Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

What was it Amanda Vanstone said the day after the 2003 budget, 20 years ago exactly, talking about Peter Costello's tax cuts?

Five dollars? Hell, what will it buy? It might buy you a sandwich and a milkshake if you're lucky. Not much.

When it comes to this budget, if you're on JobSeeker, take out the milkshake. The increase in JobSeeker that was confirmed last night amounts to less than $3 a day—not even enough to buy a train ticket to go to a job interview.

That's the problem in this budget. Reasonable? Yes. Reforming? No. There's something somewhat uncommitted about it. Perhaps this reflects a desire to keep everyone slightly happy, leaving everyone slightly unhappy. I do not envy the challenge before the Treasurer—the need to balance cost-of-living relief against inflation risk—but the outcome is nothing more than tinkering at the edges. Programs are continued, but not many are born, and I see no real commitment to a new agenda. It's feeding the chooks for survival, not growth.

The Albanese government had the opportunity to demonstrate a little courage in the budget and a bit more fairness. Restoring the single parenting payment to single parents, more than 90 per cent women, until their youngest child turns 14 is a win for women, their children, their job prospects and our future prosperity. It's great news. But, even here, the single parenting payment has been left out of the list of working-age payment recipients who'll get the $20-a-week increase. So there's not even half a sandwich for those who were already on the payment, before the age range was expanded. It's a neat reflection of the budget overall, which tries admirably to partly do a lot of things. On election night, the Prime Minister pledged that his government would leave no-one behind. This budget does not fulfil that promise. There's still time.

The 15 per cent increase in Commonwealth rent assistance is welcome, but, with one per cent vacancies and inflation so high, the net result of this change is unlikely to be life changing. The government has ignored the recommendation of its own Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee to return JobSeeker to 90 per cent of the pension, where it once was, at around $70 a day.

This would be more defendable had the government taken the opportunity to make other budget decisions with foresight—decisions that could move us closer to leaving no-one behind. This is what we need to talk about. For example, with inflation now too high for comfort, there could be a review of the stage 3 tax cuts—the timing and the numbers. There are a range of options beyond dumping them altogether. Or, more pointedly, there could be a root-and-branch review of the tax system to find more effective and fairer ways of raising revenue than our current overreliance on income tax, both personal and company. Stage 3 is now forecast to cost $69 billion over the forward estimates. That's inflationary. We do need to deal with bracket creep—we do—but, as Ken Henry notes, with proper tax reform and if we reduce our overdependence on income tax we might be able to afford stage 3 cuts and fund prosperous communities.

The government has also low-balled the opportunity to get a real return to the Australian people from the mega profits our gas producers receive. The value of LNG exports rose by more than 60 per cent in the past year to $90 billion, but the revamped PRRT is forecast to bring in less than one per cent of that. Something is not adding up. Broad based tax reform and appropriate taxation of what lies beneath our feet would assist budget repair.

This budget is an opportunity missed, and what about other matters like housing and student debt? Experts I've consulted are unanimous that the government's housing package won't do the job. Neither will capping rent—it will simply limit supply—and nor will raiding super. There may be small steps we can take. Rebooting and expanding the National Rental Affordability Scheme would be a start. As for FEE-HELP, and the impact of the recent and unprecedented indexation and graduate debt—which, among other things, impacts their ability to get a mortgage—a bandaid would be to be alter the indexation formula to CPI, the Wage Price Index or the RBA's cash rate, whichever is lower, while working towards an urgent review.

The small-target approach the government showed in its cautious lead-up to the election is still evident in this budget. There is still time to be courageous.

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