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

I rise to speak in relation to the appropriation bills. I want to put to bed and to rest this nonsense we keep hearing from those opposite. Let us look at the budget papers and the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook. These are the figures that are on the public record done by the Treasury. For 2013-14 under Labor the budget is better than under the coalition by $18.8 billion. In 2014-15 the budget is better under Labor by $5.8 billion. In 2016-17 the figures from Treasury show, across the forward estimates, that the budget would be better under Labor by $15.8 billion, and there is a surplus of $4.2 billion.

According to the budget papers—the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook—compared to the Treasury papers from the budget overview produced by this government on budget night on 13 May, there is a deficit of $10.6 million in 2016-17. So do not come into this place and tell us that you are getting the budget back into surplus, that you are reducing the footprint of government and reducing the debt and the reach of government! In fact, the reality is—and this is what you look at—you look at the spend and the revenue in relation to the budget. Stephen Koukoulas, the economist, has said this—and this is a very interesting point for those opposite, because this is what it clearly shows—if you add the spend and the revenue as a share of GDP under this Abbott coalition government, it is 49.1 per cent of GDP in this country. Under the last Labor government it was 47.4 per cent.

They are increasing the size of government and blowing out the debt. That is what the budget papers show! Do not come in here and give us these sanctimonious platitudes about reining in the debt. They have made choices, and they are cruel choices. They are cruel cuts to pensions, to higher education, to taxes and to those who are vulnerable. As a result of the decisions they have made in relation to the Paid Parental Leave scheme and the Direct Action policy, and giving back concessions to millionaires in relation to superannuation—by virtue of these billions of dollars that they have wasted—the revenue they have foregone is $7.4 billion in the budget from the MRRT and the carbon pricing mechanism. They have made those choices. They have made choices to hit the most vulnerable and weak people in this economy and in this society with cruel cuts and increased taxes. That is what they have done.

I read an interesting thing by Waleed Aly the other day which I thought really summed up the dilemma and the day of reckoning for this government. He said this in a piece in the Brisbane Times on 22 May 2014. I thought it was a terrific piece and a very interesting comment. I will read the paragraph, because I think it is germane:

The reason the government broke so many promises in this budget is simple: the promises they made from Opposition were wildly contradictory. You cannot rein in deficits and abolish two major taxes, and replace one of them with a climate change policy that costs billions and promise no tax hikes and quarantine education, health, defence, public broadcasting and pensions from cuts. That’s like a weight-loss diet that does away with protein but promises no cuts to cake and lard! A platform like that was always going to have its day of reckoning.

And didn't it get it on 13 May this year! Didn't it come in?

Campbell Newman, the Queensland premier—no friend of the ALP—says that the changes in relation to this budget in terms of education, health and concessions to Queensland and to local governments in Queensland is 'not fair and not acceptable'. He believes the cuts are an attempt to wedge the states into pushing for an increase in the GST, which is distributed to the states by the Commonwealth.

This is a confected budget emergency, with broken promises that punishes Australian families and pensioners, and which will particularly hurt people in my electorate, which contains 70 per cent of Ipswich and all of the Somerset region. It will increase inequality in this country. This budget clearly shows that the coalition thinks of Australians as numbers, not as people. It is a fundamental shift in the relationship between government and the citizens of this country. It is a budget cooked up by the Commission of Audit and the Institute of Public Affairs.

The Prime Minister knew Australians would not have voted for this budget. That is why the Real Solutions booklet had so little that you now find in the budget in it. Where was the levy on higher income earners? Where was the indexation in relation to fuel excise? Where was the pausing of indexation for family tax payments? Where was the change in indexation that will result in billions of dollars of saves across the forward estimates and beyond in relation to indexation on pensions? Where was that mentioned in Real Solutions? It was not, because the Australian public would not have voted for a government who said in opposition that they would deliver this type of budget. The coalition knew it. It was a hoax, a fabrication. The coalition were not up-front in opposition in relation to this. They promised one thing to Tasmania and another thing to Western Australia and another thing to Queensland.

Self-funded retirees will be further hit by the elimination of the seniors supplement and the means-testing of the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card. The Deputy Prime Minister went to a Liberal Party fundraiser up in Queensland and pilloried the people there, saying that self-funded retirees live the high life, splurging their money on cruises and the luxuries of life. That is what they think of our older Australians.

Now 91.44 per cent of people who live in Blair are bulk-billed by their GP. We will see, in my electorate, $6.4 million paid annually by the mums and dads and the pensioners in this GP tax, which was never promised in Real Solutions, ever. It was never mentioned. The coalition did not have the integrity to mention it when they went to the election, but they have brought this on. If they do not believe that is going to have an adverse impact on the health and welfare of this country, they are living in cloud cuckoo land.

In relation to education, there is a 20 per cent reduction, on average, in funding for higher education. Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Queensland Alan Rix, at a breakfast I had last week at Brothers Leagues Club in Ipswich, told me that, at the University of Queensland—one of the sandstone universities and my alma mater—there would be a 29 per cent reduction in the money coming in from the federal government. That will be replicated across the country. We are going back to the pre-Whitlam days, where higher education was for the elites. The member leaving the chamber, when he went on about skills and training, did not say that half a billion dollars is taken out of skills and training. He did not even mention that $950 million is taken out of the Trade Training Centres in Schools Program across the country. We opened the biggest one in South-East Queensland last week in my electorate, the Ipswich Region Trade Training Centre, across five local high schools. The coalition said there would be an absolute unity ticket on education, but they put in $2.4 billion in funding and we committed $14.5 billion. How is $2.4 billion in four years the same as $10 billion in six years from the federal government? How is that the same? And the commitment to match $1 from the states and territories with $2 from the federal government is nowhere to be seen. It is not in the budget. There is no commitment. Instead there is $80 billion in cuts to education and health.

For the public hospitals in Queensland and elsewhere, there are billions of dollars in cuts. There was a promise to keep the Medicare Locals. The then Leader of the Opposition, during debates with then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, said he would not touch them. They are providing much-needed front-line services in Indigenous health, support for GPs, support for older Australians, after-hours clinics and HACC funding. All of that is being provided. The coalition said in the campaign: 'We won't touch them. We won't do away with them.' They have done away with them in this budget—another broken promise.

Then there is all the preventative health funding, like the campaigns against tobacco consumption. Because of what we have done in this country, we have gone from 47 per cent of Indigenous people over the age of 15 who consume tobacco to 41 per cent. Tobacco rates in this country have gone down to 15 per cent on average across the country because of the commitment of the federal Labor government. But they have got rid of it. Anything that had research, investment, innovation, climate change or prevention is gone entirely in the budget. Anything they could find that had any words like that were cut, slashed and burned. That is what they did, again and again.

Across Indigenous affairs, $534.4 million was taken out. The legislation is before the parliament right now. But they have not had the grace, humility and integrity to tell any of those organisations that they have lost their funding. They promised they would do exactly the same as we would. They committed themselves solidly. The now minister and the then opposition leader, the now Prime Minister who said he would be the Prime Minister for Indigenous affairs, slashed and burned across the area. Fifteen million dollars to the national congress has gone; $165 million across the four years of forward estimates years is gone in Indigenous health. There is no commitment to a national partnership in Indigenous health. There is no commitment in relation to a national partnership on Indigenous early childhood development. We put in $564 million, and it finishes on 30 June this year—gone. Thirty-eight centres, from Fitzroy Crossing to Ipswich, are under threat. This is so important in Closing the Gap. There is no commitment to Closing the Gap. There are cuts and slashing and burning across Indigenous affairs. They had the gall to say that the Prime Minister is a Prime Minister for Indigenous affairs. The minister is clueless on this stuff.

He claims all he is doing is reducing red tape and bureaucracy—slashing $534.4 million of red tape and bureaucracy and calling it streamlining. He has been reading 1984 by George Orwell, about freedom, slavery, peace and all that sort of stuff. He cannot get it right. That is what he has been trying to do. That is what they have done. We have seen it across the boundaries. This is a cruel budget. Its priorities are wrong. It is doing the wrong thing by the people of Australia. It is doing the wrong thing by the electors in my electorate: 22,700 pensioners are under threat in terms of their income and 8,000 people on disability support pensions are at risk.

A government member: There is no change.

Rubbish. That is absolute rubbish. They do not read the budget papers. Those opposite have no idea what they are talking about. They think they are in government. They might be in office, but they are not actually governing for the benefit of this country. They are not doing the best thing by this country, in health, education or Indigenous affairs. They are putting an impost of $653 million on the aged care sector, in my other shadow portfolio area. They are increasing the cost of aged care in this country, and they have put no conditionality on the work force supplement that they have rearranged—the nurses, carers, IT people and clerks who work in the aged care sector. We put the money aside to increase their wages and improve their training and professional development. They have slashed it with no conditionality at all. They are just rolling money out. They have cut funding in aged care. They have cut funding in Indigenous affairs. They have cut funding in health, education and local government—$925 million in local government.

They have even cut the funding for the flood reconstruction in Queensland and for flood defences and mitigation. That is what they have done across this budget. This government will hang this around their necks for the next election. We will make sure we campaign in every marginal seat—all of them—to tell the people in those seats what their members have done in this place and what they have said back home. This is a cruel government and a heartless government. They have committed a hoax on the people of Australia, and the people of Australia at the next election will have an opportunity to cast their verdict on a government which has betrayed them with broken promises, broken priorities and a broken record once again. This government deserves to be turfed out, and at the next election I have every confidence that the people will do that.

See this speech in context