Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

During the debate thus far, members opposite have, quite frankly, taken a reasonably easy path, particularly when you hear their response to the budget. It shows that members opposite, unfortunately, have an indifference to spending, an indifference to high inflation and certainly an indifference to how they allocate their welfare. The former Howard government directly targeted welfare at middle-income areas.

On the other hand, the Rudd Labor government in this budget have delivered an unprecedented level of support for working families. But, even more importantly, the government have set a new benchmark when it comes to delivering upon promises that were made prior to the election. That is very important for all of us as members of parliament when we go around our electorates, when we make commitments, in the lead-up to an election. Our commitments have been fully honoured. That certainly distinguishes our government from previous governments, as we saw them take office.

Like my colleagues who spoke before me in this debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009 and related bills, I would also like to place on record my thanks to the Treasurer, the Prime Minister and their team in delivering this budget. This budget is designed to build a strong economy—one that delivers for working families and one that responsibly invests in our future. Local working families in major cities and in all our suburbs, such as mine in Western Sydney, are very much at the front and centre of this budget. The government is committed to easing the financial burdens placed on these working families. The government is providing relief for local families in respect of child care, education costs and other costs of living.

Over the 3½ years that I have had the honour of representing the people of Werriwa—and I have regular contact with all those people, whether it be at 6.30 in the morning at railway stations or in shopping centres on the weekends or at street meetings et cetera—one thing that has been constantly raised with me is the rising costs faced by families, such as shopping costs et cetera. This government has been listening and, as a consequence, it will not fail the people. This government has set out to develop a budget which delivers, first and foremost, to working families of this country—unlike the former government, which, in their last budget, delivered a $40 billion spend, with no savings, with no regard to the inflationary impact, leaving an inflationary legacy that we are now dealing with but summarising it all as ‘Working families have never been better off’. This government stands in stark contrast to the former government, which had one silver bullet for the economic reform of this country. That silver bullet, according to the Howard government, was Work Choices. Not only did it not do what they thought it was going to do; it held people’s job security to ransom and put undue financial stresses and strains on working families throughout my electorate, as attested by the 2½ thousand people who signed petitions in relation to that. But Work Choices is not the subject of this discussion, so I will get back to the appropriations bills.

I would like to highlight some of the more significant aspects of the budget as it affects the people of Werriwa. The $55 billion Working Families Support Package is certainly nothing to be sneezed at. It really delivers for the people in my electorate. It will help people meet the increasing costs of living by providing tax cuts and will help people with childcare fees and with their education costs. Families are a huge proportion of my electorate, so these benefits target the general demographic of the people of south-west Sydney.

The government’s plan is to address cost-of-living pressures by easing the strain on family budgets. This includes a disciplined approach to budget management, taking the pressure off inflation by paying for new spending promises from savings. Every dollar of new spending is offset by savings, which has produced a surplus of 1.8 per cent of GDP, or $21.7 billion. The government is tackling skills shortages and the roads and port bottlenecks that are pushing up the cost of doing business by investing in skills education, including 450,000 new training places over four years and a $20 billion Building Australia Fund to provide the economic infrastructure for the future. Further, it plans to boost household budgets through measures including a $46 billion tax cut over the next four years.

All Australian taxpayers will share in the tax cuts delivered by this government from 1 July this year, at a cost of $46.7 billion over the next four years. These are very significant tax cuts but, more importantly, they are directed at low- and middle-income earners. By and large, people in my electorate will benefit from a little over $1,000 per year as a consequence of these direct income tax cuts. People on incomes of $40,000 will get a $20.19 weekly increase as a consequence. People on incomes of $80,000 will get an increase of $21.15. These are significant and, as I said, they are directed to the demographic of the working families who make up outer metropolitan areas of Sydney such as Werriwa.

Importantly, the education tax refund will help parents invest in their kids’ education. The government will provide eligible parents with a 50 per cent refund on out-of-pocket education expenses from 1 July this year. There are more than 38,000 families in my electorate. This equates to about 56 per cent of my constituents who will be direct beneficiaries of this particular initiative. Under this initiative, families will be able to recover up to $375 per child, per year for a primary school child and $750 per child, per year for a secondary school child. That will make a significant difference to working families seeking to relieve cost pressures as they strive for a proper education for their kids.

This government knows that access to affordable, high-quality child care plays an ever-increasing role not only in a child’s education but in helping parents make the decision to return to the workforce. Unlike the previous government, which had a very laissez faire attitude to child care and thought that there was certainly no problem with affordable child care, this government has actually worked to support mums and dads not only with the development of their kids’ early education but also with some tangible assistance to return to work. To help parents with their childcare costs, the childcare tax rebate will move from 30 per cent to 50 per cent of out-of-pocket costs and will increase the cap from $4,354 to $7,500 per child for approved care. In addition to that, it will be paid every three months instead of once a year, providing the support to working families when they need it most.

There are a couple of things that I would like to quickly run through that were of significance to the people of south-west Sydney in the Werriwa electorate emanating out of this budget. For instance, there was a grant of $100,000 to the Liverpool Migrant Resource Centre. This will go towards important projects helping with the assimilation and participation of refugees into mainstream Australian life. It will complement the current range of successful services and programs offered by the Liverpool Migrant Resource Centre.

The Macarthur Business Enterprise Centre received a recurrent grant of $350,000 per year. This will benefit existing and developing businesses in my area. The fund will assist the Macarthur Business Enterprise Centre to provide a range of one-stop shop advisory services to some 4,488 businesses between Liverpool and Campbelltown.

The Campbelltown Stadium was very fortunately the beneficiary of an $8 million grant to upgrade its sports-playing facilities. It is home to a number of sports, including rugby league, rugby union and soccer. It is now capable of being developed into one of the principal sporting precincts in the south-west of Sydney. Our kids will not only have the ability to go and watch their teams play at a premier sporting facility; they will be able to play at the same facility themselves because this facility will be available both to schools and for weekend junior sports.

In addition to that—as I am sure you are aware, Madam Deputy Speaker Bird—there is a grant of $350,000 for an investigation into the Maldon-Dumbarton rail link. That is a very important study to be undertaken in the south-west of Sydney. It would see the opening up of the south-west of Sydney as important employment lands as a consequence of the possibility of a rail link between Port Kembla and the south-west of Sydney and its immediate surrounds. That will provide an opportunity for significant growth and employment, and it will also give some significant support to the state government’s three-port policy. I see that as an absolute plus for my electorate in being able to develop new areas, new industries and employment opportunities. That is a particular study that I—together with you, Madam Deputy Speaker—will have a very keen interest in.

A particular project under the AusLink 2 program is the widening of the F5 Freeway, which has very strong social and economic grounds justifying it. I went out of my way to challenge the then minister of the former government to widen that freeway. It is not simply about mums and dads spending time away from families on a congested freeway to and from work; there are serious economic reasons why we see this as a major priority in opening up areas of industry. In addition to that, it is the main interconnecting road infrastructure between Sydney and Melbourne. That being the case, this has a very significant economic aspect to it which will generate jobs as a consequence and which will actually help to free up the bottlenecks that are currently acting as an impediment to our economy.

In addition to that, the University of Western Sydney was given a $15.9 million grant. The Campbelltown campus of that university is doing a wonderful job, particularly with the development of its new medical school. I could continue talking for a significant period about what this budget has achieved for my electorate in Werriwa and for working men and women around the country, but time is against me on this occasion. I commend this legislation to the House.

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