Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I absolutely agree with the member for Braddon: that was a sonic effort, an effort of 15 minutes of noise, an effort of 15 minutes of negativity from the shadow Treasurer. There was absolutely nothing positive—not one positive contribution, not one positive policy idea from the shadow Treasurer. He talked about debt and deficit and we will recall that during the election campaign the shadow Treasurer and the opposition finance spokesperson refused to allow the Treasury and the department of finance to look at their costings. Immediately after the election we found out why. We found out that in fact there was an $11 billion black hole in their costings, $11 billion that they got wrong that would have affected the federal budget if they had won the election.

Interestingly enough in this debate today the one policy that they did take to the election that would have had a devastating effect on families, the shadow Treasurer failed to mention. That one policy was their determination to put a new Liberal tax on every single family in this country, an extra 1½ per cent tax on business that would have put up the cost of everything that everyone buys at the supermarket—not just families of course but pensioners and carers; it does not matter who you are. Every time you went to the supermarket, every time you bought petrol, every time you had to go to a hardware store, this Liberal Party would have seen an increase in your costs. Of course it is not just the Labor government saying this. Listen to the National Independent Retailers Association CEO. He said that costs for businesses would be passed on to smaller operators and consumers. This of course will be no surprise to anyone who has to manage their budget. They know that an extra tax that the Liberal Party wanted to put on everything was going to end up in increases in their cost of living.

But, as we have just seen from this shadow Treasurer, every single time they stand up in this parliament all they are is negative—negative about everything. All they want to do is tear things down, not put up any sensible or positive proposals that would in fact help Australian families. By contrast, the government are determined to do everything we possibly can to support Australian families. We do understand that families are under financial pressure, and that is why we went to the election with a number of new policies to support families. It is also why we took the action that we took during the global financial crisis, because there is one thing in particular that is so important to the family budget, and that is for mum or dad or both to have a job. There is nothing more important in making sure that families have the money that they need to meet their costs, and particularly to meet the costs of bringing up their children. That is why we are so pleased to see the way in which the economy has recovered, the way in which hundreds of thousands of jobs—in fact, 375,000 jobs—have been created in the past year, and almost three-quarters of the jobs created in the past year have been full-time jobs, full-time jobs that mean that mums and dads have more chance of being able to adequately look after their families. We know that these are the most important things for Australian families.

The OECD economic survey of Australia that came out this week said that the Australian economy has been one of the most resilient in the OECD during the economic and financial crisis. That report went on to praise the Australian government, saying that our stimulus package was among the most effective in the OECD. But of course all we get from those opposite is carping, negativity and criticism about what this government did to make sure that jobs were protected in this country.

I want to take the opportunity afforded to us in this debate to go through a number of other measures that the government has put in place to support families and to make sure that they are helped with their cost of living pressures. One of those, which came in a number of tranches, was the tax cuts that we delivered to individuals and to families. Take someone on $50,000. They are in fact now paying $1,750 less in tax each year—an 18 per cent cut in their tax—because of decisions made by this government. We are going to make it easier for people to do their tax returns and we are also going to have tax relief for savings accounts. This will be particularly important. We are introducing a 50 per cent tax break for the first $500 of interest on savings from 1 July 2012. These are practical forms of assistance to Australian taxpayers, real things that make a difference to individuals and families—not the noise and bluster that we heard from those opposite.

As many will have heard me say on a number of occasions, we are very pleased to be introducing Australia’s first national paid parental leave scheme, because one of the times in a family’s life when they are under significant financial pressure is when a new baby comes into the family. We know that there are many, many families in Australia who have never had access to paid parental leave, so we are bringing about this major change. Eligible parents will be able to get 18 weeks of paid leave, paid at the federal minimum wage—around $570 a week before tax. Of course, it is this government that is delivering this change from 1 January next year. It was never delivered by those opposite. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition was so famously heard to say that paid parental leave would be delivered ‘over his dead body’. So much for the Liberal and National parties caring at all about the financial pressures that are on families when a new baby comes into the family. We expect around 148,000 parents will be eligible each year for this historic reform.

We have also made very significant changes to child care. The shadow Treasurer talked about the importance of child care. He of course made no policy promises that would address the costs of child care. By contrast, this government during our last period in government increased the childcare rebate from 30 per cent, which is where it was under the Liberal government, to 50 per cent of parents’ out-of-pocket costs. We do understand that child care is a very significant cost in the budget of many, many parents. We have also increased the maximum amount that parents can claim per child. It has gone up under this government from a bit over $4,300 to $7½ thousand a year per child. We also changed the childcare rebate to a quarterly payment so that parents did not have to wait so long. Under the previous government they had to wait for a very long time to get the benefit, but from 1 July next year we are improving that benefit again. We are going to make sure that parents will be able to receive the childcare rebate fortnightly rather than having to wait and receive it quarterly. But of course we do not hear any of those initiatives from those opposite.

It was this government that introduced the education tax rebate. We also heard from the shadow Treasurer in his 15-minute bluster before that yes, parents do have costs from sending their children to school. That is why this government introduced an education tax refund, and that is now delivering to 1.3 million families—1.3 million families are benefiting from the change that this government introduced. Of course, we are not just sticking with what we did during the last parliament, when we had benefits that covered laptops and textbooks. We are also extending this benefit to the cost of uniforms. We introduced the Teen Dental Plan, and that too has been a major benefit to many families. In fact, we have seen 950,000 preventive dental checks undertaken so far. Families can, if they are eligible, receive a rebate of up to $150 each time their child gets a check.

One of the major changes we have made, which the previous government refused to fix while they had the opportunity when they were in government for such a long time, was to the problems that occurred with family tax benefit when a child hit 16 years of age. During the last election campaign this government made a commitment to increase family tax benefit part A for families who have teenagers aged 16 to 18. That was never done by those opposite—it has never even thought about by those opposite—but it will be delivered by this government because we know that children get more expensive, not cheaper, as they get older. For those families who are eligible, this will mean up to $4,000 extra a year, but the children will have to be in school or training. That, too, is a major change that this government has introduced. This government wants to see young people continue their education and training because we know that will make such a huge difference to their future earning capacity and to their future ability to look after their families. We expect that this will benefit around 650,000 families over the next five years. That is 650,000 families who are going to be better off because of this government’s action. It was not thought about by those opposite, it was not promised by them during the election campaign and it was not raised in this debate by the opposition’s treasury spokesperson because they do not have any positive ideas to do anything to really support families. They just want to be negative, and bluster and carry on.

Under the previous Howard government a proposal to increase the pension for some of the most disadvantaged people in the community was taken to cabinet but was rejected. It was rejected by the previous Liberal government. It was this Labor government that delivered the most significant improvements to the pension that we have seen in 100 years. This was not just an increase to the base payment, but also a very significant improvement to the indexation arrangements. People who are on the pension—the age pension, the disability support pension and those who are on the carer payment—have received over the last year, from September 2009 to September 2010, an extra $115 a fortnight in their pockets because of the changes we have made. That is for a single pensioner on the maximum rate. That was never delivered by those opposite and it was not talked about by the shadow Treasurer in his rant today. If you are a pensioner or are struggling to make ends meet, we want you to know that we are not a government that is going to put up the cost of living through a new 1½ per cent tax. We are a government that has delivered the changes to the pension that so many people were so desperate for for so long.

This government understands just how critical it is to be there, to make sure that we support families in times of need and, especially, with the costs of educating children. That is why we know we have to do what we are doing to support those families who have children with a disability and why we are increasing support for those families. This opposition is hell-bent on being negative and on trying to tear things down, rather than coming in here and putting forward positive proposals that might actually make a difference to families’ lives. This government will just keep on doing the right thing by families and providing the support that they need. That is what we believe in.

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