Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2014-2015, Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2014-2015 and the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2014-2015. Let me start off by correcting some of the conjecture we have seen from the other side, trying to put this budget debate in history. We have seen some glowing tributes to the performance of the Howard government, including their ability to pay down debt. The simple fact is that, yes, they paid down $96 billion of public debt, but they did it by selling $100 billion of assets. It is the equivalent of selling your house to pay off your mortgage. That is fine; your mortgage is gone, but so is your house.

Most of the contributions from the other side also forget about the global financial crisis, the most significant period of economic turmoil around the world since the Great Depression of the 1930s. They also omit the fact that, since coming into government in September 2013, the Liberal-National coalition government have doubled the deficit. They have seen a massive deterioration of the budget. Despite the bluster and shiftiness of the Treasurer, you must treat all assessments of the budget position by using the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook as the key baseline. That is a document signed off by the Secretary of the Treasury and the Department of Finance, and that is the key document that you must compare everything through.

These bills constitute the next pieces of legislation continuing the budget process from this government, and they build on the budget of broken promises and lies that we saw delivered in May last year, which represented a gross betrayal of the Australian people. These bills propose $1.7 billion in appropriation funds and reflect decisions made by the government in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook as well as the machinery-of-government changes. MYEFO shows a $44 billion blow-out in the budget deficit over the forward estimates, compared to the May 2014 budget. It is a budget bottom line that has blown out despite some of the most harsh and cruel savings measures seen in recent times.

This is a government that has embarked on a suite of savings measures that will disrupt and harm many people for very little economic gain. This is a government and a leader that are less concerned about enacting lasting and responsible changes to the structure of our economy and more concerned about a program of reform based on pure ideology. It is an ideology that favours the big end of town over the vulnerable and the voiceless, an ideology that places a higher tax burden on workers than multinational companies, an ideology that destroys equity in our health system and our education system and, above all, an ideology that is incredibly short sighted.

I turn to unemployment, which is the most significant concern for my electorate of Charlton and, I would submit, the nation as a whole. The most recent labour force statistics show that we have an unemployment rate of 6.4 per cent nationally. To put this in perspective, that is the highest rate since the middle of 2002, higher than at any point of the last Labor government, despite the challenges associated with the global financial crisis. Seven hundred and ninety-five thousand, two hundred people in this country are now unemployed, and in January alone around 34,500 people joined the jobless queue. All up, around 100,000 people have become unemployed since this government was elected, and around a third of those were young people. Whilst in New South Wales the figure is marginally better than the national average, at 6.3 per cent, unemployment in the Hunter region, my home region, is an alarming eight per cent.

However, it is those under the age of 24 years that are the most affected, with the jobless rate amongst young people in the Hunter region at a shockingly high 18 per cent. There can be no misunderstanding about this. With around 300,000 young people out of work, Australia is in the midst of a youth unemployment crisis. This is particularly pronounced in the area I represent, where the future opportunities of young people are being undermined through a combination of cuts by the federal and state Liberal governments.

I turn to education. This government cut $30 billion from education in the budget. This represents the biggest cut in school funding in Australia's history. The government abandoned the Gonski reforms by dumping the funding for years 5 and 6 of the program and refusing to guarantee funding for years 2, 3 and 4, and the state Liberal governments have done nothing to save it. Despite professing his support for Gonski, and despite being a personal friend and surfing buddy of Tony Abbott, Premier Mike Baird has failed to influence the Prime Minister in any way and have this decision reversed—a fact that voters will be likely to remember when it comes to the New South Wales election this month.

The Hunter Valley Research Foundation's most recent research paper shows that, whilst year 12 completion rates in the Hunter have steadily improved over the past decade or so, as have postschool qualification rates, we still lag behind the state and the nation in both areas. This may go part of the way to explaining why the youth unemployment rate is higher in the Hunter than elsewhere and why young people as a subset are finding it more difficult to find work.

As policymakers, we should be doing more, not less, to encourage young people in the region to obtain higher qualifications. This has been made harder by this government's heartless cut to the trade training centre program, which means that seven schools in the electorate of Charlton will now miss out on this kind of support to incorporate trade skills into their learning programs.

I recently opened the trade training centre at the Yula-Punaal Education and Healing Aboriginal Corporation in Mandalong, which offers pre-trade courses in hospitality, horticulture and land management. This is a fantastic facility and, through their tailored mentoring program for Indigenous students, the centre is catering for young Aboriginal people from across the Hunter and Central Coast who find themselves disengaged at school or unable to succeed in mainstream learning environments.

I am also looking forward to seeing the new trade training centre in engineering and metal fabrication being built at Lake Macquarie High School—a trade training centre that will replace a metal workshop that is 50 to 60 years old. When I visited it last year I saw metal anvils still being used. This kind of initiative—the opening of trade training centres—does not fit into the Liberals' agenda, and so no more funding will be forthcoming to support trades training.

I will turn to higher education. This government will also punish those young people who seek higher education. With their plan to deregulate universities, the Prime Minister and the government are making it abundantly clear that they do not believe in a fair and accessible university system. Despite their failure to pass the reforms through the parliament already, last week they reintroduced legislation to cut university funding by 20 per cent and deregulate fees to allow universities to charge whatever they want. Worse still, they have also embarked on a $15 million ad campaign to spruik it.

If these cuts go ahead the University of Newcastle, for example, in my home region, will have almost $160 million ripped out of its budget over the next four years. All the evidence suggests course costs will increase significantly as a result of this deregulation policy, and there remains a very real prospect of fees in the order of $100,000 for some degrees.

Of course, higher university fees mean more student debt, and this is a particularly disturbing prospect for rural and regional graduates, where income levels are lower across the board than in metropolitan areas. More than 6,000 students graduate from the University of Newcastle each year, and it is an unfortunate fact that most will move out of the region to pursue meaningful career options. Policies such as this are counterintuitive when it comes to addressing this so-called brain drain, and will do little to drive the economic growth necessary for the region to respond to the mining downturn.

Of course, not every student wants to go to university, but this government has proposed similarly severe cuts to trades and skills training. The vocational education and training sector is vital to our community, and TAFE continues to play an important role in ensuring we have the skilled workforce for the jobs of today and of the future.

Over a quarter of residents in Charlton have a TAFE qualification, ranking us in the top five in New South Wales for this kind of participation. And that makes the government's cut of over $1 billion-worth of skills programs even worse. This is a massive blow to young people wanting a trade or workers looking to learn new skills, and will of course have an adverse effect on young people.

Among the cuts are cuts to the popular Tools for Your Trade program, leaving apprentices to either find extra money or go into debt to cover the cost of the tools they need for their work. The Australian Apprenticeships Access Program, which helped people find a career that suits them and helped to get people ready to work has been cut. The Australian Apprenticeship Mentoring Program, which provided help and support for apprentices and employers, has also been cut.

In New South Wales there is a perfect storm brewing. The state Liberal government has taken an axe to TAFE, with funding cuts, mass sackings, cuts to courses and massive fee increases. Glendale TAFE, in my electorate, has had cuts to the tourism, hospitality, welding and metal fabrication courses, and students enrolling this year are paying up to $1,000 more in tuition fees. Soon, our TAFE system will be unrecognisable. It is being systematically undermined by a Liberal government that favours private providers over the needs of students or industry. I welcome New South Wales Labor's plan to cap fees and limit the level of privatisation in TAFE, and I remain hopeful that Labor will be elected to government in New South Wales later this month and can enact this recovery plan.

The government has also scrapped support for low-income workers. The government is planning on scrapping the low income superannuation contribution from 1 July 2017, and this will see over three million low-paid workers lose a yearly tax refund of up to $500. The government will also further delay the increase of the superannuation guarantee for seven years, which would have seen a person aged 30 today, on average full-time earnings, retire with an extra $127,000 in superannuation savings. This hits those who are working part-time—which many young people do—at a time when every extra cent invested in superannuation has the greatest impact on their retirement savings.

Unemployment is increasing, despite the Prime Minister's promise to create a million new jobs in five years, and there is no doubt this is as a result of the government's short-sighted approach to industry and innovation policy in general. These appropriation bills include $188.5 million in funding to establish the Industry Growth Centres program. While this is a paltry amount compared to the $500 million innovation precinct policy of the former government, I support this initiative because it aims to lift competitiveness and productivity, and I continue to call on the government to establish an industry growth centre in the Hunter region.

My region is built on manufacturing and mining, but it is no secret that the economy is in transition. Cost-cutting in the mining sector is resulting in high redundancy rates and, alongside this, the opportunity for apprenticeships in these traditional industries has also declined. The Hunter's manufacturing industry is well placed to exploit supply-chain networks and to incorporate innovative processes. And whilst the lower Australian dollar is helping, and will continue to help, manufacturers, this will be of no consequence if the industry is not in a position to compete. I have spoken at length in this place about the 'valley of death' in the shipbuilding sector, which is one area where the government can, and should, intervene.

The previous, Labor government set in place a defence acquisition program that would have seen continued employment in the shipbuilding sector, including supporting the 900 jobs at Forgacs in Tomago. It is completely indefensible that this current government has refused to bring forward the construction of naval supply ships, which would have saved hundreds of jobs in the Hunter and thousands across the country.

And it is utterly shameful that the government continues to fuel uncertainty around the construction of our defence submarines, despite the latest ABS statistics demonstrating that the biggest increase in unemployment was in South Australia. This government gave a cast iron promise before the last election to build these submarines in Adelaide, with accompanying work being supported by shipbuilders around the country, including in my region. This broken promise is another betrayal of the Australian people, a betrayal that was cemented two months into their government by their wilful destruction of the automotive industry—a wilful killing by withdrawing $500 million of funding for the automotive industry that will result in a direct termination of 50,000 jobs and an impact on another 200,000 jobs in the downstream and upstream industries.

The truth is that this government is all rhetoric about industry support. It is all rhetoric about supporting jobs. I have serious doubts about whether they will get even close to their stated aim of creating one million jobs in five years. We are already experiencing a decade-high unemployment rate of 6.4 per cent. We are experiencing a very high youth unemployment rate—a youth unemployment rate that is in danger of producing a generation of young people who are excluded from the labour force, a generation excluded from the rewards of full-time work, the rewards of safe and secure work and the rewards of work whereby they can take out a mortgage, have a family and plan for their future. I am deeply worried about this impact. I am deeply worried about the future of young people around the country and in my region in particular, and the government needs to and should do more about this.

But unfortunately this is a government that bases policy decisions on pure ideology. The government is embarking on an agenda that is particularly harmful to young people. The Prime Minister says that young people must 'earn or learn', but he will not provide any support for employment or training that is meaningful. He is giving up on young people, especially those in the Hunter, at a time when they need responsible decisions from the government and more support to shape their future success. It is myopia that will have a long-lasting impact, and the government must be condemned for it.

See this speech in context