Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The honourable member for Hinkler scoffs at that suggestion. I invite him to read the historical record on inflation. Before Labor came to power in 1983, the then Treasurer and now Prime Minister, John Howard, left Labor in government an inflation rate in excess of 10 per cent. We brought it down to under two per cent. We broke the back of Liberal inflation and we set the framework for the low-interest-rate regime that is currently being enjoyed by Australians. That is not a figment of my imagination; that is Australia’s economic history—and I am surprised that the honourable member for Hinkler would enter the debate on this point because he more than anybody else would know the facts. He would know that, when he came into the parliament—and I think it was in about 1993, when I entered the parliament—Labor in government had been grappling for a long period of time with the ill effects of Liberal inflation. At the time we left office it was below two per cent. That is a matter for the historical record. Australia’s economic history is there for all to see.

That current prosperity, which is related to the reduction in interest rates that has occurred over several decades, is directly attributable to the efforts of the then Labor government in breaking the back of Liberal inflation. That is a statistic that the government do not want to entertain much at all. As far as they are concerned the economic history of Australia started in 1996, when they came to power. But once again it is a matter of historical record that up to that particular point in time Australia had enjoyed a growth rate of some four per cent over the preceding four years—that is, Labor handed over to the coalition a rolled-gold economy; it was travelling along at a growth rate of four per cent with an underlying inflation rate that was certainly in single digits, very low and heading lower.

Of course, we can go to a lot of the other statistics—export performance and the job growth levels. I note day after day the coalition members on the floor of the parliament claiming great credit for the low unemployment rates in this country. They do have a weird way of defining who is actually employed. As we know, according to the official statistic quoted by the coalition, if a person works one hour in the couple of weeks preceding when they are surveyed by the ABS then that person is categorised as employed. We know the government has used many of its labour market programs to warehouse the unemployed in training schemes that are of dubious value—many do serve a purpose but many do not. We know there is chronic underemployment in the Australian economy—that is, that there are more Australian workers working part time than ever before. For the purposes of the survey, if you have a part-time job and work 20 hours then, according to members of the coalition, you are employed. I am afraid you cannot raise a family on 20 hours of work. You cannot pay off a mortgage on 20 hours of work.

Many people are working two and three jobs trying to juggle their family responsibilities just to put tucker on the table. Of course, along comes the coalition with a Work Choices bill that is designed to rip the insides out of the working conditions and wages and salaries of working people yet again. I note that the subject of some of these expenditures in appropriation bills Nos 3 and 4 relate to the Office of Workplace Services. Members of the coalition parade themselves as paragons of virtue and defenders of the family while at the same time they rip the heart out of the income of households and they put enormous physical and financial pressure on those particular households. When you work three jobs just to keep your family together, then something suffers. It is the family that suffers, not only from the lack of money but from the fact that the parents are never home. The parents are never home as they have to juggle a whole lot of responsibilities to make ends meet in the household family income sense. At the end of the day, that substantially impacts on the family.

I refer to Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2006-2007 and the range of measures for which the government has made additional allocations. I refer to the expenditure allocation of $74.2 million that has been made available to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to provide additional support to primary producers in drought declared areas and those who are really facing exceptional circumstances at this time. I note that $17.3 million has been allocated in taxable grants of up to $5,000 for eligible farmers, to give farmers the opportunity to get professional business and planning advice. This is a very important allocation. It is one that I would certainly not quibble with. At this time when some farmers have suffered quite catastrophic drops in their income, they need access to very professional planning advice as to either how they can cope over the next couple of years until there is a recovery or how they should exit the sector due to the difficulties that they face.

I note that today the government made an announcement which allocates some additional moneys to the sector for the purpose of assisting rural businesses. This important initiative will provide assistance to businesses in rural areas with employee numbers going up to 100 people. It is not just the people on the farm and in farm businesses that are having a tough time in rural Australia. The people in the many ancillary businesses that feed off the sector are going through extremely tough times.

I happened to be in the Riverina a couple of months ago and as I travelled around I saw the devastation of the drought: the dry dams, bare ground and the devastated grain crops that would not be harvested at all. On the way back, I happened to stop at a transport operator’s yard. I thought I would pop in to have a chat. I sat with the owner, who informed me that they had suffered a 90 per cent drop in business income. They had a fleet of trucks and were desperately searching for other business to at least keep the core business going. This gives you an idea of the devastation that has been visited on rural and regional Australia by this drought. I do not think too many people would argue with the sorts of expenditures that have been outlined by the government. They are ones that I would support.

However, I do take issue. The government continually bandies about this statistic that it has allocated $2.3 billion to drought assistance. Is it $2.3 billion over five years, four years or 10 years? We do not really know. We have drilled down in estimates, we have gone through all the government budget papers and we cannot come up with $2.3 billion. Maybe the member for Hinkler and some other government members might enlighten the parliament. In the first instance, I think some quite extravagant claims are made by the government. In the second instance, it never allocates all the moneys anyway and ends up returning a lot to general revenue.

The second matter I would like to draw the House’s attention to is the expenditure of some $120 million that will be provided for Operation Astute to restore peace and stability in East Timor. As we know, the people of East Timor suffered quite considerably through the Indonesian occupation. Subsequent to that, this new country to our near north has suffered from chronic political and institutional instability. The invasion by the Indonesians of this former Portuguese colony of East Timor in 1975—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

I was referring to the government’s allocation in Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2006-2007 to Operation Astute to restore peace and stability in East Timor. The Australia East Timor Association was formed in 1975. A branch of the organisation was established in Geelong in the early 1990s. The object of the organisation was to raise awareness of the atrocities committed by the Indonesians in East Timor and to lobby for East Timorese self-determination. For over a decade, the committee in Geelong highlighted the inhumane treatment that many in East Timor were receiving. They lobbied politicians, they wrote letters to the papers, they held street stalls et cetera. The public began to take notice of the issue with the release of John Pilger’s 1994 film Death of a nation.

Community groups in the Geelong area continued to remind the council and the public of the atrocities occurring in East Timor, and they included the Geelong branch of the Australia East Timor Association, the Geelong Catholic Social Justice Committee, Amnesty International and Oxfam CAA. After the Indonesian departure in 1999 community groups in Geelong remained committed to East Timor by helping the people during the reconstruction period, and the City of Greater Geelong formally ratified an agreement to establish a partnership with Viqueque. This was followed by the launch of a community-to-community partnership on 3 November 2000 by Sir William Deane, the then Governor-General.

Community groups, some of them having a long history of lobbying for and assisting the East Timorese, were asked to form the Geelong-East Timor Friendship Committee to link with Viqueque. The first meeting was held in February 2002, just prior to East Timor becoming an independent nation on 20 May. Viqueque is 195 kilometres south-east of Dili, with a population of 60,000. It is a poor district with many needs, particularly in the areas of health and education. Community groups that form the basis of the friendship group have done a lot to raise money and to increase awareness of the problems faced by that community. I commend the City of Greater Geelong, and in particular the then mayor, Councillor Barbara Abley, for overseeing the effort in East Timor on behalf of the Geelong community.

A whole host of measures have been taken in my community to assist Viqueque, and central to the organisation of that has been the efforts of one of my staff, Rosemary Nugent. I congratulate her on her ongoing commitment to the people of East Timor and for the work that she and her committee, the general Geelong community and other various groups have done in support of the East Timorese.

I also commend the government for the $39.4 million in this bill for protecting Australian families online. I think this is a measure that all people in the House can support. I did want in the time remaining to speak about the $14.6 million to be provided for the introduction of the formal citizenship test; however, I will just confine my remarks to congratulating the Geelong Ethnic Communities Council for another wonderful Pako Festa on the weekend, Geelong’s premiere multicultural festival, which I estimate was attended by some 100,000 people. It was a real success, and I congratulate all the staff of the Migrant Resource Centre and members of the Geelong Ethnic Communities Council on their work in putting on this wonderful festival.

See this speech in context