Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Well, that's not what the economists are saying if you read the Fin Review and some other papers.

The government's HomeBuilder scheme is not doing enough. It is doing something, but it is not doing enough, and we have a great opportunity to put money into infrastructure and build the economy. It's too small and it's rolling out too slowly. You need an injection of funds to keep the economy going, otherwise we'll be left behind. But we have suggested a way of doing this that could be immediate; it could start immediately.

We know that 25 per cent of Australia's social housing needs urgent repair and maintenance. That is 100,000 homes, and repairs could start almost immediately. This investment would be a win-win: it would provide work for local tradies and fix social housing and homes that need to be fixed. Yet not one single dollar of this government's budget was allocated for social housing. A social housing repair program would mean work for thousands, especially thousands of tradies, right across the country in almost every town and suburb from the big cities to our regional centres. And this would be an immediate injection that would stimulate the economy. It would be a win-win: it would mean jobs for Australian workers and homes for those that need them most—the needy.

Another area where this budget fails is education. We know that higher education is in crisis. The conservative predictions are that well over 20,000 people will lose their jobs in this sector alone, and what's the government's solution? Let's make students pay more. Let's make it harder for them to go to university. Let's prevent them from going to university is basically what this last education measure has put on the young people of Australia. Because of this government's reforms, over 3½ thousand South Australian year 12 graduates are going to have to pay more than double for their degree. That is only a preventative. It's not assisting people; it's not helping people getting a higher education. It prevents them. And we know that young people are already doing it tough, and the last thing they need is to finish university with even more debt.

Youth unemployment has gone through the roof in this recession. About one in six young people can't find work, and it's the worst situation for youth unemployment that it has been in 20 years. If young people can't earn, they should have the opportunity to learn. And we should be giving them that opportunity to learn, to go onto higher education—tertiary education or TAFE—so that they can perhaps be assisted in finding a job. On top of this, thousands of Australians will miss out on a university education altogether because this government is failing to provide enough places. We've had many experts who've spoken up against the changes, demonstrating that they won't actually get young people into high-priority jobs, as the government claims. They could also deplete entire faculties of students. This would not only result in more job losses in the sector, it would also impoverish our society because people will no longer be able to afford to study languages, the arts, literature or social sciences.

Now, those on the other side may argue that we want engineers and doctors and scientists—and we certainly do, and people who want to study those courses should be given every opportunity—but we want to be a thinking nation as well. We want to be a nation that learns, that knows its place in the world and has generations of thinkers. It is so important to know who we are and what we are, so you can't just dismiss the humanities and the arts. In fact, there is no research or any evidence that shows someone who has done an arts degree is less likely to get a job than someone who has done a science degree. Instead of penalising students for their choices, we will set up Jobs and Skills Australia. This program will match the needs of our economy now with those training opportunities for the future, and we will ensure that one in 10 jobs on government funded projects will be an apprentice, trainee or cadet.

It's not only families with children who need our help. Another area that is lacking in this government's budget is pensioners. People on the aged pension were already struggling to make ends meet before this pandemic. As I'm sure all of us in this place know, because they come and talk to us, many pensioners tell us how electricity prices, dental costs, health care, pharmaceuticals and a whole range of things are going up, and how pensioners are doing it tough. We know that we are yet to experience the full effect of this recession, so I'm really concerned about the impact it will have on pensioners in my electorate if they're not adequately supported.

The budget contains absolutely nothing to help pensioners access cheaper dental services, for example. Now, dental services can be extremely expensive. If you are a pensioner on a payment and you have rotting teeth or you need dentures, sure, you can go to the public dental surgery and wait, perhaps for 12 months or two years, but what happens in the meantime? It affects other parts of your body. It affects your health. I think it's wrong, it is absolutely wrong, that we're not doing enough in dental care for older Australians. I've heard so many stories about people where their health suffers because they can't get the adequate dental health care that they require. It's okay if you are on a couple of hundred thousand a year or $150,000. You can afford to go to a dentist and pay the bill. But, in most cases, pensioners cannot afford to pay their dental care needs and it affects their health and brings on other ailments. It has a massive impact, and it's a massive problem because, as I said, pensioners do not have the money to get their teeth fixed. This often has serious and detrimental effects on other health aspects.

It also appears, for the first time since 1997, that pensioners will not get the automatic increase because inflation has gone backwards. Many self-funded retirees are also finding themselves in an increasingly difficult financial position as a result of COVID-19 and the recession, and it's compounded by disproportionately high deeming rates. Now, by setting the deeming rates at more than double the actual bank interest rate, the government assesses people as having a higher income than they actually receive. This is affecting pensioners entitlements, as well as many— (Time expired)

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