James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the appropriation bills 2024-25 and the supplementary additional appropriation bills 2023-24. Combined, Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2024-2025, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2024-2025 and the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2024-2025 provide for funds from consolidated revenue for the 2024-25 financial year. Collectively these bills provide for expenditure worth $187.5 billion to support the operation of government for the financial year 2024-25.

The opposition will be supporting these bills; however, the budget handed down with these appropriation bills fails Australians. Australians needed a budget that got back to basics, and this was a budget that didn't. This means we needed a budget that restored our standard of living by finally addressing inflation and the pressures being felt by families at the check-out and in their energy bills, a budget that restored prosperity and created opportunity by supporting small businesses and helping young Australians into a home, and a budget that restored budget discipline and honesty by restraining spending, by bringing back the fiscal guardrails and a tax-to-GDP gap, and by delivering a structural surplus, not a windfall surplus.

Labor's budget failed all of these tests. It simply delivered higher spending. Prime Minister Albanese and Treasurer Chalmer's budget tried to put bandaids on bullet wounds rather than deliver structural solutions to the cost-of-living crisis that Australians are facing under this Labor government. This Labor government would rather give handouts to Australians facing energy and housing pressure than tackle the issues that are driving these pressures: the supply of energy and the supply of new houses. The fact is that Australians still won't see the $275 reduction in their energy bills that the Prime Minister promised 97 times before the last election. In fact, many Australians would need to see a $1,000 cut in their power bills just to get to the promised $275 reduction.

On a similar basis, the Prime Minister promised cheaper mortgages to the Australian people if he was elected. But three years later the average Australian householder with a mortgage is $35,000 worse off, and according to experts this budget is likely to simply keep those rates higher for longer. As Michael Blythe, the chief economist at PinPoint Macro, said, the budget 'adds to the higher-for-longer interest rate thesis'. And Cherelle Murphy, the chief economist at EY, said

… the Budget has thwarted the task of tightening the structural deficit.

It also undermines the Government's inflation forecast—which was lowered below the Reserve Bank's forecast and assumed to drop into the 2-3 per cent target band by the end of this year.

The government's energy bill relief is simply a 'political trick', according to former Reserve Bank board member Warwick McKibbin, and 'smoke and mirrors', according to KPMG's chief economist, Brendan Rynne. What no-one else has called it is a long-term solution to Labor's high energy prices. So this was a bad budget. It was a bad budget and the wrong budget for these economic times, and we will continue to hold the government to account for it.

In addition, the supplementary additional appropriation bill of 2023-24 provides for the general purpose of government for the fiscal year 2023-24. Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2023-2024 provides a further $2.1 billion for the ordinary services of government, including $1.17 billion for the Social Services portfolio. Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2023-2024 provides just under half a billion dollars for certain expenditures relating to non-operating costs, including payments to the states and local government. The majority of this, $452 million, is for the Department of Defence. This expenditure allows for a reclassification from 'operating' to 'capital'.

The opposition will be supporting the passage of these bills, as we have the passage of the initial appropriation bill of 2023-24 and the additional appropriation bill of 2024-25. I also note the second reading amendment to the motion circulated by the Greens to progress these bills. The coalition knows the important role that gas has as a transition fuel to net zero and will be opposing that amendment.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor has presented this budget while the climate is collapsing around us, while ecological systems are crashing and while millions of Australians are getting smashed by a cost-of-existence crisis, and Labor's response to this is not the strong, urgent action that these challenges demand. Labor has responded with a business-as-usual budget that is trying to convince Australians that these great challenges can be solved by continuing the very actions that have caused them or that have allowed them to happen. It's classic modern Labor—talk up an absolute storm and then abjectly fail to take strong and urgent action.

This budget locks in worsening economic inequality, and it will exacerbate the breakdown of the planet's climate and the ecosystems that ultimately support all life on the earth. It's a budget for the ultra-wealthy. It's a budget for the big corporations. It's a budget for the donors that line the coffers of the Australian Labor Party. On so many issues—climate change, the cost-of-living crisis—people are telling us it's getting harder and harder to tell the Labor and Liberal parties apart. This budget makes it even more clear that the political establishment in this place—the establishment political parties that make up the government and the opposition—are growing closer and closer together.

If a fire is burning, the last thing any reasonable person would do is pour more petrol on it. But that's exactly what this budget is doing. The Australian Labor Party continues to pump tens of billions of dollars into fossil fuel subsidies in every budget, and this budget is no exception Labor continues to put money into developing new coal and gas projects, and this budget is no exception. Our planet is literally cooking, and the cooking of our planet—global heating—is caused by burning fossil fuels and by logging native forests, but this budget does nothing meaningful to address those causes.

Not content that the world is now on track for a terrifying 2½ to three degrees of warming by the turn of the century, Labor continues to put public money into mapping new coal and gas reserves and providing the results of that mapping, paid for by the Australian people, to the big coal, gas and petroleum corporations—for nothing. These are public subsidies that underwrite corporate superprofits. Labor has opened up 47,000 square kilometres of ocean for the big gas corporations, the gas cartel, to exploit. Since Labor came into power about two years ago, the government has approved eight new gas projects and five new coal projects. Colleagues, the science is clear: no new coal and gas is the bare minimum that is necessary to ensure a safe climate on this planet. Yet Labor continues to approve new coal and gas mines hand over fist.

The government has also allocated, and it's in this budget, $1.5 billion of public money to develop the Middle Arm site, which will turn Darwin Harbour into a giant gas export facility and a giant petrochemical hub. Again, the petroleum, coal and gas corporations make off with crisis superprofits, and the petrochemical corporations make off with crisis superprofits, underwritten by billions in public subsidies delivered by the Australian Labor Party to corporate donors in the fossil fuel cartel. That's what's going on here. This is necro-capitalism. And this budget, in the face of the great challenges of our times, is an abject failure.

On Middle Arm, three-quarters of that site, which is going to receive $1½ billion in public subsidies, is set aside for gas and petrochemical companies. There is no way that that should be happening while the planet is heating so rapidly and with such devastating impacts on people around the world, on our ecosystems and on so many different species, many of which are on a pathway to extinction. But that problem is not just being permitted and allowed to happen by Labor; it's being facilitated by Labor, bankrolled by taxpayers.

This budget also locks in worsening inequality. We have a cost-of-living crisis caused by decades of neoliberal policies enshrined by the political establishment—Labor and Liberal. They've created an economy in which big corporations make massive profits, the ultrawealthy are making out like bandits and ordinary people are getting smashed. That has resulted in record inequality, and people are hurting. Millions of Australians are struggling. People are skipping meals to pay the rent. People are falling behind on their power bills to pay for GP visits.

Neither Labor nor Liberal will even acknowledge the excessive corporate profits that are driving this inequality and this cost-of-living crisis, whether it's the profits of the banks, those of the supermarkets, those of the energy corporations or those of property developers and speculators. The share of the economy that goes to corporate profits in Australia has never been higher, and the share of the economy that goes to people through their wages has never been lower. Colleagues, if that's not sounding the alarm bells for you then you are simply not paying attention. Of course, that disparity in income and wealth is not a bug; it's a feature of the system. It hasn't happened by accident; it's happening by design. In the Greens, we've done everything we can to reveal the price gouging of the big supermarkets and propose solutions, but instead Labor has decided to chase headlines rather than prioritise genuine help.

The neoliberal parties in this place, the political establishment, have backed in a strategy to make distressed mortgage holders and renters pay more. Rent and mortgages are going through the roof. The solutions are there, but the government won't pull the levers it has to address those issues. We have a full-blown housing crisis, with millions of people—renters and mortgage holders—in housing stress. But this isn't a policy failure from the establishment parties; this is a feature of the policies of the establishment parties. Those establishment parties have created this system by passing laws that benefit big corporations and the ultrawealthy, robbing an entire generation of lower- and middle-class Australians of a future.

Rents are rising faster than wages. People are working harder than they ever have and holding more jobs than they ever had, and they still can't get ahead. People are doing everything that is being asked of them, but they still can't make ends meet. The system, colleagues, is absolutely broken. Politics is a mess, and someone needs to clean it up. The big corporations and the ultrawealthy have got their hooks into the establishment parties in this place, but they haven't got their hooks into the Australian Greens. People understand that politics is a mess. More and more people understand that the system is not working for them. More and more people understand that the establishment parties and the political class in this country are not acting in their interests. They see billions going to nuclear submarines while people can't afford to see a doctor. They see property speculators getting tens of billions of dollars in handouts every year, which makes it impossible for people to buy their first home. They see the climate crisis and the ecological crisis getting worse but the establishment parties giving billions of dollars every year to the big fossil fuel corporations, who are making off with crisis super profits.

Now, we're a year away from a federal election and we in the Greens step into that campaign as the only party ready to take on the big corporations, to take on the ultrawealthy and to fight for people. We want to make price gouging and profiteering illegal. We want to end the tens of billions of dollars in tax handouts going to property investors and property speculators through negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. We want to freeze and cap rent increases, and we want to establish a public property developer to build homes, like we used to back in the day, which can be sold and rented for prices that ordinary people can afford. We are the only party that is in here fighting for renters. We are the party of people who are locked out of housing and facing homelessness. We are the party for people who can't afford to feed their families because they're being priced gouged at the supermarket checkout. We are the party for people who can't afford to see a GP.

It's never been more important to stop coal and gas. We've got a government that has basically thrown its hands up and given up on protecting nature and protecting the environment. We are here to fight for the future of the Great Barrier Reef. We are here to fight for the beautiful, magnificent forests of places like Tasmania and New South Wales. We are here to fight for the rivers that are the lifeblood of our nation, and we need to be very clear-eyed about what is threatening those places. It is big corporations who are only interested in greed and profits, and it is the political class in this place—the establishment parties, the Labor Party, the Liberal Party and the National Party—that those big corporations and their corporate donors have got their hooks into. And how have they got their hooks into them? They give them millions of dollars every year in political donations.

The system is broken. The system is cooked. The Greens are here not just to point that out but to fight—to fight for nature, to fight for a liveable climate, to fight for people so they are able to have a fair go, afford food and groceries, pay the rent, pay their mortgage payments and go to see a GP. We are here to fight to wipe student debt. We are here to fight to put dental and mental health into Medicare. We have a bold, positive vision for the future, and we don't take political donations from the big corporations who are making off with crisis super profits while they are cooking the planet and destroying nature. That is the bold vision that the Greens will put before the Australian people at the next election.

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a rare opportunity to provide some comments on the government's fiscal strategy. As senators make their contributions about the state of the budget, it will become apparent that the way you run a budget and the way you run your policy priorities is a reflection of the colour and the values of the government. If we were to go back a hundred years and look at what Alfred Deakin was saying about the Labor Party then, we could basically just repeat what Deakin said, which was that the problem with the Labor Party is that it is beholden to vested interests. That is a structural problem. The problem the Australian people have is that the government that is supposed to be governing for them is only interested in working hard for the people that support the Labor government financially and organisationally. Effectively that means that the government has spent two years running the policy of the nation and running the budget of the nation for the benefit of the rent seekers and the bloodsuckers which support its political movement.

In relation to the budget, I say as an old accountant—probably not always the best accountant but certainly an old accountant—there is a revenue side and an expenditure side. On the revenue side, the government has had to raise taxes, including breaking a number of promises because it has had to fund its spending, which has increased significantly in order to support its vested interests. When you strip it all back, the real problem the Australian people have is that they have a government that will never solve the problems which the people are facing, such as housing and inflation. These are things the government can't solve because of its structural impediments. These are the structural and public impediments which come from being a government for vested interests.

In relation to the revenue side of the budget, there was this hilarious start to the year where the government announced it was going to break its promise on the stage 3 tax cuts. It said it was going to give most people a bigger tax cut. But helpfully the Parliamentary Budget Office was able to do some work for me and was able to tell me that in the medium term the Australian people will be paying more tax, not less tax, because of this government's tax policy.

As I've said before, I as a parliamentarian was very surprised to have lived through this era when this parliament reversed one of the only improvements to the tax system in recent years when the parliament voted to reintroduce a tax bracket which was abolished in the last parliament. The reintroduction of that tax bracket means there will be a permanent re-insertion of bracket creep. The reason that the budget office says that for an average income for full-time employees it will rise from 25.1 per cent in 2022-23 to almost 26 per cent by 2023-34 is the reintroduction of bracket creep. So, sure, the government might be claiming that some people will get a bigger tax cut today, but in the medium term more people will be paying higher taxes because the government has reinserted tax brackets which the last parliament removed. The reason the last parliament removed that tax bracket was that it was a tax on aspiration. When you go and work an extra shift or do a second job, you are now going to be punished because of the new tax structure the government has put in place.

So, in reality, we have higher income taxes, but we also have higher taxes on superannuation and we also have a higher tax on franking credits. The government wanted to bank higher revenues through playing around with franking credits—$40 million. We were able to demonstrate through the legislation committee's inquiry into this bill that, in fact, that was a very strange attempt to play around with capital markets which I'm not sure the government really understands or comprehends. Certainly the minister, Stephen Jones, seemed to be quite clueless. But that is an attempt to book $40 million in higher taxes on franking credits, which the government said it would never touch.

The government also promised before the election that it would not play around with superannuation taxes, but the government has announced a plan to increase taxes on superannuation by almost $1 billion. The centrepiece for this plan is to introduce a tax on unrealised gain. When I was learning and working as an accounting at Ernst & Young, one core principle was that you pay tax when you have generated a profit or realised something. This policy of government would, in fact, impose, for the first time in Australian law, an unrealised gain tax. That means that, even if you haven't booked any gains, you have to pay tax. Perhaps if it's on a lumpy asset, you might be subject to a lock-in period. You might be a farmer. There are a whole lot of flies on this policy. This is the consequence of needing to raise taxes for the purpose of increasing expenditure.

So where has the money gone? The government has been very good at setting up major slush funds. The Housing Australia Future Fund has been given $10 billion to invest in housing. So far, it has spent $30 million and hasn't built a single house. It has, though, been able to use taxpayer funds to hire a slew of public servants, including a six- or eight-person corporate and government affairs team, so that people who work for Housing Australia can walk around this building, as lobbyists for Housing Australia, effectively, and build no houses. So we have a government that wants to increase taxes to establish funds like the Housing Australia Future Fund and the Reconstruction Fund.

The Reconstruction Fund is strangely named. I'm not sure what we're reconstructing from. If you look at the broader use of reconstruction in Australian history, it was widely canvassed after the Second World War that there would be policies of reconstruction in which both major parties had a say. But this Reconstruction Fund, which has become a retirement home for union officials—a bit like an industry super fund board—has been given a lot of money. We discovered during Senate estimates that it's been having sham meetings, and that, in fact, it had a number of meetings on the same day to meet its legislative obligation to have meetings. But, again, this fund, which has been given $15 billion, hasn't invested it in anything either. So there's this very strange situation where tax dollars are going to these slush funds. The funds themselves are so poorly governed that they can't spend any money, or they are simply spending money on government affairs people and corporate affairs people to go around this building and do God knows what.

The other piece on expenditure that is quite curious is the expansion of the Public Service in Canberra. We've seen 12,000 public servants hired at a very large cost to the budget. Of course, we need to have a reasonable number of people working in the public service to provide the services that people expect, but a massive expansion of this magnitude after we've been through COVID seems like a very strange priority. Overall, you measure the effectiveness of a fiscal strategy by where you're going in the medium term. In the medium term, although we're looking at a surplus this year, we're looking at deficits next year of $28 billion and then $42 billion and $26 billion and then $24 billion. So we're looking at over $100 billion of deficits over the forwards. It's a significant position for the Commonwealth to take after crowing about having a surplus this year. That happened because the government locked in structurally higher spending over the medium term. They're locking in higher spending to pay for these slush funds and to pay for these decisions to increase the size of the Public Service. This goes back to my governing thought about the government's fiscal policy, which is that it really is calibrated finely to try and suit the interests to which Labor is beholden—public sector unions, and then, of course, paying off their favourite fellow travellers with policy over the cycle.

Ultimately, the most depressing part of the fiscal debate is the lack of ambition. I am still surprised that we have wound back the only structural income tax reform that has been delivered by the last few parliaments, and now we have a position where the government has no plan to deal with bracket creep and no plan to cut taxes across the board, and has favoured this crony capitalism where you set up these massive government slush funds, put all your mates on the boards, give grants to your mates—if they ever get around to having a proper board meeting—and hire a whole lot of public servants to run around this building doing so-called government affairs. It's not a very good position for the country to be in: to have no ambition on the tax side. We know that Australians pay very high rates of income tax. If you look at the OECD data or the IMF data, you will see that people and the companies in this country have a very high burden of taxation. So I would have thought that any party of government would be wanting to develop an agenda to try and lighten the load on companies and on people, but all we've seen from this government is a rolling back of reforms of past parliaments with zero ambition. That is what is most depressing about the fiscal debate.

As we roll into the last year of this term, we hope that the government might awaken from its slumber. It spent two years feathering the nests of all the people who lined up—the conga line of people who want to have their pay-off for handing out things at the elections, helping out with the preselections, all the people who work for the unions. But they've paid them off now. They've done pattern bargaining, they've done 'same job, same pay' and they've got the ABCC back—well, not back in place. They've done all the stuff the super funds want. They're now trying to establish a system where the super funds own all the houses. They've got the Housing Australia Future Fund giving payments to super funds. They've got a bill in the parliament that's going to give the super funds a tax cut if they build build-to-rent properties.

So the government have calibrated all their policy in favour of this small group of institutions: unions, super funds and class action law firms. All the fellow travellers have been paid off for two years. So I would say that, after two years of governing for a small set of vested interests, it would be a good opportunity for the government to think about how it can solve some of the problems that are facing the Australian people. What can the government do that's actually going to move the needle on housing. How can they get some houses built? Their supply policies—the Housing Australia Future Fund and the housing targets—are a disgrace and an embarrassment. The only demand-side policy they have on housing, which is the Help to Buy Scheme, will never pass the Senate, and they've got no other ideas. Inflation is getting worse in Australia, whereas it's getting better in the United States and other economies. So I wonder, as we wind down the clock on this contribution and also on this parliamentary term later this year or next year, whether the government will spend any time thinking about the problems facing the average worker. Will the government do anything on housing? Will it do anything on inflation? Will it do anything for small business? I won't hold my breath.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just before I give the call to Senator Scarr, Senator McKim, I believe you're seeking leave to move your amendment on sheet 2660?

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I do seek leave.

Leave granted.

I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate is of the view that:

(a) public money should not be used to support the new extraction and burning of coal and gas, while there is a climate crisis;

(b) the proportion of the $566 million for Geoscience Australia to map coal and gas reserves and providing this information to coal and gas corporations for free should be removed from the budget; and

(c) the $1.5 billion equity injection to facilitate the construction of the Middle Arm Gas and Petrochemical Hub should be removed from the Contingency Reserve."

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I really do compliment my friend and colleague Senator Bragg on his contribution. The more effusive I am with my compliments to Senator Bragg the more difficult it will be for him to leave the chamber as I give my contribution. He's such a courteous individual. He can leave if he wants to, if he has other things to do, and he can watch my contribution later on ParlView, which I'm sure he'll do. I see he's taken the opportunity, as well, not that I can reflect on that.

One of the most terrifying things I've seen in relation to post-budget commentary in recent times is an article by Michael Read, economics correspondent for the Australian Financial Review. For those listening to this debate, you're hearing the words of different politicians putting forward their own perspectives, and that's what this place does, but I want to cut through that and go to the words of the Reserve Bank of Australia. These are the professional economists whose role it is to make decisions about interest rates. When they make a decision to either keep interest rates where they are or to increase interest rates, that has consequences for every single Australian, especially those who have mortgages over their homes, so we should listen very carefully to what the Reserve Bank of Australia is saying post budget. From my perspective, that provides the Australian public with the best objective evidence as to whether the budget reflected in these appropriation bills has been successful or unsuccessful.

We've now received that evidence, in relation to the latest consideration of interest rates by the Reserve Bank of Australia, and it is deeply disturbing. What is especially disturbing is that the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, member for Rankin, came out after the Reserve Bank's statement by the Reserve Bank governor, Michele Bullock, who is an expert of the first order, and said: 'I don't tell the Reserve Bank of Australia governor, Michele Bullock, how to do her job, and the governor doesn't tell me how to do my job.' Let's consider that. We have the Treasurer of Australia, who's responsible for the budget and fiscal policy in this country, defending his position and saying: 'Well, the Reserve Bank of Australia governor shouldn't tell me what to do. I don't tell her what to do.' We've got the Reserve Bank of Australia raising concerns about inflation and therefore interest rates, and that's how the Treasurer responds. That's how the Treasurer responds to comments made by one of the most important people in our system of government, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, who leads the decision-making process on interest rate changes. It is deeply, deeply concerning that the Treasurer of Australia would make that comment: 'I don't tell RBA governor Michele Bullock how to do her job, and the governor doesn't tell me how to do my job.'

If you were in any organisation in any position which required close collaboration, dealing with extraordinarily complicated matters to achieve an outcome, and you had someone who has a leadership role in achieving that goal making that sort of comment—this is someone in a senior position in this country, with their hand on the lever of interest rate policy—you'd be astounded. It is deeply disturbing that we have the Treasurer of Australia making that comment. Quite a few economists have come out and said that the economy is in burnout mode. What they mean by that is that the federal Labor government has its foot on the government-spending accelerator and the Reserve Bank of Australia, at the same time, has its foot on the brake, trying to address the inflationary problem through monetary policy—higher interest rates. What do you get? You get a burnout. And the comment from our Treasurer is: 'I don't tell RBA governor Michele Bullock how to do her job.' I should say this is Michele Bullock, graduate of the London School of Economics, who's worked at the Reserve Bank of Australia for decades. The Treasurer doesn't tell her how to do her job. Well, that's great. 'And the governor doesn't tell me how to do my job.' Maybe—just maybe—the Treasurer of Australia should actually listen to what the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia is saying, because the comments of the Reserve Bank of Australia reflect what economists told us following the last budget.

I want to quote from some of those comments following the last budget. I quoted them when the budget was brought down. Independent economist Chris Richardson agreed that budget spending had made the RBA's juggle trickier:

My key test for the budget was that it not poke the inflationary bear. I don't think it's passed that test. I've consistently been saying for a long time that I didn't see a rate cut until the end of this year but that's starting to slip into next year.

So many Australians are struggling in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, trying to pay those increased mortgage rates and trying to do things like put the fuel in the car, pay for groceries and pay the electricity bill, and I'm hearing from colleagues—and I've heard it again this week—that, when they attend sporting events, numbers are down in terms of children's sport. Why? It is because people are cutting back anywhere they can in terms of their discretionary spending. That's what's happening out there at the coalface.

Another economist said 'a lot of spending in the budget and a lot of it is not particularly targeted'. They said the government 'haven't quite hit the mark on reducing inflation'. Another economist said, 'We were left disappointed on all three fronts.' Ross Greenwood, whom people would be familiar with, said, 'This is the biggest taxing government in 23 years.' Steven Hamilton, economist, said:

This is the most irresponsible budget in recent memory. The government set itself a simple standard: not to make the Reserve Bank's job harder. Michele Bullock—

the Reserve Bank of Australia governor—

may just choke on her cornflakes.

That's what they said immediately after the budget.

I have extracts from a transcript of an interview with the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, who Jim Chalmers doesn't want to tell him how to do his job—maybe Michele Bullock should change careers, move into the political sphere and actually do the Treasurer's job. I'm sure she could do it much better than the current Treasurer. In an interview after the last interest rate decision of the Reserve Bank, which kept interest rates high, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia said:

And as I noted earlier, on average households have reduced their saving rate by more than we thought to support their spending. It's tough just to keep up with essentials—groceries, petrol, health, education, rents, insurance expenses, I could go on, they're all going up.

But the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, doesn't want the governor to tell him how to do his job. It sounds to me like the Reserve Bank of Australia governor is right on the mark. I'll quote further:

So, what does this all mean? Well, the recent data have been mixed but, overall, they reinforced the need to remain vigilant to the upside risks to inflation.

That's what the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia said—not a politician. She also said:

We need a lot to go our way if we are going to bring inflation back down to the 2-3 per cent target range. The Board does need to be confident that inflation is moving sustainably toward target and it will do what is necessary to achieve that outcome.

This is deeply concerning. Are we going to have an interest rate rise by the end of the year? This is what the governor said. Those opposite, including the Minister for Finance, tell us in this place, 'We're putting downward pressure on inflation; there's downward pressure on inflation.' The Governor of the Reserve Bank, the governor who Jim Chalmers does not want to tell him how to do his job, says—

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator, I ask you to please refer to people in the other place by their correct titles—that is, the Treasurer.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought I did say that. This is what the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia said:

So, yes the Board did discuss the case for increasing interest rates at this meeting. In the end it decided that its current strategy of staying the course and trying to bring inflation back down by bringing supply back to demand was the right way to go.

I repeat that:

So, yes the Board did discuss the case for increasing interest rates …

So—although all the economists said we needed a budget which would put downward pressure on inflation—at the first meeting of the Reserve Bank of Australia following the budget, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia said the board had actually considered increasing interest rates, which would have the impact of increasing mortgage repayments for thousands and thousands—millions—of Australians. This happened after the budget. The next meeting of the Reserve Bank of Australia is in August, so Australians are going to have to grapple with the current interest rate crisis until at least August. We know that at the meeting in June the Reserve Bank of Australia wasn't considering cutting interest rates; it was actually considering putting them up. That is deeply concerning for every Australian with a mortgage and for first-home buyers who are trying to enter the property market in extremely difficult circumstances.

John Rolfe from the Daily Telegraph said to the governor:

You mentioned that the case for a rate increase was discussed by the Board. Was a case for a cut considered and is the likelihood of an increase in rates increasing?

The Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia said:

No, the case for a cut was not considered.

But an increase was. The governor went on:

I can't tell them—

that's the Australian people—

when they can expect some relief—

in the form of interest rate cuts. 'I can't tell them,' said the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia. So, to all those millions of Australians who, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, are trying to pay their mortgages and make the interest payments for their family homes, the Reserve Bank governor, honestly, is saying:

I can't tell them when they can expect some relief. What I can say to them is I am very conscious that the high interest rates are hurting particular sectors of the economy more than others. The interest rate is the only tool we have and it's a blunt instrument. I do understand it affects different people in different ways. It is our only tool to bring inflation down and, again, what I would say and I've said it a number of times before, is that interest rates are part of what's hurting them but inflation is really hurting them. Businesses are feeling it because all of their input costs are going up and if they can't pass it on that's obviously hurting them. Consumers are feeling it when they go to the supermarkets. So, again, I can't tell them when we will bring interest rates down, but I can say that my laser focus and the Board's laser focus is bringing inflation down and that will help them. That will really help them.

That's the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia. It seems to me the governor is extremely well connected with the cost-of-living crisis which all Australians are going through.

I've read you substantial quotes from the transcript of the media conference given by the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia. In response to that media conference, the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers MP, member for Rankin, said:

I don't tell [RBA governor Michele Bullock] how to do her job, and the governor doesn't tell me how to do my job.

It doesn't give you much confidence, does it? It doesn't give you much confidence that the Labor government has what it takes to deal with the inflation problem. They've got their foot on the accelerator in terms of government spending—an extra $315 billion of government spending since this government came to power. At the same time, the Reserve Bank of Australia is doing its best to bring down inflation. But at their last meeting, the meeting immediately following the bringing down of the budget, they didn't consider a cut to interest rates but only an increase to interest rates. These are not the words of a politician but the words of the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia. That, from my perspective, provides objective evidence to every single Australian that the Labor government has the wrong fiscal policy for these current times.

Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, to say that this is a budget of missed opportunities would I think be an extreme understatement, which is unfortunate not only the people of Tasmania that both you and I, Acting Deputy President Polley, represent but also for Australia's environment. As the shadow minister for the environment, I get the opportunity to have a very close look at what this government is doing—or what they at least say they're doing—in relation to environmental policy. And not only is it a budget of missed opportunities, as I said, but it's far worse.

Before the last election and not long afterwards, we were promised that this government would bring in what they call the Nature Positive Plan—that we would have laws that would be better for the environment and better for business. And it was referenced in this budget—not because things are on track, not because things are going well, not because the policies and promises that were made by the government in the lead-up to the election were honoured but because they have not been. Part of that promise around the Nature Positive Plan relates to the fact that those laws that were supposed to be better for the environment and better for business—a great little catchphrase—would be in parliament by the end of last year.

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How did that go?

Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cadell asks, 'How did that go?' Well, I can tell you. Given that the Albanese Labor government has had to budget further funding to continue consulting on these proposed laws to replace the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which are Australia's federal environmental approval laws, it's not going well—and there is no end in sight. In fact, the Prime Minister and his environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, have both conceded that environmental approval laws will not be introduced into this parliament by the end of this parliamentary term—that is, before the next election. That is an egregious breach of faith with the voters of Australia. Instead, though, we do get more money being ploughed into this continued consultation process, a further $5.3 million to progress legislation reforms that, I add, we were promised would be in place, passed through this parliament, enacted, better for business, better for the environment. But no, we don't have that; we have further funding being spent on that.

Further, the budget doesn't actually do a thing to assist the environment. There is no new money being invested in on-ground environmental activity—the things that make a difference: repairing damage to the environment and assisting community groups to remedy problems in their local environment. There are amazing volunteer groups right across this country that know their country best, know what needs to happen, know how to unclog a river of debris, know how to fix a riparian zone and know how to rehabilitate landscapes. There is not a dollar for that sort of thing, but there are hundreds of millions of dollars for more bureaucrats in the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.

Would you believe that, since the election, 2,300 bureaucrats have been employed in that department in Canberra? I'm sure every one of those bureaucrats are very well meaning and want to protect our environment, and they want to work with stakeholders to ensure that we have a resilient environment in this country moving forward. But I don't think they're going to be able to achieve a lot from their carpeted, air-conditioned offices here in Canberra for the far-flung corners of our country that need hundreds of millions of dollars in investments to achieve the needed outcomes. In addition to those 2,300 new bureaucrats, $96 million is being spent on speeding up approvals under our federal environmental approval laws, which I've already referenced.

So, we've got broken laws. The government promised to fix them. They haven't, but they've got to spend nearly $100 million on top of employing 2,300 bureaucrats to speed up approvals. I'm not much of a gambling man, but I would be willing to wager that nearly $100 million will not make one iota of difference in the time taken to approve or reject projects under our environmental approval legislation in this country. It is a waste of money to plough it in this way, which doesn't tangibly improve outcomes for our environment and doesn't advance the agenda of this government the way we were promised it would.

Meanwhile, while they're pouring this money into their Canberra focused approach to environmental policy and law reform by employing an extra 2,300 bureaucrats and putting another $100 million into speeding up reforms—why that is needed I do not know—the Australian Institute of Marine Science had almost $36 million wiped from its annual appropriations and nearly $85 million taken out of its total net resourcing. The Australian Institute of Marine Science is the government funded entity that looks after the Great Barrier Reef and surrounding areas. They are the ones that do our world-leading science on that very, very important, valuable and fragile environment. Why is this government, which talks a big game on being committed to the reef, reef health and the community and the economy sustained by the reef, taking money away from on-ground action outside of Canberra up near the reef? AIMS is based in Townsville. Why is it having those reductions? There has been $36 million wiped out in one year and there's been a total net resourcing reduction of $85 million. That doesn't make sense to me. The rhetoric of this government is all about protecting the reef, improving reef health and castigating the former government for its terrible record. Now it's taking money away from this world-leading agency. It just doesn't make sense. But I guess they have to get the money to pay for these extra bureaucrats in Canberra from somewhere. They may as well go to Townsville and take it out of there!

Why don't we go to the Bureau of Meteorology? It's an important agency certainly as far as this government seems to be concerned. They say that they're climate champions and that climate science is exceptionally important, but the Bureau of Meteorology is having more than $82 million cut from its annual appropriations. That's $82 million being cut from our government funded national weather agency. I don't know how this works. Why are we taking money out of an agency charged with assisting the Australian community understand the weather and what it means and with long-term forecasting and predictions to help farmers make decisions about how they stock or destock their farms, what crops they plant and whether they need to plan to irrigate in a certain season or not? There have been terrible failures on the part of this agency around some of those long-term forecasts, so why, then, is this government off the back of that, instead of investing more in frontline meteorological activity and in the Bureau of Meteorology in totality, taking money out? I do not get that approach. Again, it probably speaks to this government's priorities. It's big on rhetoric, but when it comes to on-ground action and supporting frontline science that actually makes a difference to our country it's saying: 'We've got to find the funding to employ these extra 2,300 bureaucrats in Canberra somewhere; we may as well take it out of the Bureau of Meteorology. Why not?'

But there was a winner in the budget under this Labor government. It was one that I did not expect. That was the Environmental Defenders Office. It was an election promise honoured by this government. I have to give them credit for that. They said they would, and they have. They provided at the time of the election about $8.3 million over the next three years for the Environmental Defenders Office. This organisation, some might recall, was castigated in no uncertain terms by a Federal Court judge, Natalie Charlesworth. She pointed out that this organisation, funded by the Albanese Labor government, had confected evidence, coached witnesses and manipulated facts to suit a particular case they were bringing against the Santos Barossa project in northern Australia. That Federal Court judge did not mince her words. So egregious was their conduct that the federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, ordered her department secretary, Mr Fredericks, to review the funding of that organisation. We don't know what was in that review. We don't know what was asked for. We do know that the review apparently found, 'There's nothing to see here.' So, on the one hand, you have a Federal Court judge saying: 'This is terrible. This government needs to check its actions.' Of the other hand, you have a government funding them and a review saying, 'There's nothing to see here.' Funnily enough, before the review had even finished coming off the printer, this government had in these budget papers committed to ongoing funding for this organisation.

I might remind everyone that it's the Environmental Defenders Office, funded by this Labor government, that has hung the axe over the Tasmanian salmon industry. More than 400 jobs in the town of Strahan on the West Coast of Tasmania are uncertain today because this government funds an organisation that seeks to unpick the approvals that that industry operates under. It is that organisation that is funded by, in honouring a promise, this Labor government. Again, it goes to priorities.

While we're on Tasmania, I think it is important to focus on some of the things that weren't in the budget for Tasmania. There was, frankly, no funding for infrastructure around things like the South East Irrigation Scheme. I think that's a real failure. We've led the way when it comes to converting dry, unproductive land into productive farm country. The fact that there wasn't a dollar in there for projects like the South East Irrigation Scheme, to enable farmers to buy in and progress their projects, was a real lost opportunity. Roads funding shifted from a Liberal electorate to a Labor electorate—from Braddon to Lyons. I'm sure Mr Mitchell, the member for Lyons, is very happy with his Lyell Highway funding, but the people of Braddon are not happy that the funding was taken from the Bass Highway program to fund that.

Then, of course, Labor have stuck to their promise of funding for a Hobart waterfront stadium, but, sadly, this Labor government has refused to protect that funding when it comes to GST revenue. This government, while promising to fund a stadium on Hobart's waterfront—$240 million—has said: 'You know what, Tassie? We are not going to exempt that from GST calculations, and therefore you're going to have to pay for the whole lot.' What's funny, though—and this is what really makes my blood boil—is that the Treasurer of Australia, Jim Chalmers, has exempted a stadium in his own electorate from GST calculations. But, when asked by the Tasmanian members and senators who signed the letter, he said, 'No, we will not.' Of course, there was not a single Labor senator or member from Tasmania that signed that letter. There's still space on that letter. It's still sitting on my desk, and I invite any Tasmanian senator or member from the Labor Party who wants to sign it to sign it, because it's the right thing to do by our state. Sporting infrastructure is a great thing, and, of course, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If the Queensland electorate that Dr Chalmers, the Treasurer of Australia, represents, which is getting a stadium, is worthy of receiving a GST exemption—his stadium in his electorate—then I would argue that Tasmania, a smaller state, a smaller jurisdiction, with a smaller capacity to raise its own revenue, certainly would be worthy of receiving a GST exemption on this funding.

To date, we've heard nothing out of the Tasmanian Labor members and senators, except for Mr Mitchell, who I heard on radio defending the Treasurer's decision to not grant this exemption and acting like Canberra's man in Lyons, rather than Lyons's man in Canberra. He was defending the indefensible, saying: 'It's okay. We've just got to live with it. It's everyone else's fault.' The fact is that if we consider every Tasmanian member or senator, whether they are Labor, Liberal, Green—and I acknowledge Senator Whish-Wilson, who signed that letter, and good on him for doing so—or Independent, everyone signed that letter except the Labor members and senators. As I say, there's still time. This budget has a big hole, ready to be filled by a GST exemption for the stadium in Tasmania. I look forward to your support on that.

Of course, there is no funding for the redevelopment of LGH, the Launceston General Hospital, a very important project—something absolutely essential for the health of northern Tasmanians in the electorate of Bass, parts of Braddon, and indeed, northern Lyons as well. It is critical infrastructure, but guess what: there is not a dollar in the budget for that. For further redevelopments at the Royal Hobart Hospital down south, which services a good portion of our population, there is not a dollar.

So really you do have to wonder what the Tasmanian Labor contingent here in Canberra are doing. I've just listed a whole heap of failures, including the most egregious one, which is this failure to exempt from GST $240 million for a waterfront stadium in Hobart—funding that would otherwise go to support our health system, our education system and critical infrastructure. It's an opportunity missed. At the end of the day, the only people that lose out here are not the politicians but the people that need that funding for the essential services it would provide.

So I say this budget is a failure when it comes to the environment portfolio, and certainly it's a failure when it comes to the people of Tasmania, where we have been dudded and we now know how this government really feels about Tasmanian men, women and children, including salmon workers, right across the state. (Time expired)

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me begin by first congratulating my colleague Senator Duniam for his fine words. He highlighted how the Labor members of this place and the other place from Tasmania have done little to stand up for their own state. I'm going to tell a similar story of my home state of Western Australia, where the most egregious part of this budget is, from my perspective as a Western Australian who comes from a farming background, the ban of the live export trade from Western Australia.

This is an issue that, indirectly, has huge flow-on negatives, but, directly, the negatives affect Western Australia and Western Australia alone. This is an industry that is 100 per cent Western Australian. It comes out of mostly one electorate. About 80 per cent of live export sheep come out of the electorate of O'Connor, which is the large electorate that covers the southern Wheatbelt. It is the electorate that is represented by my good friend and colleague Rick Wilson, the member for O'Connor, who has done a power of work highlighting the negative impacts of this government's ban on his local communities. But it's not just Rick Wilson, it's not just me and it's not just some of my colleagues in this place that have spoken out; the community has spoken out.

The community has risen up in a grassroots movement that, a few weeks ago, saw a convoy—in fact, four convoys—go through the city of Perth. There was a north convoy, a south convoy, an east convoy and a port convoy, and all converged on the transport yard at Muchea, protesting the government's ban. Then, just a few days ago, in conjunction with the rushed and, quite frankly, disgracefully conducted House of Representatives inquiry into the Export Control Amendment (Ending Live Sheep Exports by Sea) Bill 2024—where two hearings were held in a week, with no time even for most of the submissions to be considered by the committee—we saw the community turn out in big numbers. There were 2,000 people from across Western Australia. But it wasn't just farmers at that rally. It wasn't 2,000 farmers, and it wasn't 2,000 farmers, shearers, truckies, the local IGA and the petrol station. There were plenty of people—and I know because I was there and I walked through the crowd and talked to hundreds of those people. Many, many people had come up from Perth to show their support for Western Australian regional communities because they are the ones who will be hit hardest. They are the ones that will suffer the brunt of this attack on Western Australia and the Western Australian agricultural sector.

Those opposite will say, 'Oh, no, there's an adjustment package. It'll all be okay.' But then why has every agricultural organisation, not just in WA but right across Australia, described this as a red line in the sand? It's because they know that the radical activist groups that are behind the campaign to end the live export of sheep will not stop there. They do not agree with feedlots, with the live export of cattle, with practices in abattoirs, with shearing, with mulesing or with the use of glyphosate for cropping. They basically don't agree with agriculture. They don't agree with farming. They don't agree with Australia playing a role in feeding the world. You've got to remember that Australia produces three times as much food as we consume. We are an exporting nation not just when it comes to minerals, though we do that very well—we also export food. We feed the world. We feed twice our population overseas through the sale of high-quality food products, and that includes live exports.

The really sad thing about this is that industry has actually won all the debates in this space. There was a moral question asked. People asked, 'Is this industry being managed in an ethical way? Are animal welfare standards being maintained to a high level?' But the absolutely clear and overwhelming evidence is: yes, they are. We not only have the best animal welfare standards in the world when it comes to our live export industry but we actually export those standards. We say to countries that want to buy our live animals, 'Yes, you can come, you can buy them, but if you do so then you have to live up to our standards of animal welfare and how those animals are managed, how they are moved and how they are treated in slaughter.' Not only do we export live animals but we also export animal welfare standards to the rest of the world.

A little over a decade ago, Saudi Arabia, who were one of our biggest markets, said: 'No. We are not going to do what you ask us to do. We're not going to do what you tell us to do through your export standards. We'll go elsewhere.' Saudi Arabia today—still the largest importer of live animals, I believe, in the world, importing some four million head of livestock per annum, have reconsidered. They've said: 'Wait a sec; maybe we should actually improve our animal handling and welfare standards. Maybe we should have a look again at the Australian system and re-enter that market—bring our abattoirs and our animal handling systems up to their requirements and be able to purchase from Australia once again.' That is what they have done. They have signed on to meet the requirements of our animal supply system. They have signed on to meet our ESCAS requirements. They have said, 'We will meet the highest animal welfare standards in the world because we know Australia produces high-quality animals that meet the requirements of our market.' That is what we see—when Australia is involved in this industry, we export not just live animals but also our animal welfare standards. So we've won the moral argument. We've won that ethical argument. The industry has won it.

What about the scientific argument on how those animals go aboard ship? It is very clear now that with the changes made—not just over the last few years but, in fact, over decades—mortality rates have fallen to a level where they are actually better than on-farm. One of the vets at the inquiry that the House of Representatives undertook described ships as 'floating feedlots' because those ships are designed to take animals and increase their weight. Every farmer will tell you—every livestock farmer in Australia will tell you—if an animal is putting on weight, it is not under stress. Animals do not put on weight if they're uncomfortable or if they're under stress. Those ships now have mortality rates lower than in a paddock.

We've won the scientific argument. We've won the community argument and the social argument. This industry being banned will destroy regional communities because those communities are based on an industry that supplies jobs. We heard Darren Spencer, the head of the shearing association, talk about his role and his business' role in one country town. He talked about the $100,000 he spent at the local IGA, the $50,000 he spent at the local petrol station. He talked about the families he employed in town, the kids who went to school because of his business and the doctor that was still in town because those families were still in town. This government's ban will rip the heart out of those communities because they rely on this industry as a key part of—

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for the debate has expired. You will be in continuation. I will now go to two-minute statements.