Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The budget is always such a highlight in the political calendar, and also that of the journalists. There is a buzz of anticipation because most of it is stashed behind closed doors so that there is no unintended economic benefit for some small sectors whose whole life and livelihood is based on the turn of a shareholding or industry investment. I wonder if everyday Aussies understand that that is the real reason behind the secretive stealth of budget information release.

Perhaps we should explain that a little more clearly for those who do not live and breathe politics, and that actually is the majority of people. You do not need to know much about hospitals until you or somebody is ill. You do not need to know much about the Defence Force, the veterans or the need for investment, or why we even have a defence force, unless you are connected in some way. Most Aussies do not really care how Centrelink is funded. They just want to know that if they need that support it will be there for them, and people are ripping off the government will try to stop that happening.

Most people do not understand just how the economy works. They just want to know that they have a chance of getting and keeping a job, getting training, earning a living and maybe at some stage buying a house and, eventually, either living off their own retirement earnings or being supported by a government pension. As a result it is really difficult to explain things in the budget when most people say, 'And how does that affect me?' While I understand the need for people to see how a budget affects them, it is truly important for everyone to see how a budget affects everyone else as well. Most of us have been brought up on the concept of looking after our own family and the home we have or want. But we do not live on an island that has no relationship to the island of our neighbours or our fellow Australians. We are networked and co-dependent in so many ways and we often do not see the web of connection let alone realise it is critical impact, both now and in the future.

We have all heard the line and the criticism that the coalition government understands that the best form of welfare is a job, and it actually is. People feel better about themselves if they are working: it is great to talk to others, our self-confidence builds and we become a better part of the infrastructure build of our nation. When we are working and paying tax we are each delivering our small share of railway and road building, medical funds and education funds. Every working Australian is helping every other one in this small but terribly important way. Right now there are more Australians in full-time work than ever before. Since we came to office employment has increased by 600,000. Today, a record 12 million Australians are in employment.

Part of the budget is allocated to making sure that working-age Australians remain on a path towards employment. There is significant additional funding directed to support services that build jobseekers' self-reliance. This, of course, is balanced by making sure those who are not helping their fellow Aussies, and who persistently game the welfare system will face appropriate penalties.

Some of the stand-out initiatives include the national expansion of ParentsNext, which will assist approximately 68,000 parents of young children at risk of long-term welfare dependency each year. The program assists parents to plan and prepare for employment when their children start school. The expansion will also see 20 additional ParentsNext locations established to directly target support for Indigenous parenting payment recipients. To assist older Australians, we have allocated money towards increased support for training and reskilling, work experience opportunities and building further links with employers.

The coalition government's Youth Jobs PaTH Program will help our young Aussies develop key employability skills through training and internships. While this was announced last year, it is only now that our local businesses can really test the water and trial such employment opportunities so we can fine-tune the operations. We have already got a number of job search providers and possible employers gearing up for this initiative.

No boss will ever take on a worker unless there is a genuine belief that things are going to get better in the economy and the state of Australia. We choose to focus on investing in infrastructure and in particular to secure more and better-paying jobs. We choose to fund essential services for Australians. Part of this means that we have to take practical action to stop the deficit and the growth of our debt and to do all we can to keep our AAA credit rating. Simply, this is important because it is about the costs of borrowing money from other nations. If our banks have to pay more for their money, then our dream of buying a house will become more and more distant.

We have strategies to help small businesses, with a reduced company rate of tax, easier GST payments and another year of instant asset write-offs. We are going to be even more tough on multinationals. We are going to begin the process of making the big banks more accountable, especially the bank executives. It is absolutely time, and I am sure everyone agrees, even those who are bank shareholders, because the impact of this policy on banks is important but not enough to damage the shareholders, despite the rhetoric that is being communicated at present.

In the budget we are delivering a commitment to guarantee Medicare and build the world's best health system. Let us imagine the whole issue of health is like a timber table—solid and dependable, leaning on four solid legs. It is a good image for our long-term national health plan, which is the table top. The legs are: guaranteeing Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, supporting hospitals, prioritising mental and preventative health, and investing in medical research. There is 10 billion bucks in a package to invest in Australia's health system.

Medicare funding will increase by $2.4 billion over the next four years, including $1 billion to get rid of the Medicare rebate freeze. Another 60,000 patients at risk of chronic heart failure will benefit from the listing of new drugs. Medicines Australia will work with the government, and $1.8 billion of new drugs will come in over the next five years.

There is $10.8 million to fight childhood cancer and this includes $1.4 million for paediatric brain cancer clinical trials, $4.4 million for Cancer Australia and $68 million for a proton beam therapy facility. Having met some of the most beautiful families over the last four years, this funding for childhood brain cancer is most welcome. I have seen some of the rarest cancers that did not even have a name. I have seen the strength of those families as they have battled to enjoy every precious moment, knowing that time was running out.

We are continuing to significantly increase current medical research, with $1.4 billion under the Medical Research Future Fund. Every day we see the impact of neurological diseases like Parkinson's, motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis and other diseases like stroke. Every dollar of well-directed research is a dollar well spent for Australians and our nation. It is our Aussie network working again.

I particularly commend the $5.5 billion extension of the funding arrangement for the Commonwealth Home Support Program over two years from 1 July 2018, which covers services such as Meals on Wheels. Again I thank all those advocates throughout Gilmore who helped me work with Minister Fifield and Minister Wyatt to get this to happen.

Having been able to listen to the planning for the NDIS well before the 2013 election, I knew the scheme originally did not include those affected with mental health issues or those diagnosed with a disability due to mental health, so it came as no surprise at all to learn that Labor left the scheme only half funded. Dare I be a tad political here, it seems to be a pattern of funding commitments from Labor—say whatever and never mind how the program is funded; 'Someone else can take care of that or we will get it from somewhere else.'

We will be delivering a disability package to give certainty to people living with a disability, their families and carers that they will receive high-quality services and are protected. A 0.5 per cent increase in the Medicare levy from 1 July 2019 will, once and for all, ensure that Labor's NDIS funding gap is filled. This is critical. I cannot imagine how hard it must be for people caring for those with a disability to be so concerned about support. We are a nation that cares, and we now have an opportunity to show exactly that. I just hope the opposition sees sense and stops the rubbish and nonsense.

We will finally have a comprehensive reform of working-age welfare payments, which will deliver a single, new, job seeker payment, replacing seven existing payments, including Newstart, which will encourage more people to transition to work. There will be a new, independent national body, the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, to oversee the delivery of quality and of safe services for all participants. Thank goodness! So many who are already dealing with the NDIS are concerned, and there is even more wariness where the NDIS is yet to be rolled out.

I turn now to issues that seem to be causing some confusion. For the past 12 months, some people, dressed in green—no, not leprechauns; me—have been pushing hard for an increase in funding for education, for more than the amount initially put forward in 2014. For two years we have been developing avenues to fund increases to education without blowing the budget. Now we have done exactly that, and Labor keeps harking back to the imaginary figures from before the 2013 budget. Yet where were they? They were completely unfunded. I guess that is where the leprechaun comes in. They were going to fund it with the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We are focused on great education. We are going to ensure that all children have 15 hours of preschool education before they get to school, there is not a single member of the House who does not acknowledge how important that is. We are promising and are committed to long-term funding certainty for every Australian school, and that means for every Australian student, with an increase of $18.6 billion over the next decade that will be distributed according to a real needs based model, not a mishmash of different deals. It is now time to focus on how those educational outcomes will be changed, not just on dumping money into the school and hoping for the best. David Gonski himself will be leading that review. I for one look forward to his very educative response.

A growing workforce is critical for our future Australia. In the dying days of the 2013 Labor government, all the employer incentives for taking on an apprentice were removed. We have seen a slippery slope of apprenticeship reduction since then, so I am very keen to see the introduction of the Skilling Australians Fund, with over $1.5 billion in the next four years to create an extra 300,000 apprenticeships. In fact, I cannot wait. With just the small challenge that we put forward at the beginning of this year, between January and March, we gained a 25 per cent increase in the sign up of apprentices and trainees. The Skilling Australians Fund will deliver opportunities for young people and ensure our economic growth. I hope to see very real outcomes in dealing with this type of government support.

In Gilmore, we have a Navy base, HMAS Albatross, and just next door there is HMAS Creswell. In addition, we have a large contingent of veterans and their families. I am always conscious of them, of the service they have given and of the special care, sometimes, that each and every one of them deserves and we owe them. That is why I am especially proud to note that the budget is continuing to expand the services that current and former ADF members can access to ensure they receive the help and support they need. This simply means we are taking on significant and overdue reform of the processes used by DVA, to make sure that support for veterans is our highest priority.

We will be commemorating significant events of the centenary of Anzac, which will conclude in 2018. All our veterans, historians and locals will be involved in the process. I am really pleased to see that there will be a significant increase to extend treatment under the non-liability healthcare arrangements to all mental health conditions for our service men and women. I wish that was not unnecessary, I really do, but we need to recognise that these days that $9.8 million to pilot a new approach to prevent suicide is critical. Battles, these days, are far more impactful than ever before, and we are seeing how war and combat are changing our service men and women in ways that the rest of us can only imagine. When you talk to service men and women in their battle uniform, when they are training you to do the ops of putting tourniquets on thighs in case of unexploded device and you learn how to do it tightly and they say, 'Yep, you could save a life by doing that,' when you talk to these amazing men and women and look at all the work they do, when you are in Afghanistan, you see the risk and the fear on their face when they get into a helicopter knowing that a sniper on land could bring that helicopter down. They are always alert and always aware. Living in that space all the time, with that risk to them, puts an inordinate amount of stress on these men and women. It is something that is far from being recognised. In the past, there would be a battle. Some people would lose their lives and some people would be injured. Then there would be a rest time. There is no rest time for our service men and women now. They are always alert. This takes a toll on their mental health.

I am so pleased that we are going to be looking into that and taking care of our veterans. It is unbelievably significant and terribly important. For my Vietnam War veterans who have yet to come to terms with the experience that they unfortunately lived through and remain living through, I extend to them my deepest regards and hope that they take up these initiatives and get this funding spent on them because they are just an amazing group of people.

This budget addresses all of the most important issues that relate to people living in Gilmore—health, education, defence, costs of living and social wellbeing, especially including mental health. They are all funded. These are not imaginary dollars. Every single program has a dollar amount that goes with it, so we know with certainty they will happen.

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