Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

They consistently said one thing before the election and now, through their actions, are doing something else in government. For example, they claim that there is a budget emergency. So what do we see in this legislation? We see $8.8 billion given to the Reserve Bank. Where is the documentation about that? So far we have seen nothing about that. Where is the budget emergency? We heard about that all the time. They prattled on about that all the time. They blew out MYEFO with massive increases and billions and billions of dollars extra in debt and then blamed us for it when it was by virtue of their decisions.

What we are seeing here is a government determined on an agenda, hidden before the election and prosecuted now through this legislation. We have seen nearly $17 billion in a budget deficit blowout in MYEFO for 2013-14, and 60 per cent of that $17 billion was due to the decisions of this government alone. It is an astonishing demonstration from this 'no surprise and no excuses' government. We heard, 'No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions, no changes to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS'. That is what the Prime Minister said but now of course it is totally different.

We have heard those opposite talk about history lessons; so let's talk history. We had a AAA credit rating, low unemployment, low inflation and a low debt-to-deficit ratio. When we left office, Australian taxes were at 22.2 per cent of GDP, compared to 24.2 per cent under the Howard coalition government. So the Howard coalition government were the big government. What they refuse to realise is that, when there were rivers of gold, they were taxing, taxing and taxing. That was when the mining boom was coming to its peak. But, when the global financial crisis hit this country, it was a Labor government that supported jobs. Those opposite again and again deny that the global financial crisis even existed.

When we left office the official interest rate was 2.75 per cent, down from 6.75 per cent when John Howard left office. So a family in my electorate living on Cascade Street who sent their kids to Raceview state primary school and had a mortgage of $300,000 were saving about $100 a week by virtue of the low interest rates when we were in office. But guess what? If they send their kids to Raceview state primary school they are going to lose their schoolkids bonus. In my electorate, many eligible families will lose that schoolkids bonus. And of course we have seen the delay in superannuation. As I said before, 46,300 people are losing superannuation by virtue of the actions of those opposite. So much for the support of households, jobs and infrastructure.

One of the things that really gets me is the allegation they make that we have somehow had a massive wages explosion in this country when we know for a fact—and Treasury confirmed this on 26 February this year—that annual wage growth has slowed to 6.2 per cent, the slowest growth since 1997. So it is contained, yet those opposite would have you believe that, apart from their allegations that it is all to do with the carbon tax, all the fault for all the jobs lost in this country lies with the workers because they are paid too much. We hear it again and again in speech after speech in this place.

One of the things that the coalition government did not do when they were in power last was cut funding for infrastructure, which is one of the things they have done since they got in this time. When we came to office, Australia was ranked 20 out of 25 in the OECD on infrastructure. Infrastructure was a way in which we kept people in employment during the global financial crisis. We had warning after warning from the Reserve Bank that there were bottlenecks on roads and rail and at ports. We heard it again and again. We saw it of course in South-East Queensland in places between Brisbane, Ipswich and Toowoomba and places like the Warrego Highway, the Brisbane Valley Highway and Ipswich Motorway, which those opposite refused to fix. So we set about funding these things. We funded the Bruce Highway. We spent four times the amount of money that John Howard's government ever did on the Bruce Highway.

The coalition failed to invest in infrastructure when they were last in government and have cut funding in infrastructure in this government. For example, they have completely abrogated the field when it comes to rail. So Cross River Rail project in Brisbane, which is important for all of South-East Queensland and supported by Graham Quirk, the Brisbane City Council Lord Mayor, and Campbell Newman and his LNP government in Queensland. Those opposite opposed it and withdrew the funding for it, and it is not proceeding. That is an important funding project for all of South-East Queensland—for jobs, growth, productivity and infrastructure—and it should be proceeded with.

The second one in South-East Queensland that those opposite are yet to sign up for, and cut the funding for on the eve of the election, is the final stage of the Ipswich Motorway in the electorate of Moreton. They cut the funding we provided from $276 million to $65 million. The project will now not proceed because Campbell Newman's government will not agree with it. That is what those opposite have done terms of infrastructure—that is, abandon major cities.

When coalition governments get in, that is what they do; they disband major city units. We saw that when Malcolm Fraser's government came into power. Gough Whitlam put people—Tom Uren and others—into the role of looking at infrastructure in our cities: to sewer the cities, to build bridges, to build roads and to look at the planning. When Labor won in 1972 after 23 years of sclerotic conservative government in this country, the Commonwealth government of this country took the initiative for the first time ever to set about doing this. We did it during the six years we were in government, and one of the first acts of the coalition government was to get rid of that sort of planning. That is exactly what they did, and they cut the funding.

Most Australians live in the major capital cities and the regional cities like Toowoomba, Ipswich, Logan, Moreton, Newcastle, Wollongong and Geelong. That is where people live, apart from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and the other capital cities. People live in these places. We need to look at how these cities are planned and the infrastructure needs of these cities, but those opposite fail to look at it. They do not think of themselves as nation builders. They do not think of themselves as people who will make an effort to support jobs and infrastructure and growth. For them it is all about the private sector, and they fail to understand that.

They fail to support jobs in Qantas, Holden, Toyota, Alcoa and Gove; they will not do it. The cutting of funding in these communities for things such as the Building Multicultural Communities Program is being played out across the whole of the country, in their electorates as well as our electorates. For example, my electorate was really badly damaged by flooding in 2011 and 2013. Sadly, people's lives were lost. Their homes and their farms were ruined. There was terrible infrastructure damage done to parks, roads and bridges across Queensland. It was devastating. Those opposite would not even vote for the funding that we needed to rebuild Queensland. They opposed the funding.

But in this legislation it comes to things such multicultural grants. One of the most important flood evacuation centres in my home town of Ipswich was at Riverview Neighbourhood House. Funding of $133,200 was provided for an upgrade project under a program, and this legislation has ripped it away as a result of MYEFO. This funding was to renovate and make sure that up to 300 people in that particular facility are actually being cared for. Funding for people from Samoan backgrounds and Aboriginal backgrounds, low-income earners, and flood-affected people was cut off. This funding was taken away from a centre that was available for them. They needed a commercial kitchen. It was in this funding and it has been ripped away. They needed to upgrade the hall with new fans and new lights. It is also the hub of that community and it is gone. The flood in the Ipswich community does not concern those opposite. They ripped away $2 million from the flood evacuation centre for 30,000 Ipswich residents at St Joseph's Catholic primary school. So those opposite do not care about the western corridor outside of Brisbane. They have never cared about Ipswich; they have never cared about it at all.

Even today, we saw a demonstration of that. I hope the minister for primary industries comes to my electorate because my vote will continue to go up. The Liberal vote was smashed in my electorate at the last election—it catapulted down. He can come to my electorate any time he likes. He can go to JBS, where I used to work as a kid, which we provided with $4.4 million to improve their energy efficiency. As a result of what we did in partnering with the company, they reduced their energy costs by $1 million a year and reduced their carbon emissions massively. When the then Leader of the Opposition came to that place, he failed to tell the workers that he did not support the grant, and neither did the primary industries minister today.

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