House debates

Tuesday, 12 June 2007

Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008; Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2007-2008; Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008; Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2006-2007; Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2006-2007

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 31 May, on motion by Mr Costello:

That this bill be now read a second time.

upon which Mr Tanner moved by way of amendment:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:“whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House is of the view that:

(1)
despite record high commodity prices from surging demand from India and China and rising levels of taxation, the Government has failed to secure Australia’s long term economic fundamentals and should be condemned for its failure to:
(a)
address Australia’s flagging productivity growth;
(b)
stem the widening current account deficit and trade deficits;
(c)
attend to the long term relative decline in education and training investment undercutting workplace productivity;
(d)
provide national leadership on infrastructure including a high speed national broadband network for the whole country;
(e)
expand and encourage research and development to move Australian industry and exports up the value-chain; and
(f)
reform our health system to equip it for a future focused on prevention, early intervention and an ageing population;
(2)
the Government’s failure to address the damaging consequences of climate change is endangering Australia’s future economic prosperity;
(3)
the Government’s extreme industrial relations laws will lower wages and conditions for many workers and do nothing to enhance productivity, participation or economic growth; and
(4)
the Government’s Budget documents fail the test of transparency and accountability”.

4:31 pm

Photo of Sussan LeySussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | | Hansard source

I am really pleased to be able to speak in support of the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008 and cognate bills currently before this House and, in so doing, to contribute to the budget debate and indeed highlight the good things that I see for my electorate of Farrer in the 2007 budget. The Treasurer, in delivering the budget, said that it had been ‘framed to lock in progress’. He said that we need to ‘lock in the achievements of the past’ to help ‘deal with the challenges of the future’ and that this budget ‘with its investment in education, skills, in road and rail and sharper work incentives will add to that capacity’ and ‘will drive further economic growth’.

I represent a rural electorate. Like many others it is feeling the effect of the drought. The contribution that agriculture makes to the nation’s economic wellbeing is highlighted by the budget papers in that they acknowledge that the drought and its impact on agricultural performance, exports and the wider economy remain a source of considerable uncertainty. I will not quote the numbers; suffice it to say that, if agricultural output continues to decline, there will be a significant brake on our growth in the 2007-08 year. I am happy to say that, since the budget came down in May, we have had good rains in many parts of Australia. But as colleagues who represent areas that have not received good rain will quickly remind all of us who have received some, the recovery still does have a long way to go in terms of sustainability—where we have had falls and cropping has been started and also in the areas that are still waiting.

I think that the Treasurer’s comments—and indeed the comments of all our economic leaders—about the effect of the drought on Australia’s GDP, on our growth, should serve as a reminder to all urban Australians, who possibly feel that their rural relations are not contributing to but rather are being a drain on the economy, of the role that we all really do play. I make that remark because with the debate about climate variability and with the increasing focus on the environment—particularly on the Murray-Darling Basin, where I am—people are starting to wonder about the role of farming. It is definitely not the time to do that. It is definitely the time to support our farmers, get behind them and, most importantly, recognise their contribution to the economic wellbeing of Australia.

On the subject of economic performance generally, I note that the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Glenn Stevens, has commented that the economy is running at full throttle. He said on 21 February that ‘the factor most constraining further expansion is not insufficient demand but insufficient capacity, of either labour or capital or both’. Anecdotally, I hear, as I am sure others hear, that firms cannot find workers, wages have increased because workers are in short supply and some job placement agencies are utilising 457 visas to bring workers with the skills that they need to Australia. It is in this environment that the opposition expresses its determination to turn back time and artificially impose an inflexible system on the Australian workplace—a system that derives entirely from a philosophical perspective not shared by most average Australians, which is that workers and bosses are automatically in disagreement.

The other rationale for the Labor Party’s view of the workplace relates to money and power—the money provided to Labor Party operations by unions and the power that they have over Labor as their greatest investor and stakeholder. In fact, the Australian people—not the union movement—have the greatest stake in their political parties because they are the ones whose interests are supposed to be represented by those parties. But if one branch of one union, the Electrical Trades Union, has over the last 10 years donated $3.8 million to the ALP, the issue in my mind is not whether after that union’s leader has been outed and disgraced the money is paid back but how much money is received in total from all unions for the Labor Party coffers. I imagine it is huge and it comes at a price. I think the Australian people are entitled to know what that price is.

The budget contains tax cuts worth $31.5 billion over the next four years. Every taxpayer in the Farrer electorate will benefit. I consider these tax cuts a strong demonstration that the government has managed the economy well. If we had not, there would be no dividends to return to the Australian people. Labor governments, such as the present one in New South Wales, have no dividends in terms of taxes and charges to return to their citizens. The New South Wales government is not in a sufficiently financially sustainable position to give the farmers of New South Wales who are struggling with the drought any relief from the taxes and charges they pay. The New South Wales government signed up to the national water plan with indecent haste because they do not have the dollars to manage their water resources adequately—bad economic management hurts.

I would like to say something about technical training. As a government we are building a culture that encourages training, retraining or further skills development. This includes many of the 3.4 million members of our workforce who did not finish school and older Australians who are needed by the modern workforce and for whom continuing to work beyond age 55 will help their lifestyles and health and their local economies. Our technical training colleges will provide real alternatives to those who have strong technical and vocational skills and are suited to a career in trades. We have further measures in the budget to encourage apprenticeships, both for employers and for their apprentices. We want those who start apprenticeships to finish them. We want to restore a strong sense of worth and good standing to those in technical trades.

While I am talking about apprenticeships, I want to recognise the role of the Riverina Institute of TAFE, which has some 18 campuses—including in Albury, Finley, Deniliquin and Coomealla—not all of them in my electorate. I cannot speak highly enough of them in that they are so flexible and so responsive to the training that is needed at a particular time by local communities and industries. I know that TAFE colleges visited parliament and said they were unhappy about the level of funding. I certainly spoke to members who came to see me. They assured me they were also seeing the New South Wales government authorities, who do have the primary responsibility for TAFE. My purpose in mentioning them is not political but simply to say that they do a fantastic job.

Another measure in the budget that is of particular interest not just to my area but to rural Australia is the more than $65 million of Commonwealth government funding for a new school of dentistry and oral health to be established at Charles Sturt University. There are currently limited rural opportunities for dental students to undertake their clinical training outside major metropolitan centres so this funding includes an up-front capital investment of about $58 million along with recurrent funding for university dental and oral health places and student accommodation support.

The new school will be a focal point in Australia for students wishing to train and practise dentistry in rural and regional areas. It will be rolled out over five regional sites. There will be preclinical and clinical facilities in Orange and Wagga and there will be three dental education clinics in Albury, Bathurst and Dubbo. Obviously I am particularly interested in Albury, and I know the great job that the Albury campus of the Charles Sturt University does. Most particularly, its development of a formula for training in allied health fields away from major metropolitan centres has meant that it has record numbers of graduates in speech therapy, physiotherapy and all of the allied health fields and that record numbers of graduates go on to practise in rural areas. That of course is what we need.

More dentists will also be encouraged to work in regional Australia through two other federal budget initiatives. There will be a new program to create rural dental schools and to provide city based dentistry students with experience in country towns as part of their training. There will also be a new program of scholarships to encourage Indigenous people to study dental health.

As Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry I am responsible for administering the Rural Financial Counselling Service. It is a program that is fully occupied in meeting the demands of clients as a result of prolonged and widespread drought. It benefits primary producers and small rural businesses which are suffering financial hardship. It helps them identify ways to become self-reliant and to better equip themselves to manage the changes that are occurring within their industries.

I pay tribute to those who work as rural financial counsellors in the front line, if you like, who deal with farmers and farm businesses every day. They are an important component of the survival of those businesses. They provide financial advice and, as the businesses move forward, when it rains they have to consider their place in both the local and the global marketplace in terms of the commodities they produce. I see these financial counsellors as agents for change, if you like, assisting them in working out the options and the best outcomes for their business given a range of external factors. They are not just people who help you fill in forms, important though that is; they actually do a lot more.

There has been increased funding to the program in recent years, because we need to acknowledge the decreased capacity of rural communities to raise their own local contributions to maintain this important service. The 2007-08 budget committed $55.9 million to the program over the next four years, including previously announced funding of $10.8 million for the current funding agreement period. It also includes a commitment of almost $1 million for additional rural financial counsellors and other resources to meet demand from people who may be adversely affected by reduced high security water allocations in the southern Murray-Darling Basin in 2007-08. High security water users are facing an unprecedented set of circumstances: from 1 July, when the water year starts, they may be facing an allocation of zero. While general security users, such as dairy and those who grow annual crops, such as rice, will have become used to the water year starting with an allocation of zero, I do not think it has ever been zero for high-value plantings. Of course, that presents a crisis: if your citrus, table grape, wine grape tree does not get water, its productivity is severely affected. The tree itself may not die, but it will get a really bad kick in the guts and that will make a big difference to the yields that you will get in the future.

In recognition of that, money has been allocated for additional rural financial counsellors to meet that demand. There are eight service providers located in the southern Murray-Darling Basin, and they have all been invited to apply for those additional funds on offer. Some of them are in the electorate of Farrer, some in the neighbouring electorates of Mallee, South Australia, and north central Victoria.

The government uses the Exceptional Circumstances program to support those affected by drought. Many of my constituents have used that and are continuing to be supported by it and welcomed the announcement of its continuation in the budget. Currently, there are 29 areas in New South Wales that are declared to be in EC, covering 98 per cent of New South Wales agricultural land. As at 4 May 2007 the Australian government had provided $789 million in assistance to farmers in New South Wales—and I make that point because we are often criticised for not doing sufficient for those affected by the drought. But I think $789 million to New South Wales farmers is indeed a very real commitment. At the end of last year we announced new measures to help drought-affected small businesses. That recognises the unprecedented severity, length and extent of the current drought and the impact it has had on small towns. That is a good thing to do, but we hope that it will not be needed for too much longer.

All parents worry about their children’s education. The $5 billion Higher Education Endowment Fund announced in the budget is an unprecedented investment in the future of the higher education sector and provides additional and ongoing funding for excellence, quality and specialisation in Australian universities. I have had terrific feedback on that. I certainly recognise the efforts of rural parents to send their children to university where it means that sending them away leads to a high level of sacrifice. They will be comforted to know that the sacrifices they make are really going to be worth it, because we all need to be confident that students who study at our Australian universities will be getting not just a good education but a world-class education. The features of the additional investment in higher education in the budget, as I said, were very much welcomed. I look forward to further details of those.

Other announcements which I should probably mention briefly include improved childcare assistance, which all working parents appreciate. That will mean that those whose incomes have dropped due to drought will continue to access childcare assistance. As to investment in land transport, over five years $22.3 billion will be provided for Australia’s road and rail infrastructure. That is absolutely terrific. Local governments continually struggle with reducing allocations from the states to just maintain their local road network and there will be a good injection of funds to help them do that.

Sustaining our environment is very topical at the moment. I totally reject criticisms that this government is not doing enough to look after the environment—$10 billion over 10 years to conserve and sustain Australia’s water supply is an absolutely enormous commitment. I really look forward to Victoria stepping up and signing on to the national water plan which, from my point of view, will absolutely transform irrigated agriculture in my electorate. There are probably two sides in looking at the national plan: one would reflect on irrigated agriculture and the other would reflect on the benefits to the environment in which people who do not necessarily live in the Murray-Darling Basin still have a great interest. Looking through the outline of the plan, I am happy that I can safely say both of those issues, both of those concerns, will be extremely well addressed. The only thing holding us back is Victoria and I do hope they sign on as soon as possible.

Better health and aged care, defence, national security and additional measures for older Australians and carers were all important to the constituents I represent. There is of course more work to be done because there is always more work to be done. I would not presume to tell the constituents of Farrer that the government, of which I am a part, has done everything for them. I appreciate that people are not as interested in the past as they are in the future. I know that, along with my colleagues in this place, I will go on working as hard as I possibly can to make our future as bright as possible.

4:48 pm

Photo of Alan GriffinAlan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | | Hansard source

I would like to make a few comments today with respect to the budget, particularly in relation to the Veterans’ Affairs portfolio. The government deserves to be congratulated with respect to aspects of the budget concerning veterans’ affairs. There are several particular initiatives that I have mentioned as I have travelled around the country talking to veterans in recent times. One is the increase in funeral benefits. There was an increase in the maximum funeral benefit for eligible veterans under the Veterans’ Entitlements Act from $1,000 to $2,000. Labor congratulates the government on this initiative. There has been a longstanding concern within the veteran community about the low level of this benefit in comparison to the benefit allowed under the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004. This initiative goes some way to addressing the discrepancy and is a positive step in the right direction. It certainly is raised with me regularly by many veterans. I know many in that community will feel this has not gone far enough. I understand their position on that. It is something we will be looking at. However, at this stage I congratulate the government on taking action with this measure.

The budget also contained a compensation payment of $25,000 to former Australian prisoners of war in Europe or their surviving widows. Labor welcomes this ex gratia payment. This is a long overdue initiative that addresses a previous injustice that had left these prisoners out of two previous ex gratia payments. In 2001 the Howard government made a payment of $25,000 to former Australian prisoners of war in Japan. At this stage there was much criticism that they had left out the POWs from Europe and Korea. In 2004, after the Clarke review—which I will have more to say about later—they finally made a payment to former Australian prisoners of war in Korea. Again they were criticised for leaving out the Australian prisoners of war from Europe. Finally, six years and two elections after the original announcement, these former prisoners or their surviving widows are getting what is duly owed to them. Labor congratulates the government on finally correcting this injustice and fully supports this worthwhile initiative. I would like to particularly congratulate the minister, because I know that he has been interested in this issue since he became the minister. I give him credit for being able to steer this action through at this budget.

The budget also has a measure to allow war widows who claim a war widows pension following the death of their spouse an additional three months to claim a backdated pension. This is a worthwhile and positive reform, and it has the full support of Labor. Also, let us not forget the $50 per fortnight for special rate pensions and $25 for intermediate rate pensions. Again, I will have more to say about that a bit later on.

Given that mental health is meant to be one of the government’s priorities in this area, it was disappointing to see no measures to combat mental illness or veteran suicide specifically outlined in the budget. Federal Labor will also be closely monitoring the Howard government’s announcements of increased compliance and potential savings arising from the areas of disability pensions, medications and health treatment to ensure that veterans are not disadvantaged in any way.

As a result of the budget there has been a lot of discussion and debate within the veterans community about what the government has not done. One thing it has not done is address the longstanding issue of indexation for above general rate pensions. There are a number of points here which are very important. The value of above general rate pensions, particularly TPI, TTI, intermediate and EDA pensions, has been eroded dramatically, particularly over the last 10 years. That erosion has come from the inadequate indexation method employed for those pensions. Up to 2004 the CPI was the only means of indexation. In 1997 the government adopted male total average weekly earnings—MTAWE—or CPI, whichever is the greater, as the means for adjusting some pensions, such as the age pension. As a result of the Clarke review of veterans entitlements and, more to the point, as a result of significant furore raised by elements of the veteran community, adjustments were made to that indexation method in 2004. A component was indexed to movements in the MTAWE or CPI, but there still remained a significant component that was only indexed to CPI. This has led to a continuing erosion of the value of these pensions.

This has been a longstanding concern right across the veteran community. This is not something that is wanted just by TPIs. It has been raised by the RSL, the TPI Federation, the Vietnam Veterans Federation, the Vietnam Veterans Association and AVADSC. There is not a major ex-service organisation in this country that has not raised this as an issue of concern. They are concerned about the lack of equity and justice with respect to the way their benefits and compensation are being treated by this government. As a result of those concerns, Labor announced just prior to the budget that we would have a new system whereby we would fully index these pensions to movements in MTAWE or CPI, whichever is the greater. There is absolutely no doubt that there is now a very clear difference between the government and the opposition on indexation in this area. This impacts on some 43,000 war veterans with disabilities who fought in World War II, Korea, Malaya, Vietnam, the Gulf War—and more recently—East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan. This indexation change will ensure that veterans are not required to go cap in hand to the government every budget year—or, worse, every election year—in order to get a catch-up payment.

This particular initiative has been well and truly welcomed within the veterans community but not by the government. The minister of the day has in fact attacked it. On one hand, he has accused it of being a cobbled together media stunt; on the other hand, he has accused us of being slick and slippery with respect to what we have actually proposed to do. I find that a little bit confusing in terms of the metaphors there. I do not quite know how you cobble together a stunt while at the same time you are slick and slippery. I would have thought that they are pretty much at odds. Nonetheless, that has been the sort of view that has been put out there by the minister in response to what we have done.

The challenge for the minister is this: this position has been welcomed; it has been called for; it has been the policy of all the major ex-service organisations right across the board over the last 10 years. Frankly, he is the odd man out. He needs to look at that because the fact of the matter is that this issue is not going to go away. The circumstances around this will need to be addressed and this government needs to look at addressing it. He has continually, since that time, ruled out this proposal. I ask him to reconsider it because this matter should be reconsidered. There is no doubt that the ALP’s policy on this occasion is vastly superior to the government’s. It gives certainty, dignity and justice to some of our most severely disabled war veterans and it is definitely something that the government should be looking very seriously at doing.

Another couple of issues within the portfolio that I would like to talk about briefly relate to matters that I have spoken about on a number of occasions—in particular, the Children of Vietnam Veterans Health study. In this area we have had a situation where at the last election Labor promised, as part of its policy at that election, to fund a study and for a study to take place. The government instead promised to do a feasibility study—if you like, a study into a study to see where things go from there. That feasibility study has now taken place and the results became clear. This was a very difficult and quite complex matter. The fact is that there was no doubt that a study could take place and effective results could be gained from it, but the situation was that it would be complex and there would be some methodological issues that had to be dealt with in the process of conducting that study.

As a result of that the minister decided to in fact hold a study into developing protocols for the conduct of a study. He gave a number of reasons as to why that should be the case, including concerns about the fact that the original proposal which came back from the feasibility study involved a study of just male Army veterans. There were good reasons, as were clearly explained in that feasibility study as to why you would need to conduct matters at this stage in that way. But, instead, what we have had is another referral to develop protocols. Two points need to be remembered here. Never before in the history of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, who have conducted many health studies over the years, has there been a need to conduct a feasibility study in the first place before you conduct a study. Then, having done that, never before in the history of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs have we had a situation where there has been a study into the development of protocols before you commit to a study. In the past, protocols were normally a quite useful and necessary first step once you agreed to conduct a study. The circumstances are that they went on from there to actually conduct a study and the protocols were developed as part of that study. We now have a separate mechanism before we go to the step of committing.

Labor recently recommitted and made it clear that we will fund a study. We will fund a study regardless, frankly, of what comes back from the protocol study, because we believe, as the feasibility study showed, that it can be done and it should be done—and under Labor it will be done. Yet we still have the government being silent on this issue. We still have a situation where the minister could today say, ‘I will act upon the protocol study; I will move forward on this issue once I have got that study.’ But, in fact, what we have had is mainly silence. In recent times, because of pressure put by Labor and elements of the veterans community, we have had some signs from the department that they are making noises about the fact that they are hopeful that things can go ahead once the protocol study is presented, but at this stage we still have no commitment.

The fact is that the government ought to commit. One thing they should make sure of is that, when the protocol study comes down in the next few weeks, they commit to ensure that the Australian public and the veterans community know what they will do in response to this issue before the next election. The veterans community have a right to expect that it will be very clear on the government’s position at the next election with respect to the conduct of a study on the children of Vietnam veterans. There is no doubt that the health issues faced, the increased rate of suicide and the birth defects and other concerns that have come up with respect to Vietnam veterans’ children are such that a study needs to be done.

Another initiative that was recently announced by Labor related to increased funding being provided with respect to assistance through a particular program regarding the issue of suicide in the veterans community. I have previously, on a number of occasions, expressed my concern about the problem of suicide within the veterans community and their families. I was very disappointed to see that the budget did not include any measures specifically designed to combat this problem—and it is a problem.

In response to a question on notice, the department has revealed that at least 31 veterans have committed suicide over the past five years as a result of their service. This is a sad and tragic statistic. However this is far from the whole story. The department made the point that they do not include in these figures those on the special rate TPI pension or veterans waiting for their claims to be processed. This is very concerning as these two groups would be the ones at highest risk of suicide, suggesting that the number of veterans who have committed suicide may be many more. These statistics also do not include members of the broader ex-service community who have no qualifying service and have committed suicide. No qualifying service does not mean ‘no problems’.

We know that families also suffer. Children of Vietnam veterans are known to have a suicide rate three times higher than other children. Suicide is an important issue for the veterans community. To overcome this we must be proactive. We cannot sit back and wait for people to self-report. We cannot expect that everyone with a problem will be forthcoming in asking for help. That is why we need to equip the veterans community with the skills to identify and deal with people who may be on the long road to despair and need our help. The time for action is now.

At the Queensland RSL congress recently I announced that a Rudd Labor government will implement reforms and increase financial assistance to the Applied Suicide and Intervention Skills Training program, ASIST, currently utilised by the department. The reforms announced include: greater promotion of ASIST through an increase in its advertising and marketing budget; more information and training sessions to be held in rural and regional areas; increased financial assistance for participants in order to encourage higher participation; and an expansion of the suite of programs to be offered by assist trainers. To help facilitate these reforms and to ensure the long-term viability of this program, a Rudd Labor government will bring the ASIST program formally under the control of the Veterans and Veterans Families Counselling Service. The governance of the program will remain independent of the department and under the control and direction of the veterans community through the stewardship of the VVCS national advisory committee. In order to achieve these reforms, Labor will provide new and additional funding of $1 million over four years. Other costs will be absorbed within current funding for the department.

Labor’s proposal keeps the control of ASIST with the ex-service community while relieving them of the responsibility of resourcing this service. It will also expand a worthwhile program that has been underresourced for far too long. It is these types of strong, proactive measures that we need to combat the problems of suicide among veterans and their families. It is these types of measures that were sadly lacking in the budget.

It is over a week ago that I made that announcement. It is over a week ago that I made it clear that Labor’s commitment was there. The reaction from within the veterans community has been support—strong support—right across the board again. The sorts of groups who actually have an interest in this issue, because it is dealing with the health of their members, have said that this is exactly what needs to be done. This is something that has also been discussed with the department, as I understand it, over quite some time and yet we still have silence from the government.

The fact of the matter is that action is needed here because, if action does not occur, this particular program is in danger of falling over and that would be a tragedy in itself. Its implications for veterans and the wider veterans community would in fact be incredibly serious. I urge the government again to pick up on what we have done, to take the initiative that we have taken and move on it to ensure that the sorts of services that are required to deal with a very serious issue within the veterans community are actually dealt with here and now before it is too late for many people who might use these services.

In the time that is remaining to me, I would also like to pick up on a couple of other points regarding issues in the veterans community—a couple of things that the minister raised over time. One issue that has come up in the last 12 months is the question of nuclear veterans. The situation with nuclear veterans is that a study was finalised and the results of that study were released, and then the government responded with legislation and policy to deal with those issues.

Without going through the detail, the circumstances were that, although there had been a recommendation as part of the Clarke review for hazardous, non-warlike service for veterans of the nuclear tests, the government rejected that. What came down in the end was a situation of granting access for participants to treatment of any cancer that they may have contracted since that time.

That in itself was welcomed and Labor supported that measure, but it was not actually what the nuclear veterans were looking for and it was not actually what this minister had in the past supported. As part of the Clarke review, the minister as a backbencher wrote to the Clarke review and said:

Nuclear veterans’ service should be declared as Hazardous Service by the Review of Veterans’ Entitlement (Clarke Review), as Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel involved in the British atomic tests in Australia were placed in a life threatening environment. Only now are they and the community experiencing the true consequences of their service, in particular, the devastating impact of exposure on the health and wellbeing of our veterans.

A high proportion of our veterans involved in the atomic tests have experienced conditions attributed to their exposure to radiation, with many losing their lives.

His letter further said:

Veterans involved in British Atomic tests and mine clearance exercises deserve to be recognised as having carried out Hazardous Service. Although the battlefield may be less conventional the threat to life and the danger to which our veterans were exposed amount to an active deployment into harms way.

This issue was raised with the minister. The fact is that he, quite legitimately, as a backbencher, went forth and argued to a review for a particular policy. But, as the minister, when he was making a decision on that issue, he chose not to follow his own earlier advice that was part of his letter and was stated very clearly to the Clarke review. The interesting thing is that the Clarke review acted in line with that letter and came down with that particular policy option, but the government at the time rejected it. As people will remember, back at that time the government had provided a paltry response to the initial recommendations of the Clarke review. In fact they rejected large numbers of them and there was a backbench revolt—which, as I understand it, the minister may well have been involved in in terms of supporting veterans. If he was, as has been reported, I congratulate him for it. The fact of the matter is that he wrote a letter and stated a position, but when he was in a position to act upon it he did not.

In response, the minister has said: ‘Only members of the coalition actually made submissions to the Clarke review. However, one member of the Labor Party, who is now no longer a member of parliament, also made a submission.’ I just want to get on the record in the last few seconds I have left the nature of those submissions. I have no problem with those members making submissions and I wish them all the best with it, but I think the nature of those submissions needs to be understood. Tony Abbott forwarded a constituent letter as a submission with a covering fax. The member for Leichhardt, Warren Entsch, forwarded a constituent letter with a ‘with compliments’ slip. The member for Gilmore wrote on behalf of a constituent. Senator Ross Lightfoot forwarded a constituent letter without any covering letter. The member for Gippsland wrote on behalf of some of his constituents. Geoff Prosser, the member for Forrest in Western Australia, made two submissions on behalf of constituents. I congratulate them for making those submissions. But, in fact, overwhelmingly, those submissions were just passing on information provided to them by constituents. (Time expired)

5:08 pm

Photo of Sophie MirabellaSophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak in support of Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008 and related bills. The 2007-08 budget is a continuation of the responsible plans for Australia, for its community, for its growing prosperity and for future generations. Importantly, the budget continues a very fine trend of personal income tax relief. This is fundamental to improving incentives in our workforce. But it is not only a fundamental responsibility of government to collect funds through which it can provide essential services, plan for major infrastructure and invest in its people but also a fundamental responsibility that, once government has spent the required funds on appropriate projects, any surplus money, where appropriate, is given back to the people from whom it was taken. I am very proud to be part of a government that has continued taxation reform to give taxpayers back some of their own money that they have earned.

We see from a very simple illustration that a taxpayer on $30,000 per annum in 1999 was paying over $6,200 in taxation. As of 1 July 2007, effectively there will have been a reduction of 54 per cent, so that that same taxpayer will pay only $2,850. That is a real achievement and a real result. As we know, Madam Deputy Speaker Bishop—I am sure you share this view—the person best able to spend their money is the person who earns it. The more that we can do to ensure that the Australian economy continues to thrive, and there continues to be an environment in which employers continue to grow their businesses and employ more people, the better we will all be in the long term.

There is a particular project I want to focus on. This budget and previous budgets have made huge investments in infrastructure—whether it is social infrastructure in education or, as in the last few budgets, significant investment in health infrastructure, and this budget in built infrastructure. I want to focus on a particular infrastructure project in the largest population centre in my electorate of Indi: Wodonga. The project is the Wodonga rail bypass project. Unlike the state Labor government, the Australian government has put in the budget papers its commitment, in writing, in black and white, of $45 million to assist in the removal of the railway from central Wodonga. It is an important railway line—it is the Melbourne to Sydney railway line. There has been discussion over many decades in favour of its removal from central Wodonga.

Way back when I was but a mere candidate for the seat of Indi, I recall with great excitement the initial commitment of $20 million made in Wodonga. That has been sitting on the table. Every year I have asked the Treasurer to keep rolling it over into the next year, because the project has not quite begun. And what has happened? Due to delay by the state government the project, of course, as with all its other major projects, has blown out. They asked for an additional $25 million, which was expeditiously provided for by the government and announced in February this year by the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, Mark Vaile. So we have had $20 million sitting on the table since December 2000, we have had an extra $25 million sitting on the table since February this year and the Victorian government, which do have primary carriage of this project, have just dithered. The project has blown out. And guess what? It is not in their budget papers. So here we have a government requesting assistance from the Commonwealth, we put it in in good faith and roll it over year after year, saying, ‘Yes, all right, you want some more money because you haven’t been competent enough to get a simple project like this started; we’ll give you an extra $25 million,’ and what happens? They do not put it in their budget! It makes me wonder whether they are fair dinkum about getting this project started.

In July 2003 the then Minister for State and Regional Development, John Brumby, explained the hold-up as ‘a sticking point’ in Freight Australia. We know that this is not the case, and that the hold-up was the fact that the Bracks government in Victoria cannot manage basic major projects. All you have to do to see that is look at the fast rail project, where they promised in 1999 a fast rail project for $80 million. That blew out way over time and way over budget to $1.3 billion in 2006—for saving a few minutes on the train. That is their proven record of trying to invest in and improve Victoria’s infrastructure. So they have form on their ability to mismanage infrastructure.

In good faith, the Commonwealth has rolled over the funding, and I thank the Treasurer and the Prime Minister for that. The federal government’s commitment to this project is there. My personal commitment is there because it is my community. I understand how vital the removal of that railway from central Wodonga is to the continued development and growth of Albury-Wodonga as a critical transport and economic hub.

Earlier this year, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister came to the border for the opening of the $518 million Albury-Wodonga freeway upgrade, as did the Premier of Victoria, even though his government did not contribute a cent to the construction of the freeway upgrade—although I think it is fair to say that he did provide $6 million for half the cost of the state Bandiana link road; the Commonwealth provided the other half. The fact that they delayed even coming up with a commitment of $6 million for the Bandiana link ensured that the significant project, the main upgrade of the Hume Highway at Albury-Wodonga, blew out significantly. On that very day, the Premier of Victoria said that the Wodonga rail bypass ‘could start by June’. I was in Wodonga on the weekend and there was no sign of that substantive work. Mr Bracks is very fond of getting on the front page, and that is what came out of the opening of the Hume upgrade in Albury-Wodonga when he said, ‘But wait, there’s more: Wodonga railway relocation could begin by June.’ It was very sensational.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you cannot blame me or the locals in my electorate for being very sceptical. We have seen numerous front pages of the Border Mail proclaiming the beginning of the removal of the rail from Wodonga. Today, marking 100 days since the premier made his promise on Monday, 5 March 2007 that that work would start, is an appropriate time to table the front page of the Border Mail, if I may have leave to do so.

Photo of Dick AdamsDick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Leave is not granted.

Photo of Sophie MirabellaSophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

There is no leave granted, but it is there on the record and I can provide as many copies to my friends on the other side of the chamber as they would like. Nothing will detract from the reality that the project has not yet started. The people of Wodonga know the disdain in which the Bracks government continues to hold them by failing in its responsibility to provide that very basic service that a government should provide—that is, essential infrastructure. Well may the people of Wodonga ask: when is this state government going to get serious, stop playing politics and start with a real commitment? The state government can start today. It can amend its documents and put the real money for the removal of the railway in Wodonga in black and white in its budget papers. Why did it not do it? Why is the money for the relocation of the railway out of central Wodonga not in this year’s state budget? It is in the federal budget. Why has the state government failed to put it in the state budget? Is the state government not serious about it? Those are the questions that Mr Brumby needs to answer.

There are some other significant funding announcements in this federal budget that contribute to the infrastructure development of my electorate. Continuation of the Roads to Recovery program is in fact very significant. Over the previous financial year local councils wholly within the electorate of Indi received just over $10 million in funding, which is in addition to the general purpose and the specific roads funding as part of the financial assistance grants formula that local councils receive. In addition, we have had strategic regional road funding for the larger roads that are an essential part of growing economies in rural and regional Australia. I have been very fortunate to have some of that funding in very important parts of my electorate and I look forward to supporting local applications in further rounds.

We have also heard great criticism of funding specifically allocated for rural and regional Australia coming from the opposition. We have seen the Regional Partnerships program and its predecessors described as a rort, as a waste of money; yet, when we look at Labor electorates, we see that there is an equal, if not greater, distribution of funding for essential community building projects such as community halls and visitor information centres. That funding will continue under this budget, and I will continue to support those projects in my local area. All you need to do is go to any rural, regional or remote area in Australia to see how important federal funding has been in providing funds for road upgrades and basic community infrastructure. Even this road funding was labelled by one former Leader of the Opposition as a ‘boondoggle’, but local communities in the country know just how important it is to get their local roads fixed.

We have talked about the unsung heroes in our community for such a long time and they, of course, do deserve extra recognition, although most of them do not actively seek it. People have stopped me in the street to ask about some of the recent bonuses that have been provided for carers. I am delighted that there has been an extension of those eligible to receive them. We owe a great debt of gratitude to our carers. In Indi we have just under 2,700 recipients of the carers allowance and almost 670 recipients of the carer payment. This bonus will be very important to them. Significantly, it is also an important symbolic recognition of the contribution that they make on a personal level and of the contribution that they make to the living standards of others in our local communities.

The one-off seniors bonus of $500 to all individuals who are eligible for either the utilities allowance or the seniors concession allowance is also very critical to providing additional support for those who have made a contribution over their lives to the towns and, indeed, to the nation that we have today. Where we can support them where they need it the most, it is our responsibility as a nation to do so. This payment will help with day-to-day financial affairs. In my electorate, there are just under 14,000 recipients who will benefit from this bonus.

I also wish to acknowledge some important funding that is relevant to areas that have been subjected to natural disasters, such as the high country. I want to commend the Prime Minister for the funding of $24 million over four years so as to continue the Bushfire Mitigation Program under which grants are provided for the construction and maintenance of fire trails and also for the very critical research that is being conducted. Additional funding is also being provided to the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre. This is funding into research that has not been undertaken; it is funding into research where there has been a huge gap, a huge hole, in the understanding of land management practices and fire management practices. What people have been crying out for in these communities is scientifically based information on which governments should make policy decisions. The states have not undertaken this important research, but I am very proud that the gap is starting to be filled. Of course, it is only research, and researchers cannot force an unwilling state government to manage their land, but at least the science will be on the table for those who have the political backbone to take it up and do the right thing in managing Crown land and the fires that will be there in the future.

Local councils in my area will benefit, as will communities right across the board. There is almost nothing worse than a government failing in its basic responsibility to provide essential infrastructure. But what comes very close to it is the mismanagement of crown land and how that impacts economically, personally and emotionally on private landholders who do the right thing by properly managing their properties. They provide adequate fire protection only to have their private property—something they have worked very hard to build up—irreparably damaged, often by the actions or inaction or poor management by governments. That is something that we need to stop. I will continue to support measures in this budget and in future budgets to hold governments accountable for their actions when they significantly impact, as in the case of natural disasters such as bushfires, on my local community.

I commend the bills to the House. I commend the Treasurer on his efforts and on the extraordinary achievements in the continuation of not only tax cuts but essential investment in infrastructure, in our schools, in our communities, in our roads, in health and in our telecommunications. Australia is a very different place from what it was before the coalition was fortunate enough to be granted the privilege of governing in 1996. It is a very different place. No longer do we have people sitting there waiting, listening to the budget, thinking, ‘How is the government going to do us over?’ They are now sitting there watching the government, listening to the budget, saying, ‘What will we get out of this budget?’ That is what this government has delivered: a change from a punitive Labor government—which believed in punishing people and believed that double-digit unemployment figures were acceptable—to a government that understands its basic responsibility of providing an environment in which jobs can grow. It was very pleasing to see that figure last week of a national unemployment rate of 4.2 per cent. Even in Indi, with a vibrant local economy, in a very unique part of Australia, the unemployment rate is also under five per cent. That is the human dividend of the difficult and hard decisions that the coalition government has made not just over the last year in planning for the next budget but also over those 11 years. I commend the Treasurer, the Prime Minister and all those members who have fought hard on behalf of their electorates to get the relevant funding so we can deliver those services which our communities not only require but deserve. I commend the bills to the House.

5:28 pm

Photo of Dick AdamsDick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

This budget has failed to put in place the base or the principles that we need to meet the very important challenges of the decade ahead. The Leader of the Opposition made it clear in his budget response when he said that budgets should be not just about the next election but about the next decade and the decades beyond that. We need to build long-term economic prosperity beyond the mining boom by rebuilding productivity growth. We need to deal with any challenges of climate change and the preservation of water before the cost of inaction becomes too much, and we need to ensure the fair go in Australia has a future, not just a past, both in the workplace and at home. That is why this budget should have been about the next decade, not about the next election. It is obvious that this year’s budget is one that was very carefully marketed and targeted at groups which the government saw as potentially important ‘vote changers’ in the coming election. The amount of money that has been splashed around has not taken in important services, infrastructure and social needs which underpin our society. The Leader of the Opposition went on to say that we could anticipate many challenges and that we should act on those challenges while there is still time or we could fritter away the opportunities before the nation and squander the opportunities in meeting those challenges. Now is as good a time as ever, he said, to fix the roof while the sun is shining.

I think the budget has relied on the good luck that comes with a huge resources and mining boom. That is evident not just in Australia but internationally. In Tasmania we are feeling the benefits of the mining boom at the moment, but we also know what it is like for a mine to close and we know the effect that has on a community. We cannot afford to not be innovative in our communities; we need to ensure that we can diversify our economy so that we are not just relying on one industry. We know that our economic growth owes as much to the economic reforms of the last Labor government as it does to anything that the Howard government has done. But they have squandered it by not ensuring that our education is keeping up with growth; training in skills has been falling way behind and most of the infrastructure that should have been replaced in a timely fashion is now in dire straits.

The Tasmanian national highway is a case in point. It has been neglected for too long in the south, which has prevented much-needed works from going ahead to link much of the old infrastructure. Our transport hub should have been up and running by now, but the proposed bypass at Brighton to Bagdad—Bagdad is in my electorate—has been on the drawing board for some 30 years, and it is now more urgent that the works be undertaken. It is the same with the northern roads in the Lyons electorate, where there are still a number of significant problems that lead to unnecessary accidents. These roads are not in the Bass electorate or the Braddon electorate; therefore, they did not get anything in redress.

The main point about this budget is that it assumes that every Australian is already comfortably off, which of course is not the case. It is like assuming that, because our unemployment rate is down to five per cent—and we heard the previous member talking about that happening in her electorate—all people are fully employed. This just is not so. If you have an hour’s paid work a week, you can technically be called employed. The way it operates at the moment means that we may have low unemployment but we also have a growing underemployment, with people desperately trying to find second and sometimes third jobs to survive.

I want to talk about poverty, as I believe the appropriations in this budget have been predominantly for those who have. Those who have not seem to have been completely forgotten by the government. To illustrate why I think these bills are so short in dealing with the problems many people face today, I have a number of stories. On Friday a week ago I attended a function at one of my local schools, and people were there to make a difference by undertaking a walk for poverty. The aim of the walk was to raise awareness about the Make Poverty History campaign and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which identify clear ways of achieving an end to extreme poverty in the world. Students at Exeter High School have been learning about how our society is built on justice and equity and how democracy was born out of those concepts. Democracy is important because it gives people a voice in the political and, ultimately, social and economic direction of their country. Unfortunately, the majority of the world today does not have this voice.

Are You Mad? is an innovative education program that allows young people to drive real change in their school and community. It is based on a belief that young people can make real change happen in the world. The program allows students to express their concerns and to initiate and carry out real-life projects. The Mad Day Walk began at Exeter High where, with various community groups, I walked down the main street of Exeter and back to the school for a function there. I spent some time with the students and they were very much aware of what poverty meant for many Third World countries. But they were not familiar with poverty in their own backyards. They would not be able to tell me how many of their family and friends have difficulty finding appropriate housing, assistance with health and access to employment and training.

The heartening thing is that at another function I went to recently, a school assembly, I met a young student named Shania Kava, a nine-year-old from New Norfolk who had recently gone on holidays with her father to Fiji. She had observed some youngsters around her own age kicking a coconut for a football. When she inquired why they were using a coconut, the response came that they could not afford a ball. This led this little girl, with her father, to buy them a football. When she returned to school in her home town she set about collecting materials for that school in Fiji. At the New Norfolk Primary assembly we parcelled up 20 boxes of books and materials and found two computers, and those were sent off to Fiji.

So our young are aware of the fact that people overseas need our help, but for some reason we do not always alert them to the real poverty we have in our own backyards. Take housing, for example. A lot has been said about housing in the appropriation debate—the fact that housing has become so expensive that no-one on a low income could ever think of owning their own home. This is happening in our country, Australia. Renting has become a nightmare too, because there are no houses available for rent, even if the potential tenant can afford the cost of the rent. If you happen to be one of our older citizens or have a disability then you have no hope, as this budget has, if anything, reduced the availability of low-cost housing. Over the last three Commonwealth-state housing agreements, including the current one which is set to run out in June next year, the federal government has ripped $3.1 billion out of public and community housing. You cannot do that and not have a dramatic effect. Over the last few years the state housing authorities have therefore been faced with funding the shortfall by cannibalising their existing stock.

This is not something new; this has been going on for many years. The result is that a debt has been built up to the extent that three-quarters of the funds coming through from the Commonwealth to Tasmania for housing is eaten up in debt repayment. This is a total nonsense and I will be seeking to have this debt reallocated or sorted so that we can provide more public housing. We need to readjust this debt. It is just on paper and it needs to be reallocated or discharged so that we can use that money not to repay the Commonwealth but to build houses. Let us look for some one-off payments, such as those received by pensioners—$1,000 each this time. I do remember last time how much concern was generated when they thought they were going to get the $1,000 that was promised to them in the budget and it turned out that that had to be divided between a couple. So each pensioner who thought they were getting a little windfall found that they were only getting half of what they thought they had been promised.

The government has been wiser this time, but it is not going to make much of a difference. With the cost of living rising, the price of goods and services has gone up by more than $2 a day, which is what this works out to be. They forgot those on disabilities altogether. The one group in our society that could have used even $2 a day extra has been completely ignored. As my constituents constantly remind me, there are fewer and fewer services provided for those with a disability. It takes many of them, housebound and without any assistance, a good deal of the day. This is a hidden poverty that does not go away. It is there, but no-one sees it and these people are the least likely to be heard. We need to be so much more aware of their needs and act to ensure that they can still be useful and productive members of society without the punitive measures we tend to put on them as they struggle to leave the poverty trap of one of the new disability benefits, which is just the same as Newstart.

This is what makes employment read so badly: the hidden people who are not registered but are on fixed incomes, those who cannot claim these valued tax cuts. If you have not got an income, you do not pay any tax. The silent poor, the aged on pensions, those with disabilities, those who are underemployed, those who are 25 and are attempting to survive on Austudy and the parents at home with children under six are the people who are most in need of services and are not considered in the budget.

My state is going through the throes of trying to deal with an ever-demanding health system. Tasmania spends a considerable amount of its state budget on health. This has great implications for those in aged-care facilities as many of them share facilities with small hospitals. We just do not have enough aged-care beds and we do not have enough respite beds. We just do not have enough services in our region and in isolated communities, so people are chased out of their communities to hunt for a place in some other part of the state. It is just not good enough and we need to do something about it. The state is doing what it can, but it is time that the Commonwealth did something with all the surplus moneys it has flowing about—little is directed to those in dire need. Shame on the other side of politics! Government is there to step in where the market cannot go. We are falling down in these responsibilities.

I cannot finish without commenting on the ridiculous amount of money that has now been spent on selling the government’s industrial relations policy. This government has the hide to complain that unions have been funding the case in opposition. Those of us in unions, those of us that have been in unions since we were 15 or 16 and those constituents who are in unions, are paying for their ads, voluntarily dipping into our pockets to fight an injustice, and we have done so over the last century. The government is stealing their funds from our taxes without so much as a request or a thank-you for listening to what workers are saying about this totally unfair legislation. Even with the latest legislation trying to put fairness back into the unfair legislation, they are talking about improving the safety net. It is a bit hard to improve a safety net if there isn’t one in the first place. It is simple maths: nought times nought equals nought. You might think that might have been achieved by now, and people might understand it.

These amendments will not stop those unfair laws from continuing to hurt working families, and the people in our electorates know this and will not support this government for that reason. I believe this government will be punished very severely because of these unfair laws. These changes to Work Choices will not fix the lack of balance in Australian workplaces. Importantly, these changes to Work Choices will not protect basic conditions. Australian families rely on things like notices of change to rosters and redundancy pay. These changes to Work Choices mean huge government bureaucracies will decide in secret what can be in an Australian workplace agreement and what cannot.

We cannot put up with this, nor should the people in Australia. There are many areas that I have not even touched on here today. There are areas which I believe needed to be touched on by this budget but were not. Education and the setting-up of an endowment or building fund for universities is not putting in what the education system needs. Many things should be happening in education but are not. Transport infrastructure is still falling down in so many areas. Child care is in urgent need. Many areas in my electorate are crying out for more child care. The government says that it wants people to come back into the workplace and to become productive in the workplace, but it is just not producing the opportunities in child care that are needed. There does not seem to be anywhere to go if the private sector will not pick up and start up a childcare centre. There are many regional centres and regional areas where the private sector just will not start that up, and the government should be assisting them to do that.

Labor has promised 230 new childcare centres within school grounds so that people will have only one stop in dropping off the kids and picking them up. Child care could become much simpler for many families. The trouble is that in this budget there is also the great pork barrel and the opportunity to try to use a lot more money. I think we saw some of that today, with the Deputy Prime Minister’s announcement about what went on in Queensland. I think it is a shameful budget and it did not touch the people it really should have touched. Therefore, I will be opposing it and supporting the opposition’s amendment moved by Mr Tanner.

5:48 pm

Photo of Paul NevillePaul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | | Hansard source

The 2007-08 federal budget is an outstanding budget for local families. The federal budget has delivered the best-ever result for local families, with income tax cuts, a national boost to the childcare tax rebate, extra payments for carers, more money for local roads and more support for apprentices. The government has delivered nine budget surpluses in the last 10 budgets. Maintaining a surplus is the best thing a government can do to put downward pressure on interest rates, which is important to local families, especially the homebuyers. Families are the big winners in this budget, with a 13 per cent increase in childcare benefit, and a bringing forward of the childcare tax rebate for 2006-07. All these measures will be at a cost of $1.4 billion over four years. We are also bringing income tax cuts worth $31.5 billion over four years, and local families will also benefit from the increase in the tax thresholds. Income tax cuts of $31.5 billion over five years confirm the government’s commitment to reducing taxation, especially income taxation.

In the Keating years basic wage earners paid 20c in the dollar; they are now paying 15c in the dollar and the threshold has been lifted to $30,000. At the other end of the scale, where we previously paid the top marginal rate from $50,000, that now does not cut in until $180,000 and then at 45c in the dollar, not 47c. Only two per cent of Australians will pay the top marginal tax rate. This is now the fifth in a series of tax cuts since the introduction of GST. We have chipped away on five occasions, targeting different income groups each time. We were ridiculed for the ‘milkshake and hamburger’ reduction, but when you put the five tax cuts together then you see the real picture. Back in 1999 taxpayers earning $30,000 a year paid $6,222 in income tax, but from 1 July they will only pay $2,850—a reduction of 54 per cent. That is very significant to families. A 54 per cent tax cut is very effective.

The government is also serious about investing in our national road and rail network under AusLink 2, which will sink $22.3 billion over five years from 2009-10 into key transport infrastructure. A significant part of that, around $3.2 billion over the five years from 2009-10, will go towards the local roads grant program, including $1.8 billion to the Roads to Recovery project, which I might add is one of the most popular with local government, and another $300 million will go to the strategic regional program.

My electorate has already seen the benefits of the coalition’s focus on better roads. In recent weeks I have had the pleasure of announcing three significant projects in Gladstone and Hervey Bay. The first was $12.75 million from the Commonwealth and it is going into the first stage of the Kirkwood Road project in Gladstone. This is a crucial development for Gladstone and also for the Calliope area. Because of it we will be able to funnel industrial and work commuter traffic away from the Gladstone CBD via a south-western bypass to the port and industrial areas of the city.

The second project, which will do a lot to improve local driver safety, is a $900,000 allocation towards the upgrading of the Benaraby regional landfill intersection. This is a very important project because the Calliope Shire Council will be able to provide safer access to the Benaraby regional waste management facility, something everyone has to go to every couple of weeks, I imagine, and also to the Benaraby raceway, which is in the same area and a very important recreational facility. The Calliope project was the first priority for the council, and The Nationals candidate for Flynn, Glenn Churchill, has also strongly backed my efforts to get this funding commitment, which proves he has a real vision for the region, its industry and its families.

The third project was $1 million allocated to complete stage 3 of the Old Toogoom Road in Hervey Bay. This comes on top of previous grants, one of them also $1 million for that road. This is a key project for the area, given the increasing popularity of Hervey Bay. You have to recognise that 30 years ago this was a town of 7,000 or 8,000 people; it now has 55,000 people. That is a huge increase, and so it is important to families, retirees and tourists. The project will see 1.1 kilometres of Old Toogoom Road realigned, which will improve flood immunity as well as the safety of crossings and approaches. All in all, the extra funding for my local roads will make driving a lot safer for local residents, businesspeople and, as I said before, tourists. I should also add that the government has reconfirmed its commitment to the $2 million Bundaberg Port ring road, with $1 million coming from the Commonwealth.

I also applaud the continuation of the Investing in Our Schools program with a further $195.9 million allocated to help schools complete projects identified as priorities. Schools in Hinkler which can demonstrate improvements in literacy and numeracy results are now in line for $50,000 bonuses under the new Rewarding Schools for Improving Literacy and Numeracy Outcomes program. That funding runs to $53 million over five years and will reward those schools that are working hard to improve the fundamental learning outcomes of their students. For those children who have not achieved minimum standards in literacy and numeracy the government is providing $457 million for the national literacy and numeracy voucher program. The most interesting part of this announcement is the $700 vouchers which will be available to parents of students who do not reach current literacy and numeracy benchmarks in years 3, 5 and 7.

The government is investing not only in young people but also in older teenagers, especially in the area of apprenticeships. Our first- and second-year apprentices under 30 years of age will receive a tax-free $1,000 wage top-up from 1 July in recognition of the difficulty of entering the workforce for the first time. The payments will be made for each of two years of eligible full-time Australian Apprenticeships and will be paid in six-monthly instalments. All apprentices, regardless of their age, will also be eligible from 1 July for an annual payment of $500 to help out with their TAFE and other training fees.

Funding for environmental matters has also increased, with a total of $4.3 billion allocated to tackling pressing issues of climate change, water security and natural resource management. Perhaps the most tangible initiatives at the grassroots level are the doubling of the rebate for solar panels on homes, from a maximum of $4,000 to $8,000, and a new competitive grants scheme for schools and communities to install solar panels on their buildings.

I have a particular interest in an environmental project that is being conducted by the Burnett Mary Regional Group for Natural Resource Management—with the help of $3.2 million from the Commonwealth, I might add. The group is using the funding from the government’s National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality and the Natural Heritage Trust programs to study fish movements and shorebird roosts and breeding sites in the Burnett-Mary catchment area. The group will be locating and mapping significant shorebird roosts and breeding sites north of Point Vernon near Hervey Bay, on Fraser Island and stretching north to Tannum Sands near Gladstone. It will look at migratory and resident shorebirds listed under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, including the grey plover, the whimbrel, the common crested and little terns, the bar-tailed godwit and the red-necked stint. These birds might not sound very important but many of them are Northern Hemisphere birds that come to roost in Australia. If you do not get it right at one end you are not going to have the birds at either end, so this is a very important program.

The Burnett Mary Regional Group for Natural Resource Management is also looking at ways to offset the impact of barriers to fish movements within the catchment area. This might not sound like groundbreaking stuff, but they are crucial studies, given the state Labor government’s refusal to reconsider an alternative to the Traveston Crossing dam. This is an abomination, this dam. How the Labor government could lend its hand to this staggers me, given what it has done to oppose such schemes over the years. The dam is shallow. It is set on 18 metres of gravel and sand. It will require massive foundations. It is very wide at its mouth. Six hundred properties will have to be resumed—six hundred properties would fund two medium sized dams—and, on top of that, you have the cost of transporting that water by pipes to Brisbane. It is an absolute abomination, and the state government should be ashamed of itself.

In the health sphere, I will be fighting to secure one of three new Medicare-eligible MRI machines, which were announced in the budget—a project I have already prioritised for the Wide Bay region and will pursue doggedly. People with chronic conditions and complex healthcare needs will be looked after with $377 million to improve access to dental treatment in the private system. Eligible patients will be able to claim Medicare benefits for diagnostic dental consultations as well as Medicare benefits for a range of dental treatment services, up to a maximum of $2,000 in any calendar year. Some great news for elderly residents and families, especially families with young children, is the increase in the Medicare Benefits Schedule rebate for after hours GP services from November 2008. The current rebate, ranging from $33.75 to $54.55, will be increased to $83.50 for urgent home visits. This builds on the government’s Round the Clock Medicare program, introduced in the 2005-06 budget, which vastly improved access to after hours GP services.

I would like to use the next part of my speech to talk to the Main Committee, and indeed the parliament, about the current and dangerous way in which the Beattie government is moving, and it builds on what happened under the Goss government. I am not trying to be overtly political in this. I passionately believe that we are now becoming part of a highly centralised form of government. If we look back to the Goss years, we see electricity boards that were regional in nature being combined in the name of competition. We certainly have not seen competition that has caused the price of electricity to drop; we have seen two major boards running the whole of the state.

We had a very good ambulance system in Queensland, called the QATB, and it was run by a modest government contribution and by private subscription. The government took this over with a flurry and started charging everyone $88 a year on their electricity bills—and of course it has gone up since then because it is indexed. It has not provided a better service. We have many ambulance centres now having to call in volunteers to help run the centres. We have ambulance officers and paramedics out on stress leave and, from time to time, we hear about the state government injecting a bit of money here and there to try to pick up the pace. From talking to my state colleagues, I do not believe that the funding being collected by the state government is actually being totally expended on the ambulance service. So what have we seen happen? We have seen a decentralised form of ambulance care become what is now a highly centralised form, and it is being run from Brisbane—and not all that successfully. This is not a reflection on any of the officers who work for this organisation, for whom I have immense respect, but the organisational structure and the way that the system is run is an abomination.

We have had port authorities amalgamated. The Rockhampton Port Authority was merged with the Gladstone Port Authority and it became the Central Queensland Ports Authority. Then the Bundaberg Port Authority was merged with the Port of Brisbane Authority, so that we now have Bundaberg subsumed into the Brisbane authority. Then we had health councils, which were supposed to replace hospital boards but were a very feeble attempt, I might add. These health councils are now being amalgamated with the North Burnett Health Community Council being merged with Bundaberg.

On and on this goes—a culture of centralisation of government in Brisbane and less and less control by people in regional and country areas. But it has reached its high point of stupidity with this current round of forced amalgamations. The councils throughout Queensland have been undertaking a SSS program looking at their size and sustainability, and working very hard in groups of councils to see how they could share facilities and whether there were cases in some areas for amalgamations that would receive support from local communities under a proper plebiscite or perhaps some form of vote in each area of the council so that everyone had a say in what happened.

This has not happened. The state government have decided to take over the whole process and cancel the SSS process that was already going on and to which they had allocated—although not spent, I might add—$25 million. They have formed a commission and it has been set an extraordinarily tight time frame in which to recommend on the combination of various councils in the state into larger local government units.

I have no problems with amalgamations where you go through an ordered process. For example, you might have a plebiscite first in which you give people a number of alternatives to vote on. On the basis of that and perhaps submissions from councils you then put up some new boundaries and correct anomalies in existing boundaries. Then you have public consultation and involve people in communities. Then, perhaps, at the end of that process—and this has always been the case in Queensland and it is the case, really, throughout all of the states in the Commonwealth—you have a referendum. But that will not happen. There is no referendum. It is just going to be: ‘Wham, bam, thank you, Ma’am. This is what you are going to do. You are going to be in councils of three or four or five or whatever the case might be and you had better learn to live with it.’ That is just not acceptable.

I have been out in my electorate and I have never seen more anger in country areas. In fact, I would equate it—even though it was directed towards our government at the time—with the gun laws. In some areas it is almost on a par with the rise of One Nation. It is a vehement grassroots reaction to people having their basic unit of democracy—the local council—being taken away from them. Local councils are the glue, if you like, or the mortar that holds small country communities together. If you take that away, your machinery pool goes and your working people go. Because the council workers have gone, the school goes from four teachers down to three or three to two; the police station goes down by one constable; where there are three restaurants in the town, you end up with one closing and you are left with two—and so it goes on and on until you get quite a distinct downward spiral.

I marched at Gayndah with 400 people—I see some of the members smiling, but I did march; I am not frightened to go to the front of a march for a thing like that. It was interesting too to see people wearing red shirts. It just showed the vehemence of it all. There were 400 there. I went to a public meeting in Childers—there were another 400 there. There were 250 at Biggenden and 120 at Gin Gin. The bush is alight with this and the state ALP government will persist with this at their peril.

6:08 pm

Photo of Maria VamvakinouMaria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Australia is a country built on opportunity, and as elected members of parliament we have a responsibility to uphold that tradition and make sure that it means opportunity for all Australians. With opportunity comes a sense of hope and optimism about the future that all Australians deserve to feel. People living in my electorate of Calwell are hardworking. At a time when the world and in particular this country are experiencing strong economic growth, they expect to be able to afford the basic cost of living. Parents expect quality child care and education for their children. Senior citizens expect security in retirement. Working Australians expect their basic rights and conditions at work to be protected. Young Australians deserve to be given the opportunity to build a bright future for themselves and for this country. When we make policy in this place, therefore, these expectations should be at the forefront of our minds.

Many Australians also want to see honesty and integrity return to political life. Most Australians want a government that is in touch with modern Australia, not a government that is always looking backwards and playing on the politics of fear—one that looks tired, increasingly out of touch and fresh out of new ideas. Opportunity, honesty in political life and policies that give Australians reason to be optimistic about the future—these are the foundations on which the 2007 budget should have been built.

The budget provided the Howard government with an ideal opportunity to outline a vision for Australia’s future and to match that vision with concrete policies designed to lock in Australia’s long-term economic prosperity. It also provided the government with an opportunity to make significant long-term investments in services like aged care, child care, education and health care, which play a crucial role in supporting the quality of life Australians deserve. But on both counts the 2007 budget failed the Australian people. It failed to outline a vision for Australia’s future and in a fast and changing world it failed to develop the long-term policies we need to prepare Australia for the challenges that lie ahead, especially when it comes to lifting Australia’s flagging productivity growth, taking advantage of future technologies and addressing the economic challenges of climate change.

The 2007 budget failed to provide any real or sustainable long-term relief for countless Australians who are struggling to keep their heads above water as the basic cost of living continues to soar. The greatest contradiction today is that at a time when we are supposedly more prosperous as a nation, more and more Australians are finding it harder to make ends meet. Everything has become far more expensive. Petrol prices have risen by over 40 per cent in the last six years, biting into household budgets in a way that is unsustainable for working Australians. The price of basic groceries has shot up. Child care, health care and dental care are all less affordable now than they ever were. Aged-care beds are in short supply. Personal debt levels are at record highs. Job security is disappearing as the Australian workforce undergoes casualisation and as Work Choices takes effect. First home buyers are spending on an average more than 30 per cent of their disposable income on mortgage repayments. House repossessions have trebled in Victoria over the last six years. And the list goes on.

In short, the cost of living today has far outstripped the growth in household disposable income, and this has happened under the Howard government’s watch. A growing number of Australian households have barely enough at the end of the month to pay the bills, to finance the mortgage or to cover the expenses associated with raising a family. There are many more Australians, especially retirees, those on a minimum wage and those who are struggling to find full-time work, who simply cannot afford the high cost of living and simply cannot keep their heads above water, no matter how hard they try. They feel forgotten and they feel left behind.

But instead of investing in basic services and in public infrastructure to help offset today’s rising cost of living, the Howard government produced an election year budget full of election sweeteners and one-off payments that, whilst welcome, are all about trying to protect the Prime Minister’s own political future in the short term rather than protecting Australia’s national interests in the long term. The Prime Minister wants us to trust him, but this budget shows that John Howard is still very much up to the same old tricks. In the time that is allocated to me today, I want to look in particular at the areas of child care, dental health, aged care and education and assess what impact the budget will have in these areas for residents living in my electorate of Calwell.

In terms of child care, the 2007 budget provides additional funding to the childcare benefit subsidy, the childcare inclusion support subsidy, JET childcare fee assistance, Indigenous childcare services and child care in regional and remote Australia. The big ticket item in the 2007 budget is a 13 per cent increase in the maximum hourly rate paid under the childcare benefit subsidy. For a family with one child in long day care for 40 hours a week that is on the maximum rate of childcare benefit assistance, this means an extra 41c an hour. Compare this extra 41c an hour in childcare assistance with what has happened to the cost of child care since John Howard became Prime Minister. In the last 10 years the cost of child care has shot up by around 126 per cent in my city of Melbourne. Each year the cost of child care increases nationally by an average of over 12 per cent. A one-off 13 per cent rise to the childcare benefit subsidy barely covers one of these yearly increases. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, childcare costs under the Howard government have increased by a massive 82.5 per cent since December 2001 alone. To put this in perspective, this is double the increase we have experienced in petrol prices, which rose by 41.4 per cent over the same period, and nearly six times above the consumer price index average of 14.8 per cent since 2001. Today parents in my electorate of Calwell pay an average of over $240 a week on child care, with many parents having to pay a lot more. Of course, the net result of all this is that childcare affordability has plummeted by over 50 per cent since 2001, with many families being priced out of the childcare market altogether.

To make matters worse for working parents, there are nowhere near enough childcare places available. Four out of the nine Melbourne suburbs hardest hit by severe childcare shortages are located in my electorate of Calwell, with childcare waiting lists at some centres in these suburbs over two years long. Yet the Howard government continues to deny that there is a childcare crisis in Australia and refuses to solve a problem that it has created and which is now systemic. What working parents living in Calwell want is quality childcare services for their children. They want childcare centres to be close to where they live so that they do not have to drive long distances before work in early morning traffic, and they want child care to be affordable.

Labor has a plan to help working families with the cost of child care and to boost childcare place numbers. At a cost of $200 million, Labor will build 260 new childcare centres in areas of need like my electorate of Calwell. Where possible, these centres will be built on primary school sites, to make life easier for parents when dropping off their kids at school in the morning and when picking them up after school. By working with local government, Labor will also develop a single waiting list for childcare places in local childcare centres, to save parents the hassle of having to register their child’s name at multiple childcare centres. And, under Labor’s Early Childhood Education Plan, all four-year-olds in Australia will receive 15 hours of preschool early learning each week for a minimum of 40 weeks per year, supervised by a qualified teacher, at no extra cost to parents. Costing $450 million, this will include funding an extra 1,500 new university places in early childhood education, scrapping TAFE fees for childcare trainees and halving HECS repayments for early childhood graduates working in areas of need such as my electorate of Calwell.

In the area of dental health, one of the very first things that John Howard did when he became Prime Minister back in 1996 was to scrap the $100 million Commonwealth dental health program, ripping $100 million a year from public dental services in Australia. Since then, the Howard government has presided over the virtual collapse of Australia’s public dental health system to the point where it is now in a state of terminal crisis. Despite the fact that state governments’ spending on dental care has increased since 1996, all that the Howard government has done over the last 11 years is to play the blame game, pointing the finger of responsibility at state governments rather than accepting responsibility and fixing the problem.

There are now over 650,000 Australians on public dental waiting lists across the country. In my electorate of Calwell, waiting lists for public dental care have blown out to over 30 months. Nationwide, up to one in 10 visits to a GP are now related to dental problems, and more than one in five Australians are going without recommended dental treatment because it is just too expensive. Dental conditions account for a quarter of all hospitalisations for children, and around 50,000 Australians are now hospitalised each year for preventable dental conditions. The simple fact is that very few people can afford to pay for regular dental checkups or expensive dental work, and they have absolutely no hope of accessing subsidised public dental care services in a timely fashion.

Again, the budget for 2007 does nothing to change this situation. The budget does provide an additional $378 million to expand Medicare benefits for dental services. But only patients with a chronic disease that is made worse by their dental condition are eligible for these benefits. The Howard government first introduced dental care benefits for patients with a chronic disease back in 2004. What makes this decision to commit an extra $378 million to this program all the more peculiar is that just over 5,500 people have benefited from it over the last three years, at a cost of only $1.6 million. The Howard government is effectively pouring an extra $378 million into a $1.6 million dental program that will only help a very limited number of people. In contrast, Labor will re-establish a Commonwealth dental program to channel Commonwealth funds back into providing Australians with affordable and accessible public dental care services.

In the area of aged care, severe shortages in qualified nursing and aged care staff, coupled with ongoing aged-care bed shortages, are two of the biggest problems facing aged care today. It follows that these are the two areas that the government should be prioritising. But nowhere in the budget is there any attempt to introduce recruitment and retention measures to address current staff shortages in aged-care facilities across Australia. And there is no attempt to re-examine the Howard government’s failing bed allocation system that has seen the government turn a surplus of 800 aged-care beds in 1996 into a 2,735 shortfall in aged-care beds in December 2006.

In a budget with a $10.6 billion surplus, Australian pensioners get a one-off payment of $500, which roughly equals the same amount they receive each fortnight. Whilst welcome, the reality is that an extra $500 is a two-week reprieve that will not help pay the rent and bills in the months and years ahead.

It is the same story for Australia’s 2.6 million carers. Carers worry most about what will happen to their loved ones when they are no longer able to care for them. They worry about finding suitable accommodation for those in their care, and about how they are going to meet the long-term expenses associated with caring for an individual with special needs. The budget provides a one-off payment of $1,000 for recipients of the carer payment and a one-off payment of $600 for recipients of the carer allowance for each eligible person in their care. But this hardly compensates for the $107 million over three years that the Howard government recently took away from carers by reducing the backdating of the carers allowance to only 12 weeks. In both areas, Labor will develop long-term policies designed to sustain and support the invaluable work that Australian carers do and to protect and strengthen aged care in Australia.

On the issue of education, a substantial part of the budget centres on a last-minute bid by the Howard government to reclaim some of the ground it has lost to the Labor opposition in the area of education. The budget includes a proposal to establish a Higher Education Endowment Fund, a $5 billion investment that will provide $300 million per year income stream to be distributed across 38 eligible universities. Each eligible university will receive up to $10 million a year. To put this in perspective, the department of education’s assessment of the cost of deferred capital works for the university sector is $1.5 billion. Australia’s education system has therefore been one of the biggest losers under the Howard government.

Whilst education spending has increased on average by 48 per cent amongst developed OECD countries over the last decade, in Australia it has actually fallen by seven per cent since John Howard became Prime Minister. Similarly, whereas higher education spending per student has gone up on average by six per cent among OECD countries, in Australia it has fallen by six per cent. And under John Howard’s watch, Australia has tumbled to last place among OECD countries when it comes to investing in early childhood education. Even after factoring in the education announcements made in the 2007 budget, recurrent funding to universities will still only make up 0.6 per cent of our GDP. In 1996, Commonwealth recurrent funding for Australian universities stood at 0.9 per cent of GDP. With university HECS fees continually rising, students living in my electorate of Calwell now owe a staggering $59 million in HECS debt. And, in this year alone, 20,000 Victorian students missed out on a university place during the first round offers.

These statistics speak for themselves. They highlight a decade of chronic underfunding and neglect by the Howard government. In announcing Labor’s education revolution, it is opposition leader Kevin Rudd who put education back on the national agenda and at the front and centre of public debate, not John Howard. I cannot stress that point any more—it was not John Howard; it was Kevin Rudd.

In the area of preschool education, Labor has announced its $450 million early childhood education plan, which I have already touched upon. In the transition from preschool to primary school Labor has announced a health and early skills assessment test which will help identify any early learning difficulties children may have. Labor will also set up a national curriculum board to develop a rigorous, consistent and quality curriculum for all Australian students from kindergarten to year 12. Labor will also invest $62.5 million in a pilot program to fund the construction of shared facilities between government and non-government schools. Labor will also invest a further $111 million to encourage more Australian students to study maths and science at university by halving university HECS fees for maths and science students and by further halving HECS repayments for graduates who teach or work in maths or science areas.

To help Australia’s skills crisis, Labor’s $2.5 billion trades training centres in schools plan will see new trades centres built in every secondary school in Australia, helping Australian students to find the skills that best suit them and providing them with real career paths in trade and apprenticeships. When it comes to Australia’s education system you need to think in the long term and not put forward piecemeal policies wrapped in a mother-of-pearl coating. You need reforms across all levels of education—from preschool learning through to education.

In the area of productivity, expanding our productive capacities as a nation and lifting Australia’s national productivity growth is the best way to secure Australia’s long-term economic prosperity after the resources boom is over. In the mid-1990s Australia’s productivity growth averaged 3.2 per cent. At the turn of the decade it had fallen to 2.2 per cent. Just last month the Howard government downgraded its 10-year forecast for productivity growth to just 1.5 per cent. Labor believes that one of the best ways to lift Australia’s flagging productivity is to invest in people—in our children’s education and in skilling up tomorrow’s workforce. Labor’s education revolution provides a blueprint for this investment.

We also need to invest in new technologies like broadband to bring Australia into the 21st century. Labor’s new national broadband network will connect 98 per cent of Australians to high-speed broadband internet services at a speed more than 40 times faster than most current speeds. This will mean that business, education and household services on the internet will all happen in real time.

Finally, Labor understands that we need to act now to tackle the threat of climate change in a way that is economically responsible. In this area Labor has announced that, when in government, it will ratify the Kyoto protocol, cut Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent on 2000 levels by 2050, set up a national emissions trading scheme, establish a $500 million national clean coal fund and establish a $500 million green car innovation fund designed to generate $2 billion to secure jobs in the automotive industry and tackle climate change by manufacturing low-emission vehicles in Australia.

Labor will also provide $50 million to establish an Australian solar institute and a further $50 million to assist companies seeking to develop geothermal energy. Labor will also substantially increase the mandatory renewable energy target. Labor will set a target of making half of all Commonwealth cars in its fleet environmentally friendly by 2020 and establish an office of climate change within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Labor has a vision for Australia’s future and it will continue to put forward strong policies designed to lock in Australia’s long-term economic prosperity. On behalf of my constituents in the seat of Calwell I would like to convey to this chamber their disappointment that the 2007 budget failed to address the issues and areas of greatest concern that are most pertinent to their lives and those of their families.

6:28 pm

Photo of Roger PriceRoger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to follow the honourable member for Calwell’s contribution on the appropriations. Labor welcomes the tax cuts and the one-off payments, because many families and carers are under financial pressure. This is a clever election year budget and it fails the future test. This budget does little to build Australia’s future productivity. Instead, it relies on the continuation of the mining boom for future economic prosperity. It fails to address long-term challenges for Australia’s future, including the urgent need to revive Australia’s flagging productivity, investment in an education revolution, delivering a national high-speed broadband network and decisive action to deal with the economic costs of climate change and the national water crisis.

I was in Blacktown last week celebrating the third year of operation there of ADRA, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency. They had come to see me before it was set up and now we were celebrating its three years of service to the Blacktown community. I would like to particularly congratulate David Haupt, who is the manager there. I would also like to mention John Eastwood, a lovely member of the congregation, who I feel is my personal ambassador. He certainly makes me most welcome whenever I am at an Adventist function. I thank John for his kindness.

ADRA asked me to talk about social change in Blacktown and it made me think quite a bit. Mr Deputy Speaker, you may recall that in the 80s and 90s there was a lot of shedding of unskilled jobs in the economy. Nothing exemplified this more than service stations, which went from having people to fill your car up with petrol to having self service. I cannot think of a service station in my electorate that is not completely self service.

What has typified the most recent changes in Blacktown—although I suspect the honourable member for Fowler will agree that it is wider than Blacktown and includes Western Sydney—is the growth in the number of pawn shops that have been established. There is also the completely new phenomenon of these shops where you can get a cash advance on your salary. They are something that is completely new. We did not have them in the past but now they are dotted throughout my electorate in every shopping centre. They symbolise some of the changes that have occurred in our society.

But there is also so-called easy credit. There has been a change in the role of banks from being marshallers of finance. You used to know your bank manager and you would establish a good savings record with the bank or credit union before you would get a loan. These days, teenagers get credit cards through the mail and sometimes these are uninvited. Such is the social revolution that is occurring. Why is all this important? I think it is true to say that the people of Western Sydney—particularly families—are under enormous financial pressure.

Before moving on from the subject of ADRA I would like to mention Michelle, who is one of their clients. What a heroine she is. Unfortunately, DOCS and other related organisations took her baby away from her on the basis that she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. ADRA were her last port of call and with their help she was able to recover her baby. They are both doing extraordinarily well. I thank Michelle for sharing her story with us. The most chilling thing that Michelle said was that there are many other women out there who are being similarly diagnosed with this so-called borderline personality disorder and are having their children taken away from them. There are going to be circumstances where, in the interests of the child, it is important that that happen. But the story that Michelle told is of young mothers who are frustrated and angry with the system. For no more than being diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder they are having their children taken from them. It is something we need to keep our eye on. Perhaps it will not be until the next parliament, but I know that the honourable member for Fowler, who is the Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee on Family and Human Services, will take an interest in this matter so that Michelle’s voice will be heard.

We are under enormous pressure. You only have to see the repossessions and bankruptcies. House repossessions are soaring. In 2006 there were more than 5,000 repossessions in New South Wales alone. Some of them occur because of relationship and marriage break-up—I am happy to admit that—but that is a staggering figure. Repossession orders in New South Wales are now higher under John Howard than they were under Paul Keating in 1998 when interest rates were 17 per cent. We are constantly reminded in the House about interest rates of 17 per cent. Well, mortgage repossessions in New South Wales are now higher under John Howard than they were under Paul Keating.

The Chief Executive of Insolvency Trustee Service Australia, Mr Terry Gallagher, told Senate estimates that bankruptcies grew by 12.5 per cent in nine months to March 2007. Debt agreements, which are binding arrangements between people who cannot pay their debts, have jumped by a massive 32 per cent in nine months to March 2007. Across all forms of personal insolvency total activities increased by 15 per cent, up from seven per cent last year. I repeat that figure: it has increased by 15 per cent, up from seven per cent last year—that is, more than double. Ten or 15 years ago bankruptcy numbers were 13,000 a year, but now they are 30,000 a year—13,000 a year 10 years ago; 30,000 now, which is nearly a tripling. That is what he told the Senate estimates committee on 21 May. What does the Prime Minister say? The people of Australia have never had it so good. In 1990 interest rates were 17 per cent but they were 22 per cent in 1982 when John Howard was Treasurer.

Photo of Julia IrwinJulia Irwin (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

He doesn’t like to be reminded of that.

Photo of Roger PriceRoger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

That is right. Under Howard, Australians are now spending more than ever paying off the interest on their mortgages: 9.1 per cent of their income. This measure has increased by 76 per cent. Interest rates started rising in May 2002 and are 53 per cent more than the peak in September 1989 under Keating. Eight back-to-back interest rate rises have added around $140,000 to the mortgage interest repayments on the average median priced home. This translates to an extra $470 per month. Since coming to power the Howard government has presided over an almost three-fold increase in personal household debt. The total personal debt in Australia has increased from $45.9 billion in January 1996 to a staggering $133.1 billion in November 2006. Insolvency Trustee Service Australia reported that the December 2006 quarter saw a blow-out in bankruptcy numbers in all states except Western Australia. This includes a 30 per cent increase on the corresponding 2005-06 period in New South Wales and an almost 28 per cent increase in Victoria. And what did the Prime Minister do at the last election? He promised to keep interest rates low. I regret to say that there is speculation in the financial press that there is another interest rate rise on the way this year. It is crippling people and families in Western Sydney. They do not believe they have had it so good; they are struggling. But the Prime Minister just does not understand.

In question time today, the acting leader asked the Prime Minister a question about petrol. This was the question: ‘I refer the Prime Minister to his Treasurer’s statement on 11 December 1996 that the government would abandon petrol price surveillance because it would reduce regulation, promote competition and put downward pressure on petrol prices to the benefit of consumers. Can the Prime Minister confirm that the government abandoned price surveillance of petrol on 1 August 1988? Prime Minister, after 11 years, when will the Treasurer’s downward pressure on petrol prices kick in?’

Of course, the question was not answered, and that is not anything new in relation to question time. But that is the point. It has been the Labor members in the House who have been raising the point about price gouging at the petrol pump. We have always argued that the Treasurer should write to the ACCC demanding a closer monitoring of petrol prices and getting behind the retail price of petrol. No-one denies, as petrol is heading for $1.50 per litre, that price gouging exists. Even the Prime Minister and Treasurer now acknowledge, after denying it year on year, that the petrol companies price gouge. They are price gouging.

Under Labor, Kevin Rudd is going to have a petrol cop. We are going to have a petrol prices commissioner, who is going to ensure that petrol gauging does not occur. The honourable member for Fowler, like me, knows what a great boon this is in Western Sydney. Unfortunately, we are very car dependent in Western Sydney. Our transport has been improving, but it has not lessened our dependence on the motor car. So for families in Western Sydney—it does not matter whether they are in Lindsay or McArthur or Fowler or Chifley or Macquarie or Parramatta; it does not matter where they are located—petrol prices hurt. And what does the Prime Minister say? Families have never had it so good. They have never had it so good. I say that families in Western Sydney are struggling. They do not believe that they have had it so good. They want to see some relief. They want some of the pressure taken off them.

You do not take pressure off families in Western Sydney when you have the Prime Minister of the day wanting to spend more than half a million dollars to provide two extra chairs at his private dining room in Parliament House.

Photo of Julia IrwinJulia Irwin (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Taxpayers’ money wasted again.

Photo of Roger PriceRoger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Taxpayers’ money. Those extra chairs work out at a quarter of a million dollars each. They must surely be the most expensive chairs in the land and it is no wonder that, once news got out of this proposed extension to accommodate two chairs, those plans were pulled. My point is: why did those plans ever exist in the first place? It is just another example of a tired and very arrogant government who is out of touch with Western Sydney families. There is a litany of money being wasted: $125,000 to relocate a staircase at Kirribilli House; $101,272 to renovate the Lodge dining room; $35,000 to renovate the bathrooms at Kirribilli House; $29,000 for wardrobe construction at Kirribilli House—some wardrobes, some clothes—$64,433 for a new back staircase at Kirribilli House; $82,000 for a 20-seat table and chairs at Kirribilli House. These were not especially provided for the Liberal fundraising function that we have heard about today; these were part of the permanent fixtures at Kirribilli House. There is $25,645 to renovate the Prime Minister’s Sydney office; $19,400 for four single-seat Chesterfield lounges and six new chairs for the Canberra office; $16,613 to replace a dinner set at the Lodge. Mr Deputy Speaker, I have not listed every expenditure—far from it—but you can understand, I am sure, that my constituents do not relate to this indulgence. They do not relate to expenditure on such a grand scale. I make the point: this is all their money. It is all taxpayers’ money that is funding these renovations.

But if anything symbolised just how out of touch the Prime Minister has become—why he is no longer able to relate to the so-called Howard battlers—it is this proposed extension of the Parliament House dining room in the Prime Minister’s suite at a cost of $540,000. And I might point out that $65,000 of that has already been spent. There are other things that I could speak on tonight but I notice that the honourable member for Kennedy is in the chamber and I am happy to yield to him.

6:45 pm

Photo of Bob KatterBob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | | Hansard source

Every single cent from the public purse of course could be accounted for by the opposition leader’s wife, who seems to have made huge amounts of money, which I cannot relate to and my electorate cannot relate to. But I want to make the point that we do not blame people for their wives’ activities and I most certainly would not blame the opposition leader nor hold him accountable on that score.

The Treasurer has said that we have never had it so good in Australia. He has said that he has a balanced budget and there is terrific growth in the economy. I wish I could agree with these three premises. A document was produced in 2003 called Electoral rankings: census 2001. I do not know whether these figures have been upgraded since but I do not doubt for one moment that there would be no change. I note that the honourable member for Grey is here. Of the 40 electorates that are poorest, every single one of them is a country electorate—every one of the 40 with two exceptions. So if you are looking for the poorest people of Australia, start looking in the bush.

Let me put a figure on that. The average income in the country seats—this is a 2001 figure, I emphasise—was $37,232. The average income in the in-between seats was $50,024, nearly 50 per cent more. And the rich seats, the top 30 seats, are all of course in the inner city. They are all the rich people and their average income was $75,868, which is more than double that of the 40 seats of rural Australia. So the rich 30 seats get more than double the income of the poor 40. When you consider that this is a median family income, and that country people tend to have more children than rich city people, that figure is infinitely worse.

When you say that Australians have never had it so good, I look at rural Australia, where our sheep numbers are down 50 per cent, our cattle numbers are down about 22 to 23 per cent, our milk production is off 12 per cent—I do not understand that, really—and our butter and cheese production is down over 20 per cent. I do not know anything about the wheat industry, so I will not speak about it, but we are simply closing our sugar industry down. We are closing a sugar mill every year and we have only got about 26 mills left. Brazil is opening 25 mills this year. You say we have never had it so good; it may well be that in rural Australia we have never had it so bad. Almost every single country town in Queensland has lost population and has continued to lose population for the last 25 years. My own family have owned stores in country towns in Queensland. Every year we have watched our stores go backwards. Whereas the rich people in the big cities have watched all of their businesses grow, we have not. Our populations have dwindled and so all of our richness of lifestyle—which we thought was very rich, anyway—has diminished very greatly.

That is the first thing: we have never had it so good. Let me move on to the second thing. The Treasurer constantly reiterates that he has balanced the budget. This is a very interesting principle. If you control your revenue, you can set the revenue at whatever figure you like. If you choose to set it 300 per cent higher than the last government did, you should be able to balance your budget. If you have increased the tax revenue from $105,000 million to $282,000 million in the space of 12 years, for that is the increase, you should be able to balance your budget.

The honourable member for Eden-Monaro is shaking his head. I want it put down in Hansard that he is shaking his head. Are those figures wrong, are they? Are the budget figures the Treasurer has produced lies, are they? The figure is $282,000 million. If you add in the revenue from the GST, you come up with a figure of $282,000 million. The tax has increased from $105,000 million under the so-called socialists—and heaven only knows they were disgraceful spendthrifts. You could hardly hold your head up high, Mr Deputy Speaker. The government could hardly be proud of their record in spending money because they have an excellent record of spending money. If they say they balance the budget, surely there is some responsibility on the Treasurer’s shoulders to balance the budget of the country. The Treasurer should not go out and skite about how the government have balanced the budget, when the country he is supposed to be the Treasurer of has one of the most unbalanced budgets on the entire planet.

What would I know about economics? I am just a boy from Cloncurry whose daddy owned a clothing store. I would not know anything about economics. But the former Treasurer of Australia and the former Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Paul Keating, said that when the current account hit $13,000 million—actually $12,597,000 million—the country was in danger of becoming a banana republic. And I saw him in ‘Labor in Power’ and he said: ‘I do not resile from that statement. This country needed a jar and it was my duty to give it to them’. So he said it was disgraceful and we were about to become a banana republic. The then Leader of the Opposition, Mr Howard, in 1995 on a Perth radio station, reminded Mr Keating of his remarks about the banana republic because the current account then was at $26,000 million. He said: ‘If we were a banana republic when it was $13,000 million, what is it now that we are $26,000 million? Tell us, Mr Keating.’ Remember that Mr Howard has also been Treasurer. So here is the second person who was Treasurer and became Prime Minister. The first one said, ‘Banana republic’, and the second one said on Perth radio in 1995: ‘This is the overwhelming problem. The problem above all else is the continuing, worsening deficit on the current account.’ This was not a poor, simple Cloncurry boy; this was the Prime Minister and former Treasurer of Australia, Mr Howard. And there is also the former Prime Minister and former Treasurer of Australia, Mr Keating, who said, ‘$13,000 million; banana republic.’ Mr Howard said, ‘At $26,000 million, it was the overwhelming problem above all else.’ Well, it is now $56,740,000 million. If we were a banana republic at $13,000 million, and it was an overwhelming problem at $26,000 million, I leave it to your imagination what should be said of a current account of $57,000 million.

I and about 3,000 or 4,000 other North Queenslanders are only alive after having heart attacks because we have special tablets that have to be imported from overseas. We simply would not be alive without them, and I am sure there are many people with other diseases who would not be alive if they could not buy tablets from overseas. But if you cannot sell something overseas then you cannot buy something from overseas. And if you are running in the red to the tune of near enough to $60,000 million a year then you had better take a pretty serious look at yourself and say, ‘What the hell is going on here?’

What is going on here is that we decided to free-trade. Excellent; laudable; I would be the first to praise the government for that decision. It was the Keating government’s decision. To some degree it was Mr Whitlam’s government’s decision, actually. Mr Whitlam decided in his great wisdom to take away 25 per cent of our tariffs. Mr Keating took most of what was left, and the current government took out what was finally left. So we are free trading now.

Anyone can go and get the OECD agricultural economic outlook. You can get it off the internet at any time of the day or night. You can go down to the library here and get it. The latest figures I have got here are for 2003—they are a bit slow in getting them out at the OECD—and they show that the average subsidy tariff level is 49 per cent for the OECD countries. For Australia and New Zealand it is virtually nil: six per cent to be exact. But that of course is accounted for mainly by the sugar levy and the dairy levy, both of which are now either phased out or being phased out. So I suppose we are at about four per cent.

That explains why our rural sector is collapsing. We simply cannot survive giving our competitors a 45 per cent start. We are running a 100-metre race and giving a 30-metre start to our opponents. Heavens—I could beat Linford Christie over 100 metres if I was given that sort of start! I would most certainly back myself.

So that is the reason. The OECD does not produce figures for secondary industry, but I know that when the American steel industry was in trouble the United States government quite unashamedly imposed a 30 per cent subsidy on imported steel—bang, straight between the eyeballs. And the President mentioned—and he should be praised for doing so, and he did several times in his speech on the subject—the words ‘communities’ and ‘jobs for people’. So they are not going to stand aside. Rudy Giuliani, in the copy of Time magazine which had Al Gore on the cover, was reported as saying in his speech to the Republican executive conference: ‘The one thing that you have all left out on Clinton’—referring to Hillary Clinton—‘is that she is a free marketeer, and this country cannot free-market.’ There speaks the Republican candidate for election in the United States. Maybe our leaders here know more than the Republicans know in the United States; maybe they know more than the Democrats in the United States—neither of whom are going to free-trade in secondary industry, and neither of whom are going to free-trade in primary industry.

There are other ways of helping your primary industries, as seen in the United States. I had never been overseas, but I decided to break my duck early this year and do a quick ethanol tour. I went to Minneapolis, and I filled up my petrol tank there for 70 cents a litre. We fill up, where I come from, for $1.30 a litre. And, in a lot of places, we are lucky if we fill up for $1.30. But the Americans, by giving their country ethanol, have lifted the grain prices from $2.50 a bushel last year to $4 this year.

This is one of the giant industries of the United States, and those proud people have stood by their farmers and rescued their farmers and made them prosperous. This year they will build 40 ethanol plants in America—and all of the Americas are under ethanol. When I was on this tour Canada announced that they are mandating five per cent ethanol. The Americans—I do not want to go into the legislation—have already effectively mandated 10 per cent ethanol. Brazil—with 200 million people, an annual growth rate of 19 per cent and a GDP bigger than Australia’s—has 25 per cent minimum ethanol. China, hang your head in shame! In one fell swoop, this government, with a 10 per cent mandate—I see that the member for Eden-Monaro is again shaking his head

Photo of Gary NairnGary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | | Hansard source

I did not.

Photo of Bob KatterBob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | | Hansard source

Do you agree with this?

Photo of Ian CausleyIan Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

Order! The member for Kennedy will address his remarks through the chair.

Photo of Bob KatterBob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | | Hansard source

I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker; the member for Eden-Monaro was talking in the chamber whilst I was speaking. He was shaking his head and I thought he was shaking his head at me, as he did earlier on.

Photo of Gary NairnGary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | | Hansard source

Mr Nairn interjecting

Photo of Ian CausleyIan Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

The minister will have his chance in a moment.

Photo of Bob KatterBob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | | Hansard source

It sure would be nice if he tuned in, because he represents a grain growing area.

Photo of Cameron ThompsonCameron Thompson (Blair, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Mr Cameron Thompson interjecting

Photo of Bob KatterBob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | | Hansard source

It is not all grain growing, but he has grain growing in his area. I can name names. It sure would be nice if you put your foot forward and tried to do something about ethanol. All of the Americas are under ethanol. Why is Australia not under ethanol? It is an interesting question. If all of the Americas—Brazil, the United States and Canada—have mandated ethanol, why has this country not mandated ethanol? Why are this country’s grain farmers falling through the floor? Why is this country closing down its giant sugar industry—one of the six giant industries in this country? Why don’t we help our farmers like other countries do?

Photo of Cameron ThompsonCameron Thompson (Blair, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Mr Cameron Thompson interjecting

Photo of Ian CausleyIan Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

The member for Blair will cease interjecting.

Photo of Bob KatterBob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | | Hansard source

Your minister said that, unless the states deregulate dairy, they will not get their $150,000 per farmer. So if you want to find out who was responsible for the deregulation of the dairy industry, which took over 30 per cent off the incomes of dairy farmers and delivered to the retail chains a 42 per cent increase in the price of milk, then I think you had better start looking in the mirror, hadn’t you? Look in the mirror, my friend, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and you will find your answer.

Photo of Cameron ThompsonCameron Thompson (Blair, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Mr Cameron Thompson interjecting

Photo of Bob KatterBob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | | Hansard source

You support them. You supported the decision.

Photo of Cameron ThompsonCameron Thompson (Blair, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

What a crock!

Photo of Bob KatterBob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | | Hansard source

You are in the government.

Photo of Ian CausleyIan Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

The member for Kennedy will direct his comments through the chair and will not be baited by the interjections. The member for Blair will cease interjecting.

Photo of Bob KatterBob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | | Hansard source

The member for Blair has just torn into me over the issue of dairy deregulation, and I just pointed out that it was his government. I resigned from this government after the dairy decision—I had the decency to resign—because my policies are different from this government’s policies of deregulation. You are the free trader; you are the person responsible for these decisions.

Let me move on. The government speaks about GDP growth, and I know it is wrong because I know that the Australian economy has not grown. So what I did was get out the GDP figures. They are very interesting because the only areas of the economy that have grown above CPI are wholesale and retail sales—Woolworths and Coles. They have grown above 50 per cent. Finance and insurance—primarily the banks—have grown above 50 per cent. Property and business services, which includes accounting, which of course has had a huge revenue boost from the GST have grown above 50 per cent; and of course property—ownership of dwellings—has grown above 50 per cent. But it is only those five sections of the economy that have grown over 50 per cent. Really, they are facades of illusion. Extra profit for Woolworths and Coles is hardly an increase in GDP for Australia; an increase in income for the banks is hardly an increase in GDP.

Whilst I have great admiration for the Prime Minister himself, and whilst I think in many of these areas he has tried very hard for us, the simple fact of the matter is that there has been a massive increase in the budget and that massive increase has gone to health, which is a good thing, and social security and welfare. Health got a $31 billion increase and social security, welfare, got $75 billion. So the increases have come in those two areas—and it is mainly social security. If you look at the unemployment figures, which the Treasurer was skiting about today, they look great. But you get a bit disillusioned when you look at the increase in disability pensions, because if you add the increase in disability pensions to the unemployment figures you come up with a whopping great increase of about 50 per cent in the unemployment figures. But the government is still to be praised for lowering unemployment to some degree.

Finally, if you mandate ethanol and move up to the level we should be at, all of our cars should be running on ethanol. It is cheaper and cleaner than petrol; it takes 25 per cent of our CO emissions out of the atmosphere. These figures are well researched and they are all scientific knowledge. We can develop the water resources of North Queensland and put in a customs duty to finance the building of 100 patrol boats to properly defend our country with guided missile capacity and interception capacity. If we do all of these things, we will have a secondary industry and a primary industry once again in this country. (Time expired)

7:06 pm

Photo of Gary NairnGary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | | Hansard source

I am pleased to bring to a close the second reading debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008 and cognate bills. This budget continues the government’s record of sound fiscal and economic management. Since the government came to office it has run nine budget surpluses, compared with the five budget deficits in the last five years of the previous government. Net government debt is now below zero—that is, we are in a positive net asset position. The unemployment rate is at a 32-year low and inflation and interest rates are at historically low levels.

Since inheriting a deficit of two per cent of GDP—around $20 billion in today’s terms—the government has turned the budgetary situation around, with this budget estimating a cash surplus in 2007-08 of $10.6 billion. The economy has prospered under the government’s stewardship. Over the past decade Australia’s GDP per person has grown faster than the OECD average. The OECD noted last year that living standards in Australia have steadily improved since the beginning of the 1990s and now surpass all G7 countries except the United States. This is in stark contrast to the four decades prior to the 1990s when growth in GDP per person was usually below the OECD average rate of growth. The Australian economy is set to continue its impressive performance. GDP grew by 3.8 per cent in real terms through the year to the March quarter 2007, while inflation has remained contained. The outlook is for solid economic growth, low unemployment and moderate inflation. The unemployment rate is expected to remain near its historic low.

This budget contains a program of investment in education, skills training and transport infrastructure; income tax relief for people on low to moderate incomes, for the fourth year in a row; a doubling of the superannuation co-contribution to help secure retirement incomes; new funding for enhanced housing and education opportunities for Indigenous Australians; a range of initiatives to meet the challenge of climate change; measures to secure and defend our country; and a package of reforms to improve quality and choice in aged care. There is a substantial breadth of initiatives in this budget which will help strengthen the Australian economy and community for the future.

In his contribution to the debate the honourable member for Melbourne moved an amendment to the second reading motion on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-08. My colleagues on this side of the chamber have responded comprehensively to the assertions in the amendment, so I will not respond in detail. The government obviously does not support the proposed amendment.

The effect of good economic management goes right through our economy. Certainly it has impacted very positively in my electorate of Eden-Monaro—and, in summing up these bills, I want to take part of the time I have to go through some of the very positive aspects that have happened in the electorate of Eden-Monaro.

We should remember that economic management is not just an end in itself but a means to an end and when you get rid of the interest payments on a $96 billion debt, which is what we inherited back in 1996, that money can be used to help Australian families. Certainly we have been able to help families in my electorate of Eden-Monaro in that period of time as we reduced the debt and got rid of that debt, therefore not having to fork out about $8 billion a year in interest payments. The flow-on to the economy and therefore employment has also been extremely positive in my electorate. As a number of people have said, there is no better social security than to have a job. In Eden-Monaro the unemployment rate is at 4.6 per cent. That is almost half what it was when I was elected in 1996.

In the largest city in my electorate, Queanbeyan, just across the border from Canberra, unemployment is now down to a tiny 2.4 per cent. The biggest complaint I get now around many parts of my electorate is that businesses are having difficulty finding people to fill jobs. It is a great problem to have, but that is the current problem for many businesses: they cannot find people to do the work that they have to do.

Many people talk about skills crises and, yes, there are skills shortages, absolutely. But as I point out to many people there was no skills shortage in the late eighties and early nineties. Nobody ever talked about skills shortages back then. Has this just happened? There were no skills shortages back then because there was 10 per cent unemployed. So if you have a high unemployment rate you will not have a skills shortage. When you reduce unemployment to the levels that we have now—4.2 per cent nationally, 4.6 in my electorate and 2.4 per cent in Queanbeyan—there will be shortages because people are looking for people to fill jobs. They have the jobs, but everybody is already in work so of course there is a shortage.

Education has benefited superbly across Eden-Monaro, and probably one the great programs that we introduced in the last couple of years was the Investing in Our Schools program. In fact, I was in Nimmitabel on Friday morning to open the Investing in Our Schools project at the Nimmitabel Public School. They have covered an outside area as part of their project plus they were able to buy additional computers and cover the entrance from the street into the school. Nimmitabel on the Monaro gets pretty cold during the winter, and one of the major problems was when you walked into the school you would get dew and ice in the morning forming, which was quite dangerous for the kids coming to school. So they have covered that area plus an outside area where they can still do things during wintertime and also be in the shade during hot summers. They are great projects for that particular school.

These are the sorts of things that you would think the state education system, which obviously has overall responsibility for funding public schools, would have done something about a log time ago. But no, they could never get it up the priority list for state schools. That is why the Investing in Our Schools program came to the fore. Many of us I am sure, like the member for Blair, would go around their schools and find all these little jobs that just never seemed to get done. State governments would never fund them. So when Brendan Nelson the then minister heard of many of these difficulties in many schools, this is where the Investing in Our Schools program came from. It is addressing those issues for each of the individual schools, not a program for all schools. It is not a one-size-fits-all; it is responding to individual school needs.

Photo of Cameron ThompsonCameron Thompson (Blair, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Particularly small schools

Photo of Gary NairnGary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | | Hansard source

Every school is different—particularly small schools, as the member for Blair says. It enables the school community along with the school—so the local community—to get together and come up with the types of projects that they want funded and put forward, very successfully. In the afternoon on Friday, after opening the project in Nimmitabel, I went to Snowy Mountains Grammar School in Jindabyne where we opened their most recent Investing in Our Schools project—which was the refurbishment of an amenities and toilets area so that the girls in that school have good facilities—toilets, showers, change rooms et cetera—which they have now been able to get through this particular program.

Also in education, the $5 billion endowment fund for universities is a great program. Since I was elected to parliament in 1996, several hundred people have been able to do full-time degrees in Eden-Monaro while remaining at home. Many parts of my electorate are a long way from universities. If you lived in Queanbeyan you could access Canberra, obviously, and possibly at a pinch you could from Cooma as well. However, in the coastal part of the electorate it is much more difficult. It was through assistance from the Australian government that the University of Wollongong established access centres in both Batemans Bay and Bega. Last year I was in Bega for the opening of the latest addition, as a result of a $500,000 grant from the Australian government, for expansion of the Bega Education Access Centre. So we now have 200 to 300 people doing full-time degrees in that part of the electorate—people who probably would not have gone to university if we did not that have facility. They may have done the highest level of TAFE they possibly could, but they would have had to leave home to go to university. So it has been a great boost, and the $5 billion endowment fund will provide an even greater boost for universities to expand that sort of facility. With the technology that we have available today, we can take education to the people. We do not have to make people travel to the cities to do tertiary education.

Roads is another great example of how a good budget and good economic management has enabled a lot more to be done in my electorate of Eden-Monaro. Road funding from state governments has been a very poor show, and certainly that is the case through my region. Roads to Recovery has been a wonderful program to assist local councils with much needed funding to upgrade roads, and the strategic regional program that was put in place a year or so ago has also been of great value. Because we have done so well economically, additional funding was able to be made available under that program, and the budget announced that additional funding. A week or two after the budget I was therefore able to announce a number of projects in my electorate for road funding, in particular under that strategic regional program. In particular, in the Tumbarumba shire there is $1.67 million for Tooma Road, and, in the Tumut shire, $2.4 million for the Greenhills Access Road.

They are two projects in the newer part of Eden-Monaro—but also there are two other projects which I have been working on for some time, and with local council for a number of years, in Queanbeyan and Bombala. In Queanbeyan we were able to announce funding of $6 million for the completion of Edwin Land Parkway, which will provide an additional connection between Jerrabomberra and Queanbeyan via Old Cooma Road. That particular project should have been funded years ago. Back in 1995, I think, the Carr state Labor government promised $35 million over five years for a ring road for Queanbeyan. The connection from Edwin Land Parkway would have been part of that. How much have we seen of that $35 million? Not a cent—and that was 1995. So we have certainly realised the things that should be done in this regard and the $6 million will allow completion of Edwin Land Parkway.

The other one involved providing $7.522 million to the Bombala Shire for the Snowy River Way, which is basically going to enable a connection between the coast and the mountains. That is also a project that we have been working on for a long time. Bombala Shire is a very small council and has been putting some of its Roads to Recovery and other funding towards it, bit by bit. It would have taken them a couple of decades at least to complete this. The $7.5 million will now enable that road to be sealed. I drive it quite often. In fact, I think I have driven it about four times in the last month because it is a great connecting road from the Cooma-Jindabyne part of my electorate across to Bombala and then on to the coast. It will be wonderful, particularly in wintertime, to have that road sealed. I have been caught in snow on that road in years gone by. It will be an excellent way for tourists to get from the coast to the mountains, rather than going the long way around via the major highways, as they do now. So it will be a great boost for the area. Those are a couple of examples of wonderful projects for my electorate in the roads area coming out of good economic management and being able to provide funding from the budget.

Water is another huge issue in my electorate, and the community water grants have just been fantastic. Schools like Queanbeyan East Public School, Monaro High School and St Pat’s have got funding in the rounds that we have had so far, as has Bombala High—I opened their recycling project a few weeks ago. They got nearly $50,000 from the community water grants. Braidwood Servicemens Club is also saving water. These projects are saving a million litres of water a year or more, which is terrific. Moruya High is another one. And the list went on and on. It was excellent that in the budget the community water grants have been expanded as well, as has the solar rebate program. I was in Tathra not that long ago for the opening of a solar wind generator on the Tathra Surf Club, which accessed a $4,000 subsidy under our solar rebate. Now it is increasing from $4,000 to $8,000 for residents and $12,000 for community groups and schools. There is a program—local people have been pushing to get community installations like surf clubs, community halls and so on, up and down the coast and in other parts of the electorate, onto solar and now they have a great incentive to do that with the increase in rebate that was announced in the budget.

Yes, we have had good economic management, but it is not for the sake of dry accounting standards. We have done it to improve the lives of all Australians, and certainly they have improved substantially in my electorate. Many people move to my electorate in retirement. We have quite a large retirement population, so the further changes in superannuation—many of which come into force from 1 July—have been particularly well received. As we say in our information advertisements, they are the biggest changes and, as we also say, you have worked hard for it, and Australians have. The superannuation changes have been some of the best received changes and reforms over the last couple of years—very fair.

The government believe in local solutions to local problems as well. Most of our programs can be targeted at that local level. We do not want to be Big Brother, telling people what to do. We want to be working with our local communities, and certainly that is what I have been doing as a result of the many regional programs we have. We have local environmental projects, not laws promulgated from some sort of central bureaucracy. We have local energy efficiency projects, not unfair foreign treaties. We even have local preselections in our area, something that, particularly in my electorate, Labor were obviously afraid to do. They could not have a local preselection; they had to bring somebody in from on high.

Unlike Labor, we have the vision and experience for the future. With respect to my own portfolio, I was pleased for the $40 million-odd over the next few years for the single sign-on project, which is all about helping more people interact with government electronically so we can provide better and better services electronically to the people of Australia. That IT project—being carried out by the Australian Government Information Management Office, part of Finance, which comes under my responsibility as Special Minister of State—is a great one.

The budgets bills and the supplementary additional estimates bills provide us with the means to address the significant changes being faced by Australia. The initiatives contained in the budget will help ensure that Australia continues to prosper, will enable responses to important issues to be faced now and will position us to meet the challenges we will have in the future. They are important pieces of legislation that underpin implementing the government’s activities and initiatives over the next 12 months. I commend the bills to the House.

Photo of Phillip BarresiPhillip Barresi (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Melbourne has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

Question agreed to.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.