Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian people like what they see in this year's budget. Whether it is lowering the deficit to $29.4 billion next year and returning it to a surplus of $7.4 billion in 2021 or restraining growth in real payments to 1.9 per cent, Australians know this budget is fiscally responsible. Whether it is guaranteeing Medicare, fully funding the NDIS or introducing Gonski 2.0, Australians know that this budget guarantees essential services. Whether it is easing the strain of the costs of child care, power prices or housing affordability, Australians know this budget also tackles cost of living pressures.

But the most important question is: what is in this budget for the people of the Sunshine Coast? Let us start with infrastructure. Thanks to team Queensland, my LNP colleagues from Queensland—in both the Senate and House of Representatives—we have $530 million allocated to the Bruce Highway for six lanes between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, supplemented by $120 million for the Deception Bay interchange. These big investments on the Bruce Highway build on the $929 million spend between Caloundra and the Sunshine Motorway—the sod being turned only last week—and $187 million on the Bruce Highway around the Maroochydore interchange. Infrastructure and the Sunshine Coast are big winners in this year's budget.

But it is not just infrastructure, this year's budget gives peace of mind to residents about Medicare. On the Sunshine Coast last year, 1.7 million GP visits bulk-billed, which represents over 85 per cent of consultations. An additional $578 million will go to 70 locals schools in the region over the next 10 years. Over 3,500 veterans will have better access to mental health care, and nearly 6,500 DVA clients will benefit from faster service delivery. Through full funding of the NDIS, 4,790 people who are NDIS eligible will know they will be looked after upon full rollout. There will be 4,130 children who will benefit from a boost of $5.2 million for local child care, and 54,000 people on the Sunshine Coast will benefit from a one-off energy assistance payment, paid before the end of this financial year. There will be 1,580 people who will see their pensioner concession cards reinstated, and 37,311 local businesses who will not only see tax cuts but enjoy an extension of the $20,000 instant asset write-off. Never in our history has the Sunshine Coast been the recipient of so much Commonwealth government funding. This is a brilliant budget for Australia and for Queensland, and an absolute cracker for the Sunshine Coast.

Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the budget, without as much preparation as I perhaps would like. It is a budget that does not know whether it is Arthur or Martha. The previous speaker, the member for Fairfax, talked about the government's fiscal objectives and the way that it seeks to get back on some sort of responsible fiscal track. The projected surplus in the early years of the 2020s is minimal, to say the least. I guess we are going to see whether the government is able to achieve that. The reality is that since the coalition came to government in 2013, on the back of what was described as a debt emergency, we have not seen any significant change in a positive direction as far as debt is concerned; in fact, we have seen debt blow out extraordinarily. The government talked at that time as though we were on the brink of some sort of fiscal apocalypse, and things have only got worse. And they have got worse in both directions. The government has not controlled spending and it has not taken advantage of the opposition's preparedness to look at sensible revenue measures.

For Western Australia, this is a budget of great disappointment. This is a government that claimed, under former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, to be focused on infrastructure. I think Prime Minister Abbott described himself as seeking to be the 'infrastructure Prime Minister'. In the government's best year, as far as infrastructure spending is concerned, it has fallen below what the Labor Party delivered in its lowest-spending year. Nowhere is that more clear than in Western Australia. The budget does not provide one new dollar in infrastructure spending for Western Australia. What we have been able to achieve, and it really is something that the Western Australia community has achieved, is the return of $1.2 billion which was allocated to the Perth Freight Link and held over the people of Western Australia in a sort of 'fiscal hostage' manoeuvre. For a number of years we were told it was $1.2 billion for the Perth Freight Link or nothing. It was a project that was born out of the 2014 budget, the new Abbott government's first budget. It was a project that Western Australia had never asked for and that was not assessed by Infrastructure Australia until after it had been proposed. It had no environmental approvals and it had no detail beyond Stock Road. It was a project that would have done irreparable damage to precious wetlands in my community. We were told over and over again that it was $1.2 billion for that project or nothing. Of course, as I remarked the other day, it is funny what an election will achieve. We have seen a stark demonstration of the will of the people of Western Australia in relation to that project and in relation to policy across the board in my state.

Despite the threat by the Minister for Urban Infrastructure that those funds would not be forthcoming to a Western Australian state government for projects that Western Australians had determined were of importance to them, lo and behold, those funds have been handed over, and we are glad about that. In my electorate the projects include Community Connect South, which is the duplication of Armadale Road and the building of the North Lake Road bridge; the widening of the freeway northbound from Russell Road; and fixing the High Street-Stirling Highway intersection and the stretch of High Street west of Carrington Street.

All of these projects were identified by the incoming WA Labor government. They were campaigned on by me and my colleague the member for Burt. I am grateful to see that they will be delivered, but that is money that was allocated as far back as the 2014 budget. In fact, in the case of the upgrade of the High Street-Stirling Highway intersection, those funds were allocated by the federal Labor government in 2008. The member for Tangney was in here the other day banging on about why that project has taken so long. It took so long because between 2008 and the election earlier this year the Barnett government did nothing about it. Something will occur now, and that is fantastic.

Instead of seeing any new funds in infrastructure, which we desperately need, what the government has done—I can only assume under advice of coalition members from Western Australia—is put $1.2 billion in the budget papers as a contingent liability for the next government that comes along, whoever that might be, and delivers on the Perth Freight Link. You can imagine how that has gone down in Western Australia. That has gone down like a lime and sulphur scone. We are not getting any new money for infrastructure. Instead, $1.2 billion is put there as a contingent liability for this ridiculous project that should never have been conceived and will never be proceeded with.

I do not know what it is contingent on. It might be contingent on the member for Tangney inventing a time machine or the people of Western Australia falling under a cloud of delusion, the likes of which seem to have bound up coalition members from Western Australia. Those conditions are never going to come about, but it is bitter in the extreme to have there those $1.2 billion of funds, which we desperately need to address productivity obstacles or blockages and to address severe unemployment in Western Australia. Western Australia recently had the highest unemployment in the country and we are currently experiencing the highest underemployment on record.

The budget is disappointing in a number of other key areas. It is particularly disappointing in education. Western Australia is in a slightly anomalous position with regard to education because the former Barnett government was not interested in being part of needs based funding and it struck its own deal, so it is harder to assess what is going on in Western Australia compared to the rest of the country, where the Labor government came to arrangements with state governments about needs based funding over a period of time. We can now see that under the government's Gonski 2.0—or, as the member for Fairfax called it, two dot zero—Australian schools will have $22 billion less over 10 years and each school will have on average $2.4 million less.

In Western Australia the situation is bleak in a different way. The Barnett government struck its own deal with the Abbott-Turnbull government and it carried the basis of that funding deal in its own budget papers. The Barnett government knew that for the next four years it needed to have a figure based on what it expected the negotiation with the Commonwealth to deliver. That means that there will be a $650 million gap in Western Australia over the next four years. That is not a gap between this budget and what a federal Labor government would have delivered; that is a gap between what the Barnett government carried in its budget papers and what the current Turnbull government is going to give to WA. That is a $650 million black hole. It means that education for kids in my electorate and support for teachers in my electorate will be less than what it should be. I am the son of a teacher. My mum is 70 years old; she continues to work, teaching special needs kids. That is an area where you really see how needs based assistance can make a difference.

As most representatives would know, our schools vary. Our school education system compared to many other countries' is a good one, but there is great variance in primary and high schools across our electorates, which is generally related to socioeconomic circumstances. I can go—as I did at the end of last year, and recently in relation to Anzac Day services—to school after school and get a sense of how the challenges are different, the capital resources are different and the needs are different. That is what needs based funding is all about, but the current proposition put forward by the government, as far as funding goes, is not going to get us to where we need to be. It is not going to get us to the point where inequality and disadvantage is being addressed through needs based funding so that intergenerational disadvantage does not continue and so that children who grow up facing disadvantage, whether it is socioeconomic or because they live with a disability, actually have the greatest possible opportunity to be involved in social and economic life in this country.

I was in the chamber earlier when the Treasurer was introducing the bills to do with the Medicare levy. It is cynical in the extreme for the government to tie its approach to the Medicare levy to the full funding of the NDIS. It is invidious for people who have waited for a long time for the NDIS, a great Labor reform, to be caught up in this kind of debate. The reality is that any government has the ability, out of consolidated revenue, to support the programs it wants to support in the way that it wants to support them. The government is giving $65 billion away in tax cuts; that is its choice. That is its program; it can make that argument. But, if it chose to give away a bit less of that money at a time when a program like the NDIS is being settled in, that funding would be available without recourse to the Medicare levy in the way that the government proposes to pursue it. That is a choice. Tying those things together is, essentially, a political manoeuvre, and that is a shame.

I conclude by looking at the kind of narrative that the government has tried to introduce around this budget, which is, essentially, to look at some of the big reforms that Labor secured in its last government—things like needs based funding and the NDIS. It is trying two kinds of slipperiness: one is to suggest that these things were always going to happen—that we all agreed about them and they were always going to happen. That is rubbish. Labor governments come in and they make change. In the last government, we introduced the NDIS, we introduced needs based funding, we introduced the NBN and we introduced an approach to deal with climate change. Those four things alone are more significant and more momentous than anything a coalition government has done in living memory.

The people in this place like to look back at the time between 1996 and 2007 as a golden era of coalition government. What did those 11 years produce? The GST.

Government Member:

A government member interjecting—

Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you are behind the wheel of an economy that was set up by the profound economic reforms of the Hawke-Keating government, there is no great surprise that you reap the benefits. But what was done with those benefits? Nothing. A Labor government came in, and, in a relatively short time—too short—introduced reforms to do with some of the biggest challenges facing this country, reforms such as the NDIS, the NBN, an economy-wide program to tackle climate change, and needs based funding.

Now we have a coalition government that pretends that it was always on board with those things and that those things were always going to happen—that is rubbish. Then it pretends that but for their excellent administrative capacity and funding know-how those things would not have happened—that is rubbish too. Those challenges are being settled, and they are going to take a Labor government to put them right, but there are further challenges ahead, and we cannot keep having this misconception perpetrated upon the Australian public.

There are great challenges in this nation. Labor does what it can, and has done a remarkable job in recent times of tackling some of those enormous areas. But we cannot have the government spend four, five or six years spinning wheels and indulging in political game playing, trying to shark the credit for the things that Labor governments have done and muddying the waters with facile and insubstantial arguments about money. We need to focus on the big picture. I am sorry that this budget is more smoke and mirrors than it could have been.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018. I would like to start by acknowledging the work that Treasurer Morrison has done. My colleague on the other side the member for Fremantle made a number of comments: I think his closing words were 'facile and insubstantial focus on money'. That is what budgets are: a focus on money. As much as we would like to live in a nirvana where we can do whatever we want with the magic pudding that is the budget of the Australian government, there are unfortunately consequences for that.

Politics is the art of the possible. Over the last couple of days, I have had some emails with some criticism of the budget in different parts. The budget is not a philosophical sheet of wants and needs of individual groups; it is for the management of the economy of the entire nation. It is a balance between supporting all facets of our population. I acknowledge the work that Treasurer Morrison has done on that.

I might start on a positive note, with the focus on infrastructure in this budget. Infrastructure is the skeleton on which our economy grows. The announcement of $8.4 billion, on top of the $900 million that has already been committed, for the Inland Rail project is probably the most exciting budget announcement I have seen in my time—certainly in my nearly 10 years in this place. I spoke in February 2008—the very first time I spoke in parliament—about the need for inland rail. Indeed, during the preselection process, I said one of the reasons I wanted to get off my tractor, leave my previous career in agriculture and go to Canberra was to promote projects that would grow the economy of the area that I represent, and of the country as a whole. I spoke about inland rail at that stage, and now it has gone from a concept to a reality. There are some issues with that reality. Being the member of an electorate that has over 300 kilometres of greenfield site for the inland rail, gives me some concerns about where the route will go and the disruption to farm activities and the amenity of people living in that area. We will work through that with the ARTC.

But I will say here today: I am committed to this project. This project is a nation-building project within the same scope of the Snowy Mountains scheme, not only connecting the intermodal traffic between Melbourne and Brisbane and taking the pressure off the increasing freight task that is mainly on the Newell Highway but also providing the opportunity for communities in western New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria to grow on that spine.

I have been studying rail for some time. I have been to Canada and looked at their system, and I have seen how the decentralisation of Canada right across the prairies has been driven by rail. Already we are starting to see some construction of culverts and bridges, ready to take the increased weights and traffic for the Inland Rail.

Also I was pleased to see in the budget the confirmation of the promise that was made last year of $25 million for the integrated cancer centre in Dubbo—the concept that the people of western New South Wales can have access to top-class cancer facilities not only for treatment but for diagnosis. In the area that that represents, people now are dying because of a late diagnosis. They are dying because they choose to stay at home in their communities rather than travel to Sydney or Orange for intensive chemotherapy or radiation. Having that service in Dubbo to service the people of the west not only for treatment but also for early diagnosis with a PET scanner is a great thing. I am working very closely with the New South Wales government to make sure that that centre is constructed as part of the redevelopment in stages 3 and 4 of the Dubbo Base Hospital. Hopefully, within 18 months or so, we will see that come to fruition.

We have heard a lot from the members of the opposition about our financial and tax changes in this budget. We have heard about gifts to millionaires and $65 billion being ripped out of the budget. I have a fundamentally different point of view to the members of the Labor Party. I believe that the economy of this country, particularly in my electorate, is built on the back of small business. These are people who have the courage to step out of their comfort zone, to risk what they have and to back themselves in starting a business. They might be someone who finishes their apprenticeship as a builder or a plumber or an electrician and borrows the money to buy a ute and start their own business and ultimately put on an apprentice of their own and grow that business. We need to back those people. If every small business in my electorate, 13,000 of them, put on one more employee, we would have a shortage of workforce. We would not be able to meet that demand. The idea that we can run the country with a top-heavy, government approach is false. We need to back our small business.

Already we are starting to see the benefits of the instant asset write-off for equipment under $20,000. The businesses in my electorate are doing a roaring trade selling chainsaws, quad bikes, computers, toolboxes and trailers—a whole range of equipment that businesses can use and write off their tax. But there are also the measures that were in the ag white paper, such as the accelerated depreciation for grain storages. If you drive around western New South Wales, you will see magnificent grain storages standing there, built because of the tax incentives that enable those farmers to put them in, giving them a greater control of their product and also increasing employment in the area, as the construction of these facilities is booming, for people selling the silos, electricians, concreters and a whole range of others. With the accelerated depreciation for water systems, we are seeing massive rollouts of water systems across farms. In the last drought, people were able to manage their pasture more effectively because they had a water system that covered the entire property. It is the same with fencing. All these things require work to put them in. They require small businesses, contractors and suppliers, and all of that is feeding through the economies of my electorate.

There has been a bit of discussion about the funding of schools and the massive cuts. The Teachers Federation have run stories in some of my towns describing cuts to funding to their schools. I find that rather puzzling. I have a list here of 153 schools in the Parkes electorate. I do not think there would be many electorates that would have more than 153 schools. According to the metropolitan newspapers, I have more Catholic schools than any other electorate in Australia. The funding is set out in this list, and not one of those 153 schools has had a cut; they actually have had an increase.

For members opposite who were not here at the time, a short history lesson as to how this message came about may be of benefit. Julia Gillard, when she was the education minister, started the process of needs based funding, and there is no argument about that. I reckon my electorate has more disadvantaged communities that any other electorate in Australia, so there is no argument from me on that. In government, we have continued a funding model through into the forward estimates for four years with increases every year. The final two years of the so-called Gonski proposal was a balloon, an escalation in funding that was not funded. It is a bit like saying to your kids, 'Okay, this year I'm going to buy you a motorbike. Next year I'm going to buy you a car. The next year I'll buy you a house. I haven't got the money but I'm promising you that in years 5 and 6 I'm going to buy you a shopping centre. I don't know where the money's going to come from. That's not my worry.' They said that, knowing that, at that stage, more than likely, they were not going to be in government. It planted a nice little time bomb there. The member for Sydney was probably already working out her lines three years in advance, when that time bomb would go into the balloon stage of the final two years.

It was irresponsible government; it raised the expectations of communities that they were going to get something that they never were going to get. Now they are scaring communities into believing that they are going to get a reduction. There are 153 schools—private schools, Christian schools, Catholic schools and government schools—on this list, and not one of them is going to get a reduction. I was at one of those schools the other day. It had six students, smart boards, a couple of support staff and a dedicated principal, and it is in a very remote part of New South Wales. The idea that kids in schools in far-flung regions of our nation are being disadvantaged by this government is false; it is dishonest. Quite frankly, it is vicious and vindictive, and I will take on the Labor Party and the Teachers Federation on this issue every single day.

I will finish up with something that is very important in my electorate: the NDIS. I do agree with the member for Petrie that the idea that, in a couple of years time, there will be an increase in the Medicare levy to fund the NDIS is fair. If a member of your family is disabled and you live in a city, it is a tough call. But if a member of your family has a disability—whether it is acquired or whether they are born with it—and you live in a small, remote town, it is an enormous challenge. I deal with families on a regular basis that have to make gut-wrenching decisions to leave the lives that they know and relocate to larger centres to care for disabled family members. The NDIS is being rolled out at the moment and, as with any rollout, there are some difficulties. My office is dealing with people who are having challenges with that, and we still have some challenges in my electorate. It is one thing to allocate funding to people; it is another thing to make sure that the services they require with that funding are available. My office and I are working through that at the moment.

I think this is a very fair budget. Treasurer Morrison has indicated a way back to a surplus budget, and that is very important. A lot of people in my area understand the need to be financially responsible.

Those opposite have this magic pudding approach and think that being financially responsible is just some sort of choice we make, but it is important. We cannot expect our grandchildren to be paying for the excesses of our country at the moment. As we head up to baby boomers needing care, we have to make sure we see this country in solid shape. When our grandchildren are the ones in the workforce funding baby boomers such as me in our later years, they are not only going to be stretched to find the finances; this country is going to be stretched to find the workforce. So we have a responsibility through this budget to put this country on solid ground so that our children and grandchildren can then build on and enjoy the wonderful lifestyle that the current generation has. I commend this budget to the House.

Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the appropriation bills—Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2017-2018 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018—before the parliament. Labor has publicly committed to supporting the supply, so Labor will not oppose these appropriation bills. But that does not mean that we support the sentiments underlying these bills—sentiments that prioritise millionaires and multinationals over ordinary Australians and that seek to redefine fairness, turning it into a fairy tale. This budget is not fair, and all of Australia knows it. All of my electorate of Paterson knows it as well. In fact, everywhere I have been in the last two weeks people in my electorate have told me in no uncertain terms what they think of it—and 'fairness' is not the word that they have been using to describe it.

Last week I hosted 250 seniors in the Maitland Town Hall. They came along to express their concerns about the rising cost of living, the escalating barriers that the government is putting up, trying to make it so much harder for them, waiting an eternity on the phone to speak to someone or trying to access the internet with hopeless internet. At markets in Kurri Kurri and Raymond Terrace it was the same story. At Bayswater Power Station, AGL representatives talked about the lack of a coherent energy policy. It is now hampering planning for the future. This is a real crisis.

But hang on—the man from Snowy Hydro 2.0 is riding up to save the day! Except that the Prime Minister's $2 billion expansion of Snowy Hydro will likely require an extra $2 billion to be spent on upgrading poles and wires to deliver the energy to the national electricity market. It will take longer than expected. We heard this at the budget estimates hearing just yesterday. So that is unravelling as well. The Prime Minister's weekly thought bubbles do not constitute the energy policy that we so desperately need in this country.

The talk was also of the price of gas at Tomago Aluminium—a major manufacturer and employer in my electorate where I was pleased last week to host Labor's Mark Butler, the shadow minister for energy. The same manufacturers at a roundtable afterwards were talking about exorbitant gas prices. Those prices are being held over their heads like some sort of ransom. We are talking about real manufacturers who employ real Australians who just want to get on with the job of making and doing things.

At an Independent Education Union forum talk that I gave last week the talk was all about Gonski 2.0 and what a joke it is. 'When will the government get serious about education?' I was asked by the crowd, and I was asked, 'When are they going to talk to teachers and their representatives?'

At Williamtown during a long-awaited visit by the Minister for Defence, Marise Payne, and Senator James McGrath people living in fear and limbo because of PFAS contamination from the RAAF base were wondering, 'What is in the budget for us?' Yes, there was some money for some health studies, but where is the money that will give them the chance to have a real choice to move out of the contaminated red zone? Where is that money for those people? I do hope it is going to be found somewhere.

The budget did deliver one win for my electorate in the funding of Testers Hollow—a $15 million promise. But it was interesting that it was only made when the Liberals were shamed into matching a Labor election commitment. We had to hound them all the way, and then I had to badger to get that money and make sure we received it.

The Treasurer and the Prime Minister are going about spruiking that the budget they handed down was fair, but they really do not understand the meaning of the word. People in my electorate know the meaning of the word. They know that it equates to treating people equally, without favouritism or discrimination. Well, what I see in this budget is favouritism for the big end of town and discrimination against ordinary Australians. Ordinary people in my electorate of Paterson just want a job, an education, a home, and a fair go.

Australia-wide, as in Paterson, we now have record underemployment; fewer hours worked per Australian than ever before; higher rates of casualisation and insecure work; record low wages growth and—the cherry on the top—cuts to penalty rates. And, of course, all of this feeds into the difficulties our young people have gaining finance in an increasingly competitive housing market. This government with this budget is doing nothing serious to address any of the economic ills that are plaguing our nation. I believe that this government does not know how to address these economic ills. It has been a policy void for the last four years. I think they actually forget they are the government.

But Labor knows how to govern, and we have made some excellent decisions in the past. We understand economic growth that is inclusive and that is the only way forward—economic growth that rewards hard work, not penalises it by cutting penalty rates; economic growth that prioritises a decent social safety net so we protect and look after our most vulnerable and do not leave anyone behind; economic growth that favours all sectors of society, not just the big end of town—the millionaires and the multinationals; economic growth that is inclusive of everyone who works and strives to work, who owns their home or is at least trying to own a home; economic growth that recognises that good education and training is not a cost but a benefit, that infrastructure investment is not a cost but a benefit, that good healthcare is not a cost but a benefit, and that the NDIS is not a cost but a benefit.

In labelling some debt good and some debt bad this government has branded many throughout our nation as simply not worth its investment. Yet, it has the hide to call this budget fair. Labor understands fairness, and Labor will not leave anyone behind. Labor will not cut $22 billion from schools—$23 million in the Paterson electorate alone—and call it a gain. Labor will not give tax cuts to the top end of town, while raising taxes for battlers. Labor will not let property investors run roughshod over first-home buyers, forever keeping them out of the housing market or forcing them to dip into their superannuation.

It is no wonder this government is spinning the fairness fairy-tale, because its jobs and growth mantra has certainly had its day. For all the talk about jobs and growth, we are not hearing very much about that now. We have sort of flipped. The new glib slogan is 'fairness'. Key parameters in this budget have actually been downgraded. These are the facts: growth is down, wages growth is down, employment is down, the unemployment rate is up and there are 95,000 fewer jobs forecast in this budget than the one before. These are the stats. Where are the jobs for the young people of Paterson, where the rate of unemployment has been one of the highest in the country? Where are the jobs for mature workers, who are being made redundant left right and centre but being told they need to work to the age of 70?

Only Labor will address the issue of local skills shortages and training, reversing the massive cuts to TAFE and apprenticeships. The disembowelment we have seen of TAFE and apprenticeships has been truly disgusting. Only Labor understands the importance of training the next generation of tradesmen and women, especially in a region such as the Hunter Valley. We will ensure these opportunities are available to our young people and those who need to reskill, which is also vitally important. Labor will not put its faith in the big end of town to do the right thing, like the Prime Minister and his government are with his nonsensical and quite frankly outmoded version of trickle-down economics, via corporate tax cuts.

This government promised to fix the budget, but their own numbers show record net debt for the next three years; a deficit for the coming year that is 10 times bigger than was predicted in their first budget, in 2014; and gross debt expected to crash through the half-a-trillion dollar mark within weeks, for the first time in Australia's history. Where is the talk of debt and deficit disaster now? You guys have the debt and deficit disaster smack bang on your hands. It does not sound like a fairytale that is going to have a happy ending. Considering that you are such economic maestros, I think you are doing a pretty poor job of running this band.

The Treasurer talks about better days ahead, but consumer confidence is at its lowest in a year and a half, and those better days are not likely to be celebrated by many women, some of whom will be forced into the effective marginal tax rates of 100 per cent—yes, 100 per cent—according to the National Foundation for Australian Women. No wonder this government no longer produces a women's budget statement; they are too ashamed. When you take into account the increase in the Medicare levy, cuts to family tax benefit and making lower income earners pay back university debts, some women will be handing virtually everything back to the taxman. Far from boosting women's workforce participation, this budget hits women hard. For women, this budget is certainly not fair. Rather than being a fairytale, it is a horror story. Labor has been calling on the Liberals to bring back the women's budget statement, but they have refused. So, for four years, Labor has produced a women's budget statement from opposition, and of that we are very proud. In their 2017 budget the Liberals could find $65 billion to give big businesses a tax break, but they had little for the services that women rely on.

This government cannot be trusted to look after anyone in our community, least of all the most vulnerable. After decades of trying to destroy Medicare, the Liberals now say that they believe in it, but they will not end the Medicare freeze until 2020. After years of saying that money does not make a difference in our schools, they now support needs based funding, but they have given Gonski a bad name with their half-baked version that actually amounts to a cut. Do not believe all the words of rhetoric coming from the member for Parkes, saying, 'The money was never there and it was never going to happen.' We made a commitment, we looked at the school resourcing standard and we said, 'This is where these children need to go, this is how they need to be funded.' We had a plan. This government from day one has had no plans, and it has scrambled, and continues to scramble, along every major policy platform. They will not fund schools and universities properly, they will not address housing affordability properly and they want to cut penalty rates.

This government does not know the meaning of the word 'fair', especially when it comes to young people. Young people, women and people who rely on Medicare are all targets of this budget. No budget will ever be fair which, on 1 July, sees millionaires in this country pay less. It is like Saturday Night Fever at the millionaire's house on 1 July, but let me tell you it is 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' on 2 July when people go to work and see their penalty rates being cut. This week the health department released new quarterly data showing huge jumps in out-of-pocket expenses to go to GPs, specialists and allied health services. Australians are paying $7.70 more to see a GP since the Medicare freeze was announced by the Abbott government in 2014. This is proof that the freeze the government has implemented is a GP tax by stealth. They might have stopped trying to push it through the parliament, but they were still determined to make Australians pay more.

Nor is there is relief for age pensioners, who will be the next target of the Department of Human Services' robo-debt debacle—talk about the rogue algorithm strikes again. This deeply flawed system will try to claw back nearly $1 billion from the pockets of pensioners. That is not going to fly in my electorate, and I am going to be telling my pensioners, 'How can that be fair?' In the past week I have had many conversations about the budget with many people in my electorate, and, as I said earlier, 'fair' is not the word they are using to describe it. Labor will not stand in the way of these appropriation bills, but Labor will continue to fight for a better deal for ordinary Australians. It is what Labor have always done and what we will always do. The people in my electorate of Paterson have told me, 'Give 'em hell,' and that is what I and my colleagues on this side of the House will continue to do in the face of such blatant disregard for ordinary Australians. This government wears fairness like an ill-fitting suit, but Labor know fairness, because it is the very fabric of our cloth.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I call the member for Forde I remind all members in the chamber to address their remarks through the chair.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is 14 or 15 minutes that I will not get back! It just shows what those opposite stand for. It is a culture of complaint. Not a single positive solution or alternative has been proposed. That is typical of those opposite.

It is a pleasure to rise in this chamber today to speak in support of the 2017 budget, which will provide tremendous opportunities for the people, businesses and organisations in my electorate of Forde. We see, in this budget, the Australian government providing the opportunity and the incentive for many in our community to take advantage of the opportunity that is there. We see a budget that is framed around seeking to provide fairness and responsibility—importantly, through the guaranteeing of fundamental services that the people of Australia expect, need and use every single day. These services affect thousands of people in my electorate of Forde and will support them and give them the encouragement to take other opportunities that are presented in their daily lives.

I would like to start with funding for schools. We hear those opposite carry on about cuts to funding for schools. Well, when they were in government they actually never funded anything other than what was in the forward estimates. Everything outside of that was just a complete fairytale. Our needs based funding model for schools has been endorsed by the doyen of those opposite, David Gonski, and is about fairness. It is about fairness because we are treating every student in each system equally. Schools in every sector in every local community in the electorate of Forde will be receiving significant increases in funding because of our needs based funding model. We had a forum with the Minister for Education and Training last week where we went through it in detail. We had the vast majority of principals from our schools in Forde at that forum, and they were very, very happy with what they were presented with. So it is great news for the 41 primary and secondary schools in the electorate of Forde and some 32½ thousand students.

The total increase in federal government funding for schools in the electorate of Forde over the next 10 years is some $417 million. Importantly—and this is based on the discussions I have had with a number of principals—they would have been happy to receive what they were currently receiving, because in Queensland we had extra money put in after the 2013 election, some $800 million, that those opposite never committed to. Not only have we increased funding in this budget for schools in the electorate of Forde and schools in Queensland; we previously increased funding for schools in Queensland in the 2013 budget. That is reflected in programs, such as I4S, that the schools run. Those principals would have been happy with the existing funding, because it allowed them to run the programs that they needed to run, let alone the real increases that we are now providing to schools in the electorate of Forde and across Queensland.

Importantly, our increased funding will be tied to reforms that evidence shows make a real difference in supporting our teachers and schools in improving student outcomes. This is a system that reflects the importance of students, the important work that parents do and the valuable work that teachers and school communities do every single day in our electorates right across the country.

The government is also working to continue to provide record funding for health and, in particular, Medicare. In the budget, we have set out a guarantee of Medicare's future, with a dedicated fund which will protect those vital services for this generation and the next. We have seen a record number of Australians in Forde accessing these vital services. Last financial year some 1.1 million GP services in the electorate were bulk-billed—a bulk-billing rate of 95.2 per cent, which is well above the Australian average of approximately 83 per cent.

In addition to that, this budget provides over $1.2 billion for cheaper access to medicines. We are listing more drugs on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to ensure families have access to these vital drugs. These drugs and medicines will assist people suffering from conditions and diseases such as heart disease, pulmonary fibrosis, schizophrenia, psoriasis, severe asthma, myeloma and more.

Importantly, in this budget we will seek to continue strengthening our support for mental health and suicide prevention, with a package of over $170 million. As somebody who has a headspace in my electorate, I am well aware of how important this ongoing funding is. Part of this funding package includes some $80 million to continue community mental health services for people with mental illness who do not qualify for the NDIS. This is contingent on state and territories matching our funding to ensure we have a national approach and funding commitment. Additionally, Australians living in rural and regional areas will now have significantly improved access to psychologists under a new $9.1 million telehealth initiative set to rollout later this year. There is also funding for things such as barriers and signage at high-risk suicide locations, mental health research and, importantly, support for our veterans.

I had the pleasure last week of being joined by the Brisbane South Primary Health Network to announce a $350,000 suicide prevention and mental health trial program in Logan. This is a very personal issue for hundreds of individuals, and I am very pleased to say that this trial will be able to provide better support to those who need it. The trial is structured around people presenting to Logan Hospital emergency department with mental health issues or self-harm issues. They will then be engaged with the services of the people at Brook RED, one of our great mental health service providers, who are a peer based support group. They will go and stand alongside these people right from the get go to try and prevent the issues becoming worse.

As I said, our veterans also receive assistance in this budget. All past and current service personnel who have undertaken at least one day of full-time service will benefit from easier access to free mental health support and services. Enhanced access to counselling for veterans and veterans' families counselling services will benefit partners and dependants of contemporary veterans. I am sure many in this House have, from time to time, unfortunately seen veterans come into our offices who are struggling with mental health and other issues—both those who are contemporary, or recent, veterans and those who have served in the past, in conflicts a long time ago. These services will provide benefits for some 1,163 veterans and their families living in the electorate of Forde.

All DVA clients, including the 2,000-odd DVA clients in the electorate of Forde, will also benefit from an investment in this year's budget to modernise DVA's ICT systems, which will provide easier access to DVA services and improve claims processing times. I know, from when I regularly go to visit the Beenleigh RSL and talk to the veterans there about their dealings with DVA, they will be very happy to see that, because that is a frequent source of complaint. I am sure that for all of us it is a frequent source of additional work in our offices, so we will all be happy to see that investment and that upgrade.

One of the most important measures in the budget is the coalition's commitment to securing funding for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Australians with a disability deserve the best care we can provide and the National Disability Insurance Scheme was established to fund this. But, despite the protestations of those opposite, it was never funded properly to do the job that it was set up to do. Once fully rolled out, the NDIS will help an estimated 3,463 people in the electorate of Forde. I am very pleased to be able to go and say to those people that it is this government that is ensuring that the NDIS is fully funded, so that the services that they deserve and require will be able to be delivered. Funding these vital services will ensure that these people have the dignity in their lives that they so richly deserve.

As well as funding these vital services, we have also announced measures that will help grow the economy and create more jobs for Australians. Delivering tax relief for small business is a critical component of this. In this budget, we are extending the incredibly popular instant asset write-off for small business. There are some 14,600 small businesses in the electorate of Forde that will be able to take advantage of this measure, and I know that, in the small-business forum and roundtable that we had with the Minister for Small Business last week, the extension of this measure was very, very well received.

In addition to extending the instant asset write-off, we are also delivering small- and medium-business tax cuts benefiting some 3.2 million small and medium businesses, which employ 6.5 million Australians. This will help some 15,400 businesses in Forde, with turnovers up to $50 million if they are incorporated and up to $5 million if they are unincorporated, to invest and employ more Australians.

One of the issues that I see frequently in my electorate, and I think it has been a growing problem over time, is when I talk to businesspeople about access to people for apprenticeships. In this budget, the coalition government is creating a fund to help train Australian apprentices in key trades and skills to get more young Australians into work and to help Australian business grow. It is not just businesses that employ people. Many of these apprentices can go on to set up their own business. For example, my brother is a ceramic tiler. He did his apprenticeship—fortunately with our father, who is a ceramic tiler—and he has for the past 30 years very successfully run his own business as a ceramic tiler. That is just one of many stories.

Many, many people in our electorates who we get to do work in our houses or in our offices are self-employed tradespeople who did an apprenticeship and maybe worked for an employer for a little while to build their skills, but then they have taken the opportunity to strike out on their own path. We should look at rewarding that and ensuring that we have the next generation of tradespeople in our communities. That is what this fund is aimed at doing. This extra investment will help approximately 2,200 local young Australians aged 15 to 24 who are looking for a job or looking for more work in the electorate of Forde.

In our community last year, I launched the ParentsNext program. I am pleased to say that in this budget we have extended that nationally, with some $263 million of funding to help young parents who are looking to get back into the workforce to build their skills and capacities.

We have also announced the abolition of the 457 visa to ensure that we have a visa system that caters to the needs of our economy and focuses on ensuring that there are jobs first and foremost for Australians, particularly those who are apprentices but also those who are more generally looking for work.

It is the coalition government, through the range of measures that I have outlined in this budget, that is looking to provide support to families, reduce cost-of-living pressures and create opportunity. It is one of the things that we as Australians do very, very well. If we are given an opportunity, we can grab that opportunity and run with it and make a great success of it. There are other things in the budget which I do not have time to cover. The child care and preschool funding package has been enormously well received in electorates like mine, where over 11,000 families in the electorate will benefit. There are our affordable housing plans and greater accountability for our big banks, which I know is an issue for many. It is this coalition government with this budget that is looking to create the opportunity for Australians to grow, prosper and succeed. (Time expired)

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is another shocker budget that hits regional communities, particularly those in central Victoria, incredibly hard. Unfortunately, the press release I put out post budget was very similar to the press release last year and the year before. It is another shocker budget by the Liberal-National government. It makes ordinary, everyday working Australians pay more and do more of the heavy lifting while again this government and the Prime Minister give their mates in big business another handout and another tax cut.

This budget is unfair. It does not matter how many times the Prime Minister and his ministers say 'fairness'; this budget is not fair. It is unfair. It delivers more handouts to multinationals and millionaires whilst hurting every Australian family, including many in my own electorate of Bendigo. The people in Bendigo are frustrated. They are frustrated by how this budget has failed to deliver for them and our community in a couple of key areas.

The government, despite all of their rhetoric about investing in Infrastructure Australia and regional rail, did not commit to partnering with the state government to upgrade the Bendigo-Echuca line. We saw the member for Murray's audacity yesterday when he made a 90-second statement about how great the budget is but failed to mention the funding that is needed right now to upgrade the Bendigo-Echuca line. Echuca, of course, is in the member for Murray's electorate. If the government wanted to help the people in his community get to Melbourne right now, you would have thought they would have invested in that line.

Instead, post budget we had the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, the member for Gippsland, turn up in Bendigo. He did not go to the train line; no, he turned up at the Bendigo Airport to talk about rail. Maybe this explains why they are a little confused about infrastructure—they are turning up at airports to talk about rail. Maybe it is because he did not want to be confronted by rail users at the Bendigo train station about their lack of investment in the regional rail network.

This budget as well hits a lot of working people in Bendigo by asking them to pay more tax. Someone earning $65,000 will be expected under this government to pay an extra $325 in tax in two years time. Now $65,000 is higher than the median wage in my electorate. In my electorate people do work hard but they do not earn a lot. Like most regional electorates, the median wage in our area is about $50,000. All of these people and families will be expected to pay more in tax. As I have said, this budget fails the fairness test. Australians can never trust this government to be able to deliver a fair budget.

This budget fails the jobs test. Unemployment is going up. Underemployment is spiking. Wages are flatlining. We have a revenue problem in this country yet, rather than addressing the measures and introducing reform that would help increase wages in a sustainable way, this government again is doing nothing and allowing wages in some sectors to fall and wages overall in our country to flatline.

This budget fails the health test and the Medicare test. This government is delaying reversing the unfair cuts to Medicare for three years. Just after the federal election I held my own series of round tables in the Bendigo electorate to discuss with people their fears. They are scared about the rising costs of health care and they are angry and upset at the way in which this government is undermining Medicare, the universal healthcare safety net.

On average, people in the Bendigo region are $21 out of pocket when they see a GP. Bulk-billing rates in our area are stalling. There is one 100 per cent bulk-billing practice left in the 3550 postcode area. Some other practices bulk-bill only children and some others bulk-bill children and concession card holders. When we surveyed not just patients but 23 clinics in the 3550 postcode area we discovered that, on average, patients were $21 out of pocket. It may not sound like a lot to a millionaire, but $21 just to see a GP is a lot to people in Bendigo in central Victoria who are on low wages or fixed incomes.

In one particular case that again shows how the government are failing, a woman came and spoke to me about her experience of Medicare. She is trying to stay healthy. She goes for a regular Pap smear test and she is $16 out of pocket. She goes to see the GP prior to that, to get her prescriptions renewed and to have a discussion with the doctor about her health, and she is $21 out of pocket—just for standard preventive health measures. These are the costs that people in regional areas are facing more and more. Despite the government's rhetoric, they have failed to address this and to reinvest properly in Medicare. Their con around Medicare is something that they should be called out for. Everyday Australians are paying more whilst big business are not. Budgets are about priorities, and again the government have said that their priority is not everyday Australians, not the people of Bendigo, but big business and their mates.

The other debate that is going on in this place is the $50 billion handout the government are giving big business while increasing the taxes of Australians earning over $21,655. That is a lot of regional workers. We are talking about people in hospitality and retail who will get hit on 1 July with a cut to their penalty rates. They will then get hit with paying more in their Medicare levy. The problem with this government is that they are handing out money to big business and making ordinary working Australians on minimum wages pay for it. The frustration that people in the Bendigo electorate have around this budget is that people who are being hit with penalty rate cuts—people who are trying to survive on low incomes—are being asked to pay more in tax whilst the government prioritises giving a handout to big business.

To remind those opposite about the minimum wage in this country: if you have two children and are earning the minimum wage, and if that is the sole income of the household, you are actually living below the poverty line. Our minimum wage has not kept up with its original purpose of supporting a household with three children to, through frugal means, afford meals and the occasional holiday. That was the original intent with the minimum wage. It is not a decent wage these days. These minimum-wage workers, who are by definition living below the poverty line and who are trying to support their children through school, have been hit not only with penalty rate cuts, if they work in the hospitality and retail sectors, but with a tax increase. At the same time, the government are doing very little to crack down on multinational tax evasion and the rorts occurring in negative gearing and capital gains tax, and they are handing out $50 billion to big business.

Labor supports increasing the Medicare levy, but only for those who are in the top two income brackets. That is the fairest way. When wages are flatlining, you cannot increase the tax on those people; it is not fair. Why should somebody earning $55,000 pay an extra $275 in tax when someone on $80,000 pays an extra $400? People on low incomes spend every single dollar of their income. When you take more away from them, that is money that you are taking out of the local economy.

There are new nasties and old zombies in this budget. Again, I cannot understand why the government thinks that it is entirely reasonable to increase the pension age to 70, the highest in the developed world. Nurses cannot work until they are 70. Plumbers cannot work until they are 70. In regional areas, like Bendigo, we are reliant upon traditional trades and traditional caring, like nursing and teaching. It is hard to work in those industries until you are 70. This is the government trying to save money. It is not being realistic about the jobs that people have.

There are new cuts to family payments, which will again hit regional communities hard. There are new cuts to health for veterans. The abolition of the energy supplement for new people coming onto payments will leave pensioners, for example, $366 a year worse off, when energy bills are going up as a result of this government's inaction. Remember, prior to the 2013 election, it said, 'Abolish the carbon tax, the price on carbon, and energy bills will go down.' Well, what a con! They did not go down; they have gone up. This winter, people in central Victoria know that they will be hit by an incredibly high bill. And this government has done nothing at all to try to curb the energy market. Instead, we are seeing it proposing to cut an energy supplement which would help those most in need of getting on top of their bills.

The bank tax was exposed yesterday and on Monday in question time. Whilst the government say that it is a new tax, it is actually a levy and therefore will become a tax deduction for the big banks. So the expected $6 billion they hope to make is not actually $6 billion, because these banks can then claim it as a tax deduction. We are all still trying to work out exactly how much this measure will actually create for the budget.

In the few moments left, I want to reiterate how the cuts to schools are disastrous. This is not needs based funding. It does not matter what those opposite say; it is not needs based funding. I will demonstrate the impact of this government's cuts to Bendigo schools. We have the Bendigo Senior Secondary College, the largest VCE school in the state of Victoria. It has VCAL and VET programs. Under Labor and the original Gonski needs based funding model, this school would have gotten an extra $1.6 million next year to ensure it has the resources to give every student the quality education that they deserve. Under this government's model it is down to $265,000. It has gone from $1.6 million to $265,000. There is a significant gap there that this government is ignoring.

Another example is Lightning Reef Primary School. Under Labor it would have received much more, but this government is saying that it will only get an extra $35,000. This is one of the schools in the poorest, most disadvantaged parts of Victoria, and it is only getting an extra $35,000. Meanwhile, an independent school in the Bendigo area that has the capacity to charge fees and that charges quite high fees is getting half a million dollars, $500,000, from this government next year.

Our Catholic schools in the region are very upset with this government's funding cuts to Catholic schools. We have a large Catholic school footprint in Bendigo and central Victoria, and they are angry that the government is cutting funding to programs like the Doxa School program, which gives kids a second chance. Its ratio is about one teacher to five students, and that is what the school has worked out it needs to get these young people back into school and back into education. The school provides a lot of social work. It provides a lot of activities. It rebuilds their confidence. All of these kids are from disadvantaged backgrounds, homes and families where there is significant trauma. The school has worked out how to reconnect these young people to a love of learning and, more importantly, to their community. This school is working, and the Catholic education system should be congratulated for the Doxa School. Instead of learning from it, what have the government done? They have cut its funding, and they have said, 'We don't trust the Catholic schools to be able to deliver the needs based funding in accordance with their values and principles and the school's needs.'

What this government has done to education is a disgrace, and the fact that it continues to misrepresent what 'needs based' is is just shocking. Previous speakers have demonstrated how they misunderstand it. They say, 'We want every school to be equal.' Schools are not equal. Not every school is equal, and not every community in our country is equal. If that is the aspiration, to get to equality, then you need to increase the funding significantly for the disadvantaged schools—not, like I have just said, with half a million dollars to the most wealthy school in the Bendigo electorate, which charges parents a fortune, whilst the other schools like Lightning Reef and Bendigo Senior Secondary College miss out. That funding should have gone to schools in need.

This budget is a shocker. It rips at the heart of regional and central Victorians. It does nothing to create jobs. Whilst Labor are not blocking supply, we call on the government to partner with Labor in fixing up a number of these loopholes. (Time expired)

Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a delight to speak about this year's budget through the mechanism of Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-18. When you think about the Australian economy, it is really a remarkable achievement that we have had going on for 26 years of continuous economic growth—the longest period of economic growth of any country anywhere in the history of the world. Since the coalition government were elected in 2013, we have created half a million new jobs. We are continuing the program of economic prosperity through the reintroduction of the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the introduction of the Registered Organisations Commission, which will improve productivity in all workplaces, particularly, with the ABCC, on building sites. It is also more than a thousand days since the last boat arrived, and we have restored confidence in the immigration system.

What we have in this budget are more of the government's achievements and more of its prudent economic management. I want to talk a little bit about the nature of the budget settings. The budget settings are around fairness, security and opportunity. I want to look particularly at the situation of the debt and the deficit, which is so important to those on this side of the House. We have reduced the growth in debt by two-thirds since we came to government in 2013. It was at 34 per cent; it is now at less than 10 per cent. We have cut the rate of growth in spending. It was more than 3½ per cent when we came to government; now it is less than two per cent. Over Labor's six years, they accumulated around $240 billion in deficits. Over the same period we too have run deficit budgets, but we have had $70 billion less in deficits.

Happily, from 2018-19, for the first time in a decade, we will no longer be borrowing to spend on everyday expenditure—we will no longer be putting things on the credit card when we go out to dinner! We are going to return the country to surplus in 2020-21, with a surplus of $7.4 billion. Since we came to government we have had $25 billion in savings passed by the Senate, but we have had savings of $14.7 billion stall and we are no longer going to proceed with them. It is like any company's balance sheet: if you know you cannot produce things, you take them off the balance sheet, and that is what we have done here.

We need to push harder. We need to continue to focus on debt and deficit. That is why it is so important that these bills are passed, why it is so important that these measures are undertaken. And it is why it is so important that the coalition is returned at the next election, because one can only imagine how bad the debt and deficit will be if those opposite get their hands on the kitty again.

Another of the important economic measures we have taken is to extend the life of the Future Fund. We are not drawing down any Future Fund money for an extra 10 years, and this will save a century of taxpayer money on what have been unfunded liabilities of Public Service pensions. And we have raised $3 billion from multinational tax avoidance laws. In one year we have raised that amount from just seven companies. Despite a fair degree of bloviating before the election, those opposite chose to vote against the bill that made that law.

I heard from the previous speaker, the member for Bendigo, what I have heard so often from members opposite: an obsession with the small-business tax cut that we passed at the end of this financial year, which allows tax cuts for businesses with turnovers of up to $50 million. Labor was only prepared to support a tax cut for businesses with turnovers of $2 million, but anybody who knows anything about business knows that a business with only $2 million turnover is a microbusiness, not a small business. It is very important that Australia's corporate tax rate becomes competitive with the rest of the world, because at the moment our corporate tax rate is massively uncompetitive. In this budget we are providing further opportunities for small business by extending the instant asset write-off for small businesses purchasing items of capital of up to $20,000. I know the small businesses in my electorate really think that this is a fantastic opportunity and a fantastic measure.

We are creating opportunities for first home buyers and in the housing system more broadly. One of the big issues in my electorate is the cost of housing, particularly for first home buyers. We are creating a super saver scheme, which will allow people to use their superannuation accounts to save money for a home deposit at deductible rates. There is a measure that I am particularly proud to see the Treasurer has included in the budget, which is releasing more Commonwealth land for the purpose of housing construction. We on this side of the House have been saying for a long time that the real issue in housing affordability is the question of supply. It is one thing for a Commonwealth government to say that; it is another thing for the Commonwealth to actually do something about it. So it is good to see that we are releasing Commonwealth Defence Force land in Moorabbin.

But there has been an element of the housing affordability debate where the settings have been unfair, and that seems to be where we have seen foreign buyers crowding out the market, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, making it more difficult for young Australians to purchase their first homes. That is why we have put together a range of measures, like the abolition of the capital gains tax exemption for foreign investors. We have mandated that 50 per cent of new developments need to be sold to domestic buyers, and we have put in place a foreign investment levy of at least $5,000 on all future foreign investors who fail to either occupy or lease their property for at least six months each year. There are more controls on interest-only and investor lending, and the government has made $120 million of divestments of property illegally owned by foreigners. We know what a problem this was under previous arrangements, where the Foreign Investment Review Board was not actually applying those measures properly, and how that has crowded out the housing market.

In infrastructure, this budget is replete with opportunities, with $75 billion spent on infrastructure for the Snowy Hydro; for the inland Brisbane-to-Melbourne rail, a great, nation-building project, an iconic project, which will help transport freight between two of our great capitals; and for the Western Sydney Airport. It is so good to see that the government is getting on with this particular proposal. I have to say it is particularly good to see that the government is building this airport, because I think that any people who live in Sydney know that the present Sydney airport is quite unsatisfactory, and you would want a completely different approach taken in the construction of a new airport. I commend Minister Fletcher for his decision in that regard.

In my own electorate in relation to infrastructure spending, there is an extra $50 million that has been put into the NorthConnex project. In acknowledging and speaking about NorthConnex today, I note that there was a worker on NorthConnex who died on site yesterday. My sympathies and prayers are with his family.

The NorthConnex project is a very important project. It will take 5,000 trucks and cars off Pennant Hills Road every day and provide the missing link in our road transport between Brisbane and Melbourne, cutting 15 minutes and I think about 21 sets of traffic lights off that journey. It is a very good Commonwealth-state-private-sector project that has been funded under an approach that we in this government have taken.

There is money for roads funding in Kenthurst, Annangrove, Asquith and Middle Dural: over $167,000 in construction on Citrus Avenue in Asquith; $750,000 on four sections of Annangrove Road in Kenthurst and Annangrove; $200,000 on resurfacing of Cattai Ridge Road and Old Northern Road; and almost $70,000 on road pavement patching on Kenthurst Road.

As a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I am very pleased to see the increase in security funding that has been provided in this budget. We have done this not only in this budget but in a range of measures. We are ending the 457 visas, and we have improved the citizenship test, tightening it up, ensuring that it meets Australian values and ensuring that Australian citizens have adequate English to fully integrate into our society.

Labor in government cut defence spending and left us with defence spending at prewar levels. It was so underfunded. We are increasing defence spending in this budget to two per cent of GDP. That was a goal that we had, and we have delivered it three years ahead of schedule. We are supporting our over 2,300 Defence Force personnel serving our country overseas and investing over $300 million in the AFP to help protect our country here at home and also on some assignments abroad.

One of the measures that is very important to me is the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which provides fairness to some of our most disadvantaged Australians. At any point in time, Australians can have a child with a disability. You can be struck down with a disability. This is nobody's fault. Because it can affect anyone at any time, it is right and just that all Australians should make a contribution to it. That is why this government has put together in this budget an increase of 0.5 per cent in the Medicare levy in order to fund the NDIS, and that is a very important thing. The NDIS is available to around 2,000 residents of my electorate, and I know from talking to them how important having security of funding and a guarantee that the NDIS will continue has been to them.

Labor in government failed to adequately fund the NDIS. They left it with a $55 billion black hole. What we have done here is to guarantee its funding and to ensure that the NDIS complements and does not replace existing services and to ensure that the states and territories do not cost-shift.

I have been particularly pleased to see that Minister Porter and Minister Hunt have been working together particularly to address issues around mental health funding, some of which had been transferred into the NDIS and some of which had been reduced. They are looking at ways to ensure that we maintain those important mental health funding projects that were otherwise going to be defunded or rolled into the NDIS.

The school funding program provides a great degree of fairness. There is $18.6 billion extra for schools. Schools are some of the biggest assets in Berowra, particularly the quality of the schools. It does not matter whether they are government, Catholic or independent. Over $1.12 billion is to be spent over the next decade supporting the 51 government, Catholic and independent primary and secondary schools and the over 26,000 Berowra students who attend those schools. By 2027, 35 government schools in my electorate will have received more than $514 million in funding. The 12 independent schools will have received more than $467 million in Commonwealth funding, and over $137 million will be contributed to the Catholic education system on behalf of the four systemic schools in my electorate.

I acknowledge that there are two schools in my electorate that are among the 24 that will receive less funding than they had under previous arrangements. They are Mount St Benedict's at Pennant Hills and Oakhill College at Castle Hill. Following the Minister for Education and Training's announcement of these measures, I reached out to those schools to discuss the changes and see if there was anything I could do to assist them. I want to thank the principal, acting principal and the chairs of those two school councils for the constructive approach they have adopted. I am a strong supporter of the schools and communities in my electorate. They are the absolute backbone of the Berowra electorate. I have been advocating to the minister on behalf of all of Berowra schools to ensure he understands the needs of our schools. I look forward to continuing to work with the schools and with the minister as the funding program is implemented.

In health funding we are creating fairness. We are guaranteeing Medicare and we are restoring the GP indexation rate that Labor first froze. We are retaining bulk-billing incentives for pathology, diagnostics imaging, blood tests and X-rays. Indeed, bulk-billing rates have reached record figures under this government, with this March quarter a figure of 85.6 per cent being the highest bulk-billing rate for this quarter ever on record. We have guaranteed Medicare. We have added $1.2 million in funding on adding medicines to the PBS. Of particular interest to me is the additional funding we have put in place—more than $115 million—for mental health and suicide prevention. This includes: $80 million to maintain community psychosocial services through the NDIS; $9.1 million for telehealth, with improved access to psychologists; $11.1 million to prevent suicide in specific locations where there has unfortunately been a large spike in suicides; a further $15 million provided to three major mental health research hubs around Australia in Melbourne, Sydney and the Sunshine Coast; and a particular focus on veterans, because we know it is a group that is so sadly affected too often by mental health issues and suicide, with an additional $58.6 million in funding for the DVA, particularly focusing on supporting our veterans and now serving personnel in relation to suicide prevention and mental health.

Another area where we are providing leadership in this budget is through the banking levy. Banks are highly profitable—over $30 billion per year. They benefit from their dominant position in our market. They have the advantages of regulatory protection. They had the advantage of the bank guarantee during the financial crisis. APRA, the banking regulator, says that large, highly leveraged banks are a source of risk. The banking levy will apply on our biggest five banks, raising $6.2 billion. This tax amounts to 6c in every $100 of specified liabilities greater than $100 billion. It is about four per cent of bank profits. The ACCC will monitor banks to keep the banks from passing this on to customers. This will create more competition as there are 100 other banks, building societies and credit unions to which this levy does not apply. A similar levy applies in other advanced economies, such as the United Kingdom.

Importantly, the provisions will not apply to deposits of up to $250,000, mortgages, insurance and superannuation businesses, and tier 1 capital which the banks need to hold for their licences. I am delighted to commend this bill to the House.

Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018 and its cognate bills, which form part of the 2017-18 budget that was handed down by the Treasurer just a few weeks ago. It is a budget that those opposite have claimed is fair and a budget that those opposite promise will deliver better days ahead. They are four years in government, but we are still waiting for the better days ahead to come.

I am not surprised about the speaking points that each of the members of the government have been emailed from the Treasurer's office. It seems that it has colluded with the PM's office to make sure they get the word 'fairness' into every speech. I wanted to know where that word 'fairness' came from. I saw an article in The Daily Telegraph saying that the Liberal Party has spent $200,000 in polling that told it it should use the word 'fairness'. That is where the idea of fairness came from. I quote:

The Daily Telegraph has learned the Liberal Party commissioned research firm Crosby Textor—

to provide data—

to help Mr Morrison formulate his second Budget, at a cost of more than $200,000.

…   …   …

Mr Morrison drew on the research to help him convince Mr Turnbull of the likely public support for meaningful changes to housing affordability in the Budget.

Government members who are here today all signed off on polling to tell them what they should say and what should be in the budget. They did not bother going down to do a street corner meeting or a mobile office or go to a pub or club in their area and say, 'Do you think we're running a good show here?' We know that the answer, had they actually bothered to listen to the community, would have been: a budget delivered by the former Abbott government and the Turnbull government delivering all of those horrific, toxic cuts, which then had to be abandoned because they could not get them through the Senate. They abandoned them not because they rejected them because they were a bad idea—they still support all of those harsh and cruel measures—but because they could not get them through. That is why they abandoned all of those reforms—junked them—and moved to try to find a way to prove that they are fair.

This is not a fair budget. Anyone who lives in mainstream Australia knows that it is clearly not a fair budget. This is what you get when you have a fly-in fly-out Prime Minister who comes into Queensland and a Treasurer who—I will put this on the record—did not even bother to set foot in Queensland before the budget this year. It was in June last year that the Treasurer was last in Queensland. I will tell you where he did go. He went to Germany, twice, before setting foot in Queensland. Is it any wonder that we have a huge number of LNP MPs from Queensland who have never bothered to go in to fight for Queensland, who have never bother to actually stand up for Queensland? Talking about infrastructure, which I will do in a little while, this is a budget that delivers nil for Queensland, and particularly for the south-west of Brisbane, which I am privileged to represent in this place.

This is a budget with a deficit for the coming year that has blown out; it is 10 times bigger than first forecast under this government. It will now reach $29.4 billion in this financial year. That is right: from the first forecast at $2.8 billion it has increased to a staggering $29.4 billion under this government. That is not to mention that the deficit for the year just passed has reached $37.6 billion, which has tripled from the government's first budget under Joe Hockey. The deficit has blown out. It is not under control and is not arrested but has tripled under their watch.

Who can forget that infamous night of Joe Hockey's first budget, a budget so well received that he was dispatched to America. That is how popular that budget was. It was a huge budget that wreaked havoc across middle- and low-income Australia and that caused the government to lose 16 seats at the last election. That is the economic management of this government. On the night that Joe Hockey delivered that budget, delivering some of the cruellest and harshest cuts to our community, he cranked up the music and said it was the best night of his life—'Fantastic! I'm going to put the axe through your family's budget and I'm going to cut funding for schools and health, but I'm going celebrate that'—and chomped down on cigars with Mathias Cormann, the finance minister. Little wonder that the community in Australia reacted strongly, stood up to the bullies inside this out-of-touch government, ensured a huge number of coalition MPs were thrown out of office and almost ensured a change of government.

The debt is now $375 billion, more than double than when the Liberals first came to office, and after all of this the government has the gall to say, 'Just trust us; we're great economic managers.' The Australian community have woken up to this myth. The Australian community have woken up to this lie. When it comes to the economic management of this country Malcolm Turnbull, the Prime Minister, and Scott Morrison simply cannot be trusted. On the watch of the member for Robertson, who is in the chamber, and that of every other member of this government, Australians were paying the highest amount of tax they had ever paid—ever. Not lower tax, not paying less; paying more—the highest amount of tax that Australia has ever paid in our history.

That record net debt will peak over the next three years, with gross debt equivalent to $20,000 for every man, woman and child in Australia. Compared to last year's budget, GDP growth is down, employment is down, wages are going down and, under the government's own budget papers, 100,000 jobs are expected to go—not stabilise, not increase; be lost, decrease. So let us not have any lectures from those opposite. Do not get up in this chamber and talk about fairness in any way, shape or form. Wage growth has hit record lows of just 1.8 per cent, which has fallen behind the cost of living, which is increasing at 2.1 per cent, which means wages of Australians are now going backwards. Let me repeat that: wages in Australia are now going backwards.

So what is the answer to this problem that the government have? Are they looking at job creation? Are they looking at how we can stimulate the economy? No, they are going to cut penalty rates. While wages and standards of living are falling and inequality is growing and is at a 75-year high in Australia, they are going to cut wages. That is their solution. They are going to give around 10,400 workers in my community a pay cut. I will not stand for that, my community will not stand for it, and Bill Shorten and Labor will fight that every step of the way. They are going to cut the wages of 700,000 Australians. That is what is going to happen under this government. They are proud of it, they have been encouraging it and their speaking notes, straight out of the IPA, are all programmed to cut wages and to cut government spending. That is the Liberal way. That means higher inequality in Australia, at a record 75-year high. That is not something I would be proud of as a government.

The only better days that are apparently coming under this Treasurer are planned for a couple of people in Australia—that is, big business and millionaires. They are going to do very well under this government. They are going to do exceptionally well. Big business will get $65 billion worth of tax cuts, and millionaires will get a $16,400 tax cut. They will get a bonus, but under this budget someone earning around $65,000, living in my electorate and in great working- and middle-class suburbs right across Australia, will pay more. They do not get a tax cut; they get to pay $325 more per year under this government. How on earth could you ever describe that as fair?

The Prime Minister said in his speech that the budget was about choices, and the government have made choices. They have chosen big business over working families. They have chosen multinationals over Medicare. As we have seen time and time again, this budget fails the fairness test, it fails the jobs test and it fails the Medicare test. Yet there we were on budget night, with the government wanting some sort of congratulations for their supposed Medicare guarantee.

Let's talk about the facts. The Medicare rebate will not apply to 93 per cent of scans, including the X-rays, MRIs and ultrasounds used to diagnose some of the most common forms of cancer. The Medicare rebate will only be lifted on 59 of the 891 radiology items listed on the Medicare Benefits Schedule. That is just seven per cent, and the government wants to be congratulated. While mammograms and a number of CT scans will be indexed under the plan, X-rays, MRIs and ultrasounds for such common conditions as brain, lung, breast and ovarian cancers will not. The rebate on common scans for arthritis and nuclear medicine will also remain frozen. There is no Medicare guarantee under this government and there never will be. Time and time again this government shows its true colours.

The people in my electorate of Oxley know that it was this side of the chamber and a former member for Oxley that built and delivered Medicare. It was Bill Hayden who first developed universal health care for this country. During the 1973 second reading speech on the Health Insurance Bill 1973 to introduce Medibank, as it was called at the time, and opposed by the Liberal Party, Mr Hayden said it was to provide:

… the most equitable and efficient means of providing health insurance coverage for all Australians.

It was introduced by Labor, by Bill Hayden, and opposed by the Liberal Party. It was not just for the wealthy, not just for the few, but for all Australians. Let's be clear: Medicare is under attack by this government. It always will be as long as the Liberal Party has breath in its body.

This is a government which thinks it is fair for someone earning $1 million to get a tax cut while someone earning $65,000 will pay $325 more in tax. This government's new tax increases will affect every Australian, right down to someone on an income of $21,000. A truck driver in Goodna on $55,000 will pay $275 a year extra in tax. A small-business manager in Jindalee on $80,000 will pay an extra $400. The thousands of families living in Springfield, Forest Lake and Inala will be part of the 100,000 families that are worse off as part of this government's cuts to family payments. And this government still thinks that it is a fair budget. No fair budget would hike taxes for those earning less than $87,000. At the same time, they are giving a tax cut to everyone earning more than $180,000. That means that a millionaire gets a $16,400 tax cut on the same day that up to 700,000 Australians lose their penalty rates. On that same day, someone earning $65,000 a year gets a $325 a year tax increase. How on earth is that fair? No fair budget would give multinationals and banks a $65 billion tax cut at the expense of Middle Australia. No fair budget would be ripping $22 billion from our kids' real needs based funding for schools.

Three years ago, having promised no cuts to schools, the government ripped away $30 billion. Last week, they told the parents and students of Australia to be grateful that they were now only cutting $22 billion. Parents and teachers know that they are going to be worse off as a result of these cuts. As we have heard, that is the equivalent of cutting $2.4 million from every school in Australia over the next decade or sacking 22,000 teachers. We on this side of the chamber know this, as do the parents, educators and principals of Australia. The Catholic parish schools in particular in my electorate have been contacting me. They are worried about what the impacts of this government's proposed education reform will mean. In my home state of Queensland, state schools alone are expected to lose $300 million. They are going to be $300 million worse off under this government's plan. We know that a lot of this funding has been pushed out to the never-never, with significant funding increases under this government not flowing to Queensland schools until 2027. We know that under the next 10 years we will lose funding.

We know the situation when it comes to jobs, skills, training and investment. We have seen this government rip out $2.8 billion worth of training. They have stood by while we have lost over 13,000 apprenticeships on their watch. Thousands of people are missing out under this government. I will defend what our community needs against this unfair budget.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased that the member for Oxley has referenced me in his speech, because, to the member for Oxley, I would like to say this: Fairness in this budget is about funding, not just promoting your commitments. Fairness in this budget is about delivering real money, not monopoly money, to the people of Australia. Fairness in this budget is about ensuring more opportunity and more choice for all Australians, so that they can secure a better future for themselves, for their children and for their grandchildren. To the member for Oxley, to members present and to those members of my community on the Central Coast, I say that this budget is about fairness, this budget is about opportunity and this budget is absolutely about security.

Our policies outlined in this budget will grow the economy and will generate jobs. It is the important issue that is raised daily with me in my community. Unlike Labor's approach, our policies in our budget that were outlined are paid for in full.

As a former school teacher and as a mother of two young schoolchildren, I would like to begin with the fact that this is a budget that delivers a vital needs based funding model for schools. Endorsed by David Gonski, this is about fairness. Schools in every sector, in every local community, in my electorate will be receiving a significant increase in funding. This is great news for the 48 primary and secondary schools in the electorate and their more than 23½ thousand students.

The total increase in federal government funding for schools in Robertson over the next 10 years is $311 million. These schools include Brisbane Water Secondary College Woy Woy Campus, which will benefit from a $14.9 million increase over the next 10 years; Kariong Mountains High School, which will get a boost of a $5.4 million increase over the next 10 years; and Gosford High School, which will receive $8.5 million extra over the next decade. There is also $9.2 million more for St John The Baptist Catholic Primary School, which is an extra $3,824 per student. But it is not just about the dollar figures. Importantly, our increased funding will be tied to reforms that evidence shows makes a real difference to improving student outcomes, and I am sure that is a goal shared by all of us in this place. This is a fair system. This is a system that is good for students, good for parents and good for teachers. I look forward to meeting with parents from many of these schools over the coming weeks to hear more from them about the benefits of this funding.

Another positive story from this year's budget is in health care. We have announced a further $12.5 million commitment towards the new Central Coast Medical School and medical research institute in Gosford to ensure that it can attract and retain world-leading health professionals. This takes the total commitment for this government to $45 million, with our partners the University of Newcastle and the New South Wales government, also contributing $20 million each to this major project. It is a game changer for Gosford and it is part of the already existing upgrade to Gosford Hospital being delivered by the New South Wales government. It is forecast to create more than 750 new jobs with an economic impact of more than $200 million. What is really exciting is that it is not simply a building but a hub that could one day develop into a precinct or a growth centre that elevates Gosford to the same level as some of the great university cities in the world, and that is, certainly, one of my dreams as the member for Robertson.

We have established a precinct taskforce whose scope is to work on building on the region's unique competitive strengths in the Australian health sector. Some of the world's best universities, including the University of Cambridge and the New York University, will join an international advisory board and become delivery partners in this project. The headline 'Cambridge, New York…Gosford', appeared for the first time in the Central Coast Express Advocate. I am determined to see more of these headlines again and again as this project and our collaboration grows.

To start the process, the university will allocate 30 existing medical Commonwealth support places annually to the new school building, to a total of 150 places, meaning no new medical placements are required. With $12½ million in transition funding over the next five years committed in this budget, we are also ensuring the best in world-class researchers are in Gosford to help ensure we can build a precinct that generates groundbreaking work in patient-centred, supported health care.

As I have been hearing from constituents in my electorate at business round tables, community listening posts and stakeholder meetings, there has been resounding endorsement. Tahir emailed me and told me that the medical school is a great initiative and certainly the type of industry we should be attracting to the Central Coast to make it an attractive high-tech hub for other businesses. Gordon, another local constituent, wrote to me and said that the Central Coast deserves and desperately needs more of this type of investment. Paul wrote that he hopes that this positive momentum will stimulate more economic development on the Central Coast. To Paul and to other members of my community I say that, as part of this government, it is my commitment to work every single day and night to make sure that we do deliver on this commitment.

We have also received the backing of local businesses. Members of the task force and associated members who have been absolutely critical in delivering the outcomes achieved so far include Professor Caroline McMillen, the outstanding Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Newcastle; her colleagues Laureate Professor John Aitken, the Pro Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Health and Medicine, who is a true visionary, I must say, and whose foundational work has been absolutely essential to this important project; Professor Brett Niness, the Pro Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment; Dr Brok Glenn, the outstanding Dean of Central Coast Campus; Professor Deborah Hodgson, Pro Vice-Chancellor Research and Innovation; Professor Kevin Hall, Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation); Kate Robinson and, before her, Chris Price, for their hard work in the Vice-Chancellor's office; the outstanding Dr Andrew Montague, the Chief Executive of the Central Coast Local Health District and his predecessor, Matt Hanrahan, who have both been a driving force in the hospital upgrade and have been a key part of this project as well, along with Kerry Stevenson, the Executive Director, Strategy and Innovation.

Others on the task force include Matt Kelly, the Healthe Care regional manager on the Central Coast; the state member for Terrigal, Adam Crouch; Alison Coutts, the executive chairman of Memphasys Limited; Regional Development Australia Central Coast CEO, John Mouland; the Central Coast Council administrator, Ian Reynolds; and Susan Wilson, who have also been intimately involved in this process.

We have also benefited from having the expertise and connections of MTPConnect, including Dr Alfredo Martinez-Coll and Sue MacLeman, the managing director and chief executive officer, as well Adrian White, the hardworking manager of health technologies policy at the industry growth division of the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. Adrian and his team are working alongside me and MTPConnect to develop a plan, which I look forward to saying more about soon, including about our links with industry and commercial partners.

I would also like to mention that, while I have been knocking on plenty of doors down here in Canberra to secure the $45 million from this government to ensure this project gets off the ground, there is no doubt we have seen an equally strong willingness from this government to recognise the importance of this project to our region. The Prime Minister, the Treasurer, the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, the Minister for Health, and the Minister for Education And Training have all been instrumental in the work of the task force. I thank them for it.

On health, I would also like to commend the way the budget will continue to provide record funding and will guarantee Medicare's future with a dedicated fund to protect these services for this generation and for the next. We have already seen a record number of Australians on the Central Coast accessing these vital services, including a record bulk-billing rate of around 86 per cent in my electorate of Robertson. In fact, I am advised that last financial year more than 820,000 GP services in the electorate were bulk-billed, which means that the majority of patients paid nothing out of their own pockets when visiting a GP—and this is under a coalition government. Yet, frustratingly, in many areas like the peninsula there are still many families who cannot access a local GP when they are sick and they need to see a local doctor. So, in response to this crisis, we have developed the first real short- and long-term plan that will help people see a doctor when they are sick and they need it most in suburbs including Woy Woy, Umina Beach, Ettalong Beach, Blackwall, Booker Bay, Pearl Beach and Patonga. Around $100,000 will be made available to enhance a new regionwide health workforce that will address the issues faced in the region.

I would like to commend the Assistant Minister for Health, the member for Lyne, for his relentless assistance in helping us develop a unique solution that will put doctors and patients first. This working group, convened by the Hunter New England and Central Coast Primary Health Network, will enact strategies to help retain and attract GPs to the peninsula. With a large number of local doctors approaching retirement age and with fewer younger GPs and GP registrars stepping up to take their place, this will be a significant step forward. But Labor's response, can I say, is pitiful. The Labor candidate for Robertson was not even able to explain on local radio recently what the problem is, let alone what a solution is to this important issue, despite it being a problem that Labor did nothing about in the six years that they represented my community. They were in government and they had a chance to solve this crisis in accessing GPs on the peninsula.

It is important to also note how this budget will secure access to vital and life-saving medicines. It provides $1.2 billion to provide cheaper access to vital medicines and lists more drugs on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to ensure families have access to vital drugs. These medicines will assist people suffering from conditions such as heart disease and severe asthma. We are further strengthening our support for mental health and suicide prevention, with a package of over $170 million.

I will also be writing a letter shortly to every veteran association and pensioner association in my electorate to make sure that they know about the important developments in this year's budget. This will include details on how past and current service personnel who have undertaken at least one day full-time service will benefit with easier access to free mental health support and services. We are also delivering better access to counselling from the Veterans and Veterans Families Counselling Service. I understand that this will benefit 1,129 veterans and their families in my electorate. Almost 2,500 clients of the Department of Veterans' Affairs will benefit from easier access to DVA services and faster processing times for claims.

I am pleased to see that the government will reinstate access to the pensioner concession card for an additional 92,000 Australians. This will in many cases give back important access to discounts, such as the subsidised hearing services offered by the Commonwealth. From 1 July 2018, people aged 65 and older will also be able to make a non-concessional contribution of up to $300,000 to their superannuation after selling their home. This will be in addition to any other contributions that they are eligible to make. We are also improving the My Aged Care platform, with $3.1 million to increase efficiency and effectiveness for users.

As I spoke about in this place earlier, this budget secures the full funding for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Once fully rolled out the NDIS will directly help an estimated 2,900 people in my electorate, including through a local office based in Gosford.

Debate on this budget would not be complete without highlighting key details of how we are boosting what is often described as the engine room of our economy—small business. In this budget we are extending the incredibly popular instant asset write-off for small business. There are more than 14,100 small businesses in my electorate that can take advantage of this measure. We are delivering tax cuts to small and medium businesses—benefiting over 15,000 businesses in my electorate—with turnovers of up to $50 million if they are incorporated and up to $5 million if they are unincorporated, so that they can invest and employ more locals.

We are also creating a fund to help train Australian apprentices in key trades and skills to get more young people into work and to help the approximately 1,600 local young Australians aged 15 to 24 looking for a job or looking for more work in my electorate of Robertson. We will also put a levy on Australia's five largest banks, generating $6.2 billion over the forward estimates, to support the ongoing work in budget repair.

Finally, this budget includes a number of sensible measures to make sure more people on the Central Coast have access to affordable housing. It includes a crackdown on foreign investors who seek to exploit loopholes in our system and to help ease the costs for young people looking to buy their first home. We are also looking out for the 7,980 families in my electorate that use government supported child care, with reforms that are about making child care more accessible and more affordable and providing the greatest level of assistance for those who need it most.

We are delivering on our commitment to fix more local roads, including in Copacabana, Kariong, Umina Beach and Booker Bay. I have been working with the Central Coast Council, the New South Wales government and my federal colleagues to ensure that these works start and finish as soon as possible.

To conclude, in short, this is a budget that the Central Coast desperately needs and deserves. It is about generating more local jobs, growing the economy, including our local economy on the Central Coast, and helping out those who need it most. It is a fair budget and it is a budget that does make the right choices for people on the Central Coast. I commend these bills and the budget to the House.

Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018 and related bills of course appropriate money from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the ordinary annual services of government. Labor has a principled position of not opposing supply, unlike those opposite, so these bills will be approved. But they come on the back of what has been a shocking budget from this government, trying its best to imitate fairness whilst still making life more difficult for pensioners, families, working Australians and students.

The budget will see the country's fiscal position worsen. Remember the rhetoric in the lead-up to the 2013 budget from the then Leader of the Opposition, the member for Warringah, claiming that the coalition are always better fiscal managers and will always do a better job of balancing the budget. Malcolm Turnbull, the member for Wentworth, the new Prime Minister, has taken on that mantle as well and taken up that rhetoric that conservatives do a better job. The facts tell a very different story. This year, the budget deficit triples from the original budget that was handed down by this government, to $37 billion. Net debt is just about to go through the half-a-trillion-dollar mark for Australia, an unprecedented record in net debt levels. Receipts are at 24.1 per cent of GDP and expenditure is at 24.8 per cent of GDP.

The very interesting thing about this budget, like in all of the other coalition budgets that have been delivered since 2013, is that it claims a surplus in the fourth year. If you look back at every single one of them—what do you know?—they said we would get to surplus down the track in the fourth year. I can tell you, according to their first budget, we are meant to be in surplus now. If you look back at the Abbot government's first budget, their projections were that we would be in surplus now, that the economy would be in surplus. They have done it again. The member for Cook has again made this claim: 'Don't worry. In the fourth year we'll be in surplus.' It is pie in the sky. Like with many of the commitments this government makes, you simply cannot believe it. It would be funny if it were not so harsh on Australian people. There are a number of disastrous elements contained in this budget, not the least of which is the fact that this budget gives a massive leg up to millionaires and makes life more difficult for struggling families, pensioners, students and working Australians.

Labor really are the only party that are committed to fairness, and that is evident in our approach to the budget, to ensuring proper funding of schools, hospitals and the National Disability Insurance Scheme and to taxation and housing affordability. We do not believe that someone who is a millionaire should get a tax cut or that someone that is on $50,000 or $60,000 a year should pay more tax. This government's priorities are so out of whack that, on 1 July, a person who earns $1 million per year will pay $16,500 less in tax as a result of what is in this budget, but someone on $50,000 or $60,000 a year will pay more income tax. In particular, someone who is on $60,000 a year, in two years time, will pay $324 more in tax. Only the member for Wentworth, one of the most out-of-touch Prime Ministers in living memory, could think to ask people on $50,000 a year to pay more whilst giving a tax break to the wealthiest Australians, while at the same time cutting funding for schools and universities, making life more difficult for families and pensioners.

This has been a bad budget for education. For preschools there are cuts. For school funding there has been cuts. TAFE funding has been cut and university funding has been cut. So much for investing in the future. The Prime Minister used to be big on investing in the future, saying: 'We're living in the most exciting times we've ever had. We need to invest in the future, and education is the key.' But it apparently is not if you are a student in Australia at a school and not if you are a prospective TAFE student or university student. Schools have been thrown into disarray by this government's cutting of $22 billion from the schools budget, compared to what the Labor Party had promised, in the wake of the Gonski recommendations, when we were in government. That includes about $850 million cut over the next two years alone from New South Wales public schools.

The New South Wales Liberal government knows this. The strongest critics of what this government is doing have been the New South Wales Liberal government and their education minister, because they know that the New South Wales public education system is being short-changed by the Turnbull government with these measures. They know that schools will be forced to cut back on resources and potentially sack teachers. They will deliver an inferior education system, compared to the one promised by Labor, which the New South Wales Liberal government enthusiastically signed up to, particularly when Adrian Piccoli was the education minister.

In my community I have already had people visit me, desperate about the cuts to schools. I recently saw a single mother whose daughter goes to a Catholic school in my community. After seeing the budget, and this government's massive cuts, and having spoken to the principal of the school, she is beside herself with worry that school fees will be increased. This is a single mum who is struggling to work and provide her daughter with a good education. She has been thrown into a state of panic and fear because of this government's education cuts. This particular school featured in a media story about cuts to Catholic schools and the potential for fee increases.

With universities, as well, $3.8 billion has been cut over the next few years from universities across Australia. Students will pay eight per cent more to get a university education here in Australia. In the age of trying to compete with Asia and of trying to boost productivity in our nation as a means of growing our economy, this is not the right thing to be doing. Cutting education funding for universities and asking students to pay more is not the right thing to be doing. It means quite simply that some students will miss out, that university will become unaffordable, and the productive capacity in our community of those individuals is reduced. Instead of investing in local jobs and skills, this government's budget is cutting funding for TAFE, vocational education and apprenticeships by over $600 million.

Labor, in contrast, as Bill Shorten outlined in his budget reply speech, will invest in TAFE and apprenticeships by establishing a new $100 million Building TAFE for the Future Fund. We will restore TAFE to the backbone of our skills and training system by guaranteeing two-thirds of all funding for TAFE. Bill Shorten has also announced that on future infrastructure projects funded by the Commonwealth government one-in-ten workers on those projects will be Australian apprentices. We will invest in training and skilling a new generation of workers that can deliver the productive capacity for our future economy.

On housing affordability, this government has completely failed Australians. It has completely ignored their pleas to do something about the massive tax concessions—some of the largest tax concessions in the world—that exist for property investors in Australia. They have particularly ignored the pleas of young prospective first home buyers, who are desperately trying to fight their way into the housing market. The government's efforts on housing affordability are little more than smoke and mirrors, designed to make the public believe they are doing something on the issue, but in fact they are actually doing nothing.

It is a fact that unless you are tackling negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions in this environment you are not fair dinkum about housing affordability. I think the Australian public now knows that. I met with a young constituent in my electorate last week who put it perfectly. She said, 'It is an investors' market.' If she goes along to an auction hoping to buy a unit, to buy her first home, she is competing with someone who is getting a massive tax concession from the government, in the form of negative gearing, so that they can buyer that as an investment property, rent it out to deduct the loss and get a tax deduction. In this market that is unsustainable. Numerous studies and numerous economists have identified that as unsustainable. Unless you are tackling negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts, you are not fair dinkum about housing affordability.

This government is actually attempting to make it worse, because the announced measure about superannuation funds and people being able to divert up to $30,000 into a superannuation fund in the form of a first home saver account and get a tax benefit when they withdraw that money will do very little to improve housing affordability in Australia. In fact, all it will probably do is push up the cost of housing, because developers and vendors will know that young people are coming along with the extra $30,000 that they have been able to save as a tax concession, so they will push up the price. That is the evidence that we have seen in recent decades when governments have put money into the pockets of first home buyers. It simply pushes up prices, and it is one of the contributing factors to the unaffordability of housing in Australia.

The second point I want to make is that, at the moment, $30,000 does not buy you a window pane in the community that I represent. Young people I have spoken to have said, '$30,000—what is that going to do to help?' By contrast, Labor is deadly serious about housing affordability. We have announced a series of measures that will tackle the housing affordability problem over time—most notably, restricting negative gearing to properties that are off-the-plan developments. That will grow the capital housing stock and create 25,000 jobs over the longer term. We will also restrict and reduce from 50 per cent to 25 per cent the outrageously unsustainable capital gains tax discount that exists for people who sell investment properties. When this measure was introduced by the former Treasurer Peter Costello in the 1990s, guess what? It was unfunded. That was during the glory days of the mining boom when John Howard and Peter Costello were splashing around middle-class welfare and cash. They introduced this capital gains tax discount, but it was unfunded in the budget. We are all now paying the cost of that. We are paying the cost of it not only through reduced receipts in the budget that could fund services but also through unsustainable increases in housing, because investors get an advantage over first home buyers. Labor will limit that tax concession. We will also limit direct borrowing by self-managed superannuation funds that invest in property. We will increase foreign investor fees and penalties, and we will facilitate a COAG process to introduce a uniform vacant property tax across all major cities.

This budget was a boon for the big end of town and, in particular, for big corporations. The government are delivering a $65 billion corporate tax cut, and that says it all. While the government is happy to stand by and watch penalty rates cut, while they are happy to hit women in unsustainable casual employment the hardest, while they are happy to ask pensioners to pay more, while they are happy to ask families to pay more, while they are happy to make life more difficult for people on unemployment benefits, while they are happy to cut funding for universities and while they are happy to make students pay more to go to university, they are very, very pleased to give a $65 billion tax cut to some of the biggest corporations in this country. That says it all about this government's budget priorities and their approach.

With regard to the banks, the government wants the public to believe that they are now tough on the banks, but the fact remains that the government is yet to say how they will stop the banks simply passing on the cost of this levy to their customers—particularly now that we have uncovered in parliament that they will get a tax deduction for this. While the government is playing smoke and mirrors, pretending to be tough on the banks, Labor is the only party that is going to have a fair dinkum royal commission—a fair dinkum inquiry—into what is going on in banking and put in place practices that protect consumers.

All in all, this is a bad budget for families. It is a bad budget for pensioners. It is a bad budget for students. It is a bad budget for the unemployed. And it is a bad budget for working Australians. But it is a great budget if you are a millionaire or you are a big corporation, and that is what is wrong with this Turnbull government.

Sit ting suspended from 13:19 to 15:59

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

These appropriation bills make provisions for the moneys required to be appropriated from the Consolidated Revenue Fund as part of the 2017-18 federal budget to fund the day-to-day operations of the Commonwealth. This budget forms part of the government's plan to build a strong, prosperous economy while funding the traditional functions of government, such as health, education, social services and national security. The total appropriation being sought by the bills is just under $105 billion.

One of the hallmarks of the budget is ensuring that the government lives within its means. Since the last election, the government has legislated more than $25 billion in budget repair measures, maintaining a credible path of reducing deficits each year, leading to a projected returned to balance in 2021. With continuing projected surpluses over the medium term to enable a reduction in national debt from 2018-19, borrowings will no longer be required to fund recurrent spending for the first time since the global financial crisis, so our government will not burden future generations with debt from today's recurrent spending. A fair and responsible path to budget surplus demonstrates the Turnbull government's commitment to maintaining our AAA credit rating.

The future outlook is positive, with growth within the Australian economy projected to rebound to 2.75 per cent in 2017-18 and three per cent in the following year as mining investment continues and growth in household consumption and non-mining business investment improves. Strong demand from Asia for Australia's tourism and education services will also drive further rapid expansion in our service exports. This budget seeks to promote growth in our economy through infrastructure investment, lower company taxes and a range of measures designed to increase workforce skills development and participation. We are positioning Australia to take advantage of emerging export markets, to diversify our economy and to harness the benefits of opportunities for economic growth.

Only with strong economic growth is the government best placed to sustain a high level of funding for essential social services. Health care is one of the most important services which the government provides. The budget provides $1 billion to strengthen Medicare by phasing in the re-introduction of indexation for certain items on the Medicare benefits schedule. Bulk-billing incentives will be indexed from 1 July 2017 in a bid to encourage general practitioners to bulk-bill children under the age of 16 and concession card holders. The following year, fees for GP and specialist consultation items will be indexed. From 1 July 2019 specialist procedures and allied health fees will be indexed and from 1 July 2020 targeted diagnostic imaging items, such as computer tomography, mammography, thoracoscopy and interventional radiology, will also be indexed. A further $1.2 billion will be provided for new and amended listings on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to provide patients with greater access to new services and affordable, often lifesaving, medicines. Since 2013, the government has listed more than 1,400 new or amended medicines on the PBS, averaging 32 new and amended listings per month. The new listings include breakthrough medicines to treat conditions such as breast cancer, hepatitis C, cystic fibrosis and severe asthma. In addition, $65.9 million of new funding for medical research will be provided from the Medical Research Future Fund to support preventive health research, clinical trials and breakthrough research investments. A further $5.8 million will be provided for research into childhood cancer.

The budget measures provide full and sustainable funding for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, giving Australians with a permanent and significant disability and their families and carers certainty that this vital service will be sustainable into the future. From 1 July 2019, the Medicare levy will increase by 0.5 per cent, from two per cent to 2.5 per cent of taxable income. The additional revenue raised will be directed towards the NDIS Savings Fund, along with NDIS underspends and previous contributions to the fund from across government, to ensure that the NDIS is fully funded and is on track to be fully implemented from 2020.

Major education reforms will result in fairer funding for student needs in the budget. An additional $18.6 billion has been allocated for states, territories and the non-government school sector over the next decade to achieve genuine, needs based support for all students, with 99 per cent of schools receiving increases in their Commonwealth per-student funding. The government is transitioning to a schools funding model which is needs based. The current funding arrangements contain 27 different agreements which are not necessarily based on the needs of the students. At present, students with the same needs within the sector can receive different levels of Commonwealth funding according to the state in which they live. Under the new model, a school will be funded for each student based on need, irrespective of location. From 2018 to 2027, funding is estimated to grow at an average annual per-student rate of 5.1 per cent for the government sector, 3.5 per cent for the Catholic sector and 4.1 per cent for the independent sector.

To increase workforce participation, $263 million has been invested over the four years from 2017-18 to expand the ParentsNext services nationally, providing tailored support for parents of young children to plan and prepare for return to employment. Similarly, the provision of affordable, accessible child care is important for parents returning to work, particularly in my electorate, with many young families in a new suburbs. The recently legislated Jobs for Families Child Care Package will encourage workforce participation and place downward pressure on childcare fees. The government will invest $37.3 billion over five years to deliver more affordable child care, including before- and after-school care for some one million families.

From 2 July 2018, a single, simplified, means-tested childcare subsidy will replace the childcare benefit, the childcare rebate and the Jobs, Education and Training Child Care Fee Assistance program. The childcare subsidy will ensure that families on low to middle incomes of $185,710 or less that need to use more child care will not face the annual cap. However, an annual cap of $10,000 will apply to families earning more than $185,710 in 2017-18 terms.

The government remains committed to ensuring that the welfare system is fair and supports those who are genuinely in need. A new targeted jobseeker compliance framework will commence on 1 July 2018 and will apply stronger penalties for those who deliberately and persistently fail to turn up for job interviews or take suitable work, while ensuring that genuinely disadvantaged and vulnerable jobseekers are supported. The Youth Jobs PaTH Program—the prepare, trial, hire program—is assisting 120,000 young Australians to obtain work by providing them with practical pre-employment training with real work experience through internships. Businesses are also being encouraged to hire young jobseekers through wage subsidies. An additional $375.3 million has been allocated in the budget for frontline services to help the homeless and those at risk of homelessness. A number of measures have also been instituted to strengthen the integrity of the welfare system by identifying and recovering overpayments. In total, these integrity measures are expected to return around $4 billion to the budget in cash terms by 2021.

The budget focuses on creating more Australian jobs, workforce skill development and supporting Australians into work. Businesses employing foreign workers on certain skilled visas will be subject to a new levy to fund training for Australian jobseekers. This new approach will introduce an annual foreign worker levy of $1,200 or $1,800 for temporary skilled visas and a $3,000 or $5,000 one-off levy for those on certain permanent skilled visas, depending on the size of the business. Over the next four years, more than $1.2 billion is projected to be raised from this new levy that will contribute directly to a new Commonwealth-state Skilling Australians Fund.

The budget delivers tax cuts for businesses with an annual turnover of less than $50 million. Some 3.2 million small businesses employing 6.7 million workers will benefit from a reduction in the new tax rate for companies of 27.5 per cent. I was pleased to host the Minister for Small Business, the member for Riverina, the Hon. Michael McCormack MP, at a business forum in my electorate of local businesses Logsys and Kitchen Craftsmen. Similarly, the Minister for Employment, the Hon. Michaelia Cash, visited the Hillarys Fish Market, MAX Employment and Sisters Supa IGA with me to speak to business proprietors about the budget.

The budget continues investment in the rollout of the National Broadband Network. By mid-2017 the network will be available to half of all Australian premises, further expanding to around nine million premises by mid-2018 and on track to be completed by 2020.

In terms of national economic development, the government has made a $70 billion infrastructure investment in the budget leading to 2021, including transport infrastructure across Australia, using a combination of grant funding, loans and equity investments of which $7.7 billion has been committed to WA over the forward estimates. In particular, $145.8 million will be spent locally on vital roadworks at three key sections along Wanneroo Road. Wanneroo Road will be widened to a dual carriageway between Joondalup Drive and Flynn Drive at an estimated cost of $31 million. That busy intersection at Joondalup Drive and Ocean Reef Road will be grade separated, with the traffic signals replaced by new bridges and flyovers to take traffic over Wanneroo Road at an estimated cost of $50 million and $64.8 million respectively. These roadworks will benefit residents through a boost in local economic development. Joondalup CBD will become an attractive centre of banking, professional services, retail and hospitality for businesses in Neerabup, with improved access to other local commercial and district centres for professional services, retail and hospitality. During the construction phase, it is estimated that 805 construction jobs will be created.

Regional areas are where Australia's economic wealth is created. In addition to infrastructure investment, the Regional Growth Fund will invest $472 million in regional infrastructure projects to support economic development and help regional businesses adapt to the changes taking place through globalisation and technological change.

The budget provides the Australian Taxation Office with $28.2 million in additional funding to continue to target serious organised crime, removing wealth generated by these organised criminal groups and returning an additional $408.5 million in revenue to the government.

A black economy task force has been established to target black economy transactions, which represent a significant complex economic and social problem which creates an uneven playing field for business plus the exploitation of workers and results in lost government revenue.

This budget forms part of the government's plan to get the national finances back on track and build a strong, prosperous economy while funding the traditional functions of government such as health, education, social services and national security. The total appropriation being sought by the bills is just under $105 billion, and I commend the bills to the House.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

) ( ): This budget is designed to signal better times ahead without overly contributing to their arrival. This is predominantly a budget that makes you wonder just what the Abbott and Turnbull governments have been up to for the last four years. It is a budget most notable for trying to sweep aside, or under the carpet, the policy missteps and blunders of those four years. It has been called a step to the left. In fact, it is really a stumble rather than a step, although I think the government thinks it is more a redemption song. It seems to achieve that end by jettisoning the surviving remnants of the infamous Abbott-Hockey budget of 2014. That document is now officially dead, buried and cremated and, with it, the Prime Minister no doubt hopes, the political aspirations of its surviving co-executor, the member for Warringah.

This is a budget where climate change, cost-of-living pressures, innovation in housing affordability policy, falling real wages and lack of job opportunities are either ignored altogether or left swinging in the breeze. This is a budget that, apart from a few eye-catching initiatives like the bank tax, is about hoping the patient will not expire while the government waits for its luck to improve. Most of the modestly rosy forecasts, including a return to real GDP growth rates of around three per cent and nominal wages growth of 3.75 per cent in three years time, rest on expected improvements in the world economy or on major indices returning to trend.

Additional infrastructure spending has been either mooted or identified, but, as the member for Grayndler has noted, that will not kick in until many years down the track. Disappointingly, some major projects, such as the rail line to the Badgerys Creek second Sydney airport, still have a far-from-certain future. This significantly affects the quality of life of many in my electorate and ignores most of the value-capture opportunities. However, it is a budget that capped a couple of weeks where this government finally realised that, if it was to have any hope of recovering public approval, it would have to start addressing the issues that most matter to people.

The budget, in a sense, caps one of the most brazen pieces of political shapeshifting in living memory. In quick succession, there was a deathbed-like recognition that energy security and pricing policies have been teetering on a precipice. There was recognition, after many years of denial, that not all government debt is bad for the economy. We saw a bold, if highly skeletal plan, for Snowy 2.0 wheeled out as a thought bubble, and there were encouraging noises that the government might finally want to face up to the housing affordability crisis that has fuelled record levels of household debt. The government even appeared to become, in extremis, more or less agnostic on the question of public ownership. It even trumpeted a re-embrace of needs based school funding.

Again, one wondered a little why the government had taken so long to find its political courage. The rhetoric looked promising, but it was only rhetoric—and, mostly, it still is. A paraphrasing of an old song keeps coming to my mind: not signed, not sealed and certainly not delivered. Budget night came and went and the picture was further muddied by government announcements that many commentators saw as 'Labor lite'. In the process, the government revealed that the true cost of the first 10 years of its 'locked in forever' tax cuts to business and multinationals was $65 billion—a mere $15 billion higher than was consistently touted during the budget week.

I react to that term 'Labor lite' the same way that many journalists do to the expression of 'fake news'—that is, with considerable scepticism and some distaste. Although, while I think the term 'Abbott lite' is not nearer the mark either, it does at least have a certain irony to it. My objection to the term 'Labor lite' is that it portrays that Labor is the party of fixed policy positions rather than one of consistent values. This is an important distinction which I think our leader, Bill Shorten, made very well in his budget reply but which some commentators missed or misconstrued.

Labor and the coalition each have their own values and priorities, but it does not follow that they are wedded to a particular approach to problem-solving or policymaking. Let's be clear: neither side of politics are strangers to pragmatism nor, in the main, the enemies of moderation. It is the norm. It is only when either side of politics is captured by those at the extreme that we enter dangerous times, and that is when governments lose sight of the common good and common sense and things start going off the rails.

The problem with the 2014 budget was not just that it was unfair or broke numerous election commitments. Its enduring weakness, which has continued for the last three years, has been its unrestrained embrace of ideological spin. Claims such as 'Governments don't have a revenue problem; they have a spending problem' come to mind. 'Lifters and leaners' is another one. If this budget allows Labor to claim a small victory because the government has been forced into adopting a more measured and pragmatic mindset, that is fine by me. But I think it is more accurate to say that there is now a wider taste for moderation and even-handedness out there in the electorate. The smarties advising the government—people such as Mark Textor—know that the days of ideological indulgence for this government are over if it is going to survive.

We now see a Treasurer, in his words, reaching across the aisle, just getting on with things and being results focused. He even came to my electorate to claim he had a comprehensive policy on housing affordability. Of course, it was nothing of the sort. Yes, I can see positives in this budget that Labor want to acknowledge and may want to build on when we are in government. Jettisoning the so-called zombie measures from the 2014 budget allows this place and policymakers to have a sensible and more productive discussion about budget repair. Recognising the distinction between good and bad debt, although adopted for reasons that might not entirely spring from rational disinterest, makes some sense too. Hopefully there is also some recognition that the economy is functioning below full capacity and that bringing it up to speed ultimately will be good for the budget bottom line. There is also a somewhat shy acknowledgement from the government that tax increases and levies are legitimate policy tools. This is simply a sensible but tentative return to policy orthodoxy. The budget too is less blinkered on the provision of public goods, public services and even public ownership. And, yes, as Labor has always intended, the temporary freeze on Medicare rebates is finally being lifted, but far too slowly. Medicare bulk-billing rates are still going down, and for many people it is impossible to get in to see specialists. This government intends to cling on to the last elements of the extended rebate freeze until July 2020.

Nonetheless, this budget is flawed and will make little real difference to the majority of Australians. The budget's failings can be grouped under four headings: missing inner connections; proceeding on outmoded assumptions; letting prejudice and populism overrule logic; and fighting the wrong battles. Apart from its failing on health policy, which I will leave for another time, the greatest failure of this budget is in the area of housing affordability and taxation policy. For the last four years, the government has persisted with policies that have simultaneously fuelled runaway house prices on much of the east coast, added between $10 billion and $12 billion annually to the federal budget deficit, reduced homeownership rates and helped push private debt to Australian and near-world record levels, both as a percentage of individual income and GDP. It has fuelled a speculative bubble and exacerbated inequality. As the shadow Treasurer has noted, 70 per cent of the tax concessions that fuel this speculation go to the top 10 per cent of income earners. The government quite simply refuses to recognise the connection between limitless negative gearing concessions, concessional capital gains taxes and historically low interest rates. That is why the measures contained in this budget are the equivalent of trying to defuse a time bomb with a toothpick. The best that can be said is that most of the small measures it has put in place might help a little bit at the margins and probably will not make matters worse, except for one thing. That is the first home super saver scheme, which will, in all probability, simply add to the already overheated demand and force up prices further. If this scheme has any saving grace, it is that the take-up is likely to be very small.

Although I do applaud the government for making permanent Commonwealth funding on homelessness to the states and also for focusing more on supporting victims of family violence, more could be done. The effect of excessive home loan borrowing on general household debt levels also gives increasing cause for concern. It is time that the coalition paid far more attention to private debt levels and focused less extensively on government debt, as has been the case for many years. Public gross debt levels are high by Australian standards but are relatively modest compared with those elsewhere. Private debt however is at historic highs, both as a proportion of household disposable income and as a proportion of GDP. Private debt levels are primed for catastrophe.

One wonders if anyone in government is also mapping the cumulative effects of budget measures on millennials and, more generally, Australians under 35. This budget, if anything, makes life harder for young people. House ownership amongst 25- to 35-year-olds is in freefall, and rates of unemployment are stuck at over five per cent and, for those aged 15 to 24, above 13 per cent. About a million Australians who are in work cannot get enough hours. The 15 to 24 years age group has consistently had the highest underemployment rate. This has risen from May 2008, when it was 11 per cent, now to 17.4 per cent in November 2016. This is an evolving Australian tragedy. Wages are also stagnant and penalty rates are under threat. The proposed further increase to the Medicare levy and to university fees will make a not atypical graduate, currently on around $50,000 a year, about $1,250 worse off. For those without a job, the Newstart allowance remains entirely inadequate. Instead, the government has ramped up its rhetoric against the unemployed and instituted yet another 'crackdown' on welfare and pensioners. The so-called 'wee for the dole' program is a poor attempt to treat a medical problem as a social security problem. It is discriminatory. We are told that it is not going to check for alcohol, the drug that causes the most social dysfunction. It is thought-bubble policy of the poorest level, and I condemn it.

Another area where the government needs to revisit some fundamental assumptions is in regard to tertiary fees. The latest round of proposed HECS changes and tertiary funding changes represent a very poor deal for students. Funding to the tertiary sector will be cut by around $3.8 billion over the next five years. To someone of my generation, who had free university fees and no problems with job availability, this is an anathema. The government has done very little to address this. For someone of my generation, it is very difficult to look at this with our own children. In short, students are paying more and more for the cost of degrees, which are, in many cases, providing ever diminishing rates of return. In many fields of study—the humanities, law and economics—the government is now providing much less than 50 per cent of the cost of the degree. Are there better times ahead? Clearly not if you are a student, a young person looking for a job or house or both.

This is the budget of a government that knows it has just about burned its bridges with a rightly disappointed and despondent nation. Even though it has been called a step or a stumble to the left, there are clearly ideologues in this government that continue with an ideology of punishment of those who are most vulnerable and little understanding of how difficult it is for average people to live their lives. The pity is that after four years this government has left the economy ill equipped and exposed to forces that may now prove to be beyond anyone's control.

This Friday, 26 May, is the 50th anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Anyone of my generation would find it hard to believe that it is 50 years since the release of this album! This budget needs, to paraphrase the Beatles, more than a little help from its friends. Lucy may well be in the sky with diamonds, but the economy is not getting better. It is not fixing a hole. She is not leaving home, because she cannot afford it.

Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Macarthur. In the words of John Lennon, 'Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.'

David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is good to have the opportunity to speak on the appropriation bills—Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2017-2018 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018—today. There are a significant number of very important initiatives for my electorate of Banks that I particularly wanted to focus on this afternoon. The federal budget is a very big thing—about $400 billion or so of revenue—but it is very important to focus on the local impacts of the appropriation bills. There are a number of important impacts in Banks.

Firstly, car parking in Beverly Hills today is a mess. There is not enough parking and it is causing massive problems in our community and, frankly, has been doing so for years. Some of the best restaurants in southern Sydney are located in Beverly Hills. We have cinemas—the GU Filmhouse, formerly Beverly Hills Cinemas—and a wide range of other small businesses that employ hundreds of local residents. The big problem at the moment is that, if you try to come to Beverly Hills on a Saturday night, good luck, because you are going to have to park a very, very long way away.

I am really pleased that in the budget the federal government has provided $2½ million of funding towards a much needed car park at Beverly Hills. This is a critical step in finally fixing the unfinished business of the parking at Beverly Hills. I want to thank my friend Cliff Yung, from D to D Cafe in Beverly Hills. Cliff has really galvanised the small-business community in Beverly Hills by standing up and saying, 'We are not going to put up with this anymore.' This is having a massive effect on the livelihoods of small-business people in Beverly Hills, and it is having a massive effect on the lives of local residents too because it is making it very difficult to access Beverly Hills, particularly on weekends. Cliff, along with the small-business community, has on two separate occasions organised petitions, signed in each case by about 1,000 people. I also conducted a community survey on this some time ago, which was very, very strongly supported in the community.

We have got $2½ million ready to go; what do we need now? We need Georges River Council and the state government to take action and build this car park. I have been very encouraged by recent statements from Georges River Council about it looking at this project and about plans being prepared. What we need now is a firm commitment to build this car park at Beverly Hills. We need that commitment from Georges River Council. We need it from the state government. We have got $2½ million of cash sitting on the table ready to be used to build this car park. Let's build it. It needs to be built.

Another important issue for my electorate that is covered in the budget is the issue of the M5 east-facing ramps at Riverwood. Back in the nineties, the M5 was built. As a former Sydney resident yourself, Deputy Speaker, I am sure you are familiar with the frustrations that people encounter on these roads every day. But there is a particular frustration at Riverwood in my electorate. If you want to go in a westerly direction, entering the M5 to go west, or to come off the M5 if you are coming from the west, you can. It works really well. You get on and drive away, and everything is okay. But if you want to go towards the city, or if you want to exit the M5 coming from the city, you cannot. The reason is that the ramps have never been opened. That is despite the fact that the space is clearly there. It was provisioned for in the original build of the M5 back in the nineties, but no-one has ever actually acted on it to open those ramps.

I was very pleased last year when the Prime Minister visited Riverwood to announce that the federal government would commit $15 million to opening the M5 east-facing ramps at Riverwood once and for all. The state government has also committed $15 million. In this budget, some funds are provided to get this project started. The state government is currently conducting geotechnical work on the soil structure and so on in the area, and we expect further documentation from the state government very shortly. We look forward to seeing that and to having a clear plan from the state government on the geotechnical and further works required to get these ramps built. It is going to make a massive difference to travel times in our area, and it is very good to see that this federal budget is allocating funds for that project.

Sport, as in all communities in Australia, is incredibly important in my electorate. I was again pleased that the budget provides for important funding for projects for the sports community in Banks. Now, the Hurstville Aquatic Leisure Centre is somewhat misnamed, because whilst it does have aquatic facilities—and very good aquatic facilities—it also has a lot of non-aquatic facilities, such as basketball courts and so on. In my electorate of Banks, we have one of the largest table tennis communities in Australia. The table tennis community makes use of the Hurstville aquatic centre's court facilities. We have dozens and dozens of table tennis tables set up there every week, and people play.

As part of the million-dollar federal government grant towards the upgrade of the Hurstville aquatic centre and Penshurst Park, we will be getting two additional basketball court areas in the Hurstville aquatic centre. That means more space for more tournaments for the St George and Sutherland Shire Table Tennis Association, arguably the strongest table tennis association in our nation. We were very fortunate to host the national titles a few years ago. I am very pleased that these funds will be available to improve the lot of the table tennis community, and I want to thank Douglas Flood, the president; David Sutton, the treasurer; and Connie Chan, a board member, and her husband, Simon, who are fearless and frank advocates for the table tennis community. It is going to be great when these new courts are opened, and it is great to see the money in the budget to do just that.

The increased number of basketball courts at the Hurstville aquatic centre is going to make a big difference for our local basketball teams. The St George basketball association, which is led so well by Ray Barbi, has about 1,500 members. There is frustration at times because it can be really hard to get access to the required courts. We have limited facilities. The bottom line is the Hurstville aquatic facility courts are pretty much it when it comes to quality basketball facilities in our area. Ray and his team, Anna Pazanin and others, have strongly advocated for the need for these additional courts. The money is there to build these additional courts. I am looking forward to Georges River Council making use of that federal funding and opening up these two additional courts. I thank the St George basketball association for their very persistent advocacy on this issue.

Another very important issue, related to traffic, is the duplication of the M5 East. The M5 East can be a carpark at times. For whatever reason, back in the nineties they built it two lanes in each direction, but it should have been three or more. We are going to duplicate it. The state government and the federal government, working together, will duplicate the M5 East. Over the life of the project there is $1½ billion of cash from the federal government and a $2 billion concessional loan that have assisted in bringing this project forward and making it happen more quickly. Work is underway at all of the key locations for the opening of these tunnels, which is expected by 2020. When that happens, just three years from now, that is going to be a massive improvement for residents driving to the city, particularly from the Beverly Hills area, because instead of having two lanes you are going to have four. Some people will use the new tunnel and some people will use the old tunnel. The bottom line is: more tunnels, more space for traffic and a faster commute to and from the city. So this project is very important. It is good to see that funding in this federal budget, as well.

There are a range of small community organisations in my electorate that play a very important role. They rarely call upon the government, because the vast majority of their efforts, their enterprise and their positive impact on our community are not driven by the government; they are driven by them, by their volunteerism and by them rolling up their sleeves and making things happen. But on occasion it is good when the federal government can provide some support through the Stronger Communities Program, and other programs, for these important local organisations.

An organisation I would like to highlight this afternoon is St Joseph's Riverwood Sports Club. St Joseph's Riverwood Sports Club does a fantastic job in our community and next year will celebrate its 50th anniversary. It does not provide sports just for kids from St Joseph's at Riverwood but also for kids from the broader community. It provides cricket, netball, T-ball, Oztag and touch football. There is a really strong sense of comradery in this club. It was great recently, on 6 May, to attend their annual trivia event. It was good to see Anthony Hayes, Mick Finn, Matt Carr and all the members of the committee. It was good that we were able to provide support through the Stronger Communities Program for some much needed storage facilities for the club, for storing their sporting equipment. I thank the club for their efforts. Over $8,000 was raised on the night and a lot of fun was had by all. Congratulations to St Joseph's Riverwood.

Another great organisation in my electorate, which in recent times has benefitted from federal government support, is the Riverwood squadron of the Australian Air League. In my view, there is no better unit of the air league anywhere in Australia. Through the efforts of its commanding officer, Chris Bailey, the Riverwood squadron has gone from being quite a small group to being a really central part of our community. More than 100 young men are involved in the air league. They visit its premises at Riverwood every week to learn about aviation. A lot of them learn about music as they have a very active band that has travelled to Japan and to Denmark in recent years to perform at international events. They are the sort of people who always put their hands up for the community.

An example of that occurred recently with one of our Anzac Day dawn services. A group that was scheduled to play a key role unfortunately pulled out at the very last minute. Riverwood Air League got a call at 3 am on Anzac Day asking, 'Can you please come along to the Mortdale combined Anzac Day service to provide the catapult party?' and they did. So the phone call was at 3 am, and a couple of hours later there is a group of young men from Riverwood Air League supporting this most critical community commemoration.

It is a fantastic organisation and it was great to attend their diamond jubilee celebration recently, at Dalton House in Sylvania Waters. I cannot over-emphasise the importance of the squadron to our community. The efforts of Chris Bailey are truly exceptional.

Banks has a wonderful geographic feature in the Georges River—it is the jewel in the crown of the Banks area. In the federal budget funds are provided for a significant number of environmental projects to clean up the Georges River. The Myles Dunphy Reserve at Oatley is a beautiful piece of bushland in what is a very beautiful suburb. As part of the federal budget we are providing funds for a team of people to work at Myles Dunphy Reserve for several months on various environmental remediation projects and also to put in place a walkway to enable the area to be better accessed. It is a really important area of our community. I thank the Oatley Flora and Fauna Conservation Society for their efforts in preserving Oatley. It was good to join them on a bushwalk last Saturday. But I do look forward to these federal funds being provided to help to preserve and protect the environment of Myles Dunphy Reserve at Oatley.

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018, because it is with some bemusement that over the past couple of weeks I have been watching this government to continue to refer to the 2017 budget as a 'fair budget'. I must say that there is a big difference between the empty rhetoric of fairness and fairness that is at the heart of party values, because the fact is that there is not much at all that is fair about this budget. There is nothing fair about a budget that gives big business a $50 billion handout while increasing taxes for Aussies on low incomes. There is nothing fair about a budget that rips out $22 billion from schools. There is nothing fair about a government choosing to give a $16,400 tax cut to millionaires, where someone earning $1 million will pay $16,400 less tax, while someone of $65,000 will pay $325 more tax in two years' time. I cannot understand how they can even remotely be constructed as fair. There is nothing fair about a government that continues to support penalty rate cuts that will reduce the take-home pay of around 700,000 Australian workers, while we, the parliamentarians, including those on the other side—the very people who claim to be fair—enjoy a nice tax. I for one am willing to forgo my tax cut in order to help those less fortunate, those who are doing it hard. In my electorate of Cowan the second-largest employment group is in hospitality—cafes, restaurants and takeaways. They are the very people who are going to be more adversely affected by penalty rate cuts. By all accounts, this budget fails the fairness test. Those opposite can aspire to be us, and that is very—

An opposition member: Noble!

Very noble—it is a very noble aspiration, I might say. They can claim that suddenly they are the party of fairness and equality, but that is a joke. They will never be us. They will always be a government that look after the top two per cent, because when it comes down to it they do not know what fairness means.

This budget fails the fairness test. The Turnbull government fails the credibility test. The budget fails the economic credibility test. Let us start with this: growth is down; wages growth is down; and unemployment is up. The government went to an election with the mantra of jobs and growth. Here are the fiscal facts. There are 10,000 fewer jobs forecast in the budget—sorry, that is 100,000. Gosh, I had to look at that twice. It is 100,000 fewer jobs forecast in the budget. Gross debt will pass half a trillion dollars in the coming months. That is $20,000 for every Australian man, woman and child. Gross debt will hit $725 billion—I cannot even imagine what that looks like—in 10 years. The deficit is 10 times bigger—a whole 10 times—than was predicted in this government's first budget, from $2.8 billion to $29.4 billion. Talk about fiscal failure! The deficit for this year has tripled. Net debt has blown out by over $100 billion since the Liberals came into government and will be at record levels for more than three years. Yet this government, the government that claimed to be delivering fairness, persists like a dog with a bone in handing out $50 billion of tax cuts to big business while slugging hardworking Australians again and again and again.

I am disgusted. That is the only thing I can say. I am disgusted that this government can even utter the word 'fairness' in relation to this budget. I am disgusted that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer can even look at themselves in the near each morning and use that word 'fairness' in reference to this sham of a budget. I am disgusted that they could treat Australians with such contempt—the people that they are elected to represent in good faith, the people who voted for them in good faith. I am disgusted that they would be so arrogant as to try to con those people into believing for one second that they have their best interests at heart, that they would have them believe this government is even remotely interested in fairness.

There are many aspects of this budget that I could speak on, but I do not have all day to do that, unfortunately—well, fortunately—so I am going to focus the rest of my time on three issues that are particularly affecting the people of my electorate of Cowan. The first issue is the unfair zombie measures that are included in this budget along with some new, hidden measures. These include keeping the age pension at 70; new cuts to family payments; new cuts to veterans health—my gosh, at least leave that alone—and the abolition of the energy supplement, leaving pensioners, pensioners like my mum, $366 a year worse off. All of these measures target our most vulnerable, because they are easy targets when your core principles, your core values, are at their very heart unfair.

These measures are not there because this government has suddenly had a change of heart and, by some miracle, some overnight epiphany, now believes in the principle of fairness. No. These are remnants of a raft of unfair zombie measures that the government took out of the budget. They did not take them out because they are unfair. No, they regret taking them out of the budget. They took them out because they could not pass them. They still believe in them. They still want those unfair measures in there, but they just could not get them passed.

Let us take a look at how these measures adversely affect the people of Cowan. As of March 2017, Perth's northern suburbs are facing 3.6 per cent unemployment. That is 21,100 people in the north-west and north-east of Perth, where my electorate is located. One in four people in the suburb of Girrawheen—that is just one suburb in my electorate—are unemployed. Youth unemployment in Perth's northern suburbs is at a whopping 13.5 per cent. There are over 3,000 people in training in my electorate of Cowan and over 5,000 people at university, which leads me to the second issue, which is higher education.

I have four university degrees. It is not because I like punishment and it is not because I have been a perennial student; it is because I tend to get interested in things and like to learn about them. I did not have access to free education. I do not come from that generation. I have paid my debts for three degrees. For the fourth one—my PhD—I managed to get a scholarship. I paid my HECS debts as a single mum on a low salary. I paid those off and it was hard. I was able to do that, despite how difficult it was, but I understand that young people on low incomes who have just finished a university degree and may have their first job are also finding it hard. They have high levels of financial stress. They are finding it hard to purchase their first home. They are finding it hard to get married and do all the kinds of things that young people look forward to.

The government's proposals in the budget around higher education are going to have a huge impact on the very people for whom higher education is not an opportunity that is easy to attain—those for whom entry into university is already limited: women in particular, Indigenous Australians even more particularly and those for whom these kinds of opportunities do not often come around. In this budget Malcolm Turnbull is proposing to cut funding to universities, increasing university fees, and also make changes to how HECS will be repaid.

Not all people should, want or can go to university. That brings me to my third issue—skills and apprenticeships. In the budget the government is cutting $600 million from TAFE and apprentices, on top of $3.8 billion from universities and $22 billion from schools. Australia now has 130,000 fewer apprentices and trainees than when this government was first elected. I remember a time when Australia had a world-class training system. When I travelled the world people would come up to me and say: 'You guys have the best training system. We want to emulate your training system.' That is no longer so. TAFE and vocational training funding and the number of supported students are lower than they were a decade ago. This is despite increasing numbers of jobs requiring vocational skills. There is no plan for education and no plan for Australia's future. Labor will reverse this $600 million cut to skills and training and will invest in TAFE and apprenticeships, as we should be doing. Only Labor will provide more opportunity for Australians to gain the skills they need to get good quality jobs.

I return to my original point about the fundamental unfairness of this budget. On all measures—on education, pensioners, higher education, training, families, veteran health, Medicare and housing affordability; on every measure—when it comes to fairness this budget, I am afraid to say, fails dismally. Australians can continue to trust, as they always have, that Labor will block these unfair measures, because we know how these measures adversely impact the people in our communities. We know how they adversely impact workers who rely on penalty rates to get through the day. I was one of those workers once and I know what it is like. I know what it is like to go through a week when you do not have enough money to cover the rent, to cover the groceries or to feed your kids for the week. I know that for those who rely on penalty rates they are not a luxury. They do not use the money to go to the cinema or to buy avocado on toast. They use the money for their essential needs—to keep a roof over their head, to keep food on the table and to keep their kids in school. I know; I have been there.

And now, as a parliamentarian—and, prior to this, as a professor—I am blessed. I am blessed that I am in one of the most highly taxed tax brackets in Australia. I am blessed that I can earn the kind of money that I have. But I did that through education. Education gave me the opportunity to lift myself up, to lift my family up and to put my kids through school and through university as well.

If you cut that essential opportunity of education from so many people—if you take away, rip away, that opportunity from so many young people—you know, that could be the next Einstein out there. That could be the next Nobel prize winner out there. That could be the next person to cure cancer out there. We have to think about it. When we take away opportunities for education, for higher education, for TAFE or for a good, strong, school education, we are taking away Australia's future. We need to be thinking about that.

When it comes to fairness, there is no such thing as 'Labor light'. There is no such thing as a 'Labor wannabe', as flattering as that may seem, as noble an aspiration as that might seem. There is only one Labor Party, only one party that puts people first, only one party that understands the needs of workers, of pensioners, of veterans, of the people most vulnerable in our society, and is not a party that puts big business first. That party is Labor, and that is fairness.

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This 2017 budget is one that delivers for all Australians—for the Australians living in the suburbs and living in our regional centres; for the Australians who work in small businesses or who are salaried, who battle every day to put food on the table, to put a roof over their head and to buy a house. Every one of those mainstream Australians is a beneficiary of this budget.

The previous speaker was quite right: this is not a Labor budget, because it does not indulge in the glib class warfare of those opposite. We do not believe in that. We believe in a pragmatic approach where we want to create opportunities for every Australian to have a crack, to have a fair go. That is what fairness is actually all about. In that spirit, it is a comprehensive plan that guarantees the essentials that Australians rely on in order to capture those opportunities.

In my portfolio areas, this budget is an absolutely once-in-a-generation budget, with a $75 billion infrastructure commitment. Central to that is a $10 billion National Rail Program in which we will consider projects like AdeLINK; the Tullamarine rail link; Cross River Rail, in Brisbane; the Western Sydney rail link, which I will come back to in a moment; and the Brisbane Metro. On all of those projects, we want to work closely with state governments to shape the best possible projects and deliver the best outcomes, playing an active role as a government alongside our state and local government partners. Central to this is our new Infrastructure and Project Financing Agency, which will help us to make those right choices, the right investments, delivering more bang for the taxpayers' buck. Within that agency, we are recruiting commercial people with the experience to make active, effective, high-impact investments.

In Western Australia we are investing in a $2.3 billion jobs and infrastructure package with the state government, with over a billion dollars to be jointly allocated to future Metronet projects in Perth. This offers the opportunity for the outer suburbs of Perth in particular to better connect to the rest of the city. That package also strongly aligns with our Smart Cities agenda, and we will continue to work with the Western Australian government, the state, on opportunities to deliver a city deal.

In Victoria, we will make a $1 billion fund available for regional rail and other infrastructure projects, including $30 million to develop a business case for a rail link to Melbourne airport at Tullamarine—sadly, a project which the state government until now has ignored. A new, $500 million, Victorian regional rail fund will include $100 million to upgrade the Geelong rail line. This is a real focus on these satellite cities around our capitals, better connecting them and making sure we can grow them as major job centres. Alongside that is $100 million for our north-east rail upgrades in Victoria.

In Queensland, the government is using $844 million in savings to reinvest in critical infrastructure projects in the state.

Closer to home for me, in my electorate of Hume, the budget provides over $5 billion to build a new airport for Western Sydney at Badgerys Creek, creating 20,000 direct jobs in the early 2020s and 60,000 in the long term. We know that is just the beginning, because if we look around the world we see that airports are magnets for jobs. There are no faster growing areas in most cities of the world now than their airports. This is an extraordinary opportunity for Western Sydney to have more jobs closer to home. A genuine 30-minute city is within reach through the work we are doing in Western Sydney.

The Western Sydney City Deal will harness the economic opportunity created by the airport. We were absolutely delighted, only a few days ago, to be in Western Sydney to announce that the first anchor tenant for the Badgerys Creek airport—around the Badgerys Creek airport—will be Northrop-Grumman, which is a defence contractor, a major player, with high-quality jobs. It is setting up a centre in Western Sydney, which ultimately will be based around Badgerys Creek as well as having a presence at Richmond.

Delivering the right mix of housing in the right places will be absolutely critical for the population growth we are seeing, and will continue to see, across this dynamic, fast-growing region. Of course, Western Sydney will be a beneficiary of the Treasurer's very comprehensive housing package. Unlike Labor, which wants to take a chainsaw to the housing market with its single focus on taxing more—and how taxing more was ever going to be a solution to the housing market problems we are seeing in Melbourne and Sydney is beyond me—we are bringing to the table a comprehensive set of initiatives that we think will deal with the underlying issue over both the shorter term and the longer term. This package includes three key areas. The first and most important is unlocking supply in the right places. Any economist will tell you that our fundamental problem in housing, particularly in Melbourne and Sydney, has been a lack of supply. When the Labor New South Wales state government declared that Sydney was shut in the early 2000s we saw a complete failure of housing supply response to fast-growing population demand. Sydney should have been building about 35,000 houses a year, and when we look back between 2004 and 2014 we see it built less than half of those—17,000 houses a year. No wonder we have an enormous backlog in demand for housing supply in Sydney, and we have seen similar dynamics in Melbourne.

The government will establish a $1 billion National Housing Infrastructure Facility to fund the infrastructure needed to unlock development, particularly around job centres and transport hubs, and that funding will be rolled out in new micro city deals, agreements that apply the City Deal model of integrated planning across state, federal and local government to get more houses in the right places connected to jobs and connected to transport.

The budget also includes funding for a specific Western Sydney housing supply package and will tie funding to planning and zoning reform, supporting state and local governments to cut red tape and the delays that hold back that all important housing supply.

That is supply. The second area is creating the right incentives around the housing market. We are focused on improving opportunities in the housing market for all Australians, both younger and older. At the younger end, through the First Home Super Saver Scheme, Australians will be able to salary sacrifice contributions of up to $15,000 a year and $30,000 in total within existing contribution caps. At the older end of the scale, we are supporting older Australians who want to downsize. From 1 July next year, people 65 years and older will be allowed to make a special non-concessional contribution into superannuation of up to $300,000 from the proceeds of selling their home. Important in creating the right incentives, we will make changes to foreign investor rules to make sure that more homes are available for Australians and particularly young first home buyers trying to get into the market.

The third area we are focused on in this package is strengthening assistance for social housing and homelessness, making sure that the vulnerable have a roof over their heads. This has to be a priority. We will work with state and local governments to ensure that we have stronger tailored agreements around homelessness and social housing. We have committed $375 million to provide certainty to frontline services that help Australians who are homeless or who are at risk of becoming homeless. On top of that, a national housing, finance and investment corporation will be established to administer an affordable housing bond aggregator. This is about making sure that there is more capital available at a low cost to get these crucial houses in for people who are most vulnerable.

On the other side of my portfolio—in digital and IT—this government not only is investing in physical infrastructure in cities and infrastructure portfolios but also has invested in its digital infrastructure in this budget. We have put $200 million into my portfolio to increase the capability of government to deliver more effective programs and services. That includes $70 million for the second stage of our Digital Transformation Agenda and $130 million over the forward estimates to improve our data driven capability. These projects include things like Tell Us Once—a single notification platform. Tell Us Once allows Australians to go on to government websites and tell us about updates to their address and circumstances and not have to tell every department the same thing time and time again. These projects also include things like notifications so that we better engage with citizens and businesses about where they are at, simpler payment platforms and a federated data exchange. This is so that, as I said, we can fulfil some of these simplifying projects that make it easier for citizens and businesses to deal with governments.

The projects will build on the new myGov version that was delivered just this week by the Department of Human Services and the ATO, along with the DTA, as well as the ongoing GovPass Program. To put it simply: this will allow all Australians, if they choose, to update their details once and to logon once to find any service they need simply and quickly. The investments are targeted and effective and are already delivering real benefits.

Turning to my electorate of Hume, in 2017-18 alone the federal government will invest almost $640 million in Hume road and bridge projects. This is an extraordinary amount. We have confirmed our $50 million towards the upgrade of Appin Road. The first of that money will be spent this year. The planning has to be right and, of course, will be delivered by the state government. It is an important project as part of that broader package of well over half a billion dollars.

In addition to that, the budget delivers great opportunities for small businesses in Hume, including initiatives like extending the instant asset write-off for small businesses—a very popular way of investing more in the electorate. I see that farmers, small-business people and tradies have applied this instant asset write-off to great effect. That is also generating enormous activity from service providers around the electorate. Robert Mills, who owns and operates Mount Annan Quality Meat, which is a great butcher's in the north of my electorate that employs eight people, said the tax breaks would have an immediate effect. As well as that, we are reinstating financial assistance grants. Councils in my electorate have done very well in recent years from a range of different programs, and this will help them to continue to meet their needs.

In health and education, we have seen great commitments to spending in my electorate. Across Australia we have put an extra $2.4 billion into assurance of Medicare for the next four years. We have also seen in recent years a strong increase in bulk-billing rates. For Hume in 2015-16, the bulk-billing rate was 88 per cent. Almost 90 per cent of visits to the doctor were bulk-billed. I note the member for Macarthur was here a few moments ago. He would be interested to know that the national bulk-billing rate was, under Labor, just over 82 per cent—82.2 per cent. It is now 85.4 per cent and continues to increase.

The budget confirms the government's commitment to reining in energy costs and ensuring reliable supply, with initiatives like the one-off energy assistance payment this year of $75 for single recipients and $125 for couples. On the education side we are seeing very significant commitments. In my electorate of Hume, every one of Hume's 79 schools will receive significant increases in funding. For instance, the funding will grow for the Catholic education schools, with the average amount per student rising from its current $8,780 to $12,562. That is true. Those increases are in every school—every Catholic school as well as every government and independent school—throughout the electorate of Hume. In fact, the total increase in federal government funding for schools in Hume over the next 10 years sits at $282 million.

Hume is a diverse electorate. The benefits to the good people of Hume, those mainstream Australians who, as I say, run small businesses and work in businesses, schools and hospitals around my electorate, of this budget are real and tangible. They will be enabled. They will be in a position to capture those great opportunities that Australians have always been offered over two centuries since the first European settlement. This is a wonderful country, and Hume is benefiting from a great budget.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to use this opportunity to talk about what the budget does for the residents in my electorate, which covers most of the Knox area in outer eastern Melbourne. As other members of the parliament will know, our overall objective with this budget was to create stronger economic growth, because that ultimately underpins jobs and wealth creation; to create more opportunities, particularly for young people; and, finally, to make a safer community, which is of course desperately important, particularly in Melbourne.

I would like to start, though, by discussing education, particularly school education, and what the budget does in that regard. We all know that if you get a good school education then the opportunities arise for the rest of your life. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that every kid, no matter what their background and no matter what school they go to, gets that great start in life by going to a good school. Funding is an important element of that. Through this budget every single one of the 39 schools in the electorate of Aston, which covers most of Knox, receives an increase in funding. They have surety that over the next decade, year on year, they will have funding increases. A school like Rowville Secondary College, which is one of the larger schools in my electorate, will go from $4.7 million of federal funding this year to $4.95 million next year. Over the next 10 years it will have an increase, collectively, of $16 million. Of course, a good school education is about more than funding—it involves great teachers and good teaching practice—but funding is important, and we recognise that in this budget.

I would also like to discuss infrastructure, particularly road and rail infrastructure. Everyone in Knox knows just how congested the roads are getting. We have seen this over the last five or so years. It is almost like the roads in Melbourne are coming to a standstill. This is in part because the infrastructure has not been built to keep up with the growing population. We particularly feel that in outer eastern Melbourne.

I am pleased to say that the federal budget this year allocates $7.4 billion to Victoria. Some very important projects will directly benefit residents in my electorate, perhaps none more so than the $500 million dedicated to upgrading the Monash Freeway. People refer to that sometimes as the Monash car park in the morning—I know for myself that it often is—and this will enable additional lane capacity on the Monash Freeway to get that freeway moving better.

There is also some money to do the next stage of the airport rail link. This is an important project for everybody in my electorate and across Melbourne and Victoria. We have put money to get the next stage done. We have put money towards another very large project—the Inland Rail from Melbourne to Brisbane. It will largely be used for freight, but it will generate thousands of jobs. There is a commitment in this budget as well to get that project going.

Of course there are other smaller projects that are occurring in Knox that were election commitments of mine. We have already found funding for those, and those projects will soon be underway. The largest one of those is the Henderson Road bridge. This will connect the two sides of Henderson Road—the side in Rowville with the side in Knoxfield—and will provide an additional north-south link across Knox and take a bit of pressure off Stud Road as well. That is a really important project that is already funded and will be getting underway. It will be completed I hope within a couple of years.

I want to move to housing affordability. This is something that young people raise with me all the time. Indeed, their parents raise with me the fact that it is so difficult now for young people to get into the housing market because house prices have risen so much in recent years, and we certainly see that in our area and our community. There is no silver bullet for this, but in the budget we have announced a number of very practical measures that we are going to do to help young people get into the housing market. The most important is a new scheme that will enable people to save for a deposit more quickly. In essence, a young person will be able to put $30,000 into a dedicated part of their superannuation account. By doing that they will obviously get tax advantages. That means that they will be able to save a deposit potentially 30 per cent faster than they can presently. That is a real direct benefit to young people saving for their first home.

We are also taking other steps on the housing affordability front. An important measure there is cracking down on some of the foreign investment. We have already taken significant steps on that front and we are taking more steps again in this budget, including, for example, placing a limit on foreign ownership in new developments and introducing an annual charge on foreign owners who buy residential property and leave it vacant. We certainly know many properties like that in Knox.

Further, there are also measures that encourage and provide incentives for people to downsize, should they choose, to a smaller home. They will not be disadvantaged in doing so. There are special incentives there. That might free up some of the larger family homes for young families coming in who might benefit from those homes. There is no compulsion; it is a choice for the people who own that property at the moment, but there will be incentives for them to take up those opportunities.

Next I want to briefly discuss small business. Small business is the backbone of the economy in Knox. There are about 14,000 small- and medium-sized businesses in my electorate, which covers most of Knox. We know that, because they are the ones providing most of the jobs, when they do well the whole community does well. There are so many families where it is the plumber, the carpenter or the driver who has their own business. We want to encourage them and help them to grow and to employ more people. We are doing that through a number of steps.

The most important one is small- and medium-sized business tax cuts. It does not matter if you are a company or not, you will benefit from a small business tax cut directly on your income earned. We are also extending the $20,000 instant asset write-off. That means that you can purchase equipment—any number of pieces—up to the value of $20,000 and immediately write that off in the current financial year. Obviously that can help with your cash flow. There are a whole bunch of other smaller measures as well which will help small business people. We strongly support them. I strongly support the small business people in my electorate, as I said, because when they do well the entire community does well.

I will touch on something which goes across the board. I have personal responsibility, with Christian Porter, the Minister for Social Services, for overseeing some of the important welfare changes that we have made. In essence, we are trying to put stronger incentives in the welfare system to encourage people at every opportunity to take the job when it is available. If there is a good job there, we want people to take it rather than languish on welfare. For those who are trying to skirt around the system—and we all know some people are like that—it is going to be so much tougher for such people to do that under our new regime.

We are also, importantly, introducing trials of drug testing of new welfare recipients—new people going onto unemployment benefits. This is going to be an important trial. The aim of the measure is to identify people who, in some respects, may have a drug problem and assist them to get off it, because if they are on drugs today the chances of them getting a job are so much more diminished. Of course, they will not get the jobs which require regular drug tests, and many jobs these days do exactly that: require a drug test. If you think about truck drivers, if you think about any job in the mining industry and if you think about some of our big companies—Qantas, Toll et cetera—these sorts of companies require drug tests. The Defence Force and border security et cetera require drug tests. We want to make sure people have opportunities to get those jobs. For them to get those jobs they have to be drug free, so this drug testing is going to be important. It is a trial stge. We have not identified the locations yet, but we will be working very quickly on that and getting that up and running.

I will talk about the macro budget settings. Everybody knows that we have been deep in deficit since the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years where they destroyed the surpluses which we had and put us deep into the red. We now have a pathway back to surplus. This budget ensures that by financial year 2021 we will be back in surplus and can start paying off that debt again. That is not just very important not just for today but it is critically important for the next generation, because if we continue to run large budget deficits, as the Labor Party would like us to do, in essence we are just borrowing from our children, and they will have to pay higher taxes in the future because of our expenditure today. We do not think this is fair. Our aim is to get back to balance in a couple of years and then to start paying back the debt as soon as we get there.

There is so much more in the budget which directly impacts and supports the residents of Knox. The NDIS scheme, which is going to be fully funded and rolled out, is going to directly help thousands of people who have disabilities. I am very proud of the fact that we are going to be doing that. There are so many other smaller initiatives which are going to directly benefit the local residents as well. I have tried to touch on the big ones: the schooling initiatives, the housing affordability initiatives and the extra roads and rail. We are making some really important changes to support small business growth. We are doing important welfare reform measures to encourage young people, able bodied young people, to take those jobs when they are there, and introducing drug testing. And, perhaps, overall, ensuring that we get the finances back under control, so that we are not handing over debt to future generations. I am very proud of this budget. It is a good one for the residents of Knox and it is a good one for all Australians.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You cannot punish someone for not finding a job that was not there. The youth unemployment rate in this country is 13 per cent, and, when you factor in the number of young people who say they would like to work more hours than they currently have, it is 20 per cent. A couple of decades ago it was below 10 per cent. We have 20 per cent of young people in this country saying that they want to work more hours but they cannot find it, and we have youth unemployment at 13 per cent.

What is the government's response in this budget? Is it to say, 'We are going to make education more available to everyone so that you can get higher qualifications without putting itself into debt'? Is it to say, 'We are going to start using our purse strings to create the new industries of the 21st century that might provide jobs for people'? No. This government's response in its budget is to stand by and watch young people's wages get cut further as they lose their penalty rates, and then ask, 'If you happen to be someone in this country who is looking for a job and you have tried hard and you have not found it, what are we going to do? Are we going to give you a helping hand? No. Are we going to lift the level of Newstart for you? No. We are going to treat you like a suspected criminal and you have to subject yourself to random drug tests, because—somehow—it is your fault that the jobs aren't there.'

Youth unemployment is rising on this government's watch. Unemployment and under-employment are going up and up and up. At the same time, if you are a young person in this country then housing is even more out of reach than it ever has been. Back in the 1990s it used to be that an average house cost six times an average young person's income. Fast forward to this government, and it costs 12 times an average young person's income. So, the jobs are not there, the people who have jobs want to work more hours—if you are young—and they have not got it, housing is increasingly out of reach, and wages are being cut. The government's response is to say, 'Well, we are going to treat you like a suspected criminal.' And in this budget they say they are going to put you further into debt if you do go to university. 'We are going to increase the fees.' The universities are going to have less money—they get a cut as well. The education you get is going to be tougher for the university to deliver, because the government is going to cut them. 'And we are going to make you start paying your debt back earlier.' Imagine being a young person now, graduating and looking for a job. You cannot save up your house deposit because housing is out of reach, wages are low, growth is sluggish—in fact it is going backwards in real terms—and with what you do have the government is going to put its hand in your pocket and take more of it by putting you further into debt and making you repay it earlier.

This budget is a continuation of the government's war on the young. This government has declared war on the young and it is continuing. Increasingly, people are realising that this government is going to be the one that leaves the future for young people worse than when they inherited it. That is what people are experiencing every day. There are things we could be doing here in this parliament for people who come into this place after us, people who are leaving university now or are at school now, wondering what kind of life they are going to have. We could make life better for them. We could start by saying that we are not going to put you further into debt, which is what this government is doing. Secondly, we could say that housing is a human right and instead of spending billions of dollars a year, like this budget does, to help people who already have a house to buy their second, third, fourth or fifth house, giving them a generous tax break, we could say that we are going to take those billions and instead put it into building affordable housing that young people and key workers are able to access. What a sensible use of government money. What a sensible use of several billion dollars a year it would be to help people to get into their first home instead of helping people to get their third, fourth or fifth and push up prices and rents and put housing out of reach for so many people.

We could be saying that we have a wonderful opportunity in this country. Australia could be a renewable energy superpower. We could be the country that the rest of the world looks at going into the 21st century. We could be the country where there are over 100,000 jobs in renewable energy, as the Germans have. On proportionate terms—they are a bigger country—they have nearly 400,000 people working in the renewable energy industry. We could have that happening here. We could be saying, 'Isn't it amazing that people working in this country, at universities in this country—and thanks to CSIRO—have just worked out how to print solar cells, basically off a commercial printer, onto almost any substance so that you can just print out a free and infinite source of energy.' We could be saying: 'Isn't it wonderful that'—at one of the same universities—'at Newcastle they have worked out how to get microscopic solar cells into paint. If we proofed that up, you would just paint the wall of your house and it would become a solar panel. You wouldn't need to install a new solar panel, because it is one.' These are the kinds of inventions that we could be building here in Australia, and we could be owning the IP of those and we could be exporting them.

As we look around, we see we have another remarkable opportunity, which is that when our coal fleet is ageing, as it is in Australia at the moment, and when many coal-fired power stations are at the end of their usable life we need to switch them off and get onto renewable energy to meet the climate challenge. The best bit is that it is now cheaper to build new renewable energy than it is to build a new coal-fired power station. In fact, it is cheaper to build renewables than it is to build a peaking gas-fired power station. Even better, the cost of storage is coming down so quickly that we can build renewables with storage attached, so that we have power available when the wind is not blowing in a particular place or when the sun goes down at night, and they are cheaper to build than new fossil fuel power stations. What a remarkable job-creating, way-of-life-protecting program it would be for this country to dedicate itself to getting onto 100 per cent renewable energy—to putting the money behind it and creating real jobs for the young people who are wondering where jobs are going to come from in the 21st century.

It is not just the Greens saying this is what needs to be in the budget. At the other end of the spectrum, we now have AGL, the country's biggest polluter, operating the biggest coal-fired power station, saying: we want a plan to get off coal and onto renewables; just tell us what that plan is. A couple of weeks ago the CFO of AGL said that because of rising gas prices:

… the energy transition we have all been anticipating will skip "big baseload gas" as a major component of the NEM's base-load generation and instead largely be a case of moving from "big coal" to "big renewables".

This is what the people who are running our coal-fired power stations are saying at the moment. They are saying: give us a plan so that we can start building big renewable power.

We know, as we have just seen in Victoria, we are going to have to start switching off our coal-fired power stations because they are getting very old and they are very polluting. So what does this budget do? Does this budget lay out a vision for the country to get off coal and onto renewables? No. This budget backs in gas even when the likes of AGL are saying: it is too expensive now, it is not going to be the transition fuel, we are going to jump straight to renewables. It backs in coal and it backs in a billion dollars to multinational company Adani for a coalmine that is a ticking climate bomb.

If we burn the coal that is left in the ground then we are giving a death sentence to the Great Barrier Reef. It is as simple as that. It is not just the Greens who are saying that. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority have been saying that in recent days as well. They have been pointing out that whilst Adani claim in court that there are 1,400 jobs—I know the Prime Minister and the Premier of Queensland like to talk about tens of thousands of jobs, but when Adani are under oath they say there are 1,400 jobs—there are over 60,000 jobs that are dependent on a healthy reef. People are not going to fly from all around the world to Australia to visit a dead reef. There are 60,000 jobs in Queensland that are dependent on that, and for the sake of 1,400 jobs, because a multinational company has asked them to, the government is prepared to write a billion-dollar cheque and say: we do not mind if that means the Queensland economy goes to pot when the reef dies.

The budget says, 'We are going to have a look at Snowy hydro.' There is not money in this budget for construction; there is money for another feasibility study. Already, as we found out through estimates during the course of this week, the bill has gone up an extra couple of billion dollars. And, as we found out also through estimates this week, there were about two weeks between the plan coming across the government's desk and the government making the announcement. Clearly, a lot of thought has gone into it from the government's perspective.

Yes, it is worth looking at whether Snowy Hydro pump storage is viable. Of course it is. But that is years away and there is no money in the budget for it. What are we going to do in the meantime? The government in this budget has passed up the opportunity to make sure that the lights stay on as we switch from coal to renewables and that the prices come down. What we know is that under this government wholesale power prices have doubled. It loves to run around and say, 'It is all about state governments having renewable energy targets.' Well, wholesale prices have doubled since this government got rid of the Greens-Labor carbon tax, and do you know where the highest increases have been? They have been in New South Wales, where there have been Liberal governments at state and federal level overseeing the highest price increases.

What is absolutely criminal in this budget is that the government has turned its back on the people of the Latrobe Valley in Victoria and on coal-fired power station communities right around this country. I have been spending the last few months visiting coal-fired power station communities to talk about the need to transition from coal to renewables and making the point that as we do this, as the country makes this transition, because that is the way we are going to tackle climate change, we have to look after the workers in the communities that have kept the lights on and that still keep the lights on, right around this country. It is not their fault that coal is a toxic product that we need to move away from to get onto renewables. We owe them a debt. This government owes them a debt. I went to the Latrobe Valley to ask, 'What is the federal government doing to assist in the transition away from coal, given that that is going to mean some significant dislocation for you?' The answer was: 'Nothing.'

The state government has stepped in at the last minute with a transition authority, but it is too little too late. The federal government needs to come to the party. It is time that at a federal level we put aside the money we need to ensure that we can transition away from coal to renewables and to ensure that by the time we switch off the next coal-fired power station, which is probably going to be only a few years away, as many of these private operators know that the end of the line has come for their old coal-fired power stations, there will be secure jobs and strong industries for those people to move into. That requires a bit of planning now. It requires that the federal government use the power of the budget to say, 'Maybe we need tax breaks for industries that want to go and set up in the Latrobe Valley. Maybe we need some industry assistance so that there are secure jobs that are grown there. Maybe we need to look at the existing transmission infrastructure—the poles and wires that come into and out of the valley—and say, "What if we attached some pumped hydro or some other forms of generation attached to that? That way, we could make use of all those lines and transmission assets that are there." Maybe, it is saying that agriculture needs a boost in the Latrobe Valley in a way that has not been subject to serious focus before. Maybe food processing in the Latrobe Valley needs some support.'

All of these things need to be on the table, but the federal government has got to be serious. But in this budget, the federal government has turned its back on the people of Collie in Western Australia, where Muja has just closed down, and on the people of the Latrobe Valley, where Hazelwood has closed down, and it does not care. It is more interested in coming into the parliament and throwing around lumps of coal at the same time as the owners of the coal-fired power station companies are saying, 'We're closing. We're getting out of coal and we want the government to have a plan.' This budget is committing people in the Latrobe Valley to higher levels of unemployment. This is a budget that will ensure that young people's futures continue to be sold out. This is a budget that should be condemned. (Time expired)

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have great pleasure in getting up and speaking to these appropriation bills because they are part of what was such a wonderful budget for regional Australia. I will go through some of the highlights of the budget that I see for the whole of regional Australia and, indeed, for my electorate.

Firstly, I want to talk about the Building Better Regions Fund, which was increased. There is now a total of $500 million for that and the major regional projects fund. These programs have already funded, in my electorate, things like a multimillion dollar upgrade to redevelop Oakes Oval in Lismore so that it can retain its position as one of the premier sporting venues in our region. Nearly $2 million has been provided to upgrade the Maclean Riverside Precinct, which is going to increase tourism turnover in Maclean. It is a beautiful village on the Clarence River, and certainly this riverside precinct upgrade is going to improve tourism visitors there.

There has also been money given to the Bridges Renewal Program. Kyogle has 200 or 300 wooden bridges that are ageing. They have quite a small ratepayer base of less than 10,000. They do not have the resources to fully upgrade all of these ageing wooden bridges. Already through this program, which has been re-funded in the budget, there are 14 or 15 bridges we are replacing. In fact, last week I was out west of the range in Old Bonalbo. We opened a new bridge there on Duck Creek. That was a highlight for me and certainly the local residents around there. On the way home—just as an aside—we also popped into Bonalbo to turn on the new mobile phone tower there. They have certainly needed that for a long time, and it was great to do that—but I digress.

This Building Better Regions Fund has also funded things in my electorate, like the upgrade that we are going to do of the Woolgoolga Surf Life Saving Club. It is also going to fund a $500,000 amphitheatre and casino. It is going to fund a $500,000 new Wollongbar multisports facility, which is a new sports complex that the Ballina Shire Council are building up on the plateau. That is going to be spectacular. It is going to have panoramic views from where it is up on the plateau. It is going to be a great facility.

This program funds things like CCTV cameras in Grafton and South Grafton. It is going to fund the Our Kids driver-training facility at Lismore. The origins of the funding for that are actually quite sad. We had a tragedy just over 10 years ago when four young men all died in a car accident. From that, Southern Cross LADS was born. Some of the parents and community members there have changed the driving rules in our state. The extra hours for P-platers and also the fact that P-platers cannot have passengers in the car after a certain time at night were brought in because of that horrific accident. We are funding a driver-training school that is going to help our youth get better training and have better driving skills.

Also from this we are doing things like funding the Kyogle aquatic centre. There is going to be a pontoon at the Woodburn foreshore. Woodburn, a beautiful place on the Richmond River, is going to be bypassed by the Pacific Highway upgrade. I am going to get to the Pacific Highway upgrade later, which is obviously a huge infrastructure project. When it gets bypassed, I think Woodburn is going to flourish. It is a beautiful place beside the Richmond River. There is going to be an upgrade happening there and many other things.

Also, the Stronger Communities Program has been funded in this budget as well. Deputy Speaker Wicks, I am sure you are aware of this as well. This is a great program where we can help fund small community programs of between $5,000 and $20,000 to help small community clubs get the infrastructure and services they need. That has been funded in this budget as well.

I alluded earlier to the Pacific Highway upgrade. This is directly employing about 3,000 to 4,000 people in my region. The part of the highway left to upgrade is predominantly between Woolgoolga and Ballina. When you count indirect jobs, we are probably talking about something like 6,000 to 7,000 jobs because of this program. You cannot drive up and down that highway without seeing a massive amount of equipment and a massive amount of work going on.

Why are we doing that? We are doing that primarily because, statistically, the number of fatalities has fallen dramatically where the dual duplication has already occurred. In fact, fatalities on the Pacific Highway are at multidecade lows. When you think about the increased traffic on the Pacific Highway relative to what was happening multidecades ago, the reason that fatalities have decreased is the dual duplication. So that is the reason we do it, and that is the reason we are going as fast as we can to finish it. All of the money needed to finish that is in the budget. It has a target completion date of 2020. Obviously there is a commercial benefit while we build it. Post the building of this highway, the increased tourism and the better transport networks we will have around our region will make it flourish.

Also in the budget was the Roads to Recovery funding for local councils. We have restored the indexation of the Financial Assistance Grants to local governments and also have healthy spending on Roads to Recovery. Roads are very important in my electorate and to my local councils. They need help to maintain local roads to the standard that they do.

And then, of course, there is the major infrastructure. Besides the Pacific Highway, there are other major infrastructure projects in this budget. The Inland Rail between Melbourne and Brisbane is very exciting. That has opened up the whole of the west of New South Wales. It will make it easier for that area to flourish in getting product and things to port. It is going to make us more efficient—indeed, on an international level—which is great news for jobs in regional Australia.

We have the Western Sydney Airport, again a great decision that has been made by this government. We see the funding for that in the budget as well.

Not only is Snowy 2.0 a wonderful infrastructure project; we know the importance that this has for our renewable energy targets. What we understand on this side of politics—as I think the member who spoke before me does not quite get—is that we appreciate renewables, but we need a reliable source of power for renewables, not an intermittent source of power for renewables. The Snowy scheme will certainly help us do that.

Education—wow! What great commitments we are making to education: an extra $18.7 billion. When we got into government, the federal government before us, up to 2013, was spending roughly $13 billion on education. This is going to increase to $30 billion by 2027. These are real increases in education. All my schools, given our SES classification, are going to do exceptionally well out of the education funding, and I have had great feedback from my local schools and parents about that.

Also in this budget, regardless of all that, we are going to get back to surplus. We are going to get back to surplus because we have targeted some really good revenue measures, which I will talk about in a minute.

We have lifted the Medicare freeze, which was, as we know, implemented by the previous Labor government. We have reversed that freeze. We have guaranteed the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and other things in the budget as well.

There is bipartisan support for NDIS. The only thing that was not bipartisan was that we knew we needed to fund it. The previous government, I think, came up with a good idea to increase the Medicare levy by 0.5 per cent to do that, and we have said, 'To fully fund it, let's do that again.' We know it is progressive. We know that people on lower salaries pay a much smaller amount than people on larger salaries because of the progressive system of our tax.

On banks: I know we talk about how we are spending money and we are getting the budget back into surplus. We are doing that, because we are putting a six-basis-point levy on the banks. I think this is very fair because we are taxing banks, or putting this levy on banks, which have an explicit guarantee—or that is what the rating agencies think. If you look at Standard & Poor's, they say there is basically an explicit guarantee of the four majors. That dates back to the global financial crisis 10 years ago, when the government at the time gave them a guarantee and said, 'The four majors cannot fail.' Standard & Poor's themselves say that that guarantee gives major trading banks a 20-basis-point funding advantage over the small banks, so we think it is very fair that those banks pay a little bit of that—six basis points of 20, which they already have as an advantage, according not to me but to the rating agencies—in helping us get our budget back into balance.

We certainly understand that small business is the driver in all economies and certainly in regional economies. I have a few large employers in my electorate, but certainly small business is the biggest employer by far. What are we doing for small business? Much as the other side may have fought us, we have given small business a tax cut. We understand that they need to remain competitive. The more cash flow that a small business has, the more it can grow, the more people it will employ and the more it will succeed in its endeavours. We have given them a tax cut, which we are thrilled about. I do not have to walk far down any street in my electorate before people come up to me. I do not even have to ask small businesses, who say, 'The instant tax write-off that you have given us for the last two years and indeed you have now extended in the budget is an absolute boon for us.' Now, what is that, Deputy Speaker? I know you understand that, if you are a small business, you do not have to depreciate over a number of years any capital item that you purchase for under $20,000; you can have an instant tax write-off on that. We have done it for the last two years, and we have extended that. This has been a great windfall. I know that a lot of people who have small businesses have taken advantage of this, and people who sell capital equipment have told me that the customers started flowing in the day after we announced that two years ago. That is to continue, and it is very important.

Affordable housing is something that we all know is important, and there have been some wonderful things done in the budget for that as well. The salary sacrifice, where you can save your deposit into your super, is going to be a great success. It is a good initiative. With some of the funds that we are giving to state governments, there are going to be some things that will encourage supply, because, if you want to make housing more affordable, it is not hard to work out that you need to build more. We are encouraging the processes so that we can build more houses and get more supplied to the market.

Regarding foreign investment, there is going to be more tax on foreign investors, especially those investing in residential real estate. As a result of legislation that was passed a year or so ago, we are already cracking down on multinational tax avoidance, and we have budgeted to increase the take from that.

There has also been an appreciation from this side of upskilling and making sure that apprentices continue to flourish and get opportunities in our community. We have introduced an annual worker levy on foreign workers. This will be paid so that there is a fund put by from which we can help and employ apprentices.

We want everyone who does not have a job to get a job. So what have we done? We have done a few things. We are doing a trial, which I think is a wonderful idea. We have done a trial for 5,000 people where, if you have a drug habit, we will do two things, because we want you to get a job. We do not want you to be sitting at home on the couch thinking that the best thing you can do is suck back on a bong. We want you to feel as though you have a great opportunity to get a job. We will do two things for those with a drug habit. There will be a punitive side of it. We will give you a cash card so that you cannot buy drugs if you are on welfare and you have a drug habit. That is one side of it. The other side is that if you test positive more than once you will get free medical and rehabilitation services.

There are so many great things in this budget on so many fronts. I would like to talk about some more local things as well. I ran through many before, but there are just a couple that I wanted to go through but did not get to.

Mental health is obviously a thing that I think, as a community and as a society, we have much more recognition of than we have had in previous years. We make it okay to talk about it, and we certainly hope that people who feel mentally unwell feel that it is okay to talk about it, to be up-front about it and to seek help for it. When anyone takes their life it is a tragedy. The community of the Clarence Valley in my electorate has had some youth suicides that have been an absolute tragedy. They have really rocked the community to its core. We are doing what we can there as well, and it was wonderful not that long ago to fund a new headspace facility. The money for that is in this budget. This is going to be built in Grafton to service the wider Clarence area, and there are some other services that we are going to fund as well, because we do not just need to do the early intervention of a headspace. One of the things that has been identified is that, when people who have been admitted to a hospital or to a mental health institution are let out, it is a very dangerous time. Some of our local health people said the follow-up as a person was discharged was not good enough and it was found that there was a bit of a vacuum in the follow-up services and care there. We are certainly going to be putting a lot more resources into that too.

As a whole, there are a few points I would just like to leave us with. It is a wonderful budget for regional Australia. It is a wonderful budget for infrastructure spending around the country. It will have more job-creating opportunities around the whole nation. We are responsible and we have funded it, and that was a very important aspect as well.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like others tonight, I rise to talk on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-18 and related bills and the budget delivered by this government. It has gone from a slogan around jobs and growth to a budget around tax cuts and education cuts. That is my summary of this budget. We all know that budgets are about priorities, and the government's priorities are quite clear in this budget. Their priority is the top end of town. Their priority is to give tax cuts to multinational companies and millionaires and to cut funding for the things that would make a difference in Australia, the things that would impact on the current situation in this country where we are at a 75-year high in inequity.

The current climate is a 75-year high—those with and those without are the furthest they have been apart for 75 years. This is a climate where wage growth has flatlined to the lowest it has been since records have been kept and where company profits are at a 10-year high. This government's answer to that, and its priority, is to prioritise tax cuts for the very wealthy in this country, for multinational companies and for the four big banks. Although the government has hidden in the budget a new tax for banks, that will not actually end up being what it claims it will be because, at the other end of that, it is going to give them a whopping great tax cut.

In a time when we have 700,000 people unemployed, when over a million people are saying they are underemployed and when casualisation of our labour force is at its worst, this is a government that delivers a budget off the back of a legislative program that has failed to do anything about labour hire companies or sham operators. It had an opportunity in the chamber. It brought into the chamber a piece of legislation that was called 'protecting vulnerable workers' that failed to deal with the critical issues.

On top of that, the government are bringing in a budget that shows clearly what their priorities are, and their priorities certainly do not include the electorate of Lalor that I represent. The government certainly have not prioritised the 200,000 people who live in the electorate that I represent. In fact, many of the things in this budget are going to hurt the people who live in my electorate. There are 70,000 families in the electorate of Lalor, a lot of whom are dependent on the minimum wage and on penalty rates. From 1 July, over 12,000 people will take a hit of up to $77 a week in their take-home pay, and there is nothing in this budget to support those families. There is absolutely nothing in this budget that is going to make a difference to their lives.

This is a government that talked a big game going into this budget. If you remember, it was going to tackle housing affordability. Now, member after member of the government come in here and, mealy-mouthed, they stand there and tell us that they are going to fix supply. The federal government has levers that could impact on housing affordability and make a difference in a community like mine. There are levers that Labor have begged it to take up, levers that Labor took policies on to the last election. We laid out a suite in front of it and said: 'Here, take these. These are great ideas. Let's make some changes to negative gearing. Let's make some changes to capital gains tax. Here's a revenue source for this government.' The government claimed it did not have a revenue problem—but, suddenly, it does. Suddenly it has a revenue problem.

This is a government that has tripled the deficit, and then walks in here and talks about surpluses into the never-never. This is a government that has paid no attention to the residents across this country, to the people who live in this country and what they need. This is a government that wants to come here and talk a big game about infrastructure, and yet the infrastructure spend has not increased. This is a government that wants to talk about infrastructure. It wants to say it is an infrastructure government and claim that its budget papers contain a big spend on infrastructure. Well, it is not if you are Victorian. Victoria has 25 per cent of the population and got only eight per cent of the infrastructure spend and none of the money that was promised to Victoria under the asset recycling. That is not going to be delivered. So, in regard to the commitment the Andrews Labor government made in their budget around that being spent on regional rail across Victoria, they are going to be sadly disappointed because this government has refused to fund Victoria for what it deserves.

The other amazing thing about this budget, which I hear members opposite proclaiming as good thing, is the Building Better Regions Fund—it has cut out the electorate of Lalor, a major growth corridor. We cannot apply for those funds now. In the past we could, but now we cannot. It is another slap in the face for the people who live in the electorate of Lalor, a slap in the face for the west of Melbourne and another slap in the face for the people who are doing the hard work of raising families and paying their taxes.

In this country it is time we had a conversation about tax—a really hard conversation about tax. In my electorate people are predominantly PAYG wage earners. They pay their taxes and they have minimal deductions they can make for the tax they pay. Yet here we have a budget that takes the deficit levy off millionaires and gives them a $16,000 pay cut and puts on a Medicare levy where people earning $20,000 a year will be paying more. This government simply fails to understand what the priorities are for people raising families and going to work every day—absolutely fails to understand it.

This is a government that held ice forums around the country, going from electorate to electorate to talk to people about the scourge that is ice. I have listened to government members come in here and talk about the forums they ran, and what is their answer? Is their answer increased access to the kinds of support that communities like mine need when they are faced with this? No. What they introduced were punitive measures to address what is an absolute scourge in communities across this country. They went out and listened but I just do not know who they were listening to, because when I listen to the people on the ground in my electorate who are doing the hard work at the coal face with people with addiction problems, they reject what this government announced in the budget. They were not listened to, so I am not sure who they were listening to.

I want to talk about what is happening in this budget with education, and I will have another opportunity to talk about that legislation a little later tonight. But across education what we have here are cuts—cuts to fund tax cuts for millionaires; cuts in a once in a 100 year opportunity to get funding right in schools, to ensure that we have accessible and affordable higher education and to ensure that we rebuild our TAFE sector. None of that is important to this government and this budget clearly proves it. They are paying absolute lip service to the power of education, without any understanding. When it comes to education this government understands the cost but they have no understanding of the value. In regard to health, they talk a big game about health. They told us they were legislating and it was going to be enshrined to protect Medicare. They told us that they were going to stop the Medicare freeze, and then we get to the budget and 'Wait a minute, not for another two years, not from another three years, depending which rebate we're talking about.' It is a sham. It is smoke and mirrors that are being delivered by this government, while they are intent, and their budget proves it, on continuing to deliver largess to the big end of town.

Labor has a different attitude to tax. One of the things we are committed to is the $3,000 cap on deductibility of tax agents or lawyers who give advice for tax deductions.

An honourable member: That's fairness.

It sounds fair to me too. This government wants to pretend that it is fair, but we know that there are millionaires in this country who pay a million dollars for tax advice and then claim that million dollars and end up paying zero tax. If you want to talk about fairness, then we need to talk about our tax system. I do not know what happened in the homes of those opposite when they were being raised, but I was raised on a really simple thing: if everybody paid the taxes they owed, people would pay a lot less tax. It is a really simple concept. If everybody paid the taxes that were required of them, it would be a fairer system. Everybody uses the roads; everybody uses the schools; everybody uses the hospitals; everybody uses the facilities and the infrastructure those tax dollars put on the ground, so everybody should just pay their fair share.

Look at the government's $65 billion in tax cuts for big business. We asked what modelling it had done. It claims it will create jobs, and yet the modelling shows that the impact is out in the never-never and it is minimal—statistically irrelevant. It will make little to no difference to the people in Lalor finding a job. I will tell you what would make a difference for the people in Lalor: if Victoria got its fair share of infrastructure spending. What would make a difference in the seat of Lalor is schools getting the money that they have been told they were going to get by this government and not having it ripped away. That is what would make a difference, but this government is oblivious to that.

I want to go to something that I have spoken on in every appropriation speech I have made since I joined this parliament, and that is this government's shameful attitude to women—the attitude that means that it no longer prepares a women's budget statement and that it no longer looks through that lens to see what impact its budget will have on 51 per cent of the population in this country. Since 2013, Australia has fallen from 19th to 46th place in the global gender gap report. I stand here proudly as a member of the Labor Party. I stand here with Deputy Speaker Claydon, who chairs the Status of Women Caucus Committee for Labor, to say that we will not forget and that we will continue to look through this lens. What are some of the things that we see through this lens? There are some scary stats when you look at this budget through the lens for women. The government needs to spend $400,000 to unfreeze funding to the National Women's Alliances.

In 2015 and 2016, we saw a 17.5 per cent increase in older women seeking help from homelessness services. That needs action. I have not heard one member opposite stand up and tell us what this government is going to do about homelessness. I have not heard them telling us what spend they are going to make there. All they have in terms of housing is a plan that undermines the superannuation scheme and a plan that will get people to save $30,000. I live in the most affordable electorate in Victoria. The most affordable place to live is in my community, where we build thousands of houses every year. Thirty thousand dollars will not get you a deposit in the most affordable suburbs in Melbourne; it certainly will not get you a deposit in Sydney; and I would not have thought it would get you a deposit yet in WA.

This government needs to take a step back from its ideologically driven tax-cut mantra, have a serious look at fairness and equity in this country and tackle some of the big issues in this country. It needs to tackle the things that matter. It needs to make sure that it is creating jobs. There are 700,000 unemployed people in this country as we speak and 1.1 million who say that they are underemployed. Your $65 billion tax cut is not going to put a dint in that. This government should hang its head in shame.

Chris Crewther (Dunkley, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to provide my resounding support for and endorsement of the Turnbull coalition government's budget, which was handed down just over a fortnight ago, and the many positive measures that it will provide for my electorate of Dunkley. The federal government are continuing to make the right choices so that we can ensure our nation's economic growth, the future provisioning of our health and wellbeing through fully funded institutions, and support for our intellectual, innovation and enterprise sectors.

I have previously spoken of my enthusiasm for our significant tax relief measures for small and medium-sized businesses and extending the instant asset write-off for another 12 months. Ninety-nine per cent of businesses in Dunkley, over 16,000 businesses in total, will benefit from these changes when the tax rate for small business is lowered to 27.5 per cent from 1 July.

Another measure that I have previously touched on is reform to child care, making it more accessible and affordable and providing the greatest level of assistance for those who need it the most. In Dunkley, 6,040 families use government supported child care, and the Turnbull government has recently secured the full 15 hours of preschool.

The issuing of 92,000 pension concession cards Australia-wide will also benefit a large number of people in my electorate whose senior healthcare cards were not accepted for discounts by many Victorian state government institutions. This will be remedied, and many of my constituents will see their situation improved because of it.

Through the Roads to Recovery program, the federal government is also delivering for the people of Dunkley. For example, the intersections of Foot and Baileyana streets in Frankston and Barkly Street in Mornington are just two of the projects which the federal government has provided funding for, overseen and announced the completion of since the federal election last year. I am thrilled therefore that the program will be continued.

In addition, the National Disability Insurance Scheme is something that is hotly anticipated and sorely needed on the Mornington Peninsula. I have had many people speak to me of their concerns about the welfare of family members once they can no longer look after them. I am thrilled to be communicating back to my constituents that, because the Turnbull government has now fully funded the NDIS, 2,431 people in Dunkley will be directly helped by a number of providers on the peninsula so that their families can rest easy.

One of the most positive stories to come out of the budget, though, is that the coalition will continue to provide record levels of funding for health and Medicare and will continue to guarantee Medicare's future with a dedicated fund that will protect these vital services for this generation and the next. This proves the 'Mediscare' campaign of those opposite to be false, misleading and a cruel attempt to cause Australians to panic. There have never been plans of the type asserted by those opposite. Last financial year there were over 862,000 bulk-billed GP services in Dunkley—that is, 82.9 per cent of GP visits.

While these are all wonderful outcomes, there is one component of the budget that is a stand-out to me in how it impacts upon the people of Dunkley. Our funding for schools is a prominent move towards simplifying and increasing the funding that we spend on equipping our children for the future. Twenty-seven different funding deals that Labor set up have been simplified into one consistent, needs based funding model, meaning that the funding gets to the schools who need it the most. Long-term funding certainty for Australian schools, with an additional $18.6 billion over the next decade, means that we can focus on how that money is used to support initiatives that boost student outcomes.

It is a shame that those opposite not only have shunned such a positive news story but furthermore have attempted to completely deny the facts. Any child that they are claiming has lost out on education funding could tell you that you cannot fulfil a promise or claim that you will do something if you do not have the resources to do it. Unfunded promises do not travel very far in the real world, especially amongst children, who are often the most straight to the point of us all. Government funding in schools is due to reach a record $242.3 billion from 2018 to 2027. Students from similar schools with similar needs will no longer receive different amounts of Commonwealth funding because of special deals, historical arrangements or their location. This is a real commitment to true needs based funding with quality outcomes that meet community expectations. These reforms will see differences made in every classroom for every child and teacher. This is Gonski 2.0.

It is regrettable that Labor, both at federal and state level, have already started the campaign of misinformation regarding the education funding in Dunkley. I contemplated listing all the schools in my electorate and their funding increases in this chamber to stress my point. But, if anyone concerned would like the figures, the full funding increases for each school can be found in my media release that will be going out this week. I will be more than happy to forward concerned colleagues a copy. Any parent can also look up the schools funding estimator online. Indeed, all 51 schools in Dunkley—each and every one—is receiving a funding increase under the coalition government's budget. This includes all government, Catholic and independent schools. The growth in funding to government schools will be 5.6 per cent between 2017 and 2018 and eventually 66.5 per cent by 2027. The average growth across all sectors is anticipated to be 53 per cent by 2027, which is not only necessary for all schools involved but reflects the government's enthusiasm and drive to ensure that our schools are properly funded in a responsible way that can be guaranteed. This funding is budgeted and included in the forward estimates.

Schools in my electorate are set to benefit with a total increase of federal government funding of $331 million over the next 10 years, bringing the total Commonwealth funding for Dunkley schools to $1.42 billion over the period from 2018 to 2027. I will name just a few of the schools in Dunkley receiving a boost in their funding. Mornington Secondary College will receive an increase of $229,300 next year and a total increase of more than $14 million from 2018 to 2027. Frankston High School will receive an increase of $233,000 next year and a total increase of $14,405,400 from 2018 to 2027. A final example is Elisabeth Murdoch College in Langwarrin, which will receive an increase of $247,600 next year and a total increase of more than $15,300,000 from 2018 to 2027. I encourage parents and concerned residents to bypass the virulent campaign of misinformation and see for themselves how their local school is to benefit by using, as I mentioned, the school funding estimator calculator online from the Department of Education and Training.

The funding changes have been welcomed by schools in my electorate, as demonstrated in a letter that I recently received from Chris Prior, the principal of Bayside Christian College, as recently as Monday. To paraphrase the principal, Chris Prior, they were very much in support of the policy as the new method of funding schools would result in the current discrepancies in school funding disappearing. They anticipate the certainty of funding in the future with great enthusiasm. I was very pleased when the Prime Minister, in answering a question in question time on Monday, mentioned these comments by the principal of Bayside Christian College.

Schools in my electorate, across all sectors, will receive an average increase in funding of $6,557 per student over the next decade. This funding could make the difference in being able to support a specialist teaching assistant to support a group of struggling students in a maths class or to perhaps tutor for a group of students in an accelerated engineering program. This federal funding growth means that schools will be better equipped to support teachers and new or existing initiatives such as specialist teachers or targeted intervention programs.

Commonwealth funding to government schools has been growing faster than state funding in Victoria, and this revitalised funding model is consistent with this tendency, with funding being increased for the 9,000-odd schools Australia-wide. These reforms from the Turnbull coalition government mean that families in Dunkley can be assured that they, their children and their grandchildren will receive the support and opportunities in future that they need, right throughout their schooling lives. I cannot stress enough the importance of these reforms for my electorate of Dunkley. These reforms mean that my local schools will be able to better support their students and teachers in engaging in the best methods to educate our children. These reforms mean that we can all better focus on improving student outcomes and achievements. Having a fairer funding model not only means that we can ensure that our schools will see sufficient funding but also means that the funding will be going where it is needed most and will be distributed according to a real needs-based system. Furthermore, our Gonski needs based funding provides our schools with funding certainty, enabling them to operate without fear or hesitation and to focus on the wellbeing and success of their students.

Our long-term plan to ensure transparency and consistency in the way our schools are funded will fix the deals mess that we were left by the former Labor government. This is our opportunity to secure fair, responsible, needs based funding that will benefit the 27,909 students enrolled in school in Dunkley. I implore all members not to deny my constituents, particularly the children at the schools in Dunkley, this funding for their education.

This new model of federal funding for Australian schools is wonderful news for my electorate. As I have noted, every single one of the 51 schools in Dunkley will be positively affected. We welcome the guarantee of regular funding and the increase of $371 million under our Gonski funding model. Importantly, our increased funding will be tied to reforms that evidence shows make a real difference in supporting our teachers and schools to improve student outcomes. This is a fair system that is good for our students, good for parents and good for teachers.

In conclusion, the federal budget handed down a fortnight ago contains many things to be excited about, especially for the constituents of Dunkley and me. Substantial funding has been committed to the Dunkley electorate across a number of areas. There are positive developments across all sectors and the outlook is optimistic across our health institutions, including around the security of Medicare; the rollout of the NDIS; infrastructure projects, when we receive the cooperation required from the state government; support and tax relief for small businesses; and our childcare reforms, which I mentioned previously. The change to education funding really is one of the things that I am most excited about with wins for all 51 schools secured for the next decade. It is a good thing living in Dunkley under this federal government. I commend the federal budget recently announced not only for Australians but also for my electorate of Dunkley and everyone within.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This budget represents the very worst of everything Australians have come to expect from this government and this Prime Minister. When they were in opposition, their Treasury spokesperson, Joe Hockey, the former member for North Sydney, said he would deliver a budget surplus in the first year of government and every year thereafter. The information that is produced by the Treasury papers and the official figures show the following. Just five days ago it demonstrated that gross debt was up $220.8 billion since the September 2013 election and that gross debt, incurred mainly under this government, is now up to $493.8 billion. Decisions this government has made have increased the gross debt.

They parade themselves as economic managers who are fiscally responsible. Financial rectitude is what they go on about. We heard an absolute claptrap of nonsense from the previous speaker, the member for Dunkley, about the fact that they made savings and they were finding the money for it. They are borrowing money to pay for it and they are giving away $65.3 billion in corporate tax cuts. Do they really listen? If only they looked at the documents in relation to their education announcement. I suggest that they have a look at this document about education funding. It is a government document produced by the Turnbull government. It is headed: 'Key funding figures quantified 30 April: agreed cost.' It shows a saving—a cut—of $22.9 billion in education funding. So they are actually restoring some money from the $30 billion in cuts they inflicted in the 2014 Abbott government budget. Mind you, those cuts came after he said in that wonderful statement at the Penrith football stadium just before the election that there would be no cuts to education and no cuts to health. They inflict a $30 billion cut to education; restore some money, admitting in their own documents it is a $22.9 billion cut; and then want to give themselves a pat on the back for being so good. They do this dodgy figure in the estimator.

What is happening for the schools of the previous speaker is that they are slashing funding for state schools, private schools, Catholic schools and independent schools. They are slashing funding for schools, and they want to pat themselves on the back. That is why conservative governments in New South Wales and elsewhere are up in arms about it. The Catholic sector, which did special deals under the Howard coalition government, is up in arms as well. There have been headlines about the Catholics declaring war on the Liberals—honestly. That is even from news outlets that are favourable towards them.

This budget has an appalling set of numbers. They are giving millionaires and multinationals tax breaks but are hurting vulnerable families, schools and workers. They are doing nothing about the fact that, from 1 July, 700,000 Australian workers are going to get a $77 cut to their wages, on average. Australians are feeling left behind by a government that is treating them with utter disdain. Unemployment is at a near constant 5.9 per cent. That is what it was during the global financial crisis. So unemployment is up and underemployment is up. There are 1.34 million Australians who are underemployed—that is 8.7 per cent, the budget papers show. Wages growth is down. At 1.9 per cent, it is the lowest on record. Economic growth is stagnant. Yet those opposite have this optimistic idea that, somehow, wages will grow by 3.75 per cent, according to the budget, and that that, magically, mysteriously, like some sort of elixir, will get them back into budget surplus.

They have given away resources and funding from the carbon pricing scheme. They have given away billions of dollars by getting rid of that. They straightaway gave away $8 billion or $9 billion to the big banks, when they came to power. What they have done since then is make budget decisions that have not been good. They do nothing about capital gains tax reform and nothing about negative gearing, which could bring in about $37 billion. They give away $65.3 billion of taxpayers' money, for what? For an increase in wages of about $2 a day in about 10 or 20 years time. Honestly, there is not a shred of evidence that they can produce to show that this big tax giveaway will have an impact on wages or economic growth of any substance at all in the foreseeable future.

This government is bereft—it exists for one purpose only, to keep the Labor Party out of power. There is no reason for conservatives who are worried about prudent economic management to vote for this government. It gives them no reason whatsoever. It has betrayed its own base and is trying to be like us. Those opposite come to the middle, give a bit more money, restore a bit more money in relation to the Medicare rebate indexation freeze—but only seven per cent is actually going to be restored—but they do it over time. They throw a bit more money towards education. They make it look like they are a bit of an infrastructure government by saying, 'I've got this great idea for an inland rail scheme.' There is only a few hundred million dollars across the forward estimates towards the Inland Rail project, by the way. They have no infrastructure projects on the go at the moment, and look at how they have completely stuffed up the NBN. This government exists for one purpose only. It exists so that Labor cannot be restored to the treasury bench. Every single reform, as the member for Grayndler said earlier today, that has made a difference to the lives of Australians has been implemented by the Labor Party. Think about native title, Medicare, superannuation, the age pension system, the minimum wage, the big infrastructure projects—all under Labor.

This government puts the AAA credit rating at risk. And why in the world are they giving millionaires a $16,400 tax cut from 1 July? For the life of me, I cannot understand why they are doing that. In my home state of Queensland, we have a situation where, since their Medicare rebate freeze, the cost of visiting a doctor has skyrocketed 11 per cent. That means patients pay $7.70 more every time they see a doctor. We have data from the Department of Health and the Australian Bureau of Statistics. We know that 804,000 Australians are putting off seeing a GP because they are worried about the cost. We know that 600,000 are putting off seeing a specialist for the same reason. But, to add insult to injury, the indexation is finally going to be reintroduced but it will not apply to 93 per cent of scans, including ultrasounds, X-rays and MRIs. As a result, no more than a laughable seven per cent of tests will become cheaper. It is an extraordinary thing. It is a broken promise by the Prime Minister, and he should hang his head in shame for the failure.

On top of that, there is education, which the previous speaker lauded. On average, schools are going to lose about $2.4 million as a result of their failure. That is the equivalent of sacking 22,000 schoolteachers. In my home state of Queensland, we have a situation where state schools will lose $300 million in the next few years. They will be worse off than under the current arrangements. There is no significant funding to Queensland schools until 2027. But, thanks to these cuts, local Catholic parish schools will be hit hard, and parents will face fee hikes and potentially even closures of schools as a result of this. We do not need Gonski 2.0. We do not need another report from this government. We need equitable, substantial, needs based funding in this country, and we need it right now. We cannot afford to strip away $22 billion in investment in the social capital and the future of this country, denying our children the education that they need.

We are going into the 21st century. If we are going to take our place in our region, we have to do it by using our ingenuity, our creativity, our intelligence. We have to do it because our workers are smarter and they work in a cleverer way. We are not going to drive down wages—at least, under a Labor government, we certainly are not going to do it. We have to do it because we are smarter. We will invest in our children. That is an investment in the future. That is clearly the case. The Australian Education Union has said that the Prime Minister's new school funding model is fast becoming exposed as a con which leaves schools short of the resources they need. I support what the Australian Education Union has said.

I was there on election day in 2013. Who could forget those corflutes and the bunting we saw on polling booths from LNP candidates in my home state of Queensland and from Liberal and National Party candidates. They said they would match Labor's Gonski needs based education funding dollar for dollar. That is what they said. They then proceeded to cut $30 billion from the budget, and they are still keeping a cut of $22.9 billion. It is extraordinary what they have done across the space.

In my electorate of Blair I would like to see upgrades to the Willowbank interchange. I would like to see extensions of rail lines from Springfield Central out to Redbank Plains, the biggest suburb in Ipswich. I would love to see infrastructure projects beyond stage 1 of the last section of the Ipswich Motorway between Darra and Rocklea completed. I want to see stages 2 and 3 back towards the Oxley roundabout done and I want to make sure that all these service roads in and around that area are done. I acknowledge the bipartisan commitment of $200 million in the budget towards the initial stage of the last section of the Ipswich Motorway from Darra to Rocklea, but there are other infrastructure projects I want to see done.

The 2016 budget promised $9.2 billion in commitment to infrastructure. They spent $7.6 billion on projects and they quickly have dropped it down to $4.2 billion by 2020-2021. I am not making up those figures; they are actually in the budget documents. They are the official government figures. Infrastructure falls off a cliff. When infrastructure falls off a cliff, guess what happens? In regional and rural areas and in cities around the country and in places like the Somerset region and in Ipswich in my electorate jobs go. We have got a very high unemployment rate locally. Apprentices are going. We have 130,000 fewer apprentices in this country under this government than we had when Labor was last in power. They are not investing; they are cutting. What is $600 million in terms of TAFE funding? They have cut $3.8 billion from higher education funding in this budget on top of the $22.9 billion they are cutting from primary and secondary schools. It is simply astonishing that this government is not an education government. It is not about doing anything.

On top of that, they then have this extra funding for the Building Better Regions Fund. In my area, the Somerset Region to the north is eligible for the funding, but the area around Ipswich is not. I have written to the minister about this. I wrote to Minister Nash, the Minister for Regional Development, back in January asking her to reconsider Ipswich's eligibility for Regional Development Australia. I would like to see projects in areas around Ipswich, like the exhibition and flood evacuation centre at the Ipswich Showgrounds and the Woollen Mills arts precinct, potentially funded. I would like to see those sorts of projects eligible for funding, but no. I got a letter back from Senator Nash saying, 'We'll review this after the budget.' I have written back because, in the budget, I see that Ipswich is not eligible again.

Under this government's former National Stronger Regions Fund, places like Ipswich were eligible. Under our Regional Development Australia funding, Ipswich was eligible. Why should places like Ipswich be excluded and discriminated against because this government does not want to provide funding in Labor voting electorates in urban areas? When we were in government, we did not discriminate in relation to Regional Development Australia funding. We made sure that even if you were in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan or, indeed, the Moreton Bay Region in Queensland you could apply for Regional Development Australia funding on good projects with evidence based funding. I call on the government to do the right thing and review the eligibility.

It is about time the government did the right thing. This budget is not doing the right thing by the people of this country and certainly not by the people in my electorate. I think they have some real questions to answer in terms of the recent evidence in relation to the bank tax as well. We have asked those questions during the time. It is time for the government to wake up to themselves—to have a look at a budget that works for all Australians. It is time for them to implement a tax system that is fair and equitable. It is time for equitable funding and needs based funding for education. It is time to immediately lift the Medicare rebate freeze and to do the right things in terms of infrastructure. And, for heaven's sake, how about we get a NBN that actually works and that the people of Australia can be proud of?

Andrew Gee (Calare, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The budget handed down by the Treasurer on 9 May has been an excellent budget for Calare, country Australia and the nation generally. I think all members would agree that there are better days ahead. A highlight of the budget, of course, was the new Gonski funding—$18.6 billion over the next 10 years for schools right across Australia. That is great news for the 111 primary and secondary schools in the Calare electorate and their 27,362 students. That is fantastic news. Pensioners are also winners in this year's budget, with almost 93,000 pensioners getting the pensioners concession card. That is excellent news. Plus, the energy supplement of between $75 and $125 is also being made available, which will help with this winter's power bills.

I was also delighted to see the $472 million has been allocated for the Regional Growth Fund, which will certainly help to grow our regional infrastructure. Of course, speaking of infrastructure, we have the Inland Rail, which was one of the big nation-building projects announced in this year's budget. For Calare, of course, that will mean that our primary producers will have another option in terms of how they get their produce to market. Certainly our electorate is the nation's food basket—it is commonly referred to as that—so this is a very important development. But it will also be a big economic driver for our neighbours in Parkes. I know they have been pushing for this for many years, and I congratulate them, including Mayor Ken Keith, on their efforts in Parkes, because that was a big event for them.

I would particularly like to focus on two important measures in the budget which are going to make life better for people in my electorate. Of course, the first one is the full funding of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. This has been welcome news right across the electorate. It gives certainty to people living with disabilities, their families and their carers. It is wonderful for them to know that their needs will be met as the NDIS is rolled out. Of course it is going to be paid for with an increase in the Medicare levy. This will ensure that the funding gap that did exist under Labor will now be filled. That is really important news. I think we all agree that the National Disability Insurance Scheme is a very important initiative, but it is one that needs to be paid for. I think with this budget we have for the first time certainty in terms of it being funded. There will be no more funding gaps.

There are close to 30 registered service providers for the National Disability Insurance Scheme in the electorate of Calare. I would like to mention a few of these providers. LiveBetter, formerly known as CareWest, is a not-for-profit community service organisation that has been operating in our area for a number of decades. The LiveBetter team are dedicated to the people of regional Australia, including the central west, where it had its origins. They pride themselves on integrity, cooperation, empowerment, respect and excellence. The decision to change the organisation's name from CareWest to LiveBetter was derived from something a customer said to them—'We all want to live better.'

LiveBetter operates in 15 locations, including Mudgee, Bathurst, Dubbo, Wagga, Parkes, Cowra, Bourke and Broken Hill. They are the largest regionally based provider in eastern Australia. As well as providing disability services they offer aged care, care and respite, and home and community care. Behind this vital service are more than 850 staff members and volunteers, who are led by an incredible team. Tonight I would like to mention some of those team members. The chief executive officer is Tim Curran. I have known Tim for a number of years. He is certainly a dynamic chief executive officer. He always has the best interests of country people at heart. I note that after the budget he highlighted the importance of fully funding the NDIS.

I would like to mention Tony Pierce, the chief financial officer; Nerissa Marat, the general manager for people and culture; Craig Tye, the chief information officer; Peter Quinlan, the general manager for strategy and business development; Steve Stanton, whom I have also known for a long time, the general manager of community services; Ben Wyatt, the general manager of disability services; Frances Shannon, the senior manager for quality; Dr Gregory Dresser, the senior manager for research and evaluation; Marc Bonney, the senior manager for corporate communications; Liz Evans, the business development manager; Peta Larsen, the senior manager for clinical services; Patrick Wilsmore, the regional manager for disability services; Shane Raynor, the senior manager for out-of-home care; and Sim Madigan, the marketing and public relations officer, who does an outstanding job for the organisation. She is someone whom we in my office have worked closely with, both at the federal level and previously at the state level. She does a great job. I also have to mention LiveBetter Board President George Blackwell, who is a well-regarded and well-respected solicitor in Orange. He has shown great leadership in that role.

I congratulate the team from LiveBetter. I had the pleasure to work with them on the upgrade and transformation of the old Apex House site at Orange, which is part of the old Orange hospital precinct. I cannot speak highly enough of the team and the work they do in our country communities, so congratulations, LiveBetter.

Bathurst is home to Glenray, which is also a not-for-profit organisation that offers residential, respite, vocational, community support and day activities for people with disabilities. Glenray started from humble beginnings in 1957 by the Dowling family and Mrs Glen Fogarty, who wanted to see a school in Bathurst that catered for people with disabilities. The name Glenray comes from Mrs Fogarty's Christian name and from the ray of hope that was kept for the school.

Today, 60 years on, Glenray has 200 staff and a wonderful board and executive team. Brian Adams is the chair. John McMahon is the vice-president and a board member. Ian Hooper is the treasurer and a board member. The secretary is Evan Dowd. Judy McGirr is on the board, as is John Ireland and also Steve D'Allesandro. Jane Watson is a highly valued board member at Glenray. The CEO is Susan Williams, who does a terrific job. The chief financial officer is Scott Green, and the general manager of support services is Greg Oastler. The laundry manager is Richard Smith. The Glenray industrial services manager is Scott Gold, and I thank Scott for the tour that he gave me of his part of Glenray recently. The manager of people and culture is Craig Shiel, and the marketing manager is Tamara Townsend, who does a terrific job. Glenray also provides laundry and linen hire and industrial services such as the construction of bed bases. And as I said, I had the opportunity to visit Glenray and to see firsthand the wonderful work they are doing for Bathurst and its surrounding districts.

I also want to mention the Mudgee Disability Support Service. This is a not-for-profit organisation that covers the Midwestern area, including Mudgee, Gulgong and Kandos. They have about 20 staff and an amazing board of directors. I would like to make mention of them in this House today. Christine Puxty is the chief executive officer. Fred Smith is the chair, Sue Field is the secretary, and Simon Byrnes is the treasurer. I also need to make mention of Adam Woods, who is a board member, and also of board members Simon Bennett and Annette Petrie.

In 2004, a purpose-built children's group home was built to provide 24-hour, seven day a week care to five children, and four are still looked after and cared for by the Mudgee Disability Support Service. They also offer day programs, respite care, drop-in support and a range of other services including social programs. For over five years they have been putting on an annual show that is held on the Mudgee Town Hall. The clients choose what show to perform, and this year it was a parody of Willy Wonka. I am told it was sold out, with 370 tickets, so congratulations. Those 370 tickets were sold for the evening performance and matinee.

I want to make mention of the Lithgow Information & Neighbourhood Centre, which is also providing crucial support to the community. I would like to make mention of the chair, Julie Murnane; vice chair, Shirley Vernon; Bev Wiggins, a director; Michael Wilson, the public office director; Toni Macdonald; Bronwyn Webb, Pat Okon and Ray Thompson, who are all directors; Pam Haddin, who is the secretary; and also John Stack, the treasurer. I would also like to make mention of service managers Lydia Commins, Kim Scanlon, Jennifer Wilson, Leventay Boda and Meg Benson. The centre has been running in its present form, with its current services, since 2000; however, the records date back to early 1989. Their programs include disability services, support coordination, assisted living options, respite, drop-in support and support for community and children. I would like to congratulate and thank those organisations and all organisations in Calare working for people with disabilities and related services.

As we know, another highlight of the budget was the extension of the $20,000 instant asset write-off for a further 12 months, and this is going to be of great value to small businesses in our electorate. All manner of businesses are going to be able to benefit from this, from big to small. In the time I have left, I want to make mention of a number of businesses: Papadino's Pizzeria in Lithgow, which is—

An honourable member: Great pizzas!

They are great pizzas, as the member rightly points out. It has been owned by Brian White for the past 20 years and has two valuable staff members in David Bartley and Theresa Pilla. It is a unique operation in that they have an old record machine, and when you go in there they will put on a disk of your choice. The last time I was in there, fairly recently, we had Frank Sinatra. I would recommend it to members. It is in the main street of Lithgow, and it is a Lithgow institution.

In Wellington, I also need to make mention of a legendary shearer by the name of Hilton Barrett, who is the owner of Help'em Shearing. Help'em Shearing is based in Wellington, but they also go to Dubbo, Mudgee, Forbes, Walgett and all over the west of New South Wales. Hilton has represented New South Wales in a number of shearing competitions and has been crowned Australian champion twice and set a number of world records. As I said, he is an Aussie shearing legend and a small business operator. Hilton, this House collectively doffs its hats to you tonight.

Now, to Blayney and the famous Akehurst Bakery—previously owned by Frank Akehurst for more than 40 years, and now owned and operated by Matthew and Denise Hutchison, who took over the business 12 months ago. A year later, they say business is going well. In fact, they started delivering into Molong this week, and, just this morning, they hired a new apprentice, Norton Ellis. I would like to make mention of the other members of the team at Akehurst, including baker Tom Elkins, pastry chef Scott Wolfson, cake decorator and shop supervisor Ashley Wonson, and staff members Dianne Hanrahan, Megan Eberhard and Joanne Bratby.

I would also like to make mention of another local success story, PJL Group. This company was started in 2006 by three mates: Luke Buckland, Phil Wilkin and Joel Spagnolo. They founded the mechanical and engineering business in a shed on Luke's Molong property. Now, they operate in Orange, Parkes, Cobar, Mount Isa and Perth with more than 300 staff—150 in Orange. Dean Jarvis is their major projects and tender coordinator. They are interested in moving into defence contracting. They have developed their own hybrid version of an underground loader and secured their first sale, so manufacturing is alive and well in Orange.

The Aden Hotels Group in Gulgong needs special mention. In 2012, the local Adendorff family purchased the Comfort Inn in Mudgee and started their business. They now own the Gulgong Motel, Aden Apartments in Mudgee, and the Palate Restaurant and Conference Centre. The Aden Hotels Group boasts 20 staff, and I would like to recognise owners Joe and Deon Adendorff, their son Joe and his wife Jill, general managers Patrick and Sonya Brennan, chef Dylan Mackinlay, and head housekeeper Shannon Smalle. Aden Hotels Group recently won the Excellence in Small Business award for western New South Wales, and they will head to Sydney in November for the state awards as finalists.

I need to make mention of Barkers Butchery up in Oberon, which is owned by Wayne Barker—he is the president of the Bathurst Harness Racing Club as well. He took over the business in 1978 after completing his apprenticeship, and he has got some wonderful staff members there in Kevin Hanrahan and Jaden Madiziala. Arrows Newsagency in Oberon is another integral part of the community. I need to make mention of Roger Arrow and his wife Joan. They have five part-time staff, including Pat Robinson, Christine Culley, Beryl White, Donna Gilmore and Denise Voytilla. Can I congratulate all of those businesses on the important work that they are doing, and those businesses just like them. We certainly value their contribution to our local economies, and it is fitting that we pay tribute to them here in this House today.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ten kilometres from Parliament House, in 2017, in the nation's capital, Canberrans are experiencing some of the worst internet speeds in the world. Upload speeds and download speeds in Canberra are some of the worst in the country and in the world. Over the last 18 months, I have been campaigning through my Send Me Your Speeds campaign to get the people of Canberra to send me their internet speeds, and to send a message to the government that Canberra needed to be on the NBN rollout map, because, until a few months ago, Canberra was not even on the rollout map. We were one big blank space when it came to the NBN rollout. But, hooray, two months ago, Canberra was finally put on the NBN rollout map after 18 months of campaigning.

But our work is not done yet. I am still encouraging Canberrans to send me their internet speeds because, even though we are on the rollout map, we are still not going to get NBN rolled out to large parts of the electorate until the second half of next year and early 2019. I am asking Canberrans to continue to send me their speeds so that we can mount the campaign to get Canberra prioritised on the rollout map, and also avoid what looks like being an absolute patchwork of different technologies right across the electorate. In some streets, we have a patchwork of fibre to the node, fibre to the premises and fibre to the kerb in one street. That is what is happening in Canberra. I do not know what is happening in your electorate, Deputy Speaker—you have probably got NBN! But we have not.

I am going to share with you some of the parlous, appalling speeds that my constituents are experiencing in 2017 here in the nation's capital, some of these suburbs just 10 kilometres from Parliament House, which is why we need to be prioritised on the NBN rollout map and we need to get an even approach to the technologies that are going to be rolled out right across Canberra. Ritesh in Gordon has an upload speed of 3.44 megabits per second and a download speed of 0.43 megabits per second. Aasif in Calwell has an upload speed of 1.12 megabits per second and a download speed of 2.77 megabits per second. Richard and Lois in Isaac—and this is shocking—have an upload speed of 2.06 megabits per second and a download speed of 0.26 megabits per second. Malcolm in Conder has an upload speed of 1.27 megabits per second and a download speed of 2.29 megabits per second. Peter in Isabella Plains has an upload speed of 3.43 megabits per second and a download speed of 0.32 megabits per second. Richard in Gowrie has an upload speed of 0.69 megabits per second and a download speed of 3.85 megabits per second. Elisa in Fadden—listen to this one, remembering that Fadden is about 15 to 20 kilometres from Parliament House—in 2017 in the nation's capital is dealing with an upload speed of 0.76 megabits per second and a download speed of 0.18 megabits per second. It is absolutely breathtakingly bad. Andrew in Calwell as an upload speed of 3.24 megabits per second and a download speed of 0.40 megabits per second. Jason in Narrabundah—everyone knows where Narrabundah is, because we are talking five kilometres from Parliament House here—has an upload speed of 0.11 megabits per second and a download speed of 0.01 megabits per second. We are talking five kilometres from Parliament House, in the nation's capital, in 2017, and poor old Jason in Narrabundah is dealing with an upload speed of 0.11 megabits per second and a download speed of 0.01 megabits per second. If poor old Jason in Narrabundah is not reason enough as to why we should be prioritised, I do not know what is. That is why we are going to maintain the Send Me Your Speeds campaign. I want Canberrans to continue sending me their speeds. We have to maintain pressure on this government to get Canberra prioritised. We had a victory, Canberra, with the rollout. We finally got on the rollout map, after 18 years, and now we need to be prioritised.

I will just quote from the messages some of my constituents send me when they send me these absolutely appalling speeds—I mean, poor old Jason! 'No company appears to be doing anything as they seem to be focused on NBN, which is not due till 2019,' so they are having huge problems getting any connection. 'What an absolute disgrace for the nation's capital.' 'It is of course frustrating that I can sometimes not even answer work emails or do my banking of an evening. But on the other side of town people use the internet to watch movies during the day or to play Xbox games. I assume that some people in Tuggeranong, such as the elderly, wouldn't have the capacity to make complaints or trouble-shoot problems, like I have been able to do, and are thus paying a lot of money for an unusable connection.' This is what Canberrans are dealing with, which is why we need to be prioritised on the NBN rollout map, which is why Canberrans need to continue to send me their speeds and why we need to avoid, as far as possible, a patchwork of technologies, often in the same street. I have outlined to you the challenges that Canberrans are having with internet connections and why we need to be prioritised on the NBN rollout. That is why I was very disappointed that there was not any funding for that in the budget.

I now want to turn to the fact that not only are Canberrans not getting the NBN for some time but they are also caught in this crossfire at the moment. They are caught in this valley where they are waiting and no telcos will actually help them out, because we are awaiting the NBN. I hold a lot of mobile offices and coffee catch-ups across my electorate and there is one issue that Canberrans time and time again have said they need my assistance with, and that is telecommunications infrastructure. The issue we face in Canberra is that unless you live somewhere near the fibre rim that was built by TransACT your internet experience is going to be limited. One of the telcos who has taken advantage of the existing infrastructure in Canberra is iiNet. While iiNet offers a good service, great speed and connectivity, an increasing number of people in my community have had a disastrous—and I am talking disastrous—customer experience with the telco. Many people have contacted my office, frustrated with their inability to contact iiNet regarding complaints with their service. I do not know whether anyone else has had an experience with iiNet, but it is very difficult to find a human body at the end of the line, and iiNet fails to address the problems raised by its customers within an adequate time frame.

Tony is a good example and a representative of many here in Canberra. The first time I heard from Tony was in September last year. His telephone problems started in June last year. He contacted me out of frustration from his experience with iiNet and the TIO. I wrote to the minister about Tony's experiences and waited for a response. Tony contacted my office in October last year, letting me know that my letter must have done some good—some action was being taken by iiNet, but there was concern over whether he could keep his landline telephone number. Go figure! The phone number issue dragged on, and in December last year I wrote again to the minister about Tony's frustration and the inability of the telco to resolve the issue to his satisfaction. I am still waiting for a response from the minister. The 'Fifield triangle' strikes again! In January this year, I wrote directly to the manager of customer services at iiNet for the first time. It was the first time because up until then we had been unable to get the contact details of someone—a warm body, as I said—that we could talk to or escalate customer issues with, unlike the other major telcos such as Telstra, Optus and Vodafone.

I talk about this issue because communication, whether it is landline, digital, wireless or satellite, is important for all of our communities. Customers are left waiting too long for their issues to be resolved by providers, and in Tony's case it was months. As consumers, we are not getting what we pay for.

Let me share with you Jenny's experience with TPG and Telstra. Jenny and her husband operate a small business from their home in Fadden. I outlined some of the appalling speeds in Fadden. They had a faulty line and outages had occurred several times since March this year. When the outages occurred, Jenny contacted her retail service provider, TPG, who sent someone out to investigate. Jenny was advised whether the TPG engineer would arrive in the morning or the afternoon—we have all experienced that. That was the best time frame that she could get. This meant that Jenny lost half of a day in wages—she is a small-business owner—waiting for someone to arrive. When the TPG engineer finally arrived, he or she determined that the fault was with the infrastructure provider, Telstra. TPG then advised Telstra of the fault, and the same process happened. The Telstra engineer contacted Jenny and let her know whether they would arrive either in the morning or in the afternoon. Again, half a day's wages were lost for Jenny's small business. When the Telstra engineer visited the property to look at the line, he agreed that the line was crumbling and told Jenny that it would not be fixed, because the NBN is coming.

This is what I mean. They are caught in this halfway house. NBN is not coming to large parts of Canberra until late next year or early in 2019. You have all these issues with telecoms, and everyone is just saying: 'Oh, no, just wait. Just hold your breath and wait for NBN.' It ain't coming soon enough! The advent of the NBN does not divest telco providers of their current responsibilities. As I said, a lot of these places are not getting the NBN until late next year or early in the year after that. These telcos have a responsibility to the people of Canberra until that time—until the NBN is rolled out and it is up and running. Given how bad our current services are—as we can see in my Send Me Your Speeds campaign—telco infrastructure across Canberra should be a priority, particularly for those worst affected areas in the south-east area of Tuggeranong.

People in my community are not getting the support for the services they pay for. Small businesses in my community cannot work effectively without access to adequate phone and internet services. Even when the NBN is rolled out—and who knows whether the current rollout dates will be adhered to?—there will still be a need for infrastructure to be maintained. At the moment, it feels like the telco providers are shirking their responsibility. As I said, Canberrans are caught in this halfway house. I have written to the Minister for Communications on this issue. I have requested a meeting with him to discuss Canberra's communications needs more generally. I just hope that the minister does not shirk his responsibility on this one too.

Finally, as shadow assistant minister for cybersecurity, I want to touch on the communication, or lack thereof, around the WannaCry incident on 13 to 16 May. The WannaCry incident affected about 12 Australian small businesses, four in the NT. These are the latest figures, and I am sure they are not definitive. The fact that the small businesses fell prey to WannaCry is very unfortunate, but it comes as no surprise to Labor because, since the release of the government's cybersecurity update, Labor has been calling for the government to focus as much attention on the engine room of our economy as on the boardroom. But it was only four days after the WannaCry ransomware attack on the NHS that the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Cyber Security issued a statement urging small businesses to be proactive about improving cybersecurity and updating operating systems.

In November last year, after the whole census incident, the incident communication was highlighted as a major weakness by all and sundry, really, but particularly by the Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on Cyber Security. He said in a follow-up interview after the release of his review:

With cyber security you cannot design out all problems. If we accept the fact that we do our best to reduce the likelihood of it happening, but know that we will fail, then we need to get much better at that whole crisis communications and crisis incident management.

You just wonder. After that review late last year, we had this incident where no-one really knew what was going on. We heard that 200,000 people had been affected in Europe—150 countries, from memory. We heard these significant figures, and what happened in Australia? Was a crisis communication plan rolled out immediately? Were we as individuals and small businesses inundated with tweets, Facebook posts, media releases and messages through the media? Not at all. Despite the review into the census last year, despite the fact that there was a lot of hand-wringing and commitments made on much better crisis communication, nothing changed. At a later stage I will be going through the lack of communication from government agencies and from the government over that time, when there was so much uncertainty. I know from being in a communications business that crisis communication has to be out there urgently, treating situations seriously and ensuring that people are kept safe.

Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to talk about Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2017-2018 and Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2017-2018. The budget was handed down a couple weeks go by our Treasurer, and I think it is a budget that fosters fairness, security and opportunity. The zombie bills worth $13.5 billion have now been wiped off the slate. The general thought was, 'What is the use of holding them in the forward estimates if they aren't going to be passed by the Senate?'

With the sad events that happened in Manchester with the terrorist attack two days ago, the Treasurer can be congratulated on the fact that he has added $321 million extra funding to the Australian Federal Police. The police and security services do a fantastic job in Australia, and incidents have been kept to a relatively low number, with nothing too serious apart from the Lindt Cafe disaster and the police incident down in Melbourne. Basically they have kept Australia very safe. I think it is not an exaggeration to say that Australians as a people feel safe when we know we have the Australian Federal Police and the Defence Force looking after our borders and looking after our safety in general. Sad as it was in Manchester, we are fortunate that a terrorist attack on that scale has not happened in Australia yet, and we hope it does not happen in the future. But we have extra funding for the Australian Federal Police so they can upgrade their facilities, their IT and their infrastructure to protect us.

I am pleased to say that over 90,000 pensioners who lost their concession cards back on 1 January this year will have their concession cards reinstated. This is a godsend to those pensioners who lost their cards, because the concession card does help them a lot with their weekly budget, inasmuch as they get discounts across the board for rates et cetera. I am pleased that that was introduced.

There was funding across Australia for the Bruce Highway in Queensland and the Inland Rail from Melbourne to Toowoomba, and I am pleased to say that I have $250,000 for a feasibility or business case study to continue that railway line from Toowoomba through to Gladstone, which is a very important part of the project for exports and local commodities, whether it be getting product to the Toowoomba airport or getting product down into the other Australian states. There was $8.4 billion for Inland Rail. There are other rail projects throughout the country that the budget allowed another $10 billion for. That will help other projects like the one I have 20 kilometres east of Emerald at the GrainCorp terminal where the cotton gin is. We are looking at creating an intermodal transport hub. That will be a centre of exports from and imports coming into Emerald. Emerald exports $5.6 billion of product and imports about $3.6 billion of product yearly, so there is a lot of freight goes in and out of that central highlands area.

There was $1.2 billion for skills funding. We have somehow fallen behind with our skills, and a lot of tradespeople have dropped out or retired. These need replacing with other skills that we need to keep our country going. Defence will get a boost to about two per cent of GDP. There is more money for health, with another $1.4 billion in research and development. Of course, the NDIS has now been properly funded for the first time.

The $18.6 billion for school funding will be spread across all schools in Australia. I am pleased to report that not one school out of the 128 schools in my electorate will have its funding decreased. In fact, on average, they will all go up by around five per cent, and that is future funding until the year 2027.

Government spending will be reduced from 26½ per cent to 25 per cent of GDP. The lowest it has ever been is 24.8 per cent. Our prediction is that the budget will be in balance by the year 2021. The five banks who got hit $6.5 billion did a bit of bleeding; we all know that. However, they must have forgotten about the protection we gave the big four banks during the GFC, when the government guaranteed those top four banks' funding. We did not do the same thing for the smaller banks, the building societies et cetera. So they should not feel so bad, especially if they can write that $300 million off as a tax deduction.

I am pleased to say that, as part of the National Party program, our Roads to Recovery Program will continue. The seven councils in my electorate will benefit under the Roads to Recovery Program.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 7.30 pm, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The member for Flynn will be given an opportunity at a later date to continue his speech.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:30