

You would have to suggest that, if you were going to appoint somebody to be an economic regulator and you are completely convinced of the goodness and wellbeing that you are providing to your state and the economic development you are providing to your state by your policies, you would certainly think that you would give your economic regulator every opportunity to be able to better those policies, keep an eye on them and make sure that they really were delivering the things that you were saying. The comments made by Dr Kerin were revealed only after a freedom of information request, because the bureaucrats within the department refused to release the letter of resignation from Dr Kerin, citing that it was contrary to the public interest. I thought that was quite an interesting reason for not releasing the fact that somebody was being critical of the operation of the government. You would think that the South Australian government would have wanted a level of transparency around its economic regulator because, surely, if everything they are saying about the economic prosperity and all the great things that they are doing in South Australia are true, they would want the independent verification of their independent regulator. That is a very sad indictment of one of Australia's Labor governments. The federal government may be an indication of what the Liberal Party in South Australia is likely to inherit if and when they should win government in South Australia.

In standing here today and talking on this matter of public interest, I would like to put on the record that I think it is abhorrent that we are conducting scaremongering without any real facts around the information that we are putting into the public domain. (Time expired)

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

I do not normally speak to MPIs because they can, as some senators have observed, be fairly predictable. I could not let this one go past. It is premised on the rather now famous quotation, and I thank our colleagues in the Labor Party for bringing it forward—the PM's election promise, right on the eve of the last federal election, and it could not have been clearer: 'no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.' It is a measure of the despair with which many people hold politicians, that you would get a comment as bold-faced and as black and white as that, and it is immediately doubled back on at the earliest opportunity. That is the nature of someone who lied his way into office. There is no way of being more polite about it than that. It is as though the Prime Minister exists in his own eternal political present, where words just come out of his mouth to suit a particular moment or a particular sound grab, and the next day it is as though it was never said and we are all meant to just forget that it ever happened. The GST was the last piece of that puzzle until fairly recently, and, of course, that has been put into the public domain as well. The catalogue of deliberate deceptions that the GST has set running is now complete.

Everything, as far as this government's budget repair proposals are concerned, is on the table except that which might offend powerful donors or interests. That has been very safely quarantined away as you have been marching around the landscape abolishing taxes for the last 12 months. Some economic interests—many of them very used to exercising their political clout—are coming in a hard-line and strategic way after our national broadcasters, the ABC and the SBS. It is that element of this trashed promise to the Australian public before the election that I want to focus on.

Cuts of somewhere between $120 million and $200 million to our national broadcaster, the ABC, are described by the minister as a 'down payment'. It is quite creepy behaviour when you think about it—'That's a nice national broadcaster you've got there; it would be a shame if anything were to happen to it.' There are threats to editorial independence, threats to funding and now direct threats to programming. Maybe the ABC will be forced to take advertising. Maybe it will be forced to curtail its online presence. You can see why some of the ideologues who are coming after the ABC and SBS are so terrified of how well our national broadcasters are performing online. They are doing some of the most innovative stuff, I would say, not just in the country but in the world in taking a publicly funded national broadcaster and putting that presence online in a way that enlarges its audience to a new generation of people who are not necessarily watching mainstream free-to-air TV or, for that matter, reading newspapers.

I have come to realise that the ABC and SBS are not being attacked because they are failing; they are being attacked because they are succeeding a little too well. That is something that is really worth considering. These broadcasters are loved. They are national institutions that are loved by people right across the political spectrum and right across this continent—from downtown in the big cities all the way out to the most remote and regional areas where you can get an ABC radio broadcast. That is one of the elements of why this government is in such trouble. The government was asked about the prospect of whether this could lead to job losses and, at this stage, we are looking at 500 or 600 job cuts. It may be less than that or it may be more. We do not know the scale of the cuts that are proposed. Mr Turnbull has said, 'It would depend on which staff are cut. The ABC is not a workers' collective.' What contempt! As though anybody proposed that it was a workers' collective; it is a much loved national broadcaster. That is why we have already seen the beginning of the damage being done: 80 staff have been let go from ABC International, the Australian Network has been trashed, the payments from DFAT to wind up its operations fell short by $5 million and the broadcaster is facing serious and significant cuts. That is why we will fight it.

As we put the government on notice, do not be surprised if the tiny handful of ideologues who loathe the very existence of public broadcasters come to heel when they need it. Do not be too surprised if that tiny handful of people are completely overmatched by the breadth and depth of passion with which Australian people from right across the country and right across the political spectrum will stand up and fight for their national broadcasters, both the ABC and the SBS. You are put on notice now. The Prime Minister may have forgotten that commitment that he made to the rest of the country right before the election, but we have not.

Chris Ketter (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to speak on this matter of public importance regarding the Prime Minister's pre-election promise on 6 September last year, one day before the election, that there would be:

No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.

I listened to the contribution from Senator McKenzie earlier in the debate, and I sensed the exasperation in her contribution about this issue being continuously raised by Labor. All I can say to Senator McKenzie and her colleagues is that they had better get used to this because this is accountability. This government needs to be held accountable for the litany of broken promises and its twisted priorities.

With the Prime Minister's comments yesterday regarding the GST, surely we are now seeing the full set of broken promises completed. This government will soon be running out of promises to break, having systematically smashed every commitment it gave to the electorate. Proper reform means bringing the community with you, challenging vested interests and making a case for changing the status quo; proper reform means not doing a dump and run with this budget of broken promises; and proper reform means not just bumping up the nearest regressive tax that you can get your hands on.

We have heard today from both Senator Ruston and Senator McKenzie that what the Labor Party is saying in this regard is somewhat factually lacking—that is how I would categorise what they said—but let us look at what this government is saying about taxation. That we have a government now looking earnestly at a regressive tax which affects the poor is a great concern to us. One of the great mythologies that exists out there is that Labor is always responsible for a higher level of taxation than the coalition. When we look at the ABC Fact Check, we find that, under the Labor period of government from 2007 to 2013, the average proportion of taxation as a proportion of GDP was 21.4 per cent, whereas in the previous Howard government there was a tax take of 23.5 per cent as a proportion of GDP. So, when we are talking about mythology, let us get our facts right and let us look at who is really responsible for higher taxes in this country.

To return to the broken promises, I quote again: 'There will be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions, no changes to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.' All of these promises were made in one sentence that Mr Abbott uttered in an interview on SBS on the eve of the 2013 election. It was during a live interview when the then opposition leader was at one of the sports stadiums.

We know that his promises have been completely smashed. On education, what has essentially happened is that they have scrapped the fifth and sixth year of funding that was previously part of the bipartisan Gonski reforms. In the area of health, $50 billion has been cut from public hospitals, and in the area of pensions, the pension age has been raised to 70, with indexation slashed and concessions cut. In respect of the GST, comments were made yesterday about wanting to broaden and raise the tax. On the issue of no cuts to the ABC, we have seen that there will be $35 million in cuts over four years. And in respect of SBS, the carrier that broadcast the opposition leader's promises, there will be $8 million in cuts over four years. These cuts will hit Queensland hard. In Australia's most decentralised state, those regions of Queensland outside the capital will be hit especially hard.

Recently we have also seen government senators justifying cuts to rural and regional health care on the basis that what they said before the election were merely National Party commitments and not coalition commitments. I asked Senator Nash, in her capacity of representing the Minister for Health, on 3 September about the fact that the Nationals election platform talked about increased financial support for doctors in regional and remote areas but that what actually came out in the budget was that the rebate for most GP and out-of-hospital pathology and diagnostic imaging services were to be reduced by $5. Senator Nash's response to that question was that if those opposite paid a little more attention they would realise that it is National Party policy and that they would go on to form coalition policy for the election campaign, and that immediately addresses the issue. That was the response from the National Party, the party that is supposed to be standing up for regional Australia and regional Queensland. They are nowhere to be found.

On top of these broken promises we have plans for $100,000 degrees as a further kick in the guts for regional Queenslanders. The Queensland Times, a newspaper based in Ipswich, reported:

Universities in regional Queensland and New South Wales fear the Abbott Government's education reforms could hit hard, with the poor discouraged by new charges and the bright poached by whatever school has the most money.

Local councils have also been asked to get by on less grant money from the federal government. And don't even get me started on what Queenslanders think about this out-of-touch Treasurer's view that poor people do not drive cars. Despite the Senate comprehensively rejecting a new fuel tax, they have snuck it in the back door: an increased tax for Queenslanders every time they fill up at the bowser, thanks to this government.

Australia remains gobsmacked at the conduct and deceitfulness of this government and their astonishing record to date. (Time expired)

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This MPI is not a story of cuts; it is a story of Labor's record on debt, tax and deficits. It is a horrible history of Labor mismanagement and horrid economic planning. So, mums and dads watching at home, send your children out of the room now, because you are about to hear some figures and I do not want you swearing in front of your children, and neither do I want your children realising the full extent of the debt they are going to inherit from Labor and what that means in terms of the work they are going to have to do to pay off Labor's debt. I do not want the toddlers and teenagers of Australia having nightmares because of Labor's debt and all the work they are going to have to do.

So, let us have a discussion about the figures—the truth about the inheritance Labor gave to us in September last year, when they were finally booted out of office. Labor initially forecast a surplus of $5.4 billion for the 2013-14 financial year and kept this forecast surplus for eight successive budget updates. The final figure was $48.5 billion in deficit. From 2008-09 to 2013-14, Labor delivered six successive deficits, totalling $240 billion, and we have many more to come, because of their mismanagement. If we include 2013-14, Labor left the government with future deficits of $123 billion up to the forward estimates for 30 June 2017. If no policy action was taken by Tony Abbott and the coalition to repair the budget position that the government inherited from Labor—and the Greens; I will give them a mention here too—gross debt would have spiralled to $667 billion over the medium term and would have continued to grow. That is the equivalent of $25,000 for every Australian.

This is Labor's legacy of debt for all Australians. But Labor do not want to talk about this. They do not want to talk about their six years in power. It is almost like the forgotten history of Australia in terms of the textbooks that Labor want to write. It costs $1 billion a month to pay the interest on Labor's record debt. This will be $2.8 billion a month in 10 years if nothing changes.

The independent budget office stated that 'without action Australia's debt will grow at one of the fastest rates in the developed world'. We have to make savings. If we do not make savings, this country will be in real trouble. So we want to make savings that should see us save money that could construct 15 new teaching hospitals every year—savings of $16 billion over 10 years. That is more than the cost of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the National Disability Insurance Scheme and higher education spending.

On the eve of the 2013-14 federal election, then Treasurer Chris Bowen had to go even further in his 2013 economic statement by writing down receipts a further $7.8 billion for 2013-14 and over $33 billion across the then forward estimates. This government—Tony Abbott's government, Joe Hockey's government, Julie Bishop's government, Warren Truss's government—inherited a shambles of a budget, a weakening economy and rising unemployment. This government had to take immediate action to address a number of unresolved issues inherited from Labor. This includes injecting $8.8 billion to restore the Reserve Bank of Australia's capital buffer after Labor ripped out $5.2 billion in dividends; providing $571 million in 2013-14 and $2 billion over the forward estimates to fix Labor's funding shortfall for offshore processing of illegal maritime arrivals; funding Public Service agencies to meet the cost of Labor's unfunded redundancies arising from their hidden job cuts; and clearing 96 announced but unlegislated tax and superannuation measures that included measures announced to boost the budget bottom line, even though these measures could never be delivered or would damage the economy. Labor left Australia with no plan to fund the future and address their unsustainable spending trajectory over the medium term.

This government is implementing a serious economic action strategy to repair the b udget and strengthen our nation's finances. We are going to make sustainable spending promises. We are going to deliver r ecord infrastructure investment—which, as a Queenslander, I am very happy about in terms of the work that is going to happen on the Gateway and on the Bruce Highway. We are going to create new jobs and bring the b udget back to surplus over the medium term.

This g overnment has been taking responsible and methodical action . The adults are back in charge, clean ing up Labor's mess, cleaning up Labor's debt and d eficit disaster and get ting the b udget back under control. (Time expired)

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

On the eve of the 2013 federal election, Tony Abbott, the now Prime Minister, made six solemn promises to the Australian people. He said on SBS in an interview in September 2013 that there would be, and I quote:

No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.

And we have heard this repetitively during this debate.

After the election, we have seen a very different story emerge as the Abbott government has systematically set out to break each and every one of these commitments. The ABC and SBS have had their budgets cut. The government is planning a devastating $80 billion worth of cuts to health and education. They are trying to slash pensions by $80 a week over the next 10 years and make all Australians work until they are 70 before they can qualify for the pension. And now the Abbott government is heading for a 100 per cent perfectly shameful record of broken promises, as they turn their sights to breaking their pre-election promise not to change or increase the GST.

Currently, the GST is distributed on a needs basis. It takes into account each state's ability to raise revenue and balances it with each state's funding needs to determine the fairest way to distribute the funds. A fundamental principle of the GST is that all states must have the revenue they need to provide their citizens with basic services like health, education, transport and security. No state should be left behind, and states that are benefiting from times of greater prosperity should contribute a bit more to help the states that are doing it a bit tougher. If the GST were changed, it would be devastating for Tasmania. Seven hundred million dollars in revenue and the vital public services that this money supports would be in peril. But it is not just Tasmania that could lose out if the rate base or distribution formula for the GST is changed. Let us not forget that it was not so long ago that Western Australia was a net beneficiary of the GST. And there is nothing to guarantee that that situation will not turn again.

Before the election, Labor was very concerned that the Abbott government had its sights set on changing the GST. This was a reasonable concern, given the Western Australian Liberal Premier Colin Barnett let the cat out of the bag about Mr Abbott's talks with the Liberal premiers on plans to change the GST once he got into government. But, remarkably, as the 2013 election drew closer, the story from those opposite changed dramatically. With his eyes keenly on the prime ministerial prize, Mr Abbott set about hiding his plans, saying:

Let me be as categoric as I can, the GST won't change, full stop, end of story …

…   …   …

Let me repeat it—the GST won't change, full stop, end of story.

On 11 May last year, he reinforced the message to Launceston's The Examiner newspaper, saying:

The Coalition fully supports the existing GST arrangements. We will not change them.

But now the Prime Minister must be getting giddy, because the past week has seen him perform another dramatic backflip. And this one shows that Labor's pre-election concerns about his plans for the GST were entirely justified. Gone are Mr Abbott's sincere promises about not meddling with the GST. Now, the Prime Minister is saying that the GST is certainly:

… something which ought to be looked at as part of the federation reform process and as part of the tax reform process.

He also talked of the need to look at spending responsibilities and revenue capacities while, at the same time, saying:

It should be possible to make these arrangements more equitable between the larger states with the smaller states no worse off.

This idea that more money can go to one state without disadvantaging any other states or increasing the amount of GST that is taken up is little more than 'magic pudding' economics. It does not add up.

Make no mistake: the threat to Tasmanian public services of Tony Abbott and the Liberals making changes to the GST is very real. Now, more than ever, we need a strong response from the Tasmanian Liberals in this place. In Launceston's The Examiner this week, the Liberal member for Bass and the Liberal member for Lyons both voiced their support for the current system. But the member for Braddon, Mr Brett Whiteley, failed to provide a comment. The most fundamental duty of a member of parliament is to fight for the interests of the people that elected them. At a time when north-west Tasmanians need a strong representative in Canberra to fight these regressive GST changes, Mr Whiteley has gone missing in action. It is time that he came out of hiding and fought against a move that could strip the Tasmanian economy of $700 million a year.

Interestingly, in a speech on 24 March this year, Mr Whiteley was quite willing to talk about the GST when he accused the Palmer United Party of:

… announcing a policy to rip hundreds of millions of dollars of GST payments out of the Tasmanian economy in a desperate attempt to win a seat at the upcoming Senate election in Western Australia.

He went further, saying that Senator Lambie is:

… faced with the challenge of standing up for the people of Tasmania or backing her party leader in ripping hundreds of millions of dollars out of the Tasmanian economy.

It is now time for Mr Whiteley to step up and back his electorate against his party leader's plans that could rip hundreds of millions of dollars out of the Tasmanian economy. For Tasmania's sake, Mr Whiteley needs to demand that the Prime Minister keeps his pre-election promise not to make any changes to the GST.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time for the discussion has expired.