Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

But it is a good point. While I certainly do not want to talk against your ruling, Mr Deputy Speaker, which I fully adhere to, the member for Shortland talked of whole-of-life support, and certainly our veterans have given this country every bit of their whole-of-life support, and they do deserve—with all due respect to you, Mr Deputy Speaker—to be looked after in their retirement because they lay their lives on the line for our country. To get back to the legislation, which I know you would like me to do, Mr Deputy Speaker, whilst these are minor and technical amendments in the legislation before the House, they will ensure that people receive the correct amount of quarterly payment and receive the payments at the correct time.

The coalition introduced the baby bonus in 2002 for the purpose of raising Australia's declining fertility rate. We heard the shadow minister talking about how important that was. And I can recall that the former Treasurer, Peter Costello, knew how important it was to arrest that slump in the nation's fertility rate, and obviously to increase it above the necessary two, to make sure that the Australian population grew. That is obviously very important, because as the population ages so does the reliance grow on younger people to work longer and harder to make sure that we pay the necessary pensions for retirees as well as for people who are receiving welfare.

Labor has repeatedly—I repeat: repeatedly—slashed funding for the baby bonus in a desperate attempt to find savings. And this is a desperate government. The Treasurer needs to balance the books. We know he is not going to produce the first surplus since 1989 under Labor. Obviously, the coalition invariably produces surpluses, but Labor's last surplus—as we heard the shadow Treasurer, the member for North Sydney, speaking of in the discussion of the matter of public importance today—was in 1989, and obviously Labor needs to begin to correct that, and this is one way that it is going to attempt to do it.

In the 2009-10 budget, Labor paused the indexation of the upper income limit of the baby bonus, fixing the income threshold at $75,000. Then, in the 2011-12 mid-year financial and economic update, Labor again paused indexation of the baby bonus payment until 2014-15 and reduced the rate of payment from $5,437 to $5,000 per child. Now here Labor is again, lowering the baby bonus for second children and any additional after that from $5,000 to $3,000. Why is Labor so intent on limiting choices for mothers, particularly those who wish to stay at home to raise their children? We should be encouraging, in every instance, those wonderful, brave, stay-at-home mums. All mums are great. We know that. And I am sure everybody in this parliament knows it. But those stay-at-home mums need to be helped and helped in every which way we can. Stakeholder groups who advocate for stay-at-home mothers have continually raised concerns about the inequality between paid parental leave and the baby bonus. This current move by the Labor government does nothing to address those concerns.

Labor will try to argue that this is not a simple money-saving measure, but we know that it is. The facts show these baby bonus changes are expected to provide savings of $505.9 million to half a billion dollars over the four years from 2012-13 to 2015-16. This cut to the baby bonus—and that is what it is; it is a cruel cut—will place further financial burdens on Australian families already struggling with the day-to-day rising costs of living, higher cost of groceries, higher cost of petrol and a carbon tax that the Prime Minister said that she would not introduce under a government she led. They are not helped by hoards of asylum seekers and by illegal refugees arriving on our shores. We are paying upwards of $170,000 per illegal boat person arrival. That is all having an effect on the ability of the government to be able to give families a fair go, because at the moment they are not getting a fair go from this government.

The government claims this decrease of $2,000 reflects that families do not generally face the same upfront costs for a second child or a later child as they do for their first. Whilst that is correct to some extent, this is a blow to families. It is an unnecessary and cruel blow. It is about time this government listened to families and their cries for assistance, rather than delivering them blow after blow.

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