Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

Plenty of Australians are struggling. They're families struggling with record levels of household debt to income. They're struggling with the cost of increasing electricity bills, with private health insurance, with child care and with education costs. If you're a worker, you haven't had a decent wage rise for six or seven years now, with the wage price index stubbornly stuck at a two per cent annual growth rate and most people's real wages—wages adjusted for inflation—falling behind. We've seen this government cut penalty rates and support the cuts to penalty rates for workers in the hospitality and commercial industries. We've seen this government introduce changes to the Fair Work Act which make it harder for workers in their workplaces to bargain for decent wages and conditions through an enterprise agreement. In fact, all the power now exists with the employers when it comes to enterprise bargaining. The system's been reformed to such a level that, if employees in negotiations with an employer can't reach an agreement, the employer can cancel that enterprise agreement and shift everyone back onto the award. That's not the way a decent bargaining system works. It's not the way Australians can maintain their wages—by allowing people to fall back onto the award. Subsequently, we're seeing very small wage increases being made in a minimum number of enterprise agreements. For the first time in many, many decades, the number of enterprise agreements that are being made in Australia is actually falling. It's not going up as a proportion of the workforce; it's falling because of the operation of those new laws.

If you're a pensioner, you face cuts to the pension through changes to the taper rates, changes to the deeming provisions. It's this government's view that in the future people should have to work until they're 70 years old before they can access the pension.

In this budget, there is still the cut to the energy supplement for pensioners, which is equivalent to about $14 a week. If you're a pensioner living in your own home on a very fixed income, struggling to make ends meet and struggling to deal with the cost of electricity, the cost of private health insurance and the cost of groceries on a weekly basis, this government wants to cut $14 a week from your budget through the energy supplement. Particularly as we're coming into winter, it's a pretty raw deal for pensioners. But that is exactly what this government is doing.

So plenty of Australians are doing it tough. But the government's view is: 'Well, we think that big businesses deserve a tax cut. We think that those large multinational corporations'—many of whom, over recent decades, have been transferring profits overseas to avoid paying tax here in Australia—'deserve a tax cut.' And this includes the big banks. Yes, those organisations that we've found through the royal commission have been ripping off many of their customers and leaving them worse off over the last decade.

It's to the banking royal commission that I want to turn my attention now. It should never be forgotten that Malcolm Turnbull, the Prime Minister, and his government, have opposed this royal commission into the banking sector for the last 600 days. They've said that there's no need for a royal commission into the banks, despite the pleas of the victims and despite the scandals and the rip-offs: the wealth management scandal at the Commonwealth Bank, the CommInsure scandal, the collapse of Trio Capital, the collapse of Storm Financial and the collapse of Timbercorp. Millions of Australians literally lost millions and millions of dollars—their hard-earned savings and, in many cases, their inheritance for their kids. Despite all of this being uncovered in numerous parliamentary inquiries and other inquiries, the government refused a royal commission. They said that there was no need for one and that there was nothing that needed to be done in the banking sector.

Well, the revelations of the banking royal commission have demonstrated the hypocrisy of this government, and vindicated the Labor Party in pushing for a royal commission. Those shocking revelations of the scandals and rip-offs that have been perpetrated on Australian families, workers and pensioners that we're seeing uncovered are unforgivable. And it should never be forgotten that if this government had its way—if this Liberal government, this Turnbull government, had its way—most of the evidence and the revelations that have been uncovered by the banking royal commission would not be illegal. They would not be illegal, it would just be a bad look for the banks.

The reason for that is that the Turnbull government and its members opposed the introduction of a comprehensive best-interest duty into financial laws in Australia when it was introduced by the Labor Party when we were in government. Believe it or not, there was no legal obligation for a financial advisor to act in the best interests of their customers prior to the Future of Financial Advice reforms being introduced by the previous Labor government. That is shocking! There was no legal requirement for a financial adviser to act in the best interests of their clients. And guess what? Many of them didn't. And we're seeing that uncovered now in the banking royal commission.

The Prime Minister and members of this government opposed the introduction of that comprehensive best-interest duty into Australian legislation. And it didn't stop there, because when they got elected they actually tried—believe it or not—to remove some of the elements of that best-interest duty and water it down. They said it was 'excessive red tape'. Believe it or not, AMP gave evidence to the parliamentary inquiry that looked at the Future of Financial Advice reforms and said that this was over the top, it was excessive and it was red tape, and that 30,000 jobs would be lost in the financial services sector in Australia. Well, we now know why, given the shocking and, in the words of the counsel assisting, 'illegal' behaviour that AMP was undertaking with respect to its clients regarding the evidence coming before the royal commission.

When the Abbott government was elected, one of their first acts was to put into the parliament legislation that sought to water-down the best-interest test in the Future of Financial Advice legislation. They wanted to remove some of the protection that existed for Australian customers of banks and financial institutions to act in their best interests. They got it through the parliament, believe it or not. They got it through the House of Representatives and the Senate. They actually succeeded. It was only because of a rescission motion in the Senate that we were able to stop that occurring.

Now we have these shocking admissions from the banking royal commission. Labor has been vindicated. We should never forget that if the Turnbull government had its way, much of the evidence and much of the behaviour being uncovered by the banks at the moment would not be illegal. It would just be a bad look. In that respect, the Prime Minister and this government owe every Australian bank customer and those that have been the victims of financial fraud a sincere apology for refusing to countenance a royal commission and holding out for so many years.

This budget contains a number of cuts to services. $2.7 billion is cut from hospitals. $17 billion is cut from the schools budget. $80 million is cut from the ABC. There are $270 million in new cuts to TAFE and apprenticeships. And $1.5 billion is being cut from remote housing through refusal to sign up to a national agreement. This is despite increases in revenue coming on the back of increases in commodity prices. The aged care announcement that this government made in the budget is an affront to seniors. There is a waiting list of 100,000 people for aged care packages in this country, and this government offers 14,000. And it's not new money—it's money that's being allocated from the existing budget and is likely to come from the residential aged care sector to pay for 14,000 additional home care packages. So no new money, and not dealing with the 100,000 waiting list in aged care services. Despite the fact that there are increases in revenue, they're offering meagre tax cuts to predominantly favour those on high incomes, and they're cutting services.

Labor believes that there is a different way. We've pledged to not only cut income taxes, but we will keep the current rate of taxation on large corporations. We won't be cutting taxes for big companies in this country. We will be able to invest in services and reverse a lot of the cuts of this government. Labor is pledging a $2.8 billion better hospitals fund to reverse the cuts to hospitals to ensure that we can reduce those elective surgery waiting lists and emergency department waiting times and that we can have more doctors and nurses in our hospitals. We are pledging to restore the $17 billion that is being cut from the schools budget, so we can have a fair dinkum needs based system that ensures that the interests of kids are foremost in delivering quality literacy and numeracy and better education for our kids.

In respect to the TAFE sector, we pledge to rebuild TAFE through a special fund that will be established if Labor is elected. Importantly, we will write off the fees for 100,000 TAFE students if they are going into areas of high demand for skills in Australia. I'm talking, of course, about areas where we've got 457 visa workers being imported into the country because there is a lack of skills in particular industries and occupations because this government has cut TAFE and apprenticeships to the bone. Labor won't stand for that. We will reinvest in TAFE, rebuild it, and ensure that 100,000 students get the opportunity to work in areas of high skill and high need in our economy.

We will also be fiscally responsible. We've indicated that we will be able to pay down debt and reduce the deficit and bring the budget back to surplus in the same year that the Turnbull government is proposing. The reason we can do this is that we've listened to the Australian people and we've made some tough choices about tax reform and areas of policy that needed reforming, namely capital gains tax discounts, negative gearing, taxing family trusts in a fair manner, and abolishing the cash refund for dividend imputation. In these areas we're not only proposing tax reform, but we're dealing with some of the pressures I mentioned earlier, particularly on households.

In my electorate, the cost of housing is one of the highest issues that is on the minds of, particularly, young families—dealing with the cost of increasing house prices and rentals every year. There has been 16 per cent growth, 20 per cent growth over the course of the last year in some of the suburbs that I represent. It's a big issue, and it's because we have some of the most generous tax concessions in the world for investors in property in this country. Labor will tackle that issue. We will reduce the capital gains tax discount that exists on the sale of investment properties, and we will reform negative gearing to ensure that it only exists for new properties and that anyone in the system is grandfathered, thereby turning down the heat that exists in the housing market today.

That's Labor's promise: we will reduce the debt, we will reduce the deficit and we will continue to increase investment in important services around health, education and aged care, as well as investment in skills and infrastructure. At the same time, we will be able to offer targeted tax cuts through our working Australians tax refund, which, for most Australians in that $50,000 to $90,000 income bracket, means about $928 per year. Labor has a better plan that is fairer and will reduce the budget deficit and the debt but will continue to invest in those important services that all Australians rely on.

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