Nova Peris (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers provided by the Minister for Finance, Senator Cormann. The budget delivered on Tuesday is an unfair budget. Despite that, the Treasurer wants Australians to 'have a go'. The Prime Minister said, 'We, the coalition government, are not going to repair our budget this year at the expense of your family budget.' Guess what? We now have higher taxes, more spending, a larger deficit and more debt, with greater projected unemployment. At the same time, the budget locks in the unfairness of last year's budget, which included an $80 billion cut to hospitals and schools, locks in the cuts to family payments and locks in degrees costing in excess of $100,000.

That Treasurer deeply offends the young mothers of Australia who rely on payments, who he describes as rorters or double-dippers. He is cutting up to $6,000 of their family payments a year. Mr Tony Abbott's second budget locks in his unfair cuts to family payments while imposing savage cuts to paid parental leave. Despite promising that the budget would not come at the expense of the family budget, Mr Abbott still wants to cut family tax benefit B for families when their youngest child turns six. He still wants to freeze family tax benefit rates. The Prime Minister wants to rip a further $967.7 million from paid parental leave, in a new cut that will push around 80,000 mothers off paid parental leave, leaving them up to $11½ thousand worse off. This will also mean that they will be able to spend less time with their babies in the early years of their baby's life. Is that how we treat the young mothers and new mothers of Australia? It was good to hear Mr Turnbull say, 'It is very important that the government respect and show due empathy for families and mothers.' But Mr Abbott does not care about that. He wants to abolish the large-family supplement and the low-income supplement.

Right now, we have a government that has cut millions from the health and hospital budget. I am deeply concerned for my constituents back home in the Northern Territory, in particular the families of the Palmerston region. I have been raising concerns about the need for Palmerston Regional Hospital, which is to be built in one of the fastest growing places in Australia, not just the Northern Territory, with more residents now than Alice Springs. Construction on the Palmerston hospital is supposed to start this month, but it is so far behind schedule, even though the Country Liberal government says it is on track. It has failed to meet every single deadline. Where is it? Earlier this week, the Northern Territory government awarded a tender for water mains. That is laughable—I am starting to wonder whether it is going to be a hospital or a water park. The Northern Territory government blames the federal government and the feds are blaming the Northern Territory government. This budget was supposed to deliver $35 million to the Northern Territory government in its agreement for the construction of the hospital, but it has not. I repeat: there is no construction; we see no bricks.

Last year's budget papers show that the federal government gave the Northern Territory government $20 million. It did the same this year, but the question needs to be asked: what has the Northern Territory government done with that money? There is no construction and no new development. In this budget there is no money committed to the Palmerston Regional Hospital at all, nothing.

The federal government has failed the families of Palmerston. The Northern Territory government has failed the people of Palmerston and the Darwin region. They both need to explain themselves.