Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in relation to the appropriation bill, which is a bill pursuant to the 2014-15 federal budget, which is a budget of broken promises. It is a budget that will put in place a co-payment for every person who seeks to go to a doctor in circumstances where, before the election, the now Prime Minister assured the Australian people that Medicare would not be touched. This is a budget that puts in place significant changes to the pension, which will see those people born after 1965 working through to the age of 70 and which will see those people on pensions suffer a reduction in the way in which their pensions are indexed going forward—and all of this occurred in circumstances where the now Prime Minister assured the Australian people before the election that he would not touch pensions. This is a budget that puts in place new taxes—the petrol tax, the deficit levy tax—in circumstances where the Prime Minister said, prior to the election to the Australian people, that his would be a government that would not increase taxes and would not introduce new taxes; instead he would reduce taxes and get rid of taxes. But what we have in this bill is a budget of new taxes. This is a budget which will see a cut—an $80 billion cut—to hospitals and to schools around Australia in circumstances where the Prime Minister assured us before the election that his would be a government that would not seek cuts to health and to education.

These are broken promises made by a Prime Minister who, before the last election, asked the Australian people, on more than any other issue, to judge him by the value of his word. He would be different. His would be a government of no excuses, and his would be a government that would be predictable and that people could be assured would reflect the promises and the statements that he made before the election. It has been a rude awakening for the Australian people to see the first Abbott budget, and to see the way in which this government is going about its business in complete flagrant denial of the undertakings that it made to the Australian people prior to the last election.

In relation to the specific portfolio area of immigration I want to make two brief points. We in the Labor Party and in the opposition are very concerned about the bringing to an end the non-contributory parent visa. For so many migrant families in Australia this is a very important class of visa that gives them hope that they will be able to bring their parents to Australia for the remaining years of their parents' lives. It is a significant issue for these communities. It also means that Australia on the international playing field, if you like, competing for skilled labour with other countries such as Canada, the US and Britain where visas of this kind do exist, will find itself at a disadvantage because of the absence of a non-contributory parent visa here in Australia. It is a matter of enormous concern. It has been raised with me and I know with many members of the Labor caucus by many people within the migrant communities of Australia. It is certainly a matter about which we will seek to hold the government to account.

Another key measure that was announced in the context of the budget by the immigration minister was the creation of the Australian Border Force. This we broadly see as a positive step forward. We remain concerned—and we have placed our concerns on the record—about needing to ensure that this does not result in a reduction in staffing within the Public Service, and in the broader context of this budget that is a legitimate concern. That said, there is merit in having a single badge meet people who come to Australia's border. This is an idea that had been conceived of during Labor's time in office. The then Minister for Home Affairs, Jason Clare, last July spoke about this in a speech whilst he was the minister, so it is a measure we in Labor broadly accept.

In the time remaining I want to focus significantly on the way in which this budget will affect my electorate of Corio, based as it is on Geelong. In Geelong we had a difficult beginning of the year which followed a very difficult decision last year. The two main economic pillars of Geelong's private sector economy as we speak on this day would be Alcoa and the Ford Motor Company. Both have within the last 12 months or so announced that they will be closing up shop in Geelong. Point Henry will close in two stages—through the middle of this year and at the end of this year—so by 1 January next year Point Henry will not be operating as an aluminium smelter. Ford have announced that they will be closing their manufacturing operations in 2016, albeit they will continue their product and design development activities within Australia and within Geelong beyond that.

In those circumstances it is really important that a community like Geelong is provided with transition assistance to help it get through what will be a very difficult economic shock. On the day that Ford made its decision last year to cease making cars in Australia and in Geelong from 2016 the then Labor government put in place the lion's share of funding for the Geelong Region Innovation and Investment Fund, which is now a $25 million fund with contributions from Ford itself and from the state government. Indeed, the fund is now larger than that, with a subsequent contribution from Alcoa, which I will come to in a moment. That money was put forward by the then Labor government on the very day that Ford made its decision.

On the same day the then Labor government also made clear that workers at Ford would be put in stream 3 job assistance for their ongoing future. This basically is amongst the highest forms of job placement assistance that can be provided by the federal government and it allows those workers in a practical sense to be funded to retrain and be case managed so that they can transition as quickly as possible into new employment. The reason they were classified as stream 3—rather than being individually assessed, which would be business as usual—is that it was accepted that the very fact of a large number of people coming onto the labour market at one time is of itself a disadvantage that those workers would need to deal with. Classifying them in this way before 2016 came about enables those workers to go about the business of reskilling themselves and repositioning themselves for the jobs of Geelong's future.

When Alcoa made its decision in February of this year, no such decision was made by the new federal government, the Abbott government, in relation to providing money that is guaranteed for Geelong, for its transition in a private sector economy post Alcoa. And there was no money in the budget for that either.

Similarly those workers at Alcoa remain in limbo about how they will be assessed and what stream they will be placed in. So what monies they can access for future training is uncertain, which means they are basically not accessing future training. Indeed, Alcoa, the company itself, has had to come and put money—not leveraged any public money—into the Geelong Region Innovation and Investment Fund. Alcoa is having to put up a $2,000 voucher, as it were, per employee for them to do that retraining, and that is fundamentally a job that government should have done. In that respect the budget that was announced by the Abbott government failed Geelong.

At that time, what we also saw in the budget was a significant attack on the safety net, just at a time when so many people in Geelong would be needing to rely on the safety net. I mentioned the $7 co-payment to visit a doctor. What that means for a doctor who is operating in Geelong is that if they do not collect that co-payment then they will have their own scheduled rate reduced by $5, and if they get an incentive payment in relation to bulk billing—which they do in Geelong; an additional $9, by being a part of regional Australia—they will miss out on that as well. Fourteen dollars off the scheduled fee that they would be able to charge is being removed. In circumstances where nearly 79 per cent of medical attendances in Geelong are bulk-billed, this represents an enormous attack in relation to the way Medicare operates in in Geelong, and it will simply create a situation where it is not commercial for a doctor to establish themselves in low socioeconomic places such as Newcomb and Whittington or Norlane and Corio.

I mentioned earlier that the pension is being eroded. Family payments are also being eroded. The petrol tax is being increased. The petrol tax being increased is also of significance to Geelong, being a regional area where people use their cars more. We have a situation where people under 30 will be required to spend six months without any assistance whatsoever before they can receive Newstart allowance. Youth Connections, a matter I have spoken about in this place before, is also being cut, and that will significantly impact young people in Geelong and their ability to become work ready.

I want to spend a moment talking about the effects that this budget will have in deregulating the university sector and what that means for our university in Geelong, Deakin University. Where you find a strong regional city in this country, you will find a strong regional university, and Deakin University is most certainly that for Geelong. Deakin University has provided a wonderful service to the people of Geelong in a very accessible way, and in the same breath it has been able to build up its research capability, which is fundamental to transitioning Geelong to undertaking higher-tech manufacturing in the future.

Carbon Revolution, which is a much applauded company, has grown out of the research effort of Deakin University. They are now making carbon fibre car wheels and selling them to car companies around the world.

It is a great example of a company that, in the not-too-distant future, will be employing hundreds of people—ex-Ford workers among them. That is the benefit of the research function at Deakin University for a place like Geelong.

Yet what this budget does to Deakin is essentially demand it make a decision about whether or not it will continue to be the accessible university it has been and charge its current fees, or continue its research function and, in order to facilitate and fund those activities, increase its fees. If it does that, by definition you will see people who are currently going to Deakin from Geelong needing to travel to Ballarat or Footscray in order to undertake higher education, which is a really unsatisfactory situation. It is an appalling situation to put Deakin University in and it does enormous damage to Geelong.

Land 400 is a major Defence project which was articulated within the Defence capability plan as it was last enunciated by the then Labor government. This is a project which has been deferred by the current Abbott government and was not in the budget either. Land 400 represents the best opportunity to engage in automotive production of some kind in Australia. It was something the people of Geelong had been really keen to bid for—but right now it is not in the budget.

When you look at all these things from the perspective of Geelong it is hard not to feel that this is a government which, through this budget, has cut Geelong loose. It has done all of that while also having included in the budget the Paid Parental Leave scheme which will see $50,000 cheques paid to people earning up to $1 million and more. That says everything about how this budget has failed the people of Geelong.

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