House debates

Tuesday, 22 November 2022

Bills

Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2022-2023, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2022-2023, Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2022-2023; Second Reading

5:07 pm

Photo of Henry PikeHenry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

My constituents wanted two things from this budget. They wanted the government to honour commitments made to my community of the Redlands, and they wanted real action to address the cost-of-living crisis being felt right across Australia. Labor has failed on both of these counts. While the Treasurer fancies himself as an economic commentator—he fancies himself as the inheritor of the Hawke-Keating government's legacy of reform—this budget does nothing to address the challenges facing Australia's economy. It does even less for the communities that I represent in this place. This budget does nothing to assist household budgets. In fact, the spending contained in the budget will simply create more inflationary pressure at a time when we can least afford it. There is no credible plan to deal with the sources of inflation or to help families deal with immediate cost-of-living pressures. This budget confirms that your cost of living is going up, your electricity and gas bills are going up, your tax payments are going up, government spending is going up and employment will go down. Real wages, of course, are also forecast to go down.

Just before the election, the Prime Minister told Australians that they would be better off under a Labor government. This appears to be just another broken promise. There's been a few of those in the very short life of the new government. They promised cheaper energy, but Labor's own budget numbers confirm that electricity and gas prices are expected to rise sharply over the next two years. Treasury has assumed that retail electricity prices will increase by 50 per cent. Retail gas prices are up some 40 per cent in 2022-23. They promised increasing real wages, but Labor's forecasts reveal that wages will fall over the coming years. They promised to bring down the cost of living, but there is not one measure in this budget which will help families struggling with the cost of living this year. This budget also shows that inflation will remain higher for longer, and Labor has no plan to address it.

They promised to get quite a bit to my local area, too, which isn't forthcoming in this budget. The Albanese Labor opposition made $4.6 million in local sporting and community commitments in the electorate of Bowman during the recent federal election. Just to name a few of these commitments, there was $500,000 to expand the premises and provide more support for victims of domestic violence at the Centre for Women in Cleveland; there was $1.9 million for health infrastructure support, including an expansion of their facilities, at the Yulu-Burri-Ba clinic at Dunwich, North Stradbroke Island; and there was a myriad of different supporting club commitments as well. These clubs and associations were waiting anxiously for news on the budget to see how and when they would have these commitments honoured by the new government.

The government was quick to point us in the direction of two different funding streams contained in the budget papers: $1 billion over five years from the 2022-23 Priority Community Infrastructure Program, which includes a closed grants program to deliver the government's election commitments; and $349.9 million over five years from the 2022-23 Investing in Our Communities Program to deliver small-scale community sport and infrastructure projects across Australia, which is also a closed grants program to deliver the government's election commitments. I note that those two funding streams are over five years, beyond the forward estimates. These were commitments that were made for this parliamentary term. Not only are they outside of this parliamentary term; they are outside of this budget cycle. They go beyond the forward estimates. Who knows what will happen? I think the last few years have taught us that we cannot predict what is happening in the next year or two, let alone the next five.

Let's leave the issue of timing to one side for the moment and look at the quantum of funding. These figures give me a beautiful insight into how the government will be approaching this type of community funding, a government that has made such a virtue of how it doles out our public funding fairly and evenly across the country. The $4.9 million committed to Bowman projects represents a mere 0.341 per cent of the total funding within these two streams. When I attempted to calculate this using Microsoft Excel, it rounded down to zero. I had to adjust the number of decimal places to get it to show. As I stand here as one of 151 members of this chamber, my community should receive a 150th of the share of this funding. Instead, we are receiving just over a one in 293 share. So why does my community get about half of what we're due? Is it something to do with the fact that the Liberal Party has held the seat for 18 years? I think we all know the answer to that.

Then we go to the big commitments made by the former coalition government for projects in my electorate, which the new government is required to honour in order to complete these projects. The first of those I'll mention is the Wellington Street and Panorama Drive intersection upgrades, which were announced back in January 2019. This is $15 million. There have been some delays from the Redland City Council in terms of getting this program shovel-ready, and, with the increase in costs and labour at the moment, it is certainly a challenge, but there is absolutely no clarity from the budget on the future of this project. We've also got the Redland Hospital stage 1 expansion project. Back in May 2019, the then federal Liberal-National government committed $30 million to this project. I understand that $13.2 million of that is yet to be paid and is expected to be payable by the state Labor government, at least, upon acceptance of a progress report for that project.

There have been considerable Queensland government delays. I gave another speech in this chamber a few weeks back on the nature of those delays and how disappointing it's been that the state Labor government—despite the fact they have received federal funding for this project—have failed to deliver it so far. There's still a whole section of funding for that project that's still required to come from the federal government. There's no word from the new federal government on where the rest of the funding for this project will be coming from.

Of course, there's one that's very close to my heart, and that is the Head to Health facility in Redland Bay. We are underserviced in a big way in terms of mental health facilities in the Redlands. The previous federal government announced $3.4 million over four years to deliver a new Head to Health facility in the new satellite hospital that's being built at Weinam Creek in Redland Bay. When I wrote to the minister to ask what's happening with this funding, I was informed that they're going back to the drawing board. They're going to go back and ask the state governments and the primary health networks to resubmit their proposals for this funding. There's no word and no clarity on the future of appropriation in this budget—certainly nothing that gives my community any peace of mind.

Let's zoom back out to the national level. The Albanese government has again failed to limit taxes imposed on Australians. Under Labor, the tax paid by Australians will increase by $142 billion over the forward estimates. They have abandoned the 23.9 per cent of GDP tax cut, which the previous governments stuck to, and they have no plan to reduce spending. Of course this budget, and the media commentary many MPs engaged in in the lead-up to it, delivers no certainty for the 10 million Australians who are looking forward to their legislated tax relief due in July 2024. I note we have another federal budget between now and then, and I look forward eagerly to see where the government goes on that front. I think we all know where they're going with it. In fact, this budget is already adding new taxes. Despite ruling out these changes before the election, Labor will hit retirees and investors with a new $555 million tax, depriving investors of franking credits which they have previously relied on. Labor's sneaky new tax will slug people who have invested their own savings in superannuation.

Despite tax increases, we have discovered there is already a $1 billion hole in Labor's budget. At the election, Labor promised a crackdown on multinational tax avoidance to the tune of $1.9 billion over the next four years, but, lo and behold, the budget confirms that this measure is now expected to generate only $950 million, resulting in a $1 billion black hole in Labor's first budget. Sadly, Labor have waved the white flag on productivity, and GDP growth has been downgraded significantly. That is of significant concern because one of the beauties that we have had as a nation for a very long period of time has been the strength of our GDP growth. The Treasurer may have written a PhD on Paul Keating, but that 1980s spirit of boosting productivity is completely missing from this budget.

I want to go back and dwell on those local projects that we are still waiting for news on from the current government. I have outlined the fact that the Bowman electorate is going to receive half of what we should be entitled to when it comes to those local, small-scale election commitments the previous government made. Of course they are not going to be as ambitious in a seat they haven't held for 18 years. They're not going to be as generous. We didn't see as many then shadow ministers and now ministers coming to my electorate and making big promises, but I'd really encourage them to come.

I would love to take a Labor minister around and show them some of the projects in my electorate that require funding, and projects that were funded by the previous government which have now had a cloud put over them by a complete lack of clarity about what the future holds for those projects. Unfortunately, they can rely on the state government being very slow in delivering a lot of these projects. That has become a feature of the Queensland Labor government. We have seen a lot of federal funding brought to the table for big projects, and unfortunately the state Labor government are becoming very tired and lazy in getting around to actually spending that money on the projects that we need in the Redlands.

This budget fails Australian families at a time when they really need a plan to address cost-of-living pressures. I've been doing a lot of doorknocking in my electorate; it's one of the things I like to do most when I get there. There's beautiful weather in South-East Queensland at this time of year, and I've been making my way around the streets of Bowman and talking to families about issues of concern to them. They are talking about the erosion of the value of their dollar. That is the No. 1 concern for them, and this budget offers no hope on that front. They are talking about the increases in energy costs. They are talking about broken promises of the Labor Party in terms of the plans for $275 for household energy bills, which have now been abandoned. The government can't bring themselves to admit it. There is absolutely nothing in this budget that I can point to for them as to relief on cost of living.

The appropriation bills will of course, as is appropriate, pass through the parliament. The budget is set in stone and it won't change. There is an opportunity for this government to reflect on what they have actually delivered with this budget—or what they haven't delivered in this budget. Take a look, as they prepare over the Christmas period to deliver a May budget, and reflect on what this country actually needs to get us ahead. What do we actually need to put downward pressure on inflation? It's not more government spending. That's the last thing we need. We need concrete action. We need action on energy prices and we need to make sure that we are not spending too much government money at a time when increasing cost pressures across projects are making it harder for the private sector to get things done, as well.

I will finish by laying down a challenge for the Treasurer. Please stop commenting on the economic challenges facing our nation and start taking the steps necessary to address them. That's what the people of my electorate want to see. Yes, of course we want to see more funding for local projects. Yes, we want to see our hospital upgraded. Yes, we want to see the Redland Bay Head to Health facility delivered as promised by the previous government. Yes, we want to see the Wellington Street and Panorama Drive intersections upgraded. Yes, we want to see the car park at Redland hospital upgraded as well. But take the time to get this right in May.

The Treasurer needs to change gears from PhD student to the head of the ministry of the Treasury, the person with chief responsibility for our national economy. I encourage him to get to work on a budget next May that actually delivers for Australians.

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