Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to thank the Member for New England for his great speech. It is so important to listen to what he says about the economy of Australia. The resources industry and the agricultural industry mean so much to the Australian economy. We cannot forget it. We cannot push it aside as though it is not there, because, if we do, if we fall into that trap, we are gone as an Australian nation. Our forefathers fought so hard in World War I, World War II and in all the other conflicts to give Australia what it has now, and we can't fritter that away to nothing.

I am pleased to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2021-2022. The federal government has delivered a good package through this budget. It continues to protect Australians from COVID. We don't know how much longer we have to protect Australians against COVID. It's an unknown disease and virus that we hope to be on top of, but who knows? When we see what's happening in other countries, we know that it's worse now than it was 12 months ago.

But it's all about creating jobs. I might note that we have created more jobs that are in existence now than there were prior to COVID, in March last year. In fact, there are a lot of job vacancies out there now in the field that cannot be filled. It doesn't matter whether you're talking about skilled workers, semiskilled workers or unskilled workers, there are jobs galore out there that need to be filled. In fact, some establishments in the tourist industry have to be closed down because they cannot get workers to run their restaurants, run their accommodation and run their sightseeing tours. That's the situation we have today. We have relied so heavily on the Seasonal Workers Program, on backpackers and of course on immigration to take over these jobs, but of course we do not have the privilege of those workers coming into the country under COVID rules. Those rules are made to protect Australians.

I spent the last week in my electorate, in places like Bundaberg, Gayndah, Monto and Gladstone, and spoke to a lot of people on the ground. I can tell you that most of them are very happy with the budget. There was not even one complaint that I heard from anyone regarding the budget. I spoke to Mary Sharp, who is the CEO of the Monto aged-care facility at Ridgehaven. She was ecstatic that the $10 a day per resident will mean about $130,000 a year to her. She is now redoing her budgets, looking at how she can make the staff's wages better and at how she can better service her clients with so many minutes a day that each staff member can spend with the clients in the base. So she was ecstatic. There are another 80,000 places in home-care packages to keep people in their homes longer and better before they go to the aged-care facilities where they get high-care treatment. So she was ecstatic, and I know her board was happy about the announcements. It's only the start, too. It's $17.8 billion over five years. It's a start to getting aged care back on the road to where it should be. It is not a diminishing problem; it's a growing problem. Future governments will have to pay a lot of attention to our aged care as we live longer and hopefully better in most cases.

Over 53,000 taxpayers in Flynn will be better off under the new tax regime. Ninety-five per cent of taxpayers will pay 30 per cent or less in tax. This is pretty incredible for the high-taxing country that we are. Those 53,000 people in Flynn are very happy. A tax cut is better than a wage rise. You get more in your pocket at the end of the day, and that should be evident to all people who think that a wage rise is everything. I can tell you what, a tax cut is better than a wage rise, if it's the same amount of dollars we're talking about.

Continuing the instant asset write-off is a great help to business investors. Over 23,000 businesses in my electorate will benefit from this. Whether you're a tradie or a doctor, whether you're a farmer trying to purchase a new harvester or a manufacturer trying to produce a production line, this is a great benefit. As they said to me only last week, 'Don't talk about tax cuts; having the write-off is better than tax cuts, because it's not only helping yourself by paying less tax but it's helping your fellow man and woman in your businesses and your towns.' These incentives will make the Australian economy keep ticking over.

There has been a problem in the last 12 to 13 months with the supply chain. What I mean by that is, because of COVID, which has reached out globally, there has been a lack of product coming into Australia, so, when you're looking for a tractor or a truck, or indeed a Toyota or a car or a quad bike, sometimes they're just not available. Under the taxation laws, you must have received the new equipment and be using it to claim it from your tax year, so that's why we have extended the instant cash write-off to the end of this year. It's a great thing, and people really appreciate it.

We all know we've got a lack of apprentices and people trained in the job. We have 2,500 apprentices in Flynn, and the extension of the JobTrainer Fund will lead to more opportunities for young Australians. Along with the 50 per cent wage subsidy, this will support more than 170,000 new apprentices across Australia. That's got to be a good thing.

There is $2 billion in Queensland for road projects. If we want agriculture to grow to $100 billion by the year 2030, we must give the farmers the roads and the water infrastructure they need to increase their business. We have the best farmers in the world, I believe, but we need to get behind them and support them with the roads to stop the bruising of product and the wasting of product on the trucks, and to get the product to the ports and to our airports as quickly as possible with the least damage.

The budget delivered, of course, $17.7 billion to aged care, but it's not only aged care that we concentrated on; it was mental health. We all know that mental health is a big issue, not only in our armed forces but, indeed, across the nation. To have over 3,000 suicides in one year, which is more than all the road and truck accidents we had in the nation, is a very, very sad state of affairs indeed. So we're looking at headspace, and we're looking at mental health issues. Hopefully it will come up with a success rate that will see our suicides greatly, greatly decreased in the next 12 months or so.

We are extending telehealth consultations with our doctors to the end of this year. This means that a person, especially in places in regional Queensland and regional Australia where it's sometimes hard to get a doctor's appointment—I know in Gladstone you've got to wait three weeks before you get a doctor's appointment—under these extended telehealth consultations, can phone their doctor and get their scripts et cetera through the mail or through to their chemist, and people are really happy about that.

Childcare reform will be a direct benefit to 880 families living in Flynn, through affordable and accessible child care. This will help women and men back into the workforce. Again, their services are needed to fill some of these vacant jobs.

Jobs are coming back. The economy is coming back. And Australia's on the road to recovery, and this budget will help a deal. Remember, resources and agriculture, including our crops in agriculture, will see us through these difficult times.

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