Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of what is the most important budget in nearly two decades, a budget that not only tackles head-on the economic issues facing our nation but also begins a cultural change that will wean us off our welfare mentality and encourage a return to the thriftiness and self-reliance that once formed our national identity. As a nation, we have to get out of our borrow-and-spend mentality and, to get the budget back on track and build a more prosperous economy, we have to start living within our means. We cannot wish away the challenges that we face.

This is a budget designed to redirect taxpayers' dollars from unaffordable spending today to productive investment in the future. It is a budget that will help us build a more prosperous nation. It is a particularly important budget for my electorate of O'Connor because, while this budget heralds a new attitude that will hopefully be the beginning of the end of the age of entitlement, it also delivers on the fundamental projects that will help our nation's economy get back on track, boost productivity and create jobs.

The $50 billion Infrastructure Growth Package is critical for the country and critical for O'Connor. We are an electorate of more than 900,000 square kilometres. Our mining and agricultural industries, our major export earners, depend on good road transport links to get their products to market. O'Connor's share of the Infrastructure Growth Package over the next four years will help create safer and more efficient links for our industries and our communities.

The budget confirms the Commonwealth's commitment to fund an upgrade of the Great Eastern Highway between Walgoolan and Coolgardie, which is heavily used by miners and other freight transporters. This is a vital intrastate freight link as well as linking Western Australia to the broader national network. Thirty-six kilometres of highway will be widened and three overtaking lanes will be built, increasing regional economic productivity as well as delivering a safer road. This funding commitment highlights the importance of the Great Eastern Highway freight link to the broader national economy. I will be fighting for as much of the $50 billion fund as possible to be directed towards other projects in O'Connor that will ease the transport burden for our industries and our communities.

The very successful Roads to Recovery program has been extended with a further $350 million per annum to extend the program to 2018-19. The black spot program targets dangerous sections of local roads by funding safety improvements, such as traffic signals and roundabouts. The Australian government has extended the black spot program and will provide $60 million per annum from 2014-15 to 2018-19. Both these programs will provide very important funding across the whole of O'Connor.

As an electorate with a large agricultural base, the $100 million for rural research and development to support innovation is a welcome investment in the future of farming, but there is also $15 million to help small exporters with export costs, $8 million to improve access to agricultural and veterinary chemicals and $20 million to develop a stronger biosecurity and quarantine system. Each of these initiatives is a welcome boost to rural Australia.

The Exploration Development Incentive scheme is an election commitment to encourage investment in greenfields exploration by smaller mining companies. This is obviously of great importance to the mining sector based in the goldfields and Yilgarn. The budget has confirmed that $100 million will be allocated to the EDI over three years, and that is very good news for our region.

In a vast electorate like O'Connor it may be expected that there will be areas where there is little or no mobile phone coverage. When I say that I am thinking about the desert and remote lands that make up a significant portion of the electorate, but it is untenable that just a few kilometres outside some of our major towns it is impossible to get a mobile phone signal. That is the situation in much of our populated areas. The $100 million allocated to improve mobile phone coverage has been welcomed in O'Connor. I will continue to lobby Minister Turnbull for more funds to significantly upgrade our coverage.

In rural and regional Australia access to an efficient and effective internet service is not a luxury; it is a necessity. In this technological age much of our business is done online. We need fast and reliable internet access not to download movies, although that would be nice, but to do business, whether that be banking, selling grain or fixing the tractor remotely. So I welcome this budget's commitment to streamlining the rollout of the NBN. Under our plan the NBN will be finished four years earlier than under Labor's plan and nine out of 10 Australians will have download speeds of 50 megabits per second by 2019.

Access to quality education is critical for all Australians, but young people in regional, rural and remote areas face particular challenges. That is why I am so pleased to see some very important changes to our higher education sector, some of which will have a positive impact on the young people in my electorate. This is the biggest reform in higher education in 30 years, and not before time.

Deregulation of the higher education sector will remove fee caps from universities and expand the demand-driven system to bachelor and sub-bachelor courses to create more competition. That has been particularly welcomed by regional universities, and I expect the University of Western Australia's Albany campus in particular will be able to expand its courses and make it easier for young people in the southern region to study for at least some of their degree from their home base. The demand-driven system gives universities the opportunity to do more of what they do best and that will make regional universities more viable.

For the first time all students—students studying at TAFE and for diploma courses offered by registered training providers—will have access to HELP, the Higher Education Loan Program. Loans for apprentices finally recognises the importance of financial support for trade qualifications.

Most importantly for us is the setting up of a renewed Commonwealth scholarship scheme which will help disadvantaged students. In the past, Commonwealth scholarships made it possible for young people from regional and rural areas to pursue higher education. This system this government will introduce is the biggest scholarship scheme in our nation's history and I believe it will again open the doors to higher education for many young people in my electorate. Will they have to pay for their education? Of course. That is as it should be. There is no reason why the taxpayer should subsidise a student's education if it gives that student an opportunity to earn a good salary as a result. I find it offensive that a tradesman on a mine site who received no government handout while getting his trade qualification should be subsidising the education costs of a mining engineer working alongside him who is earning a significantly higher salary.

What the budget does not address is the issue of youth allowance for students from rural and regional areas. Together with other regional members I have made representations to Minister Andrews and will continue to push for changes that recognise the difficulty country students have when they leave home to pursue a university education in the city.

In O'Connor we have some problems with high youth unemployment which in some cases is becoming a generational issue. For young people who have grown up in an environment where unemployment benefits are a way of life, there is the danger that it may become the norm rather than the exception. That is why the 'earn or learn' model is so important. It has the capacity to change the thinking of those young people who think it acceptable to live on the dole. 'Earn or learn' is a very simple philosophy: 'If you are not earning then you had better get some skills that make it possible for you to get a job and earn an income. We will support you through Austudy and youth allowance while you get those skills.' To those who raise their voices in opposition to this initiative I ask, 'Why is it okay to condemn young, unskilled people to a life of welfare?' The best possible gift we can give young people is the capacity to learn and to live a full and productive life with the ability to support themselves and their families. This is the first step towards changing the disturbing mind set that has permeated our society over the past few decades, that hanging off the welfare system—for some, in some cases, for a lifetime—is an entirely acceptable way to live. The dole should not be a default position for young people looking for work. Young people should be encouraged to move into employment before they embark on a life of welfare. I think we need to question whether we have made it too easy for people not to work or study when they have the capacity to do so.

This is a budget that focused on training and creating work. We have introduced a $476 million industry skills fund to streamline training and make us globally competitive. It will deliver close to 200,000 targeted training places over four years. That will complement the trade support loans and encourage people to take up a trade. There are $20,000 loans for the life of an apprenticeship and, like HELP loans for uni students, they will be repayable once recipients are on a sustainable income. We have specifically target occupations on the National Skills Needs List—diesel mechanics, fitters, electricians and plumbers.

We are establishing a wage subsidy scheme for mature-age job seekers. It is up to $10,000 for employers who take on mature-age job seekers who have been unemployed for more than six months. We are delivering on our commitment to establish a single entry point into the Commonwealth for small business. $8 million has been allocated to the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman to contribute to reducing compliance burdens as well as to act as an advocate for small business. We are committed to cutting the company tax rate by 1.5 percentage points from 1 July 2015. For big companies, the reduction will offset the cost of the Paid Parental Leave scheme, but for an estimated 800,000 small- and medium-sized companies there will be a net boost of productivity and profitability.

Making sure that the fundamental programs that underpin our way of life—the age pension scheme and Medicare—are sustainable is the key element of this budget. The $7 co-payment will be capped at 10 doctors visits for concession card holders and children under 16. That is a maximum impost of $70 per person per calendar year. The co-payment is designed to ensure health services are sustainable and used efficiently. Other countries provide universal health systems that are underpinned by patient contributions. In New Zealand it is $15. Our healthcare system is under such enormous pressure that there is a real danger, if we do not make some changes, it will collapse under the weight of financial strain. This change is a start.

This government is committed to GP training in rural and regional areas. That is great news for O'Connor. Rural medical training continues to receive dedicated support in this budget, with at least 50 per cent of general practice training places required to be located in rural and regional areas. The budget provides for about 500 new allied health scholarships, with $13.4 million allocated to support the delivery of these scholarships over three years and to target workforce shortages in regional and rural areas. The government has already committed $40 million over four years to support extra medical intern places in private hospitals and in regional and rural areas. Seventy-six interns begin their one-year placements in January 2014.

Aged care is a special concern of mine, and this budget contains good news for the aged-care providers in my electorate. Providers who receive the viability supplement will get a 20 per cent increase in the supplement in recognition of the unique challenges they face operating in regional, remote and rural locations. The supplement is particularly targeted at small providers, who face very different challenges to the large providers operating in metropolitan and larger country centres. It is worth $54 million to help provide quality aged care for people who live in the country and want to spend their final years in the towns and communities they have lived in all their lives.

I can assure you that the aged-care providers in O'Connor have been particularly pleased to learn of this measure. As part of our election commitment to repurpose the previous government's aged-care workforce supplement, which imposed additional red tape on providers, payments for all providers have been increased by 2.4 per cent across the board. For providers in my electorate that is a 2.4 per cent funding increase on top of the 20 per cent increase in the viability supplement.

We have expanded the Home Care Packages Program, which is going to be a terrific boost for those O'Connor residents who wish to stay in their community or home, and an additional $103 million in capital grants under the Rural, Regional and Other Special Needs Building Fund will be offered as part of the 2014 ACAR round. The Abbott government recognises that many older Australians wish to remain in their home as long as possible, and these extra residential aged-care places and home care places will help further meet the growing demand for aged care. So it is a funding boost but is also giving individual providers the flexibility to direct funds to areas where they need it most. It means that they can get on with what they do best—that is, providing quality aged care for older Australians.

The bottom line is this: for our economy to prosper, we need confidence. Confidence is essential if our businesses are to invest and grow. That is what this budget is designed to provide. What this budget is also designed to do is to start the cultural change that will encourage a return to the thriftiness and self-reliance that once formed our national identify.

I have been intrigued, although not surprised, by the reaction to the budget from those opposite. The fact is that this is the first budget in nearly two decades that takes away instead of handing out. As a nation we appear to have become pretty comfortable with the taking mentality and not so comfortable with the concept of tightening the belt. The howls of protest from those opposite are deafening, and what a fine job they are doing stirring up the fear and loathing, with some spectacularly inaccurate interpretations of the measures contained in this budget. But encouraging outrage is a far easier option than recognising that the budget legacy they bequeathed us has to be fixed, or indeed offering any solutions of their own.

The Commission of Audit developed a set of common-sense principles to guide its deliberations. The first, No. 1 rule was: live within your means. We have to start doing that and we have to start doing it fast, and that is what this government has started with this budget, and I commend it to the House.

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