Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is my great pleasure to rise and speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2015-2016. It gives me an opportunity to talk about the Turnbull government's achievements and the many ways in which we are delivering jobs and growth.

Before I do that, I want to place on the record my profound concern in relation to the member for Bendigo's comments about health funding. We have seen a situation in Victoria where the Victorian government have made an improper grab for money which they were not owed—some $73 million—and they are now going around frightening local hospitals, local CEOs, making claims that are simply false. This is an improper grab for cash. They did not run the calculations properly in relation to the formula. What the member for Bendigo has just said in relation to that matter is absolutely wrong. The Victorian government need to fess up. This has not happened in any other state. The Victorian government's tricky accounting has not gone by without being noticed by us and being corrected. We will not stand for this misrepresentation from members opposite and from the Victorian government.

At this time, as we transition out of the mining boom and into the new economy, the innovation economy, I am very proud to see that we created over 300,000 new jobs last year. This is the best record of job creation since 2006. The doomsayers on the opposite side—the likes of the member for Corio—spoke endlessly about skyrocketing unemployment in our region. Well, we are seeing some of the best employment figures we have seen in a long time. We have just announced—as we have just seen the figures from the ABS—a 5.2 per cent unemployment rate in the Geelong region. There are pressures on the local economy—there is no doubt about that—particularly in manufacturing. Of course, we lost Ford under the previous Labor government. Let us not forget that­, but let us not forget that there are 500 or so Ford workers continuing to work in our great city. But we are seeing some wonderful success stories in the local employment figures that are coming through, and nationally the ANZ job ads survey in January 2016 shows that job ads are now 11.3 per cent higher than they were 12 months ago.

Everything that the Turnbull government is doing is focused on driving jobs and growth—the jobs of the future, not the regressive policies that we have seen from the other side, from the Labor Party, a party that believes that you can prosper by taxing homebuyers and through its smokers tax, its capital gains tax and its absolutely unbelievable refusal to support our attack on multinational tax avoidance. The Greens showed much greater economic responsibility when they joined with us to vote for that legislation to combat the improper shifting of profits by multinational companies into other jurisdictions. What did Labor do? It voted against the legislation.

The Labor Party proposed some $5 billion of savings prior to the 2013 election that they are, unfortunately, now blocking in the Senate. We are seeing gross recklessness from the Labor Party, from members opposite. Of course, we are seeing that in spades with the negative gearing policy that the Labor Party have put forward, a policy which will punish the many thousands of nurses, midwives, metal workers, teachers—the people who rely on negative gearing to give their family a bit of a head start. Taking one-third of the demand out of the established property market will do enormous damage to the homebuyers market. Labor have simply not thought this through. They do not understand that, when you destroy confidence in a market as important as the property market, that ricochets throughout the economy. This is another example of an ill-thought-through, reckless, irresponsible policy which shows that the Labor Party are simply not up to governing.

I am incredibly proud of our government's achievements. We have abolished the carbon and mining taxes. We have finalised three free trade agreements, with China, Japan and Korea—and of course the TPP is our fourth major free trade agreement. We are delivering the lowest company tax rate for small businesses in almost 50 years and we delivered $5.5 billion of incentives for small business through the last budget. We understand that small business is the engine room of our economy. We are tackling the hard questions, in the Harper review, looking at how we can change competition law to drive innovation and the jobs of the future. We are investing some $50 billion in infrastructure. Our $1.1 billion National Innovation and Science Agenda shows that we are focused on the future—what we need to do as a responsible, contemporary government, looking at the opportunities that lie ahead for us as a nation. But we are also tackling the hard issues on our industrial front. In Victoria in particular, construction costs run at some 30 per cent higher than in any other state. That is because of the lawlessness in the building and construction sector. We have heard some terrible stories of corruption and of standover tactics by some union bosses—not the ordinary men and women who are members of unions, who work hard and go to work expecting their union bosses to do the right thing by them. They want to make sure that when they go to work their business thrives, the industry thrives, and we are not seeing that, particularly in Victoria. That is why we need the Australian Building and Construction Commission—of course, another major initiative for our economy that is being blocked by the Labor Party.

I am very proud of the achievements in the Corangamite electorate delivered by the Turnbull government. Last year we announced a $14 million Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre, an industry growth centre to drive those advanced manufacturing jobs—for instance jobs in the renewable energy sector. A lot of work is going into the renewable sector to look at how we can improve issues such as battery storage to make sure that we are investing in those wonderful opportunities in renewable energy. We have announced $2.6 million for the Geelong Region Job Connections program. There are lots of local jobs creation programs being rolled out across our region, which have really made a difference on the ground.

I am very proud that the new Australian Bureau of Statistics centre of excellence, the national data acquisition centre, opened yesterday. It will eventually hire up to 300 people—a wonderful high-tech centre. Another government agency coming to our region and bringing wonderful opportunities. Only about 40 ABS jobs will actually move to Geelong. The rest are all going to be created locally, so that is absolutely wonderful news.

That builds on the incredible investments we have made with the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The Barwon trial has been rolled out. Many hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent already, and in excess of $400 million in my own region with the National Disability Insurance Agency headquarters in Geelong, which is wonderful.

At the moment there is a tender underway to construct a new building. It will be in excess of $100 million to house not just the NDIA headquarters but also some 400 jobs for people working for the Commonwealth Department of Human Services. This is on top of the new WorkSafe building, which has just been announced, another state Liberal commitment matched by Labor, but again an initiative of the Liberals. We are seeing some wonderful investment being driven into the Corangamite region.

One of the very big focuses in our region is infrastructure. After years of failure when it comes to rolling out NBN broadband we are now seeing NBN fast broadband under construction, or available, to more than 70,000 Corangamite homes and businesses, by 2017. This includes the Geelong southern suburbs of Belmont, Highton, Grovedale, Marshall, Wandana Heights and Waurn Ponds—now all on the rollout. Construction begins in the beginning of 2017 and in other parts of Geelong later this year. Construction is already underway in places like Ocean Grove, Barwon Heads, Torquay and Jan Juc. It is wonderful to see this essential infrastructure being delivered. Many parts of Corangamite were left off the NBN rollout by the previous Labor government—a very poor reflection on the Labor Party, on the previous Labor member and on commitment to important infrastructure in large regional cities like the one that I proudly represent.

Another failure of Labor is that no money was invested in mobile phone black spots. It was with great pride when we announced that there will be 10 mobile base stations rolled out across Corangamite: in Apollo Bay, Barongarook, Barwon Downs, Cape Otway, Carlisle River—where construction will be completed in a couple of months time, which is great news—Dereel, Gellibrand, Kawarren, Steiglitz and Yodine, to service Birregurra. Some 115 of the 141 mobile phone blackspots nominated in Corangamite will be addressed by handheld, or external antenna coverage, and this is wonderful news.

We have our Great Ocean Road upgrade underway. They are wonderful projects for such an iconic road. It is so important and a centrepiece of our $2.1 billion tourism industry. This is the road that Labor forgot. This is the road that federal Labor vehemently opposed in terms of investing in this road. Not only is the $50 million making a real difference to communities like Anglesea, Lorne, Separation Creek and Wye River, where there has been a terrible crisis after the bushfires over Christmas. We have announced the start of construction of a new $4 million Separation Creek bridge. This road is so important that I am fighting for more funding for it. This road is so important for road safety, for tourism and for the regional tourism economy, not just for domestic visitors but also international visitors.

We are duplicating the Princess Highway—another very important commitment—an incredible infrastructure project for our region. The first section is almost complete. There have been some real problems with the completion date, but it is wonderful to see that the Winchelsea to Colac section is on track, supported by some $371 million in total of investment.

We have major infrastructure challenges in our region. The cancellation of the East West Link has been an absolute disgrace. The Auditor-General in Victoria has now disclosed that that has cost Victorians $1.1. billion. This is a project that Labor members opposite—people like the Leader of the Opposition—previously supported. We desperately need a western road link for Geelong, Corangamite and south-west Victoria. It is an absolute gridlock trying to drive to Melbourne in peak hour, getting over the Westgate Bridge.

What is the Labor Party doing in Victoria? They are doing virtually nothing. It is an incredible reflection on Labor that we are seeing virtually no progress when it comes to rolling out the infrastructure that we need in our great region.

Another example is rail. We are seeing utter chaos with V/Line services right across Victoria. It is an absolute shambles. It is costing the Victorian government $4 million a week, yet the Victorian government is refusing to look at one of the most important infrastructure projects that we need for our region: the duplication of the rail line through southern Geelong to service South Geelong, Marshall and Waurn Ponds. We need new platforms and a duplicated rail because people living in Armstrong Creek and all through the southern part of Geelong cannot get the rail services they need. While there has been the Regional Rail Link that has now been completed, of course it cannot be used most of the time because of the chaos with V/Line services. It is apparent that that is doing more for people living for western Melbourne than it is for people living in Geelong and Corangamite, and the Labor Party have absolutely taken their foot off the accelerator when it comes to rolling out these important infrastructure projects.

Another great announcement we have made in the last week is almost $30 billion of additional defence expenditure. It is wonderful to see our defence white paper, which reinforces the importance of so many wonderful defence projects, including the LAND 400 program, and I know that our city and our region are working very hard to secure a slice of the action of that incredibly important $3 billion project.

See this speech in context