Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Even the senior Australians in my electorate can see the value of what we are doing with the GP co-payment. I have talked to pensioners, and whilst they do not particularly like it they know there is value in their covering some of the hard yards that are ahead, particularly when you tell them that it is going to go into the Medical Research Future Fund. This is a fund that could have huge benefits for Australia, not only in the way it could solve some illnesses that we need research into. One thing I have seen when I have studied extensively overseas is that medical research becomes something that links very much with our universities, and if we can do this right then we can actually have some of our universities, our top research universities, accessing some of these funds and driving not only training but also the research and the cures for the next century.

For people who are over 50, being unemployed is a big challenge. I want to make sure that those people in my electorate are very aware that, if you have been unemployed for six months, we are going to introduce a program that is going to help you get a job. There is nothing that does more for an older person's self-esteem than to see that they are still of value, that they can still get a job and that they can still contribute to the Australian economy and to their own pocket. We are introducing $10,000 over 24 months to help senior Australians get jobs. If you have been on welfare for six months or more, an employer will work with you and get $10,000 over 24 months to employ you. So there is a length of tenure for which you are going to have to stay there—for which they are going to have to keep you on. That measure, I think, will be very well received.

If you do have the chance—and many of you are very busy workers, I understand, as members of parliament—the Queen's Birthday long weekend is a good time to get out and go for a road trip. One of the things that is great about the electorate of Mallee is that it has such fantastic places to visit. We have the Grampians, where you can have a kangaroo bounce up right to your front step. We have the Murray River, where you can take a houseboat.

We want to drive tourism dollars in the Grampians. We want to drive tourism dollars along the Murray River. We understand that tourism is a very important part of the Australian economy. So the budget has a $43 million tourism Demand-Driver Infrastructure Program, with small expenditures right across Australia that will make sure that people get out and experience Australia. I think this is another thing that is a great part of this budget.

We have not shirked our responsibility. When I have been out talking to people across my electorate, they are not saying, 'Woe is me!' What they are saying, without any political spin, is: 'We know that we have been living beyond our means for too long. We are not buying the line that there is no budget emergency. We are not buying the line that the Labor government should have continued the way it had been going for five years previously.' People are telling me that the budget is tough but fair. They are prepared to wear some of the cuts because they know that if they can walk with us we can walk through a few difficult years and there will be light on the other side. We have done it before. Unfortunately, we have been elected to have to do it again. But it is the tough decisions that define members of parliament, not just turning up and whingeing and throwing away money like a drunken sailor. We are prepared to make those tough decisions, and that is something that will define this government.

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