Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make my contribution to the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2018-2019 and the related bills and to add the voice of my community, which would have liked to have seen a fairer budget which addressed the needs of people all over our electorate—people who tell me every day they're struggling with higher costs, electricity bills, lack of parking, traffic jams, high childcare costs and cuts to school, TAFE and university. Yet, instead of addressing the concerns of the people in my electorate, this budget continues with a handout to big business and the big banks. The residents in my electorate of Werriwa have suffered thanks to the government's ideological war against Medicare and public health care. The Liberals have cut from Medicare and hospitals every year since the 2014 budget. The assault has continued in this budget, which cuts $2.8 billion from hospitals between the next election and 2025. Under this government, the national average waiting time for elective surgery is the longest on record, the number of people presenting at emergency departments is the highest on record, and the number of hospital beds available for elderly Australians is the lowest on record.

This crisis was felt on a local level with the debacle around the closure and reopening of two after-hours GP clinics in my electorate. In mid-December, with zero public consultation, it was announced that after-hours GP clinics at Liverpool and Campbelltown hospitals would be closing on New Year's Eve and in early January. Following an outcry from the community and pressure from me and the member for Macarthur, they announced in March that they would reopen the after-hours clinics. Both are now well away from the hospitals they had been connected to. The connection of the two clinics to their respective hospitals had helped ease the pressure on the emergency departments located there. Worse still, the new Liverpool clinic had moved out of the Liverpool CBD and across the Georges River to the suburb of Moorebank, into an area not easily accessible by public transport for the people of my electorate.

The importance of easing the pressure on emergency departments can't be overstated. There were 7.8 million emergency department presentations in 2016-17—one million more than five years ago. This level of growth is putting our hospitals and their staff under immense pressure. They need more funding to keep up. People living in south-west Sydney have been hit particularly hard by this. Hospitals like Liverpool are dealing with this increase and the increases that come with ageing populations, as well as with the huge growth in population from Sydney's south-west suburban fringes. Hospitals like Liverpool will benefit from Labor's alternative budget through a $2.8 billion better hospitals fund. As a result of this, hospitals like Liverpool will have more doctors, nurses, health staff and beds in the emergency departments. This is important. This is needed. And this will make a real difference in the lives of ordinary Australians. Unfortunately, this government is giving an $80 billion handout to big business and the banks instead of funding health. We don't need a tax giveaway to the banks. We need to get people off long waiting lists for hip operations, knee replacements and cataract removal.

With the 2018 budget, the Turnbull government has locked in huge education cuts, using them to pay for the tax handouts to big business, cutting $17 billion for schools and giving $17 billion to big banks, and we've seen from the royal commission they don't need it. In the strange world that this government inhabits, banking executives have been hauled before a royal commission and seem to be more deserving of a handout than the kids in my electorate, who have all the talent and potential in the world but not enough resources at their local school to realise that potential.

I believe Australian families would prefer their taxes going to schools, universities and TAFE, and not big business. But, sadly, TAFE is also having its funding slashed as a result of this budget and the New South Wales state Liberal government. With an extra $270 million cut from TAFE and training, this allows for more than $3 billion in cuts since the government came to power in 2013. Australia now has 140,000 fewer apprentices than we did when the Liberals were first elected.

South-west Sydney is a rapidly growing area. With the construction of Badgery's Creek Airport, there are great opportunities for work for local people. I want the young and the unemployed of Werriwa to benefit from this growth. Unfortunately, this government's war on vocational education means that tomorrow's carpenters, plumbers and bricklayers who build the infrastructure in growth areas won't come locally, but may have to come from foreign worker visa holders. This skills shortage is wholly manufactured by this government, which does not see the purpose of a strong TAFE system, and which has set out to dismantle it at every opportunity. The community thinks otherwise, and so do we on our side of the House.

A Shorten Labor government will scrap up-front fees for 100,000 TAFE students who choose to learn the skills that Australia needs. Despite high unemployment in some areas, workers can't learn the skills that industries are crying out for, and that we have shortages—like carpenters, bricklayers, bakers or pastry chefs. The TAFE system has proved itself over and over again to be the best place for young Australians to develop these skills, and it's Labor's policy to scrap the up-front fees, making it easier for Australians to get the skills they need for a trade, a traineeship, and then a quality job.

But we won't just stop there. Labor will invest $100 million in modernising TAFE facilities around the country. We'll guarantee at least two out of three Commonwealth training dollars goes to TAFE. We'll ensure one in every 10 jobs in the Commonwealth priority projects are filled by Australian apprentices. We'll provide 10,000 pre-apprentice programs from young people who want to learn a trade, and 20,000 adult apprentice programs for older workers who need to retrain. Labor will abolish the Prime Minister's unfair cap on university student places, meaning the number of Australians getting an education at university will soar to around 200,000, undoing the government's $2.2 billion cut from universities last December.

Ninety per cent of the jobs created in the coming years will need a university or TAFE qualification. We recognise this. We will invest in education. For all the government's bluster in the lead-up to the budget, you would be forgiven for thinking that, despite this budget's many failings, there would at least be some much-needed infrastructure proposals, and some much-needed proposals that would help build our nation. Unfortunately, the budget included no new money for infrastructure. Every project announced in the budget was funded from previous allocations. There are no plans to lift investment over years and years of cuts. It is another hoax.

Government infrastructure grants to the states, in fact, will fall over each of the next four years—from the promised $8 billion in 2017-18 to $4.5 billion in 2021-22. Commonwealth infrastructure investment over the next decade will fall from 0.4 per cent of GDP to 0.2 per cent. This is a worry for all Australians, but particularly for people living in the outer suburbs of rapidly expanding cities like Melbourne and my home town of Sydney. While the Prime Minister has been making promises over the last six months, the budget wrongly does not seem to be doing anything to actually bring these promises to fruition.

In March, there was much fanfare as the Western Sydney City Deal was announced, and there was an announcement by the Prime Minister that there would be a rail line to Badgerys Creek airport. But the budget includes no money to build this railway line, just $50 million to prepare a business case. With the airport set to open in 2026, we really need to start building the airport line soon. This isn't good enough, but it is what we've come to expect. In this government's first four budgets, investment was $4.7 billion less than was promised.

In Werriwa, residents are all too familiar with this under-investment. Commuter car parks are full by 7:00 am. If you're lucky enough to find a park, the trains are overcrowded. If you drive, the roads are congested. People are being pushed further and further away from the major employment and transport hubs because of the cost of housing. Only 30 per cent of the people who live in the Liverpool local government area also work in it. Seventy per cent of working people who live in my electorate drive to work and only 12 per cent use public transport. Sixty-nine per cent of the journeys on the M5 experience delays, and trains from Liverpool to Central take close to double the time in peak hour than they did in 1975—the journey took 37 minutes in 1975 but now, if you're lucky, it's 63 minutes. Aside from Leppington and Edmondson Park stations, which opened in 2015, and Holsworthy, which opened in 1987, every other train station in my region was opened in the 19th century. South-west Sydney demands real infrastructure spending for real projects. The government has failed us, just like it has on many other things. Labor has shown itself to be the party that will address Australia's infrastructure needs and make meeting the needs of my growing community a major priority.

If you need any further evidence that this is an unfair budget full of hoaxes, look no further than aged care. The government trumpeted 14,000 new in-home aged-care packages over the next four years—3,500 a year. While any increase is welcome, 14,000 is far from adequate; it's merely a drop in the ocean. As of December last year, waiting lists sat at 105,000, and grew by 20,000 in the last six months of 2017 alone. Almost 82,000 of those people waiting have high needs, many with dementia. The government refuses to give us more up-to-date figures. Given our ageing population, the waiting lists will then no doubt continue to grow, and the crisis in aged care will become more acute year after year. Although welcome, 3,500 additional aged-care packages a year are simply not enough. How will the government fund these additional packages? It seems by taking it out of residential care. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer are performing a deception, moving money from A to B. And while older Australians are still waiting in care, the government is unable to find any additional funding to address the waiting lists of over 100,000. But it has managed to find the $80 billion tax cut for big business and $17 billion for the big banks.

Budgets are always about choices. What is concerning for me is this budget does not choose the people of my electorate or of Australia. It continues with tax cuts for corporate Australia when it should be supporting students at school, TAFE or university. It should support health care and our older Australians. It should provide infrastructure to make people's lives more bearable. The choices should be fairer and take into account all of us, particularly those in my electorate.

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