Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Nationals for that extraordinary performance. It is really terrific to see the optimism on his face, but the thing that bothers me a little is the state of denial that he is still living in—though it is common, of course. He says that, nine months ago, the economy was in very good shape, that it was in ‘ruddy good health’—along with the Leader of the Opposition, who said interest rates were coming down under them. It was a bit of a shock when they continued to go up, wasn’t it? We had the now shadow Treasurer, the member for Wentworth, saying that interest rate increases were overdramatised and that inflation was a fairytale. It would have been a bit of a shock to the system to those people who were paying extra on their home mortgages, groceries and other expenses. We also had the previous Treasurer, the member for Higgins, saying that there was no housing affordability crisis. This tale of constant denial of the ills of the economy is the story of the previous government. It is the story that the Leader of the Nationals repeats today.

The Leader of the Nationals has also, extraordinarily, criticised the government for reviews and reports. This is the former minister who, during his career, announced or welcomed 70 reviews. That is how many I can find; there may be more than 70. There were reviews relating to electronic funds transfer, Customs passenger processing, cosmetics labelling, fire extinguisher standards, restructuring the pork industry, product safety recall, Centrelink payments, disability services, caged hens, beef export quotas, family farm support and 29 separate reports on the National Heritage Trust. I could not read the whole list or I would run out of time, but it goes on: shark finning, wool levies, the Jack Mackerel Fishery. On the second page are citrus growing, pig meat processing, and so it goes on—over 70 reports. It is hard to know what he actually achieved with any of those reports, but we will leave that for another day.

As the government of course we take responsibility for economic news, good and bad. We do not seek to shift blame or responsibility. We are not in denial; we are about facing the issues that the Australian public are dealing with in their day-to-day lives. We know that many working families are doing it tough. We know that pensioners are doing it tough and need the support of their government. And the focus of the government, in nine months of operation, has been to deliver policies that address those concerns of working families, of pensioners, of carers and of anyone who is doing it tough in the Australian community. There are all sorts of ways that Australians today are better off than they were nine months ago, including the personal tax cuts that they have received and including the other benefits such as the childcare tax rebate increase, the education tax benefits and the benefits that have gone to seniors. We recognise that those benefits are important but we understand that they do not solve all the problems that all people face. This is the difference between the government that we had, a government of denial and minimisation of difficulties and problems, and this government, which is prepared to step up to the plate, take responsibility, make some tough decisions, help the people who need help and lead the country into the future.

We have some very difficult countervailing forces in the economy at the moment. We have record high terms of trade and low unemployment, but growth is slowing. We have inherited the highest inflation rate in 17 years. That is a simple fact. Despite strong fundamentals we are not immune from what is happening in the world economy. We need to take action now to strengthen our economy, and we have sought to do that. We have sought to do that through a budget surplus of $22 billion, because we on this side of the House understand that inflation is the real evil and the real enemy of working families struggling to make ends meet.

The inflation rate was the reason why the Reserve Bank increased interest rates 10 times in a row under the previous government. We have had 12 interest rate rises since May 2002, 10 of them under the Liberal Party in government. We have international factors like the oil shock, the credit crunch and a drop in worldwide consumer confidence. All of those things are true, but we do not seek to blame those factors. We do not seek to minimise what is going on here. We seek to step up to the plate, take responsibility and deliver a budget that protects Australia from these forces. That is why we put $55 billion on the table to assist those who are doing it tough. We have helped pensioners with the utilities allowance, working families with tax cuts and people with children in child care with an increase in the childcare tax rebate. There is a Working Families Support Package that has delivered $7 billion in tax cuts this year alone. It is a direct and very practical benefit for those working families that we are talking about. Take, for example, a single-income family on $40,000 a year. They now have an extra $20 a week in their pockets due to our tax cuts—a very simple, very direct benefit. If they have a child in high school they will be able to claim back $750 a year in education costs on top of that tax cut. If there is a child in a childcare centre they will get 50 per cent of any out-of-pocket expenses back.

Those are of course not the only achievements we have delivered; look at how they affect individual families. It would be worth the Leader of the Nationals having a look at this and learning a little bit about the federal budget. I think he was in the chamber in May, but I wonder, because he seems to have missed some of the key points. Take Denise and Wayne as examples from this Working Families Support Package booklet:

Denise and Wayne are parents working full time to provide for their two children, Shane and Sally. Denise earns $90,000 a year and Wayne $60,000 a year.

With both of them working full time they need child care. One child is in long day care and one is in after-school care. Denise and Wayne pay just over $16,900 in childcare costs but get $8,450 back. Under our system they are getting an extra $2,050 a year more than they would have under the previous government. That is just one example—one family, one cameo.

But beyond these tax rebates and increases, let us look at what we are doing in the wider economy. How about the $20 billion Building Australia Fund to invest in new infrastructure, to move goods across the country and to move people across our cities? Or the education revolution that the Prime Minister talked about again today at the National Press Club, dealing with the skills shortages that we were left by the previous government?

The Leader of the Nationals also mentioned housing affordability. It always strikes me as passing strange that an opposition that had no housing policy and no housing minister should now finally accept that housing affordability is a key challenge for the government. There are $2.2 billion of new initiatives in the area of housing, including $512 million for a Housing Affordability Fund to lower the cost of new homes to market, helping particularly first home buyers struggling to break into the market; and a National Rental Affordability Scheme that will help build 50,000 new affordable rental properties between now and 2012—and, if there is demand, another 50,000 beyond that. We are already in the marketplace calling for expressions of interest for those new rental properties. We will see them built in coming months. We are increasing the supply of land available by releasing surplus Commonwealth land. And there are the first home saver accounts, probably the biggest revolution in personal savings in this country since the introduction of superannuation. First home saver accounts will help young Australian women and men save a much bigger deposit for their first home.

The government have put forward all of these measures in the area of housing affordability, but of course the Leader of the Nationals is very dismissive of these measures. He says that we have not done anything for working families and that we have not done anything in the areas of tax cuts, child care, pensioners and so on. It reminds me of a comedy sketch I saw many years ago that said: ‘What have the Romans done for us lately? Besides roads, what have the Romans done for us lately? Besides water viaducts, what have the Romans done for us lately?’ Our measures on tax, on reducing the cost of child care, on building more affordable housing, on delivering real benefits to pensioners who are struggling—as they were for years under the previous government—are all dismissed because they do not fit in with the Leader of the National Party’s world view, which is that everything was great until November last year. Everything was great and then, on the Sunday morning after the election, we all woke up and suddenly we were governed by socialists and the whole world had fallen apart.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you do not hear people on this side of the chamber saying that Australian families have never been better off. The Leader of the Nationals laughs about that and dismisses it, but I really think that was a key insight into how out of touch the previous government had become. That one line, ‘Working Australian families have never been better off,’ was a key insight. The Rudd government have delivered over $55 billion worth of benefits for Australian working families but are we standing over here claiming that they have never been better off? No. We recognise that there are cost-of-living pressures on them that relate to their mortgages, to petrol, to grocery prices and a whole lot of other things, like education expenses and childcare expenses. Despite the help that we have given them, we know that many of them are doing it tough. I think that this is the key difference between a government that is in touch with the community it represents and a government, like the previous government, that has lost touch with the community it represents.

Every time the government, very responsibly, say, ‘Hang on a minute; there are some things in the economy that are building to become problems. If we don’t take action they are going to become worse problems,’ every time we responsibly draw attention to something that needs to be done, we are accused of talking the economy down. Any criticism that we might make: we are talking the economy down. Any warning that we might pose, any suggestion that we might make: we are talking the economy down. What is this matter of public importance about if it is not about talking the economy down? Again you have got an approach of convenience: believe what you like as long as it fits in with your world view, and then take an argument that is based entirely on convenience.

The government have delivered a responsible, inflation-fighting budget with a surplus of $22 billion written into it. At a time of global uncertainty, this is the very best protection we can offer Australian citizens. It is this very surplus, however, that the opposition want to punch a great big hole in. They want to punch a $6.2 billion hole in this surplus. That is simply not a path that speaks of economic responsibility. At a time of global uncertainty, we need a measured response, we need a buffer against the vicissitudes of the global markets and we need tough decision makers. We do not need the grandstanders that we have got opposite. We need responsible managers. We do not need this budget blocked by the irresponsible, short-term political interests of the opposition.

It is plain that the Liberal Party are no longer interested in responsible economic management. I did hope for a little better from the National Party. I did hope that they might be a little more responsible than the Liberal Party, but I am disappointed to see that the Leader of the Nationals today has hopped right onto that bandwagon. If the Liberal and National parties were interested in sound economic management, they would pass this budget, in full and on time, and stop getting in the way of sound economic strategy.

Again today we have had the coalition desperately trying to convince the House and the Australian people that the decline in Australian consumer confidence is a result of the actions of the Rudd government. They woke up one day in November and everything has been going downhill since then. It might be news to the Leader of the Opposition that consumer confidence across the OECD has fallen and there are a number of global forces seriously affecting our Australian economy. The UK did not grow at all in the three months to June. Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Canada all recorded negative growth in their most recently reported quarters. We know the effects that financial turbulence is having: the oil shock, the increase in food prices around the world and so on. All of us on this side of the House understand that we are facing some very difficult economic times. We are dealing with those difficult economic times by taking the most responsible path when it comes to providing a large budget surplus, spending responsibly and providing real benefits—$55 billion to Australian working families. I would suggest to the opposition that they either get on board or get out of the way.

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