Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

While the Howard government has spent the last 12 months fighting amongst itself over leadership and developing legislation that sells out Australian sovereignty, Labor has been focused on the kitchen table issues that really matter to Australian families. In June this year the Leader of the Opposition announced the establishment of a family watch caucus task force. This task force has the role of examining and reporting on the financial pressure confronting Australian families. The pressures being examined by the family watch task force include rising interest rates, spiralling petrol prices and the rising cost of child care, education and health.

Earlier this month the task force held a public hearing in Melbourne at which we heard from the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria, the child welfare organisation Barnardos Australia, the Australian Family Association and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. The RACV told the task force that the cost of filling a family car has risen by almost $30 in the past eighteen months—more than wiping out the value of tax cuts implemented over the same period. Contrary to the Prime Minister’s ‘hope’ that petrol prices are on the way down, the RACV told us that higher fuel prices are here to stay until at least 2010, when additional overseas refining capacity comes on line.

Barnardos Australia warned that increased financial pressure on families is having a detrimental and lasting impact on Australian children. The Australian Family Association expressed its concern that the capacity of women to choose to raise children at home is not further diminished. In its submission the ACTU highlighted the consequences of the Howard government’s attack on family-friendly working arrangements and the reduction in job security through its extreme industrial relations changes.

Last Friday the task force travelled to The Entrance to talk to Central Coast families. Among our activities was a trip to the Bay Village Shopping Centre, where we spent three hours talking to families about the rising cost of living. The clear message we got is that the Howard government and its local mouthpieces, the members for Dobell and Robertson, just do not understand how difficult it is for many Central Coast families to balance their budgets and make ends meet. The simple fact is that families on the Central Coast are under more pressure than ever before.

Like all Australians, they are struggling with record household debt, record mortgage repayments, spiralling petrol prices and the rollout of the Howard government’s extreme industrial relations regime. Two issues were particularly significant on the Central Coast. The first was the impact of the Howard government’s broken interest rate pledge. About 30 per cent of households in Dobell have a mortgage and, let me tell you, they know what the member for Dobell’s broken interest rate pledge means for their family budgets. The second cost issue of particular significance for the Central Coast is the cost of transport. A fact of life for many of the families on the Central Coast is that a large number of locals commute to Sydney each day by car. While we were there, it was put to us that 50,000 locals commute to work each weekday, many of them by car. Skyrocketing petrol prices mean these people are paying more than ever before to get to work.

On Friday afternoon the task force heard from local residents and representatives of local organisations, including Sue Mueller, Matt Burke, Craig Thomson from Coastal Voice, David Mehan from the Central Coast Trades and Labour Council, Kathleen Gribble from the Australian Breastfeeding Association, Belinda Preston from Youth Angle and Kilita Na’ati from the Star of the Sea Church parish at Terrigal. We were very pleased to be joined by the member for The Entrance and New South Wales Minister for the Central Coast, Grant McBride, at our afternoon forum and to thank him for his valuable input.

On behalf of federal Labor’s family watch task force, I want to thank all the people of the Central Coast who shared their stories with us. In the absence of effective representation by the members for Dobell and Robertson, federal Labor has embraced the role of giving the Central Coast the voice that it deserves. On Friday we put the needs of Central Coast families under the spotlight. Over coming months we will put the needs of families in other regions under the spotlight through regional visits and a national family watch survey. Federal Labor will continue to listen and respond to the needs of Australian families—families that have been forgotten by this out-of-touch Howard government.