Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

This question time has been an example of the chaos that lies below the very, very thin veneer that this government represents. Everything you look at with this government is about chaos, deception and deceit. The questions answered today have to be looked at in the context of the two budgets that this so-called government has delivered. The first budget was an absolute disaster. The first budget was about attacking families, attacking education, attacking health and attacking those who have the least capacity to look after themselves—the weakest people in this community. That is what underpins the modus operandi of this government.

They have gone from the first budget to the second budget. The first budget was an absolute disaster; the second budget is simply out there as a political lifeboat to try to keep the government afloat long enough to get to an election. Nobody should have any doubts about what this second budget was about. They have gone from Milton Friedman—a right-wing, hard-nosed economic position—to Keynesianism in the second budget, and it is simply a political lifeboat to try to make themselves look like they care about families in this community. We know they do not care about the families in this community. You only have to look at all the things they have done since they have come to government. What have we seen recently? We have seen this green paper, where they continue attacks on the health systems in this country. They continue attacks on education. They continue their attacks on child care. No-one can trust the government; they are an untrustworthy mob if ever we have seen one—an absolutely untrustworthy mob. They are the mob who said, through their now Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, that there would be no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts to the pension, no cuts to SBS and no cuts to the ABC. Yet what have we seen? Everyone of those promises has been thrown overboard. The lies, the deceit and the mistrust just permeate the government.

Then we have the Minister for Human Services. What we see here is another attack on workers' wages and conditions. The Minister for Human Services, Minister Payne, has not stood up for the workers in the Public Service once. What has been happening to them? They have been told that they can get this modest pay increase that would mean they would lose money; they would lose pay. They are told, 'You have to accept this. We're going to strip your agreement bare. Your job security provisions in the agreement will disappear. Your working hours will increase. Your rostering will change to suit the boss. Your rights of representation by your union will disappear. Performance management and call monitoring will increase. Your personal leave will be cut. Your pay, superannuation, salary advancement and broadbanding will be moved out of the agreement. Your allowances will be diminished. There will be more part-time workers.'

We know what this government is about. This government is about Work Choices, and we see another example of Work Choices in the attacks on the Department of Human Services. This is a mob that is out of control. This is a mob that is controlled by extremists—the extremists out of the Prime Minister's office and on the back bench of the Senate. They are the ones who control this government. They are out of control. The sooner they go, the better. (Time expired)

Arthur Sinodinos (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers by ministers to all of the questions of the opposition today. May I say, I am disappointed that Labor live in the past. They continue to think of this year's budget as a replay of last year's budget, so all they can do is reheat and replay the rhetoric of last year. This is a budget which has had a wonderful reception because it has done things to promote greater investment in child care. It has done things to promote greater investment in small business through the instant asset tax write-off and the tax cut to small business.

I am disappointed that Labor cannot come onboard. In fact, there is a real dissonance here between Labor's rhetoric and Labor's actions. Today, Labor have agreed with the coalition to pass the indexation of fuel excise, which is an important reform, which will stop the real price of fuel going down and which will be a compensation measure as well as a revenue-protection measure.

Labor should stand up and admit what their actions actually betray. We have had budget issues in this country. You have a government that is moving to address those budget issues. We thank Labor for the fact that today they have agreed to support the reintroduction of indexation of fuel excise. We just want them to come on board and embrace the bipartisanship of fixing Australia's problems. Simply admit it. They are not prepared—ever—to talk about spending cuts. They are always talking about where they will raise more tax. We want lower, simpler and fairer tax where possible. Labor should get on board and admit what their actions today indicate. They know in their hearts there are budget issues that have to be addressed.

There was discussion today about the forthcoming white paper on reform of the federation. We face real issues with our federation. There are many services provided by the states but the states do not have the revenue to meet those service needs—whereas we as a federal government have access to income taxes. We raise the goods and services tax, which we pass onto the states. We have much more resilient tax bases than the states. There is where we need to have a debate. That is what the white paper on federation reform is all about. The fact that we have raised options about what may happen with health and education is an indication—not that any particular option will get up, but we need to have the discussion about how we best rearrange roles and responsibilities so that those who raise the revenue have responsibility for delivering the service and vice versa. As you know, if the revenue comes from somewhere else you may not have the same responsibility for rolling out the service as efficiently and effectively as possible.

It was the coalition that introduced the goods and services tax and the proceeds from that go to the states to fund essential community services. This is what the debate is all about. This is the debate about resilient tax bases to help, among other things, fund an appropriately sized public sector. Senator Cameron, sadly, is wrong when he talks about government policy being captured by ideologues and others. It is captured by pragmatic consideration of what we need to do to make the federation sustainable and, at the state level, for governments to be able to do their jobs.

There are some state governments on the other side of politics—in this case, South Australia, led by Jay Weatherill—who had something to say about the forthcoming white paper on federation reform. It is only a discussion paper. Mr Weatherill said: 'We've been asking them to canvas the broader range of options.' He added: 'There's a broad debate going on about Commonwealth-state relations, which is a good thing.' I was in South Australia over the weekend with some of my colleagues. It is clear that South Australia faces particular issues and concerns. They know they have to front up to more radical reform than may have been necessary in the past, and they are prepared to do things that are radical in order to bring about an improved economic performance.

It is important for us as the federal government to be open to doing what we can to bring about that better performance. Ultimately, Labor—to be electable again—will need to have a genuine reform agenda and not simply say 'no' to everything that the coalition puts up.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This feels like deja vu—day after day; same old same old—these guys, cutting everything to blazes and pretending they are not doing it: another question time, more unanswered questions and more obfuscation. Today Senator Brandis, the minister in this place, played politics instead of answering the questions put to him. He even refuted the validity of a medical journal. Senator Payne did not quite achieve the outcome she wanted and tried to dance around the issue of rights and conditions of public servants while holding up the next enterprise agreements for human services staff. Despite harking back to the Commission of Audit and alluding to the importance of budget control, Senator Brandis has a very short memory. The fact that the Treasurer has doubled the deficit—adding $68 billion in just 18 months—seems to elude those on the other side. It is a fact from which they run every single day.

There is not a week that goes by, in this place, that we do not hear about some service or other that this government wants to tear apart to fund an ever-increasing black hole. It is hard to fathom how they could be growing the deficit at the same time as cutting health and education to the tune of $60 billion. This is what comes naturally to the government of this day: to cut. The government's green paper that we have been hearing about, that Senator Brandis ran away from as fast as he could as soon as he was asked questions, is less of a discussion paper about the role of federation and more like a Liberal Party manifesto of the things they want to cut.

Cutting the federal government out of education and charging families for public schools was the debate yesterday. Today, we hear more cuts from hospitals are on the horizon; there will be $18 billion per year cut from hospitals. We have just heard the senator for South Wales speak about the fact that John Howard did bring in the GST and the money comes to the Commonwealth, but here we have the Prime Minister saying, 'I don't want to have to pay for that stuff. Good on you states; you're on your own.' Reports today reveal that this government wants to cut nearly $1 billion from early-childhood education. They are considering walking away altogether from funding preschool and kindergarten. This would be an absolutely devastating blow to children's development and a huge hit to family budgets.

Children in preschool and kindergarten are just the latest targets of Tony Abbott's assault on the good things that sustain this nation. Instead of being the mature government they promised to be—answering questions put to them—they hid, again, today behind their hypocritical attacks on Labor, blaming everyone and anyone but themselves and refusing to answer questions, running from them in the most arrogant way.

Today, however, we did see one revelation—a revelation that Labor has known all along but from which the Liberal government continues to hide. Despite the government extending Labor's program of federal funding for preschool and kindergarten, we know that was just to get them past the last election. That was until they could begin to get to a point where they feel they could wipe their hands of that responsibility altogether. The Liberal Party is so despicable in government that they are seeking to hide behind the smokescreen of this green paper so that they can abandon $840 million in funding that guarantees four-year-olds 15 hours of preschool each week, with a $129.4 million cut from the industry in New South Wales. Tony Abbott has already said, 'We have a Federation reform white paper and that will look at the question of who is going to take primary responsibility for preschool going forward,' and this government has indicated at every turn that they are not up for the job of responsibility. Blame they are good at; increasing the deficit, doubling the deficit and running from answers they are good at; but they are not good at telling the truth and they are certainly not good at looking after the essential things that every Australian needs: access to education, access to decent health and access to preschool so that you can grow up in a great nation with a vision for the future. Instead, we see this despicable act played out day after day by a government that has a miserly and myopic view of the future of this nation. It is fear driven. They use fear-laden rhetoric every day, taking away the hope and the business confidence of a generation.

Ninety per cent of the brain development of young people happens in their first five years, but it does not matter to this government that looks like it is set to rip away funding from a vital sector: the education sector of this country.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have to put some things on the record. Senator Cameron was talking about truth, integrity et cetera. Just recently we had a state election in New South Wales. There was a big board that said: 'Vote Nationals, get coal-seam gas. Authorised by Senator Doug Cameron.' It is amazing in that northern coastal area of New South Wales with the controversy over coal-seam gas. It was the previous Labor government of New South Wales that approved all the exploration licences. Every one of them was approved by the Labor Party. Mr Ian Macdonald—not the good Senator Ian Macdonald—is of course well known for his ICAC investigation, along with his colleague Mr Eddie Obeid. Perhaps Senator Dastiari might be able to fill us in a bit on them. But we were talking about integrity and honesty, and there were placards, posters, saying: 'Vote Nationals, get coal-seam gas', all approved by the Labor Party of New South Wales; none by the coalition. We talk about honesty and integrity.

Let's talk about growth. Those opposite in the Labor Party are saying that growth was 3.5 per cent for the March quarter of 2014. That is true: 3.5 per cent; it was a good year. Let's go back to March of the year before and go through the quarters of growth. For the June quarter of 2013, it was 0.6 per cent. Labor was in government. Senator Fierravanti-Wells, you will note that in the September quarter it was just 0.6 per cent. Who was in government? Labor. Then came the December quarter—and in September there was a change of government—and growth went to 0.8 per cent. Who was in government then when growth rose? Then we get to the March quarter of 2014—1.1 per cent. The figure of 3.5 per cent was a good figure. It was just 1.2 per cent when Labor was in government and almost 2 per cent in the six months of the Abbott-Truss government. So, if Senator Bullock wants to ask questions about growth, employment et cetera, he should look through the details and give us the facts, not just the blurry summary of what he thinks. It is amazing.

There was some good news today. Mr Shorten, the opposition leader, is going to back our changes to the indexation of the fuel excise. The money will go into roads. That is good news for people like us who have dirt roads in front of our front gate. I wonder if any of those on the opposite side, when they go out the front gate of their house, have a dirt road to drive on. Probably not. Incredibly—Senator Fierravanti-Wells, you might be interested to hear this—they are going to put this money back into the Roads to Recovery program, a great coalition program where money is directed to councils to do local roads. But when the land transport bill came to the House of Representatives, the Roads to Recovery program bill, Labor voted against it. They did not want the Roads to Recovery program. They said, 'We'll vote this down.' Of course, if the Senate had not changed over, if the Greens and Labor had stuck together, we would have lost the Roads to Recovery program. The member for Richmond, Justine Elliot, was so grateful when the Roads to Recovery program went through here, but she voted against it in the other place.

Labor is now saying, 'Yes, we'll back the indexation of fuel.' So they should. We need our roads fixed. Let's look at the history of fuel excise with the Labor Party. When Mr Bob Hawke won government in 1983, there was just 6.4c a litre excise on a litre of fuel. Thirteen years later, when the Hawke government was thrown out and it was the Keating government at the time, it had climbed to a massive 34c cents a litre. From 6.4c a litre to 34c a litre—that is how your fuel tax is under Labor. It then grew from 34c to 38c—

Senator Urquhart interjecting—

Hear me out. You will be interested to hear this.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What answer are you talking about?

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are talking about taxation.

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

Mr Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. I do not recall that we had a question on fuel excise. Could you draw the senator's attention to the motion, which is about all questions, but it did not include a question on fuel excise.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Urquhart. Senator Williams, I just remind you of the question before the chair.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course, Mr Deputy President. Thank you for the reminder. We will go to fuel indexation because the hypocrisy is amazing. Senator Cameron was talking about honesty and integrity. Big cuts in health—that is simply wrong. You had a dream spend on health for the next 10 years when you were in government, knowing full well you were going to lose government—a dream figure that was never budgeted for. In total, the spend in the 2015-16 budget for investment in health and sport increased to $69.7 billion. This is an increase of $2.3 billion, or 3.4 per cent, from the 2014-15 estimate. This also compares with the original forecasted amount in 2015-16 of $68.5 billion. Why do you say there are cuts in health and education? That is simply wrong. It is misleading; it is not the truth. The figures go up all the time.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's what Treasury said at estimates.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator O'Neill knows that as well, so please be honest.

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

Well, here we are. Senator Williams talks about being honest. What a joke!

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What have I ever been dishonest about?

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

Can I just remind you that, before the election, the Prime Minister of Australia went to the people with a proposition. That proposition was, if I recall, no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS. Remember all that? And now we have those opposite talking to us about honesty. I cannot believe it. The Australian people listened to what the Abbott government said at the time prior to the election.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They weren't in government then.

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

But they are now. The Abbott government are there now. Mr Abbott went to the election as the opposition leader, Senator Williams, on the basis that he told the Australian people there would be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no cuts to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts the ABC or SBS. But how they have quickly turned their backs on those promises and turned around completely to betray the Australian people that voted them in on the fact that those promises would be honoured. The Australian people voted this government in on the basis that they accepted that those promises given prior to the election would be kept. But, no; we have seen the cuts to health, we have seen the cuts to pension, we have seen the cuts to education and all the attempts to undermine all those promises. In fact, in getting the keys to the ministerial wing it did not take those opposite long before they changed their agenda completely and backed away from all of those promises. They completely backflipped. They had broken promises and bad policy in the area of health. That is what this appalling, sneaky and mean Abbott government have done.

Firstly, what did they do with hospitals? They ripped $50 billion out of hospitals in last year's budget. Then they attempted—not once, not twice—three times to levy a GP tax on Australian people.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How many?

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

Three times, Senator Conroy. Three times they attempted to bring in a tax on the sickest people in our community. For that first point of health care, where people go and need assistance, they go to their GP. But, no; what did this mob over there want to do? They wanted to tax them. They wanted them to pay to seek medical advice at that very pivotal point when people get health care. So none of that worked. The $7 GP tax on all patients did not work. Then we had the $5 GP tax on non-concessional patients and then a $20 cut in rebates for short visits. Each time, what was the reason we were told? It was because they needed to make Medicare sustainable. But that was despite the fact that the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's report shows that Australian health expenditure was actually growing. It was growing at its lowest level since records began 30 years ago. But, no; this mob wanted to cut it.

They have stood up here today and said they have a green paper, it is a draft and it is going to have lots of things in it. How can we trust them? How can we trust this government when they say, 'We are not going to do this,' when everything they said before the election they have backflipped on? They have backflipped on no cuts to health; they have backflipped—absolutely backflipped—on no cuts to education; they have backflipped on no cuts to the ABC; and they have backflipped on no cuts to SBS. Yet they stand here and say, 'This is a draft green paper; believe us when we say we are not going to cut hospitals.' Let us get it very clear: we do not believe what you say. Nor do the Australian people believe what you say. The people out there who believed what you told them before the last election are not going to believe what you are telling them now. And nor should they because you have not been trustworthy with them. You have not earned the trust of the Australian people. You have broken so many of those promises that they will not believe you now and they will not believe you in the future. That is a sensible thing for them to do because you cannot be trusted. Your word is broken every time. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.