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

I rise tonight to speak about the federal electorate of Canning. As a young mother, I lived in the federal seat of Canning for around 12 years. My children went to primary school in the electorate, and we used the public hospital and other services. I completed my secondary schooling in this electorate and indeed completed mature age university entrance at Kelmscott Senior High School. My father, at 93, still lives in the electorate and is active in his community of Mandurah. It is an area I know well and it is an area well and truly let down by the Abbott government. It is an electorate which showcases Abbott's broken promises and cruel budget cuts. It is an electorate which has been deserted by the Abbott government.

Let us start with unemployment. For a government that goes on and on about jobs, they have forgotten the electorate of Canning, particularly the Mandurah precinct. When Labor was in government, unemployment in Mandurah was just four per cent—and we had moved that figure down from around six per cent. Under the Abbott government it is a whopping and disgraceful 8.6 per cent, well above the national average. With Youth unemployment at an all-time high of 14.6 per cent in the Mandurah precinct coupled with adult unemployment of 8.6 per cent, imagine Abbott's unemployment waiting period playing out in the Mandurah precinct. It showed how out of touch they were when Abbott government ministers, backbenchers and senators said to young unemployed people, 'You will be okay. Fall back on your family; families will help'. I would suggest that with 8.6 per cent adult unemployment in Mandurah, that statement will be very hard for young unemployed people.

What of the Abbott government's jobs plan? It is all about punishing and blaming young people. Who could forget those comments when they were looking at forcing young people, in fact anyone under the age of 30, onto no benefits for six months and those cruel comments we heard about how it was all about people just lying on couches playing Xbox. Again it showed how out of touch they are. It is not that people in Mandurah do not want work; they are desperate for work. Under Labor, unemployment in the Mandurah precinct was four per cent. Through the Abbott government's neglect, their no-jobs plan and their no-care attitude it has now disgracefully crept up to 8.6 per cent. The Abbott government has done nothing and knows nothing about job creation.

And what about seniors? Again, this is a showcase of the Abbott government's cruel budget cuts. The federal electorate of Canning has double the average number of seniors living in the electorate. I am sure they know how the Abbott government has made their lives much harder. They are people who through their working lives have well and truly paid their way, and how have they been rewarded by the Abbott government? They have not been rewarded at all—quite the opposite. Again, they have been told: 'Suck it up, buckle up. You're in for a tough ride.'

The Abbott government wants to increase the retirement age to 70, it wants to reduce pensions and together with the Barnett government, who sit on a projected deficit into the billions, they have abolished the pensioner discounts—discounts that people in the federal electorate of Canning relied upon and were surely entitled to after a long working life, discounts on vehicle licencing, council charges, water rates and the emergency services levy. Despite the electorate of Canning under the state Labor governments being well-serviced by public transport, pensioners still rely on their cars, although there was that classic comment from the Treasurer, Mr Hockey, when he said, 'Poor people don't drive cars.' He was forced to correct that and he finally said, 'If they do drive cars, they don't drive them very far'—again, completely out of touch. Again, in the federal electorate of Canning there is twice the average number of pensioners, and yet we see the worst of the Abbott government's budget cuts being played out in that federal seat.

What about the indexation cuts the Abbott government wants to put in place on pensions? According to ACOSS, hey are likely to leave pensioners about $80 a week worse off into the future. You cannot keep cutting people's pay whether it is penalty rates or whether it is indexation. That takes money out of the economy, it forces people to reduce their costs and it puts them further and further towards the poverty line and, in the case of pensioners, under the poverty line.

According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, changes to indexation of the age pension will result in $23 billion less being paid to pensioners if this cut goes ahead by 2024. Twenty-three billion dollars being taken away from pensioners who have spent their lives paying their taxes, looking after their families and doing the right thing. Yet in their retirement all the Abbott government wants to do to the pensioners in Canning is continue to punish them.

If Mr Abbott gets his way and increases the pension age to 70, Australia will have the highest pension age in the world. That is the future for pensioners in the electorate of Canning if they continue with the Abbott government as their government.

Let's not forget that, at the same time as wanting to cut pensions and increase the retirement age, Mr Abbott has imposed a new tax on going to the GP. People in the federal electorate of Canning in some cases do rely on bulk-billing and, where they have to pay above that levy, it comes out of their pockets. The Abbott government wants to take more out of their pockets by that sneaky tax it put on visits to the GP.

Let us look at Labor's record in the electorate of Canning. we created the NBN. Mandurah has a very fast and efficient NBN. It also has a digital hub, which provides a gateway for local people young and old to improve their online skills at no cost. It also gives them the skills to access the National Broadband Network in their home. When we were in government, I was very proud to go down and be one of the people invited to the opening of that hub. The City of Mandurah, the mayor and all of the users who came to the opening were really very proud. They set their hub up in their library because their library is well utilised. It is a fantastic space. They were very proud of their digital hub. They showed me that. They had children accessing it and senior citizens. It was well-received and no doubt is well used in the precinct of Mandurah. You can get training for any level, you can do you online job applications and you can Skype. And there are all sorts of activities for children in that Mandurah hub.

The other thing that I was proud to be part of in Mandurah was opening the National Rental Affordability Scheme. Part of that funding was used to create a hub near the Mandurah train station. It will be a combination of high-density living, low-density housing, affordable housing—all sorts of housing to create a real community around that train station. Again, an initiative of the Labor government, and where has that gone? Completely scrapped.

Lots of other things happened in the electorate of Canning when Labor was in government, and I will take my time over the next couple of weeks to inform the Senate about those. But the housing that is being built at the Mandurah train station, again like the digital hub, is something I am very proud to be able to say was a Labor initiative well-received by the private developers, the council and the people who are occupying some of those new homes. The federal electorate of Canning deserves a lot better.