Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased the previous speaker referred to the Murray River and the need for a decent water policy. All I can say is that at least under the Hawke and Keating governments we had some rain occasionally. This budget is yet another budget of wasted opportunity. In spite of the $36.7 billion in tax cuts over four years, there are cuts at both ends of the scale but, as usual, the cuts favour high-income groups. With the $1.4 billion extra assistance for families and the projected surplus of $10.8 billion, we will still have over two million Australians living in, on or below the poverty line. We will still have over 800,000 Australian kids growing up in households where no-one is employed. We will still have dental waiting lists recorded in calendar years rather than weeks or months. We will still have Australian motorists being bled dry at the petrol bowser, while the Prime Minister and the Treasurer engage in the sickening self-congratulations we have witnessed recently.

This budget is yet another Treasurer Costello budget of wasted opportunity. The budget fails to plan for Australia’s future; in fact, it mortgages our future, as our leader Kim Beazley has said. It has no ability to take the pressure off interest rates. If interest rates rise again, all Australians will know who to blame: this Prime Minister and this Treasurer. The budget’s failure to fix the skills crisis, demonstrate national leadership and turn around the current account deficit may force interest rates up yet again. All Australians will know who to blame: the Prime Minister and the Treasurer.

As the Leader of the Opposition said in his address on the Thursday after the budget was handed down, this budget contains no initiatives to free Australia from being held hostage to the Middle Eastern oil prices, no plan to develop new Australian fuels, no plan to fix the nation’s infrastructure—we have clogged roads, slow internet connection, near empty dams and overburdened ports—no plan to stop kids from being turned away from TAFE colleges or, if they get into university, ending up with a debt the size of a home mortgage, no plan to tackle the growing crisis in kids’ health and no plan for child care.

The miserable tax relief announced in the 2006 budget has been assisted by the massive revenue base the Howard government has achieved by ripping off ordinary Australian taxpayers at a level unprecedented in Australia’s history. The record 15 years of strong economic growth is based on the major reforms put in place by the previous Hawke and Keating governments and a massive tax rip-off by the Howard government. The Howard government constantly beats its chest, bragging about its economic management achievements when, in reality, all it has done is become the highest taxing Australian government in history. The 2006 budget tax cuts are really just paying back a tiny fraction of the massive tax rip-off that the Howard and Costello government have been slugging Australians with over the past 10 years.

What is the purpose of the Howard government’s so-called strong economy if millions of Australians are struggling to provide just the basics for themselves and their families? If the Prime Minister and the Treasurer are the economic management geniuses they pretend to be then why are Australians being slugged with crippling petrol prices, rising interest rates and dramatically increasing levels of personal debt? Under the Howard government, the strong economy only benefits those at the top end of town and leaves the no-income groups and the low- to middle-income groups struggling to survive.

Labor is committed to a strong economy with a purpose—that is, a strong economy that benefits all Australians, not just the top end of town. The Treasurer in his budget speech highlighted the fact that the so-called government debt had been abolished, but what he did not say on the day he nominated as Australia’s debt-free day was that on that day Australia’s foreign debt reached a staggering half a trillion dollars. That means Bendigo, along with the rest of Australia, is now burdened with $24,276 of foreign debt for every man, woman and child. Bendigo has one of the lowest median family weekly incomes in Australia at just $736 per week. I doubt that there are too many people in central Victoria who celebrated the Treasurer’s debt-free day.

Foreign debt has now risen by more in the last 3½ years than it did during the entire 13 years of the last federal Labor government. In the last two years alone, the Treasurer stood by and watched Australia’s foreign debt jump by more than $100 billion. In 1995 the Treasurer himself drew the link between high levels of foreign debt and the risks of high interest rates when he said, ‘A high level of foreign debt makes Australia more vulnerable and increasingly at the mercy of international financial markets because Australia has a current account problem that puts premium on Australian borrowings that flows through and every Australian pays for the consequences.’ Foreign debt is now more than $300 billion higher than it was when the member for Higgins became Treasurer.

The Treasurer has claimed this astounding level of foreign debt does not matter because it is private debt rather than public debt. However, foreign lenders, who influence the level of the interest rates we pay, do not distinguish between public and private debt. Rather than diverting attention away from the many factors currently damaging the government’s standing in the community, the Treasurer should have used the strong economic climate he largely inherited to put in place initiatives to tackle and reduce poverty. Then the Treasurer would have something worth while to brag about.

Labor’s plan for child-care centres located at schools will suit parents who have kids in child care and kids at school. To assist this initiative a federal Labor government will provide $200 million to establish 260 new child-care centres on primary school grounds or other community land. Labor will ensure that these places go to the areas in our suburbs or regional towns where there are child-care shortages. Labor will ensure the new places go to where they are needed most so that parents can work knowing their kids are getting an educational experience that will set them up for life. Labor’s child-care initiatives will meet the Australian economy’s pressing need for more skilled workers. A Labor government will do its bit by giving parents the incentive to work without killing family life.

When Australians want to learn a traditional trade to become one of the skilled workers this country so desperately needs, they should not have to pay. A future Labor government will abolish TAFE fees for traditional trades. This will benefit around 60,000 traditional apprentices who start training each year. Labor’s priority is to train Australians first and train Australians now. A federal Labor government will set up skills accounts to help Australian families save for training and skills. Labor will make an initial deposit of $800 per year for up to four years in an apprentice skills account to get rid of the up-front TAFE fees. That is $800 a year for kids who want to train to be plumbers, panel beaters, electricians, welders, motor mechanics, chefs, hairdressers et cetera. To help solve Australia’s massive shortage of child-care workers, Labor will extend its skills account plan to get rid of TAFE fees for the thousands of Australian trainee child-care carers who start courses each year. A federal Labor government will get rid of TAFE fees for eligible child-care courses by making an initial deposit of $1,200 per year for up to two years in a trainee skills account. Young people training to teach and care for the nation’s kids can use this to pay up-front fees at a TAFE or other eligible provider, or they can use it for materials and resources charges.

Labor will give every Australian student the opportunity to study at a specialised trade school. It will give younger students the chance to try their hands at a trade with a trade taster program. For older students, there will be more school based apprenticeships. Labor will invest in real apprenticeship schemes, not the fake apprenticeship schemes that use our kids as cheap labour and give them no skills. Labor will give them $2,000 as a trade completion bonus to encourage kids to finish their courses, and this will produce an extra 10,000 tradespeople—the plumbers, the builders, the child-care workers and all of those tradespeople that we so desperately need now.

Two hundred and seventy thousand extra skilled workers have entered this country over the last 10 years while 300,000 young Australians have been turned away from TAFE. We are seeing Australians laid off while foreign workers take their places on conditions that no-one should have put up with. The Howard government is allowing foreign apprentices to come to Australia and take apprenticeship places, and in fact it is providing incentives for businesses to take them on. These foreign apprentices are located in regional areas where youth unemployment is already too high and wages too low. To get their visas, foreign apprentices must accept whatever wages and conditions are on offer, and young Aussies have to compete with them. If they do not like it, they lose their visas and they are out. Over time, this will ruin the job prospects of young Australians. To deal with this, a federal Labor government will abolish the foreign apprenticeship visas. Labor will train our kids first before we train anyone else’s.

A federal Labor government will invest in a joint venture with telecommunications companies to build a superfast computer network. Labor will draw on the $757 million Broadband Connect program as well as providing an equity injection from the $2 billion earmarked for the Communications Fund to deliver the public funding on this in partnership with the private sector. This will deliver broadband that can instantly download documentaries, educational software and digital books; broadband that can host a digital classroom where children can have videoconferences all around Australia—a digital School of the Air for all. Plus, Labor will offer a clean feed for parents who want to make sure their kids are learning on the internet and not being exposed to pornography and violence. This is an investment in national infrastructure that equips our kids for the future.

Part of Labor’s plan is to rebuild Australia’s crumbling roads, rail, ports, electricity and communications networks. Labor will take the politics out of infrastructure spending with an independent expert body called Infrastructure Australia. It will make it easier for super funds to invest in infrastructure. We will set up a Building Australia fund to invest in a productive infrastructure of the future. When Australians want to compete in the world, Labor will make sure they have the 21st century infrastructure to take on the world’s best and win.

Nothing in this budget will help the 40 employees of the Kyneton firm John Brown Hosiery, who were informed on Monday, 15 May, that the company had been placed in voluntary liquidation. The company had been a major employer in Kyneton since the 1960s and many employees have been with the company for many years, some for as many as 30 years. This is a severe blow to the Kyneton district and follows the closure of the Frew Meatworks in 2004. This company enjoyed a good relationship with its employees and the Kyneton community, and its loss will adversely affect the whole region.

One of the problems that affected just some of the Frew employees, earlier, was the timing of the actual terminations, which was toward the end of that financial year, resulting in some employees who had young families and were on family payment benefits being penalised by being slugged by Centrelink for underestimating their annual income. I fear that some John Brown employees may find themselves in similar circumstances. Frew Meatworks and John Brown Hosiery employees with families had no way of knowing that they would be made redundant when they estimated their annual incomes for the next financial year, so any termination, redundancy or entitlement payment in that financial year would not have been declared and therefore will attract a penalty. This was raised with several government departments after the Frew example, but the Howard government refused to provide any worthwhile assistance other than arranging a long-term method of payment of the penalty. These people had lost their jobs through no fault of their own and were dealt with by the Howard government with all of the compassion of the Third Reich. I fear the same situation will arise for the John Brown Hosiery employees with young families. I will be more than happy to pursue this matter again on their behalf.

I said earlier that this budget is yet another example of wasted opportunity, but there is always one opportunity that the Howard-Costello government never fails to take advantage of—the opportunity to help itself to vast sums of taxpayer dollars to pay for what is allegedly government advertising but in reality is just Liberal-National Party political advertising designed to spin Australians into thinking that its harsh and unfair policies are in their interests. If the coalition policies are so good and are in the national interest, you would think there would be no need to squander the almost $1.5 billion of taxpayers’ dollars on shonky party political advertising.

Yesterday’s Senate estimates committee hearings have shown that the federal government is preparing to take advantage of around $380 million of hard-earned taxpayers’ dollars over four years in blatant party political advertising, with much of the money to be spent prior to next year’s federal election. At least $250 million has been allocated in the 2006-07 budget for 13 campaigns, including: $52.1 million for the private health insurance campaign, which it is claimed will ‘increase consumer awareness of the incentives and benefits associated with private health insurance’; $47.3 million for a smartcard awareness campaign—if it is such a smart card, why spend all that money?—which it is claimed will ‘ensure all Australians are aware of the processes for registering for the card’; $36.1 million for the child support reforms to ‘increase awareness of the reforms’; $15 million for the independent contractors and AWA communications campaign; and a massive Medicare mail-out for April 2007.

The $250 million is on top of a $130 million advertising placement spend for the current financial year, making a combined total amount of advertising, as revealed in yesterday’s estimates committee hearing, of $380 million. Budget papers show that much of the money will be spent in the lead-up to the federal election due to be held about October 2007. The spending is in addition to extra cash for a national education campaign for families, a Connect Australia campaign, a possible child-care benefits rebate campaign, a ‘smartraveller’ information campaign, a citizenship campaign and a Living in Harmony initiative.

It is also on top of $55 million already spent on the government’s Work Choices campaign promoting its new, unfair industrial relations regime. In fact, the Howard government had already misappropriated over $1 billion of taxpayers’ money since 1996 on this blatant abuse of public funds under this outrageous and so-called government advertising—a rip-off. As my colleague the member for Wills so eloquently put it, never before in the history of Australian advertising have so many taxpayer dollars been hosed up against a wall by so few, affecting so many, in so short a time.

Five days of meetings with authorities in the Northern Territory and Queensland fishing industry and marine environment have confirmed to me that illegal fishing continues to run out of control in Northern Australia. The failure of the Howard government to deal effectively with illegal fishing has seen incursions skyrocket. The budget spin suggests that the Howard government is addressing the issue but, as usual, the spin does not match the reality. Illegal fishermen landing on Australian soil is, I believe, the main security risk facing Australia today—without a doubt. Last year there were over 13,000 sightings of suspected illegal fishing boats off Northern Australia. That means thousands of people entered Australian territory illegally in 2005, presenting a significant health and quarantine risk, not to mention the possible threats to our security.

Even after all of the spin surrounding the budget, the government’s goal is to catch about 400 illegal boats next year. That will leave about 12,600 free to come and go as they please. The Australian Fisheries Management Authority has admitted that this budget will enable an average of two illegal boats to be captured per day. Again, with over 13,000 illegal vessels sighted last year, that leaves 33 illegal boats per day plundering our waters. This represents a potential catastrophe for all Australians, as the illegal fishermen are landing on mainland Australian soil, storing caches of food and water, which is often contaminated, and bringing with them various live birds and other animals for food and for pets. The boats are usually infested with rats and other vermin and the few that are confiscated have to be burnt. The fishermen come from Asian nations which have foot-and-mouth disease, rabies and a range of other diseases. It would be disastrous if those diseases were to spread throughout Australia.

I believe that illegal fishing represents a far greater threat to Australia than any asylum seekers, yet the Howard government is obsessed with tough action for illegal migrants but is doing very little to deal with this potentially devastating problem. All of the authorities and industry groups we met with have confirmed the need for better coordination of effort at a national level, and that means a coastguard. Australia desperately needs additional patrol boats to detain the thousands of illegal boats that enter our territorial waters each year. Instead, the government is inappropriately diverting just two highly specialised minehunter vessels for what should be patrol boat tasks. Minehunters have a unique design with specialised low-speed propulsion systems and are made from special non-magnetic materials. They were never designed to act as patrol boats. The Navy is now paying the price for the government’s mismanagement of border security. Instead of diverting minehunters from their normal activities, the government should commit to more patrol boats and a coastguard.

On a positive note, I welcome the budget initiative of more recognition and resources for the northern sea rangers, who are providing a superb level of Australian maritime surveillance. Labor welcomes the Howard government’s budget announcement that finally gives recognition to the northern sea rangers. For two years Labor has praised rangers like the Maningrida sea rangers, with whom I had the privilege of meeting with a few weeks ago. Indigenous sea rangers serve the important role of monitoring incursions and irregular movements in some of our most isolated areas. Indigenous sea rangers are able to spot things that non-Indigenous people would never see, because of their unique affinity with the land and the sea. Sea rangers can now play a far greater role in monitoring and reporting foreign incursions, and it is simply scandalous that the Howard government continues to deny the appropriate resources to effectively deal with the information that sea rangers are capable of delivering. This is a growing crisis that needs immediate and substantial action by the Howard government rather than the ad hoc and stopgap measures outlined in this budget.

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