Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes. The budget reply speech by the Leader of the Opposition spoke firstly about scare—scare about deficit and debt. Blame the Rudd government—never mind the global factors and dramatic drop in government revenues. Offer no solution other than a badly costed, as it turns out, tobacco tax but claim to own the title of competent financial managers. Even former Prime Minister John Howard was not that brazen.

In 1996 John Howard, having recently arrived at the Lodge—well, at Kirribilli House—as Prime Minister of Australia, told an international monetary conference in Sydney, ‘I inherited an economy in good shape, in some parts better than good.’ I understand that at a black tie Liberal Party function in Sydney in 2007, where people no doubt choked on their rubber chicken, John Howard was acknowledging structural changes made during the Hawke-Keating years as amongst the most important economic changes in Australia. In fact, he credited Labor with bank deregulation and floating the dollar. He claimed for his own government a half share of tariff reform and for the Howard-Costello government he fully claimed tax reform and industrial relations. Mind you, for tax reform and industrial relations you have to read ‘GST’ and ‘Work Choices’—both of them attacks on the most vulnerable people in our society and both of them universally reviled by our society. That is the truth of the matter.

No one side of politics has a mortgage on good economic management. History will show that the Rudd government’s pre-emptive strikes against the global financial crisis are precisely the right actions, and its conservative forecasts concerning the return to surplus budgets and the repayment of debt are, if you will forgive the pun, on the money. On the other hand, the coalition still supports and pursues policies that favour the wealthy at the expense of the needy.

The 2009-10 budget unveiled by Treasurer Swan does a number of key things essential for a budget in the current economic climate. It has been described as having three narratives—fiscal stimulus to combat the recession, charting a path back to surplus and meeting the fiscal challenge of an ageing population. It supports Australian jobs at a time when we all know that jobs are under threat and it does this by investing in infrastructure for the future—nation-building infrastructure of roads, rail, ports, broadband and clean energy—that will add to the strength of our economic recovery and ensure a more prosperous future.

In the context of a savage drop of $210 billion in government revenue over the forward estimates that was largely due to the end of the mining boom and the associated collapse of company tax and mining royalties, the government’s choices were limited. It could cut spending on services or it could raise tax revenue, both of which would impact adversely on the people of Australia; or it could borrow to finance services and job-supporting infrastructure. It is interesting that, when pressed on his response to the drop in revenue, the opposition leader indicated that he too would borrow to cover the revenue shortfall. The opposition’s scare campaign on debt and deficit is in overdrive, but it has all the traction of a race car fitted with a set of slicks on a wet track. The public is, as I said earlier, awake to you.

The opposition derides the information in the budget papers mapping the nation’s way out of deficit and debt, despite the fact that Treasury head, Dr Ken Henry, has gone on record defending the projections. This is the same Dr Ken Henry who, for the last six years or so of the Howard government, held the same position he holds today. This is the same Dr Ken Henry who, in 2008, the member for Higgins and former Treasurer, Peter Costello, declared to be a highly competent and dedicated public servant. Mr Costello went on to say that Dr Henry was chosen for the role by him on merit and that the important thing was to get the best person qualified for the job. The best person qualified for the job is telling you that you are wrong. Yet, it seems that the member for North Sydney and shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, does not have confidence in this highly competent and dedicated public servant, who was selected on merit as the best person for the job.

The member for North Sydney spent question time yesterday attempting to deride the path back to surplus and the repayment of debt. I recommend to the member for North Sydney that he read Dr Henry’s address on 19 May because, if he does so, he will understand the error of the propositions that he was putting to the parliament in question time yesterday. Australians realise that Treasury is a key element in the construction of any budget. Whether the Treasurer is named Swan, Costello, Keating or Howard, Australians realise that the differences in political philosophy will always play a role in the choices made by the Treasurer, based on the options presented by Treasury. So to accuse Treasury of producing unsustainable forecasts is simply beyond the pale.

I know that Australians are well aware that there are difficult times in our immediate future, and I also know that they are grateful that we have in place a Labor government that has compassion for the circumstances of the whole community. Like them, I welcome the changes to the payments made to our pensioners. As a representative of an electorate with a high concentration of age pensioners, I know that the single pensioners amongst them have welcomed the increase of $30 a week in their base pension. The benchmarking, too, of the single age pension to two-thirds of the couple rate is an appropriate move. That will make a substantial difference to most pensioners, leaving aside those who are in aged-care residential facilities or, to a lesser extent, in public housing. I wish that more could have been done. I know that we would have liked to have done more, but we are obviously constrained in these matters by the global recession. However, 23,200 pensioners in my electorate will benefit from the changes that have been made as a consequence of this budget.

We also need to face the challenge of a rapidly ageing population as we baby boomers reach age pension age. The maternity leave provisions are welcomed as an appropriate measure for ensuring that Australian women are not penalised in terms of their career or their financial wellbeing by their decision to have a family. This country needs children to ensure economic growth later on and to fund the pensions of older Australians. The changes to the age pension eligibility age have raised some concern in the community, particularly amongst those who work in heavy manual occupations and who are looking forward to turning 65 during the period that the gradual change will take place. For them, this is not an enormously welcome provision but it is one that we need to take for the sustainable future of the pension system in this country.

In the few minutes left to me I would like to talk about some of the particular benefits that, as a consequence of what has happened in the budget, will flow through to the seat of Longman, which I proudly represent. For members who are not familiar with the location of Longman, the northern boundary is on what we would probably call nowadays the rural-urban interface of Brisbane city. Six new areas of my electorate have been declared eligible for rural incentives under the health scheme. This will help us attract medical practitioners to our area, and I have heard a number of members in this debate mention the fact that they would like to have received some rural eligibility in their area. As we know, Australia is going through a difficult time in the provision of general practitioners. In that regard, I am very pleased to see the Moreton Bay division of general practice receive additional funding. This division of general practice is very active and is of great benefit not only to representatives like myself who are seeking to help people with issues in relation to the health care system but also to the doctors who are its members, and they do undertake a number of valuable research projects.

We have some road projects going forward under the Roads to Recovery program and under the nation-building program. The total value of those will be around $8 million, and we have $6 million going into community infrastructure as well. The total budget spend in Longman is just a little over $16¼ million. One project I want to mention is the planning for the upgrade of interchanges on the Bruce Highway, which bisects my electorate. There is one project currently underway on the Bribie Island road, which hopefully will be completed by August. Other areas are also in great need of upgrade.

I also wanted to mention one element of the expenditure in this budget that does not take place in my electorate but is paramount to some infrastructure that has long been sought, at least in the southern end of my electorate. It would be very welcome were it to occur. I refer to the $2 million that has been provided for a study of the city rail infrastructure in Brisbane. There has long been a call for a railway line to Redcliffe, the Redcliffe Peninsula, which is in the electorate of Petrie but the path of a railway line would serve the people of Kallangur, Deception Bay, Mango Hill and North Lakes, which are the southern boundary suburbs of Longman. However, without an increase in capacity on the central city network, there is no capacity to take additional trains. That $2 million will assist Premier Bligh’s announcement of some six or eight months ago that there needed to be a large infrastructure spend in the Brisbane city rail network. Once that happens, we can look forward to having extensions of the railway line out into our electorate, where people are desperately in need of public transport.

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