Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, may I wish you and everyone else in the chamber today a Happy Valentine's Day. If only that love could travel across the Hay plain to my home state of South Australia. Two days ago in this place the Deputy Prime Minister, the member for New England, boasted about his government's generosity to infrastructure projects in South Australia. This was despite the fact that Commonwealth infrastructure grants to the state of South Australia will fall from $921.4 million in 2017-18 to $95.2 million by the time we get to 2020-21. That is a massive reduction in infrastructure funding for my home state of South Australia. Yet we see the government side and the Deputy Prime Minister twist it around, turn it around, package it and put a bow tie on it and tell us how great they are with their generosity to infrastructure projects in South Australia. When asked about the South Australian infrastructure budget, the Deputy Prime Minister began talking about Commonwealth investment in the defence industry. That has absolutely nothing to do with the infrastructure side of what he was asked the other day in question time. The reality is that there is a massive cut. It's dropping from $921.4 million down to $95.2 million.

When we were in government we saw some great projects taking place in South Australia. I was very honoured and proud, together with my colleague the member for Adelaide, to advocate and push for the Torrens to Torrens upgrade, which borders the two electorates of Hindmarsh and Adelaide. Many times we met with the Minister for Infrastructure at the time, Anthony Albanese, the member for Grayndler. To his credit, together with the state government, he entered into a partnership for a great infrastructure project that will actually take 15 minutes off for travellers from south to the north. That's 15 minutes every day each way. Imagine the three or four hours that those people will now be able to spend with their children at home, reading them their bedtime stories, spending more time with family. That is a project that really will make a difference, make the road safer, and has created hundreds and hundreds of jobs. That's ready to open soon. I'm sure the members opposite will want to take credit for that, even though we remember the former member for Boothby saying at the time that we shouldn't spend that money on that particular piece of infrastructure.

That's a little example of how they always came kicking and screaming to the table when we needed infrastructure in South Australia. I want to pay credit to the member for Grayndler for his great vision in pushing for this project together with the member for Adelaide and me. It has nearly come to fruition. It's nearly finished. You will see a great piece of work that goes through the electorate of Hindmarsh and the electorate of Adelaide.

We now have a $23.6 billion-dollar deficit, and the government wants to hand out $65 billion to Australia's biggest businesses, which have many shareholders who are overseas. A lot of those profits will be going overseas. Instead of putting $65 billion into really good projects that could create some jobs and get the economy going, we're giving $65 billion to some of the biggest multinational companies as a tax break. At the same time, your lowest paid income earners, workers, will get an increase in tax of approximately $350 per year. Where is the fairness in that, when you see massive cuts to big business, in terms of giving them handouts, and increases of $350 per year in the tax on your workers with the lowest income? There is no fairness in that. Maybe the Prime Minister and the ministers opposite might actually bother to visit South Australia and spend some time on the ground and see what's going on in South Australia. They would then appreciate it much more.

Despite the federal government abandoning South Australia—not just in infrastructure but in a whole range of other things—and the removal of funds from our state, the state Labor government, led by Premier Jay Weatherill, has done remarkably well. What we have seen since 2013 when the Abbott coalition came to power—and then the Turnbull government—is a $355 million shortfall for rail and roads in South Australia over the past three years. This is according to its own estimates. It didn't deliver what it promised. Straight after that 2013 election, we saw all the backflipping that took place—on everything, including the submarines, which the government did not wish to give to South Australia. Even though they made promise after promise at the 2013 election, they only came to the table when it was their jobs that were at risk, not what was for the betterment of South Australia. I am pleased that they are being built in South Australia, but, if it wasn't for those on the Labor side of this chamber and the workers down at ASC, this wouldn't have happened, because they were quite happily ready to wipe their hands of it and ensure it didn't come to Adelaide. The Abbott-Turnbull government have had a $355 million shortfall on rail and roads in South Australia over the last three years. It said it would commit $1.44 billion, and it has spent $1.08 billion in Adelaide. Where did that extra money go that was promised and never occurred?

As I said, the government also cut $3.6 million from road safety funding through the Black Spot Program, which is absolutely criminal, because the road safety Black Spot Program is for dangerous roads where tragedies or near tragedies have taken place. These are roads that need to be fixed, that need to be made safer, to make our transport drivers, families and the everyday public that use those roads safer, because these are spots where there are absolute dangers right now, and this money has been cut from South Australia. It's a program that's focused on saving lives. It is not an extra infrastructure spend just for the sake of it. It's a project that saves lives, and it is criminal to take that money away from it.

In addition, there has been a lack of investment by this government in manufacturing in my home state and other states around this country. Let's never forget the abandonment of South Australian manufacturing by this government. Under the leadership of prime ministers Abbott and Turnbull and the then Treasurer, who were all part of cabinet, Holden was unceremoniously chased out of the country. Those of us from South Australia will never forget the speech that the former Treasurer made in this place, basically goading them. A few days after that speech, an announcement was made by the CEO of General Motors Holden, Mr Devereux, saying that they would be leaving the country. Why do nations around the world support car manufacturing? We heard from the other side that we couldn't go on giving handouts to General Motors Holden. As I've said in this place before, every country that manufacturers vehicles has a subsidy for each assembly line worker on that production line, and there is a reason they do that. It is not just to hand out money to manufacturers; it's because they know that value-adding creates more jobs. For each assembly line worker, you're creating another 30 jobs out in the real world. That is real value-adding. It helps the economy. It creates jobs. That's why, all around the world, nations that produce motor vehicles subsidise their industry. They subsidise it because they know it helps the economy. It creates jobs, and the spin-off, in the return from taxes, far outweighs the amount they give.

The subsidy that we gave, when compared to that of other nations, was very minimal. I've looked at the figures of Japan, Korea, US, Germany that produce cars—their subsidies are much higher, and they do so because they are smart. They understand that each and every job they create in the manufacturing circle creates more jobs, and the spin-off helps the economy and the nation. We will not forget what they did to South Australia with GMH, where they basically said, 'There'll be no more subsidies.' This meant that GMH pulled out and went to another country that was more than willing to give subsidies, a smart country that understands creating an economy around the car industry. But, no, this government wanted to make additional dollars available in the budget at the expense of our South Australian working men and women. Again, the country has been left behind by policy decisions that are based on ideology and not the facts. I just explained some of those facts in the car manufacturing industries.

Another great example is Labor's superior future-proof fibre NBN that we were promoting in 2013. That was butchered by this government, but I'll get to that a bit later. So they've walked away from the car manufacturing industry and they've walked away from the national electricity grid. They've walked away from infrastructure and they've walked towards big businesses and multinational companies with overseas entities that have major shareholders, with their pockets open and their smiles a mile wide, with a $65 billion handout. That's the signature policy of this current government—a $65 billion handout to some of the biggest and richest multinationals in Australia.

In my electorate of Hindmarsh the demographics show that as one of the oldest electorates in age around the country with, at one stage, nearly 20 per cent of the electorate 65 and over. This brings me to pensioners and self-funded retirees, people who've worked all their lives, paid their taxes and built this nation—literally built the foundations that we stand on. What has this government done to make their lives easier or better in retirement? These are the people who, as I've said, have already contributed so much to Australian society and done so much for this nation. Let's not forget that Australia would not exist without those who came before us, those who sacrificed their lives—many of whom were veterans; they fought in wars—and some of whom are still alive today. In addition to our veterans, there are the men and women who literally built the buildings, the bridges, the airports and the infrastructure that we still use today.

How does the government look after those people? What do they do? From 2013 right through to today, to 2018, all we've seen is snip, snip, snip and cut, cut, cut for all those people who are now at retirement age. We've seen changes to deeming rates, for example. This is one of the only governments that's actually lowered the threshold. Usually, the threshold goes up with CPI. This is a government that lowered the threshold that kicked thousands of aged pensioners off the pension—people who'd worked hard and saved a little bit of money on the side to ensure that in retirement they could live comfortably, and this government has just pulled the rug from under their feet. They won't forget. They come to my electorate office regularly and tell me how upset they are by that government decision.

Again, pensioners who choose to go and live overseas—why not? They've worked all their life here. They've paid taxes. They've worked hard. They've contributed. It is their right to choose where they want to live when they're 65, yet we're seeing different cuts and different rates for people who decide to live overseas in their retirement and allowances that just do not keep up with the CPI and cuts made in that area. It's a little bit rich, isn't it, that we're giving out $65 billion to those top-end businesses and cutting from the people who built this country?

As politicians, we have a tribunal which awards pay rises for parliamentarians and senior public servants—and quite hefty ones, too, I've got to say. What do pensioners get? A CPI increase to keep things in check while costs explode around them, and we've seen energy costs rise. I talk to pensioners who are struggling to pay their electricity and gas bills. All this government can do is sit around and point the finger at state governments and a whole range of things. Instead of taking the bull by the horns and ensuring that we have a good national energy policy that creates competition and ensures that we lower prices, all they can do is point the finger at South Australia, Victoria and other places, wipe their hands of it and say, 'It's nothing to do with us.' It is something to do with us. This is a federal government. We can show some leadership and we can ensure that we do something about energy and the price rises of over 70 per cent in the last six years. You do that by ensuring that you have a national energy policy, something that's lacking in this government.

All we have is the National Party saying: 'We don't believe in climate change, and anything to do with renewables is not good; we're not interested.' We had the Treasurer come in with a hunk of coal and plonked it down to show how great coal is. This shows the way this person thinks. Sure, coal plays a role. But throughout the world there is billions and trillions of dollars being invested in renewables and new technologies that we're missing out on. There's a prediction of about $6 trillion within the Asian region over the next 10 years in the economy for renewables. We've sat back and all we can do is play politics with it, instead of ensuring that we have a good national policy on renewables that allows business to plan for the future so that we have more energy in the market to bring prices down. That's what a government should be doing. But, no—these guys just want to point the finger at different people.

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