Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and cognate bills was adjourned, I was talking about the impacts not only of the budget but also of the stimulus response from the government on the mid-North Coast. Some significant structural issues face our region that many of us involved in public policy in many walks of life on the mid-North Coast are working desperately to address. In the nine minutes I have left, I want to discuss the issue of education and bring to the attention of the House some of the stark challenges that are faced on the mid-North Coast.

In the electorate of Lyne, fewer than half of people aged 22 to 24 have completed their year 12 education. That is compared to the New South Wales average of two-thirds of people in the same age group having completed year 12. In the Lyne electorate only one in four people of all ages has completed year 12—a stark 26 per cent of the community—compared to New South Wales figures, which themselves should raise, I think, at least some discussion in this place. In New South Wales an average two out of every five people have completed year 12, which is still only 42 per cent. Likewise, in the Lyne electorate, one person in six has a degree or higher qualification at tertiary level. That is 17 per cent, compared to the state, where one person in three, or 30 per cent, has a degree or higher qualification.

The language that we have heard over the last 18 months to two years about the need for an education revolution is certainly supported and endorsed within our region as we try to address some of the structural issues in and around education. We do think it will be a bit of a meal ticket if our region can break the nexus of higher than average unemployment, which is currently floating above 10 per cent, and poverty. We, along with the three other electorates on the North Coast of New South Wales, are in the top 10 electorates in terms of poverty levels. We have the lowest income levels anywhere in Australia. In many ways, the breaking of that nexus is through education. So we certainly endorse and support this language of the government. We are watching very closely and trying to marry many of the good aspects of the post-Bradley review environment, which we are now experiencing as a result of the government’s response in the budget. There are many good aspects in the budget response for education that talk directly to the electorate of Lyne. For example, there is $437 million to support the participation of people from disadvantaged backgrounds in higher education. That talks directly to the mid-North Coast of New South Wales. The changes to the parental income test for youth allowance also talks directly to the people of the mid-North Coast of New South Wales.

However, I note an outstanding issue, and it is one that is causing a great deal of concern amongst gap year students; it concerns youth allowance reforms. The member for New England raised a question about it in question time today. I know that many members of parliament have been lobbied directly about it. I ask the minister and the executive government to reflect on the question of retrospectivity and look at the situation for those students who feel that they have been caught by the rules of the game changing halfway through their school year. Everyone who discusses this issue recognises the need for reform. There were individuals and families who took advantage of youth allowance when that money could have been better directed elsewhere. But leaving collateral damage in a reform program or in any aspect of public policy is, I think, something that the government needs to reflect on. Any form of retrospectivity which affects 18-year-olds who thought they were doing the right thing by the law of the land, who had started on that journey but were then caught as collateral damage, is a point on which the government needs to reflect. I certainly hope that the executive and the minister in question address the youth allowance package, at least by buying another six months or potentially 12 months in regard to the starting date.

For the mid-North Coast, the budget did not get in the way of what we were trying to do in relation to education. I think many opportunities can be found in the budget, in the stimulus response generally and in the government changes concerning the investment in schools and the trade training packages. We are working very hard on the ground to try and get engagement on as many fronts as possible in the education field. We were thrilled to learn last week that the mid-North Coast was made a priority area. A fellow called Mark Almond will now be based on the ground to assist in much of this work and will hopefully be able to assist in bringing many aspects of the education package and, as a logical extension of that, the jobs package home to the mid-North Coast.

Small business is the business environment in the mid-North Coast, and 95 per cent of all its businesses have five employees or fewer. We do not have too much big business in this area. Big business trawls the corridors of this place and seems to have a surprisingly powerful influence over policy generally, but it does not talk to our electorate. Ours is very much a small business environment. That is why the stand-out of the budget and the stimulus package in my eyes and in the eyes of the people of the mid-North Coast is the small business tax breaks. The 30 per cent tax break through to the middle of the year is great, and the 50 per cent tax break through to December is even better. Those, along with the increases in the R&D concessions that have followed on from the Cutler review, are certainly ones that I am encouraging my small business community to look at in terms of their personal situations. I hope they talk to their accountants about these tax breaks and tap into them to create jobs on the mid-North Coast.

I was also pleased to see the recognition of efficiency in the home—the $245.3 million increase for the Solar Homes and Communities Plan is very welcome. There has been a large uptake on the mid-North Coast. I was pleased that was recognised in the budget. That, along with the insulation plan in the stimulus response and the solar hot water plan, is really starting to put questions to every single household about what sort of efficiency plan they want to have for the future.

In wrapping up these comments and the previous comments I made before the break, in my speech in the budget reply, I hope everyone in this place recognises that the citizen holds the most important office in the land. In a lot of these programs delivered by government, we in this place can lead the horse to water but we cannot make it drink. I will therefore be spending an inordinate amount of time encouraging small businesses to tap into the various concessions and tax breaks on offer, encouraging every single household to look at the various efficiency plans available and encouraging everyone to consider their own education plan for the future—both as a family and as individuals. I would also encourage government to work overtime on this. I have been in this place for eight months. I see lots of good news and opportunities come out of this place. They are talked about in this place but still, at the most local of local levels, the information flow-through to communities is not as strong and as clear as it could or should be. There are a number of reasons why that may be the case, but I would certainly encourage government to make sure those who are most in need in communities such as mine do get access to the information and the opportunities on offer. That is certainly what I will be doing. (Time expired)

Chris Trevor (Flynn, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2009-2010, important bills and imperative parts of the budget process. In speaking on these bills tonight I would also like to speak more broadly on the 2009-10 budget and in particular on its impacts on my electorate of Flynn. The Appropriation Bill (No. 1) is of course an annual appropriation and, as per section 83 of our Constitution, this bill facilitates the withdrawal of funds from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the ordinary services of the government. This bill will appropriate approximately $71.283 billion to facilitate government services in the 2009-10 financial year and, along with the Appropriation Bill (No. 2) and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010, forms the solid legislative foundations for this year’s budget. The main purpose of Appropriation Bill (No. 2) is to make annual appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for services that are not the ordinary annual services of the government. These include over $1 billion for the Building Australia Fund, over $1 billion for the Education Investment Fund and over $400 million for the Health and Hospitals Fund.

On budget night the Treasurer commented that this budget was forged in the fire of the most challenging global economic conditions since the Great Depression, and I could not agree with him more. The challenges for the Australian economy today seem worlds away from the challenges faced by us only 12 months ago. The global financial crisis has well and truly sent shock waves across our country and our economy with a speed and depth not seen for many decades. In my own electorate of Flynn, skills shortages and employee retention difficulties have been replaced with new challenges. There is an air of uncertainty and palpable fear in workplaces today in my electorate and, sadly, no-one is taking their job or job security for granted.

As I speak today I have at the forefront of my mind those in my electorate of Flynn who have recently lost their jobs. It is almost crippling, as their local federal member, to watch as hundreds of workers are sent home from mines and industry sites in Flynn to face their families and begin the search for new employment. Some have left with their dignity intact and others have not. The global financial crisis has well and truly gone from a foreign, overseas phenomenon that we would only hear about on the six o’clock news and spread widely to find its way into the homes of the people of Flynn, causing heartbreak and loss as it goes. On budget night our Treasurer also stated that he understood the dignity of work and the cost of being without it. Again, I could not agree more. That is why I am proud to be part of a government that has embraced every effort to combat the dire economic forces that challenge our prosperity, and I am proud to be part of a government that has attempted to shield hardworking Australians and their families from the worst effects of this global financial crisis.

In the face of this crisis, the consequences of government inaction would be completely unacceptable. Without the government’s stimulus packages and without our measures in this year’s budget aimed to tackle the global recession, it has been forecast that our economy would be 2¾ per cent smaller in 2009-10 and unemployment would peak at 1½ per cent higher. It is because of my government’s action to address the economic circumstances that confront us all as Australians and my government’s commitment to support and protect jobs that, as I travel the length and breadth of Flynn in recent times, I can look my constituents in the eye, knowing that my government is doing all it can to support their jobs and to support their dignity.

The budget also delivers for those whose hardworking days are behind them—our retired pensioners. After a down payment on pension reform late last year as part of the government’s Economic Security Strategy, over 16,000 pensioners in my electorate of Flynn alone are set to benefit from an increase in their fortnightly payments delivered in this year’s budget. Again, I am proud to be part of a government that recognised the cost-of-living pressures that were faced by many people living on the pension and has taken appropriate action.

This budget also tackles another important issue for the Flynn community—the lack of access to general practitioners in some regional parts of Flynn. Flynn covers an area bigger than Tasmania and Victoria put together, most of it dotted with small communities and all of it rural and regional Australia. As we are all too aware, GPs play a significant role in the provision of health care. They fight in the front line in our battle with chronic diseases and play a crucial role in preventative health measures.

Last year, as chairman of the Prime Minister’s country task force, I took task force committee members to Longreach to experience firsthand the issues that people face living in regional Australia. The response from the Longreach community was overwhelming. At a public forum the community let us know in no uncertain terms that health care was their No. 1 issue. I am pleased that my government has heard and listened to rural and regional voices and I welcome the new regional health incentives that will not only help attract GPs to practice in rural and regional Australia but also assist in keeping them in these communities.

This budget will see the introduction of a new classification system which will retarget financial incentives paid to GPs to encourage them to practise in western outback communities. GPs who wish to relocate to areas such as Longreach, Aramac and Barcaldine may be eligible for relocation grants of up to $120,000 as well as yearly retention grants of between $8,000 and $47,000 per year, depending on their length of service in the area. I am confident that these realistic measures will go a long way towards attracting GPs to these wonderful and proud outback communities.

Of course this budget also delivers on this government’s nation-building agenda. The Bruce Highway, which has long been the main artery along the Queensland coast, will benefit from $44 million worth of safety enhancements, maintenance, and strengthening and widening to improve safety between the townships of Curra and Sarina. This work will benefit many in the Flynn electorate who use this vital highway.

On top of this $44 million investment to improve the Bruce Highway, this budget also delivers on two particularly notorious and dangerous sections of the highway in the Flynn electorate, with $1.7 million allocated to the planning and development of a $55 million upgrade of the Calliope crossroads near my home town of Gladstone. In addition, a further $1.7 million has also been allocated in this budget for planning and design work for the southern approach to Gin Gin, south of my home town of Gladstone, as part of a $20 million upgrade. I look forward, as the local member for Flynn, to the eventual completion of both these important projects and the benefits that this will bring to local communities that rely heavily on these intersections.

This budget delivers on my long-held commitment to the people of my home town of Gladstone to finish the third and final stage of Kirkwood Road with the provision of some $16.95 million in this budget, with the remaining $8.35 million to be paid in the 2010-2011 financial year. The completion of Kirkwood Road in my home town of Gladstone will ease congestion and time delays at the Phillip Street roundabout, Kin Kora; deliver on what was the No. 1 infrastructure project for Gladstone in the lead-up to the 2007 federal election; deliver a whole-of-community project for Gladstone and provide vital linkages for outlying suburbs and their residents; provide alternative and quicker access for Boyne/Tannum residents; and provide vital infrastructure and jobs for my home town of Gladstone. In addition to taking the burden of funding this council-owned road away from the ratepayers of the Gladstone regional council, it will also provide a valuable ring road to the port of Gladstone.

This budget forms a new era of partnership and collaboration with our local councils, of which there are 13 that fall, either in full or in part, within the electorate of Flynn. These councils will benefit from around $10.3 million in funding for community infrastructure projects, with an additional $2.33 million to be delivered to the Banana Shire Council to redevelop the Magavalis Sports Complex in Biloela to help budding netball, tennis and sports fans in Biloela realise their full sporting potential.

This budget also provides funding to local councils in Flynn of more than $19 million to undertake the Roads to Recovery program. It provides a further $2.3 million to local councils to target dangerous road black spots and it delivers funding to build 10 new local boom gates in Flynn, all at high-risk rail crossings.

This budget is also aimed at improving learning, literacy and numeracy, and educational attainment for school students through funding for quality teaching and learning environments, workplace learning and career advice. This budget will assist the 140 schools in my electorate of Flynn. It is through my government’s commitment to education that students from rural and regional Queensland, including Flynn, will have the opportunity to attain their dreams and goals. This budget will also assist the smallest schools, who previously did not have the opportunity to fund teachers, infrastructure or services. The budget will improve access to quality services that support early childhood learning and care for children through a national quality framework, agreed national standards, investment in infrastructure and support to parents, carers, services and the workforce.

The electorate of Flynn stretches from the Great Barrier Reef to the western deserts of Queensland. The electorate of Flynn has some of the most diverse and environmentally sensitive areas of Australia. This budget will assist the conservation and protection of Australia’s terrestrial and marine diversity and ecosystems through supporting research, developing information, supporting natural resource management, regulating matters of national environmental significance and managing Commonwealth protected areas. The budget will also help fund programs with the adaptation to climate change, wise water use, secure water supplies and improved health of rivers, waterways and freshwater ecosystems by supporting research and reforming the management and use of water resources.

My government is also committed to closing the gap in relation to Indigenous health. The electorate of Flynn is not only home to the Indigenous community of Warrabinda but also home to many Indigenous people living in all of the different communities. My government is committed to improving access to cost-effective medical and allied health services. This budget will also assist in accessing quality and affordable aged care and carer support for older people. It will also assist in accessing comprehensive community based health care and assist in closing the gap in life expectancy and child mortality rates for Indigenous Australians, including child and maternal health through primary health care.

The electorate of Flynn is an area of 314,000 square kilometres in which a large number of agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries operate. From cattle to sheep, from sugar to sorghum, from fishing to mills, my electorate of Flynn has a diverse range of agricultural activities. This budget will assist in delivering a more sustainable, productive, internationally competitive and profitable Australian agricultural food and fibre industry through policies and initiatives that promote better resource management practices, innovation, self-reliance and improved access to international markets. This budget delivers safer communities in Flynn. This budget delivers stronger communities in Flynn. This budget protects jobs in Flynn. It puts food on people’s tables. This budget is great news for the people of Flynn. I commend this year’s budget and I commend the appropriation bills to the House.

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This budget has serious ramifications for Australia’s future. It will go down as a budget when Australians had the chance to see that this Rudd Labor government had lost complete control over the nation’s finances. The government has done so in a very brief period of time. It is a budget that has been drawn up in the midst of a difficult economic time, but its response is built on a platform of spin and not of substance. It is a budget that contains very bad policy by pursuing reckless spending and out-of-control debt. First and foremost, when Australians come to judge this budget, will be what it means for future generations of Australians who are saddled with the debt that this government has already managed to run up. It has been very difficult to get a figure out of the government about peak debt, but what we know and what we have found out over time—because the Treasurer totally failed to mention the budget deficit in his budget night speech—is that peak debt will be $315 billion based on the government’s estimates. That is more than three times the debt that was left to the Howard government when it came into office in 1996. It was exceptionally difficult for the coalition to pay off that debt. Tough decisions needed to be made. The Howard government was able, through the selling of assets such as Telstra, to pay off that $96 billion worth of debt. It still took about 10 years for the coalition to pay off that debt. It is very difficult to say when this Rudd government debt will be paid off because I do not think that it has any intention of paying off one dollar of this debt. I would be astonished if, through the life of this government, this debt is reduced at all. All you will find from this government is that it will continue to run up more and more debt.

Australians will, of course, pay the price for this reckless and out-of-control spending. It will be paid by the one million Australians who will be out of work by 2010-11. It will be paid by those people who really could benefit from government spending. But, instead, that money will need to go on the interest payments for this enormous debt—interest payments that could be up to $8 billion a year. Imagine what could be done with that money if it was not paying for the reckless spending of this government. Of course, it will be the unemployed that pay the largest price for all of this, and it is very important that all Australians understand that this is a budget that will hurt jobs. It saddles all Australians with massive debt, but this debt will ultimately have to be paid by our children and grandchildren. And it will be decades before this debt is paid off.

The great tragedy of this budget is that it fully encapsulates the destruction of the incredibly strong economy that was handed over to Labor at the last election. It was 11 years of prudent and successful management during the Howard-Costello years that has managed to go up in smoke in the past 18 months. When the Rudd government inherited this economy, it was an economy that was called by the Economist ‘The wonder down under’. We had no debt, we had an enormous surplus and we had record low unemployment. The economy was the envy of the world. It is astonishing how within such a short space of time this government has managed to squander that inheritance that it received, and it has done so by spending $225 million for every day that it has been in office for a grand total of $124 billion of new spending.

I remind the House that it was the Howard government that actually paid off Labor’s previous debt of $96 billion, and it took us about 10 years to pay it off. This new government was left with $70 billion in the bank and inherited a budget surplus of one per cent of GDP. The coalition gifted Labor with these conditions and it also gifted Labor with record low levels of unemployment. Now we find that one million Australians will be out of work. Unemployment rates are forecast to hit 8½ per cent, which is almost double the rate that Labor inherited in 2007. Labor will continually blame the global economic circumstances for this outcome but, unfortunately, what is a difficult situation has been made worse by Labor’s reckless decision making. The Rudd government refuses to take responsibility for the increasingly long lines of jobless Australians. But, as I said, its policies are making a difficult situation worse. In particular, Labor’s reregulation of the labour market was done without any analysis of the impact that it would have on jobs. Labor’s bungling of the Job Network changes will result in more job losses than the failure of Pacific Brands. With unemployment forecast to reach 8½ per cent by June 2011, an additional $1 billion has been budgeted to fund Labor’s bungled Job Services Australia. This patch-up job was designed to operate only in the good times of low unemployment levels and strong employment growth. Labor will continue to throw good taxpayer money at a bad system that is not designed to work within the current economic climate.

I also want to talk about Labor’s award modernisation process, because this will destroy tens of thousands of jobs in the name of what is supposed to be just a regulatory clean-up. Small business will be on the front line of these changes, where the award system is supposed to be modernised so that we have one national system. That is a very laudable aim but, sadly, it has been completely bungled by the minister. Now we find ourselves in the situation where, from 1 January next year, in some industries wages will be forced up by up to 50 per cent. Of course, that will mean subsequent job losses and business closures, particularly small business, all around the country.

It is young Australians, of course, who will be hardest hit by these changes. We know that in a recession it is young people who are the hardest hit by unemployment, and it is youth unemployment that can often be the most stubborn to change. Thousands of employers who would dearly like to create jobs, particularly for young people, will be unable to retain their employees in their current positions, and they will have no option but to shed jobs.

It is difficult to believe that the government could stand by and watch this happen, particularly in the name of an old-fashioned and out-of-touch ideology that does not take into account the way modern Australian workplaces are structured. Over 11 years, the coalition government proved that supporting enterprise results in job creation. Labor do not seem to get this fact, and the budget shows how they have missed the point once again that it is enterprise and not government that creates jobs.

Labor’s budget has seriously failed to create the confidence that is necessary for Australian business to create employment. All it has done is create uncertainty about the record levels of debt and the burden that this debt will place on future generations. Of course, the problem with this enormous debt is that once the recovery does come within the international economy—and it will, over time—it is going to be much harder for Australia to recover because we are going to be saddled with enormous interest payments. So the debt that has been created by this budget is going to haunt the Australian economy for decades to come.

I want to turn to some specific failures of this budget within my own electorate of Stirling. One of these, which the minister for infrastructure mentioned today in the House, was my call for an overpass to be built where the Reid Highway intersects with Mirrabooka Avenue. The minister was talking about this as though it were wrong for me to stand up and say, ‘Labor should be spending this money in my electorate on this particular overpass.’ Sadly, he actually did not seem to know which overpass he was talking about and he started talking about a completely different road within my electorate. So I will just update the minister on the facts of this matter, because it has been a long, ongoing sore in my electorate. Firstly, there is a need for two overpasses to be built; I think it is important that the minister understands that. One needs to be built at the intersection of Alexander Drive and the Reid Highway, and one needs to be built at the intersection of Mirrabooka Avenue and the Reid Highway. They are two separate roads. I just wanted to place that on that record. I am sure the minister’s minders will be able to draw that to his attention.

Importantly, the Labor Party have promised to build both overpasses. They have consistently promised the people of my electorate that these overpasses will be built. Both state and federal Labor have done so at every election that I have been involved in since 2004. This promise was again repeated in 2007 by the Labor candidate in the seat of Stirling—that a federal Labor government would fund the building of the overpasses at Mirrabooka Avenue and Alexander Drive. Now, the government have, in conjunction with the state Liberal government, allocated money for the overpass at Alexander Drive to be built, and I commend them for doing so. The problem is that the minister does not seem to understand that they also promised to build the overpass at Mirrabooka Avenue. So I commend the government for providing some funding within this budget to build the overpass at the intersection of the Reid Highway and Alexander Drive, but I call upon them to honour their commitment to build a similar overpass where the Reid Highway intersects with Mirrabooka Avenue.

I am also deeply concerned about what this level of debt will mean for young people within my electorate of Stirling. Stirling is a younger electorate demographically. It is the most multi-ethnic electorate in Western Australia; it is also one of the youngest electorates in Western Australia. It is young people who are going to be paying the price for the policies that are being pursued by this government, because ultimately the burden of this enormous debt is going to fall on their shoulders, and I am concerned about what that means for the young people in my electorate of Stirling. As I said earlier, we know that young people will, particularly in a recession, find it more difficult to get a job, in that, once youth unemployment is generated, it is increasingly hard to bring down. The Howard government was very successful in reducing youth unemployment. But it is a very difficult thing to do. This budget will make it far more difficult for young people in Stirling to find a job, and that is something that I am very concerned about.

Turning to other specific budget measures within my electorate, the government made a commitment in 2007 to allocate $1 million for the building of a multicultural centre in Mirrabooka. It was a promise that was made on behalf of the Labor candidate, and I do not think it was particularly well thought through. The reality is that $1 million does not build much of a multicultural centre. Quite frankly, you would be lucky to be able to purchase the land for that amount. We have an ongoing allocation of $1 million in subsequent budgets with basically nobody to spend it and nothing to spend it on. It would be far more sensible for the government to sit down with the City of Stirling and say, ‘We promised to build this multicultural centre. We promised to do it on all the campaign literature on behalf of an elected Labor government during the 2007 election campaign,’ and talk to my local council about how they might usefully use that money.

The reality is they cannot take $1 million and build a multicultural centre because $1 million will not fund a centre of that type. I do not want to see that money denied to my local community. It was promised by the Labor Party and I would urge them to talk with the City of Stirling, my local council, about how that might be usefully used in Mirrabooka on behalf of what is a very multi-ethnic electorate. I know that the council would have some views about that and I am sure that they would be able to find a use for that $1 million.

This is a budget that will cost Australians dearly into the future. It will cost them dearly in job losses; it will cost them dearly in interest payments. And when the international recovery comes, because we are heavily burdened by the debt that the Rudd Labor government has managed to run up in such a small space of time, it will be so much harder for Australians to participate. It is a sad day for Australia when the government spends so recklessly and without thought for the future consequences it will mean for Australians into the future. This will go down in the history of Australia as a seminally bad budget for the country. It makes the Whitlam government look responsible and it will be bad for my constituents in Stirling.

This debt and deficit run up through this budget has enormous consequences for future generations of Australians. I am deeply concerned about it. I would urge the government to acknowledge that they have lost control of Australians’ finances. If they are to regain that control, they will need to change their mode of decision making and understand that what they are doing is very damaging to the fabric of our country.

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the 20th budget that I have had the privilege of listening to in the time that I have been in this parliament. It is in every respect a Labor budget and, more importantly in my view, it is a budget for the times. The opposition can squeal as much as they want in relation to the question mark of the size of the deficit. The true situation is that the government had very little alternative to do other than what it has done if it was not to create havoc in the community. The government’s priorities in these difficult times are to protect jobs and to create jobs where it can. We saw the first instalment of those priorities at Christmas in the stimulus package of $10.3 billion, a lot of which was spent in the retail sector and reflected in subsequent figures.

We also saw some $42 billion allocated to a nation-building economic stimulus plan that has seen every school in the country benefit in a financial sense, in a job creation sense and in the sense of enhancing those local communities well into the future. In my electorate of Banks, for instance, as at 26 May 2009, as part of the Building the Education Revolution, 61 projects in 44 schools, amounting to $18,904,000, had been approved, with more to come. In the National School Pride Program there were 55 projects in 44 schools, amounting to $6,904,000. In Primary Schools for the 21st Century there were six projects in five schools, with funding in the order of $12 million. That is money for the local community, money for local schools.

Never in my 19 years in this place has my electorate received anywhere near that sort of money from governments of either a Labor or a conservative persuasion. If anything, my electorate suffered under the former government for 11½ years because funding of applications put in by the local community was denied on the basis that Bankstown was regarded by the former government as Keating territory. Frankly, Bankstown did not get its fair share of funding. Under the current arrangements of this government, every electorate in the country is receiving this funding because every electorate in this country needs this funding.

If you were to ask me if I preferred more people out of work and less of a deficit, I would say to you I would prefer a bigger deficit and more people in work. That is the priority of this government. What we know, based on Treasury advice and calculations, is that the budget is predicted to come into surplus in 2015-16, which is not a long time away, despite the cuteness of the opposition’s remarks about the temporary deficit—that it might be longer—and a whole range of other things. The truth is that the budget is structurally sound, and it is sound because of decisions made by the Hawke-Keating government and the former Howard government, which set us up in a situation where we can act the way we have acted in this budget to protect our communities.

I went through the former recession as a backbench member of a Labor government and it was not a pleasant thing to see elderly men, 50 to 55 years of age, unemployed and unable to find employment.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hartsuyker interjecting

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take the interjection from the honourable member. The problem is that in the work sector a lot of people of 50 or 55 years of age, in difficult times, are put out of work because they are regarded as too old. In my view, it is a dumb decision by employers, because people of that age have more to offer than a few upstarts. They have a bit of corporate memory, a bit of history. But the point is: what is the priority of this government, for which we are attacked? Jobs. What are the alternative policies of the opposition?

Mr Deputy Speaker Washer, you are a medical practitioner. The opposition are going to move amendments in relation to private health insurance, where we have recommended some changes. I think it is at around $70,000 for singles and $150,000 for couples that it cuts out. That shows the priorities of the opposition, who have also indicated at various stages, although not very loudly, that they would prefer tax cuts for the rich or that they would prefer to be like a moo-cow watching passing traffic—in other words, to do nothing. The opposition have not come forward with a detailed strategy as to how they can protect jobs, because the only way they can do it is for the deficit to be substantially less than is currently projected.

This nation’s finances are in good shape when you compare them to the rest of the world and we can take out a short-term mortgage to protect our citizens instead of putting them out on the scrapheap, then losing the revenue to government and all the other consequences that fly with it. This is a budget full of compassion. This is a budget that is interested in people and in protecting people.

The other thing is that we are told, ‘Oh, some of the money has been put to savings and only a little bit of it has been spent.’ The savings do not detract from the money that has been allocated. I have an economics degree with my law degree from Sydney University and I went to my old Brown on economics books. Bob Brown was a member of this House for many years. I also went to Hunt and Sherman on economics and I had a look. If you read those texts, there is the multiplier effect. The multiplier effect, in Brown on economics, they predict is of the order of a magnitude of four so that if you spend a dollar, it is four dollars that whirls around in the economy. That is very important in terms of what the money means for consumption, for demand and for jobs.

I also happen to be a director of Revesby Workers’ Club. I have been on the board since 1980 and vice president since 1982. Before the economic crisis, our club was looking at extensions and renovations and has been engaged in intense planning since 2004 to diversify the club so that it is less reliant on poker machines and alcohol. We are looking at a child-care centre and a fitness centre, which will be opened by the Deputy Prime Minister on 10 July. We are also looking at a hotel; we are looking at 26 retail stores underpinned by Coles; growing the jobs on the site from 300 to 1,200. The major banks are interested and the project is sound but what we have found is that the banks do not want to lend in the current economic climate. They have got overseas commitments and they are not interested in big projects at this stage.

Why do I give this example? Because that is typical of what is happening all around Australia. If you do not lend then you cannot grow. You cannot protect jobs and you cannot maintain jobs. What we have done is brought back a $180 million project to a $110 million project. We have basically staggered it in terms of what will be built and when so that we can come within a reasonable chance of securing the money from the banks.

Multiply that throughout the whole of the community. If the banks are not lending then the businesses cannot grow, they cannot protect existing jobs, they cannot help create new jobs and that is why the government has had to step in. That is why certain guarantees have been given for the banks. So let’s not go on with this nonsense that the opposition goes on with because we are talking about human beings.

I am very proud and very supportive of the direction this government has taken in this budget and since the economic downturn. I am even prouder that the people have placed their confidence in this government and that those opposite in the opposition are not pulling the economic levers at this difficult time in our economic cycle when I hear what they have got to say. The situation is that it is a budget we can be proud of. Where is the evidence for that? The evidence is the very little interference that the opposition is going to wreak on the budget. It is not little as in ‘little’ it is just that they have not gone for 10, 12 or 15 measures at this stage—unless the caucus dictates otherwise.

Private health insurance rebates have been targeted. That was a bad policy at the time. The then opposition went along with it. I did not agree with it, but that was the decision of the party room and, frankly, I for one am proud that that has been revisited in the economic circumstances. If you do not revisit that—the $1.6 billion or whatever—what else do you hit? Do not tell me in these economic times that the priority of the government is to give rebates for people’s private health insurance when they earn above $75,000 for singles and above $150,000 for couples. Let us get real! That is not a hard decision; it is the right decision. What do the opposition want to do? Keep putting the boot into the workers, the way they did for 11½ years in government. It will not work—and the unions need to be responsible in these economic times.

In relation to difficult decisions, the government also took a decision which none of us knew about—it is probably the only decision that was not leaked or backgrounded—to increase the age of eligibility for the pension to 67 by 2023. I was part of the Keating government in 1995 that basically provided that the age women would become eligible for the pension would increase from 60 to 65. That was a measure that was to made over time, and it will be fully implemented by 2013. When one looks at that decision and considers the former Treasurer Peter Costello’s Intergenerational report, one sees it is perfectly consistent. It is not an easy decision, but what do we do?

There is a bit of scaremongering in the community. This measure does not start until 2017 and does not become final until 2023. People have been given eight years till it will commence and 14 years till it is finalised and the age of eligibility increases to 67. The sad reality—not the sad reality; the good reality—is that people are living 23 years longer on average than when the male pension age was first set at 65 in, I think, 1909-10. Only one group in the community could complain about increasing the pension age to 67 and that is the Indigenous community. If one goes to the Fred Hollows website, one will see that the statistics show that only 24 per cent of Aboriginal men and 35 per cent of Aboriginal women live to the age of 65, although in the last week or so some new statistics have emerged that show that they live about 10 years longer because there has been a change in the calculation.

So I know it is a decision that people might be upset with, but given the age of our population it is a hard decision that has to be taken now with proper notice. It is interesting that the Prime Minister has said he will not touch superannuation—that superannuation is off limits in relation to this decision. It can be off limits because we are not talking about the public purse in relation to superannuation; we are talking about people making provisions for their own retirement, and this may well be an incentive for people to access superannuation and to contribute to superannuation much more than is currently the case.

For me, it is not a difficult budget to rise to defend, because I think the government have made a good fist of it. I think they have got the compassion right. In the Indigenous affairs area, as the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, says in the budget papers, a raft of things are being funded. In the Attorney-General’s portfolio, some extra money is there for native title applications. One of the things that the former government did not do was increase the funding to rep bodies so that they could help sort out these claims through conciliation rather than through going to court.

So I think this is a very defensible budget. I say to the opposition: you are barking up the wrong tree by running your campaign on debt. There is no doubt that issue is resonating in the community. I listen to my community and they do ask the question, ‘Can we afford it?’ My answer is, ‘Yes, we can.’ Frankly—I will depart from the script here—if it takes a little bit longer to go back into surplus, so what?

I do not believe that you can play with people’s lives. I think the role of government is to make sure people are in employment, to protect their employment, to create employment, to create growth. That is why it is no secret that the British government and the American government, even the former George Bush administration, followed the same principles that we have adopted in the lead up to this budget and in this budget, that this is the time to invest in our communities. This is the time to protect them, and it is arrogant of those opposite to run around and talk the economy down. The stimulus package was important because it is about confidence. It is about helping the people get into a better mood, a mood in which they can consume, as against the opposite, because you can create a run on your economy if the whole show closes down.

I used the example to you earlier that there is more caution from the big banks in terms of lending. That means the government should step in to help fill the breach. That is why the stimulus packages are important. That is why a deficit of $57.6 billion is important, because it is investing in people and it is investing in infrastructure. There is money there for broadband for the future. There is money there for infrastructure in certain quarters of the economy that does not come down just into conservative seats or Labor seats—it falls across the spectrum. The money is being spent where it is needed. That is the important thing about the budget.

The Treasurer was right when he talked about the centrepiece of this budget being the $22 billion we are investing in the infrastructure—our nation needs to grow and prosper in the years ahead. That is what it is about. To help the growth, to help create prosperity, not to stand back and just watch like a Lowes’ dummy, doing nothing. And the $43 billion super fast broadband network is important in every respect for businesses in all quarters of our community, for schoolchildren in all quarters of our community. The opposition can mock it, can carry on. I am still to see anything. At least you came up with one alternative policy: ‘we want the same for private health insurers’. Whacko! How far is that going to get you? What are the hard decisions you have to make? How many people are you going to put out of work which you say is good for the economy? I am pleased to rise on this, my 20th budget, and give it my wholehearted support, because the Treasurer, Mr Swan, has done a great job—history will show that—and it is a budget worth supporting.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I could never refer to the member for Banks, at his age, as elderly. I think he is quite a sprightly member and puts his case very forcefully. I really could not see myself as being regarded as elderly at this point in my life either, so I will have to differ from the member for Banks on that point.

Seeing that we are talking a little bit of history in the member’s contribution, members may remember the popular seventies series Six Million Dollar Man about an astronaut horrifically injured in a crash. The show’s catchphrase ‘We have the technology. We can rebuild him’ is still used today by many, and the astronaut was rebuilt and he was bigger and faster and stronger than ever he was prior to his crash. You can see the attraction of taking a broken human and not just fixing him up but also making him far, far better, and so we had this ‘six million dollar man’ who was able to solve all the problems of the world back in the seventies.

But if we fast-forward to the present, what do we have? We have a harsh economic climate but fighting for us in that climate we have the cut-price version. We have the Treasurer and the Prime Minister, the ‘nine hundred dollar men’ or some may refer to them as are the ‘three hundred billion dollar men’ or the ‘three hundred and fifteen billion dollar men’.

But one thing of concern is that we have to question whether they have the technology to run this economy. Of course, people who received more in refunds than they paid in tax would not refer to them as the ‘Nine Hundred Dollar Men’. They would probably refer to them as the ‘No-Hundred Dollar Men’—the No-Dollar Men at all—because the spin that was put out by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer was that, if you earned less than $100,000, you would get a $900 bonus. But I can tell the Treasurer and the Prime Minister that there are many people in my electorate who are disgruntled because the spin and the rhetoric were not matched by the reality. The spin and the rhetoric were replaced by a scheme that was not properly thought through and discriminated against many Australians.

But let us return to the Six Million Dollar Man being led out of disaster to a bright future and ask ourselves: what are the Nine Hundred Dollar Men doing? Rather than leading us from disaster, the situation is far more bleak. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer are leading us towards disaster. We heard them last year. They used the catchcry, ‘We’re going to build a surplus.’ They talked about the surplus that they built. Very quickly, they have weaved their magic and turned a situation where they inherited a very substantial budget surplus into a deficit. Along came the Nine Hundred Dollar Men who took the $20 billion surplus and turned it into a $58 billion deficit. By contrast, during its time in government the coalition paid off $96 billion of Labor’s debt, but along came those Nine Hundred Dollar Men who turned a surplus into a deficit within 18 months and used their superhero powers to create $188 billion in net debt by 2012.

What would we think if we turned our household finances so quickly and so negatively? We would be very concerned, and the people of Australia are rightly concerned at the way the Nine Hundred Dollar Men are running our finances—$188 billion in net debt. That is $9,000 for every man, woman and child. It is not a good start to a newborn Australian today to be lobbed with $9,000 in debt from the first day of their life, thanks to Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan.

They blame everything. They blame the global financial crisis, they blame the shape of the tea leaves—you name it, nothing is ever their fault. The spin masters always make one thing clear: it is not their fault but always someone else’s fault. They always say, ‘There is no alternative’. There is no alternative, according to the Prime Minister. Either you agree with his policies on the economy or you are painted as being unpatriotic, economically illiterate and in favour of ruinously high unemployment. There is no debate to be had. It is perfectly clear that the Prime Minister believes he is correct on every occasion. But is he correct on every occasion? Is there another way to that proposed by this government? It is quite clear that in many cases where the government has put forward proposals there are other ways, and there are better ways. You have only to look at the bank guarantee that was put forward. The unlimited bank guarantee was painted as the only solution. What happened? We saw countless depositors, thousands of depositors, with their assets frozen.

There was also the fibre-to-the-node network. There was no other way to take this country forward other than fibre to the node, until suddenly the tender scheme collapsed in a heap. When it was found that the fibre-to-the-node system was not remotely commercially viable and the government could not find a tenderer to actually make this happen, then there was a new way. There was the fibre-to-the-premises option, but this option did not exist before the initial tender program fell down.

There was no other way on climate change, until the economic realities reared their ugly heads and the Prime Minister’s emissions trading scheme had to be delayed for a year. Previous to that point, there was no other way. If we did not start the ETS on time, it was going to mean the end of the world, the end of the Great Barrier Reef and doom for all concerned. But suddenly, when the political imperative changed, the Prime Minister’s view changed. Presumably, now the unions are protesting, there will be another way on issues of employee share schemes. There would have been no other way, but if the unions get into the act perhaps there will be a backdown there, too.

What about the issue of raising the retirement age to 67? It remains to be seen whether there will be another way. This government is hostage to headlines and hostage to spin. It is driven by hasty decisions which attempt to grab headlines and decisions that it takes in its own best interests and not in the interests of the country and not in the interests of good economic strategy. They decided that it was not in the interest of the government to use the word ‘billions’ so we had numerals but without the words ‘billions’ or ‘dollars’ attached. That is an interesting idea; an interesting product of the spinmeisters of the Prime Minister’s office. It is quite interesting that you can never have the words ‘deficit’, ‘dollars’ or ‘billions’ appearing in the same sentence—until, of course, the media start taking it up and then they apparently seem to change tack on that as well.

When this opposition raised the record debt being racked up by the $900 men, predictably the government and the Prime Minister talked of the opposition ‘talking the economy down’. In keeping with his mantra of ‘There is no other way,’ anyone who puts forward another point of view, anyone who dares to question the government’s economic profligacy, is doomed to criticism by this government. Yet the Treasurer has proved himself to be quite a gambler. He is gambling on high growth—on boom-time growth coming out of a recession that many commentators, including the IMF, are saying is going to be a long and protracted process. Despite that we have a Treasurer who has gambled on high growth. He is also gambling on maintaining government revenues under control at a level that is far lower—only two per cent growth in government revenues—than many of the elements of the budget would grow at, such as pensions and defence spending. Many of the major items in the budget will grow at far faster rates than the government’s limit of two per cent increase.

But let us look at the situation overseas—in the United States and the United Kingdom. The UK’s public sector debt stands at £697.5 billion or 47 per cent of GDP. However, the UK’s Office of National Statistics expects to have to add between £1 trillion and £1.5 trillion to the UK public sector net debt taking the total national debt to an unprecedented £2.2 trillion. This would be the worst debt outcome since the 1950s. Despite this massive debt we have unemployment in the UK in the December-February quarter increasing to 6.7 per cent—up 0.6 per cent over the quarter and 1.5 per cent on the year. The number of people employed fell by 126,000 and was down by 227,000 on last year. But the question remains: did this massive debt spark some form of economic revival? No, it did not. Did this massive debt result in job creation? No, it did not. Did this massive debt put the government and the nation in a stronger economic position? Clearly, it did not. Recently we had Standard and Poor’s saying it had revised its outlook for the UK to negative. The debt binge by the UK government has certainly not done that country proud. Standard and Poor’s said:

We have revised the outlook on the U.K. to negative due to our view that, even assuming additional fiscal tightening, the net general government debt burden could approach 100% of GDP and remain near that level in the medium term.

Debt does not equal prosperity and this government is taking us in this country down the path to excessive debt.

It is a similar situation in the United States, where you have massive levels of debt and deficit which are not resulting in economic wealth and well-being for the people of the United States. What are we going to do in this country? We are going to go down the same path. We are going to have massive increases in debt for which there is no credible path to repayment. The figures in the budget, which many economic commentators view with disbelief—the growth figures and the spending assumptions—are items of fiction.

Who will pay the price? It will be the Australian people who pay the price. If $96 billion of Labor government debt under the Hawke-Keating administration was a massive task to repay then $315 billion under the Treasurer and this Prime Minister will be a Herculean task and one falling very heavily on our children and grandchildren. Do they have a strategy to repay? No, they do not. Do they have a credible plan? No, they do not.

When you look at the individual elements of this budget and the way that they impact on regional electorates, there are some nasties to be found. The one that is causing very great angst in my electorate is the changes to youth allowance—a very nasty measure indeed. The eligibility for youth allowance is causing concern amongst so many young people. They are devastated by these changes. It is an outrage that young people will now be required to work 30 hours per week over 18 months in order to access independent youth allowance. Many of them have already started their gap year and were planning on starting their university studies in the new year. What is going to happen? They will have to put their studies on hold and work for longer. Some of them are unable to defer. In effect this is retrospective legislation from those students’ point of view. It is causing much heartache. I have had email after email from concerned young students and from concerned parents all worried about what the future will hold for them with the students needing the youth allowance to start their studies and to support the many expenses that students incur. It is absolutely outrageous.

I would now like to turn to the issue of infrastructure. Whilst I welcome the very welcome expenditure on the Kempsey bypass, in the electorate of Cowper we have a considerable number of major centres that also urgently need a bypass. Macksville, Coffs Harbour, Urunga, Woolgoolga—whilst the project has been announced we are waiting to see whether it actually gets going—and Ulmarra all need a bypass. It is vitally important given the heavy traffic on the Pacific Highway that the trucks are removed from the main streets of the centres.

Another important promise made by the Prime Minister was on health when he said that the buck stopped with him, but we have seen nothing in this budget that gives any meaningful support to that promise. I think that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer would prefer 30 June 2009 to pass unannounced without anyone noticing the fact that the Prime Minister swore an oath that the buck stopped with him on health. It is interesting that, as we approach that fateful date of 30 June 2009, we have the Mid North Coast Area Health Service actually cutting staff from the North Coast hospitals. We have hardworking staff that are somehow going to be able to ‘miraculously’, if you listen to the bureaucrats speak, deliver more procedures and more efficient services through fewer staff. I have not quite worked out how that is going to occur. If you strip 400 staff out of a health service, how can you do more procedures and produce more efficient services? We recently had a problem with infections at one of our local hospitals. What are the positions that are going to be cut? Many of them will be cleaners. How can you improve your infection control with fewer cleaners? It is an almost Orwellian concept. It is once again Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan putting spin ahead of substance. It is an absolute outrage.

I would also like to focus for a moment on private health insurance. I heard the member for Banks applauding this measure. But it is not so much an issue of the private health insurance rebate; this is an issue of the total health system and hospital waiting lists. If we force people out of private health insurance and force them onto the public system it will mean longer waiting times for the people that I represent. It will mean longer waiting times for pensioners and single parents. It will mean longer waiting times for those who can least afford to wait and those who can least afford to pay. The Prime Minister dresses this up in a ‘politics of envy’ type way and tries to masquerade it as bashing the rich—’Let’s slug the rich’—but it is really slugging the poor and the sick because they do not have the capacity to wait long periods of time, as is expected by this government.

Turning to the issue of broadband where we have this fibre-to-the-premises concept—we do not know how we are going to fund it; we do not have a business plan. There is not enough money in the budget to make—

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

$43 billion dollars!

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

it certainly is—an impression on this project. Yet, miraculously, investors are going to come and they are going to pour their money—$43 billion—into this project without a business plan, without any prospect of a return, without any notion of what they going to get for it, and we have 10 per cent of Australia that is going to miss out. What is going to happen to them? Ten per cent of Australia—no doubt the regional areas—are going to miss out under the Rudd communications plan. We have all of these investors who are going to rush out and take the Prime Minister at his word that it is going to be a great success—build it and they will come. It is purely a fantasy. It is all about spin, it is all about media opportunity, it is not about good communications policy, it certainly is not about responsible budgeting. Again, it is another one of the financial outrages this government is perpetrating on the Australian people. We have a situation where the fortunes of Australia are slumping under this government. This government is turning surplus into deficit. It is turning opportunity into despair for our young people. It is denying our young people Youth Allowance. It is certainly a government that is going to go down in history as the government that killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in strong support of the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and cognate bills before this chamber. This is a budget that firmly concentrates on nation building and, by investing in infrastructure such as roads, rail, clean energy, ports and a national broadband network, this budget helps stimulate our economy and helps protect Australia from the full effects of the global recession.

At the 2007 election the Australian Labor Party made a commitment to the people of Deakin. It committed to wake commuters up from the traffic nightmare and do something about the nightmare that was Springvale Road. We have heard a bit about Springvale Road today, being one of the projects that was mentioned in a debate in a nation-building bill before the House just before question time. However, that commitment was not there and was not met by the opposition, because what we saw was an amendment that would have stripped away funding to that project. For a project that was campaigned upon by the Liberal Party for 12 years, to see that come up in the House today was truly surprising.

The 2009-10 budget commits $76.5 million through that program to fix the Springvale Road rail crossing, well known in Melbourne to not only locals, but also those who live for miles around as the worst intersection in town and rated, year after year, by the RACV as the worst red spot—that is, congestion spot—in Melbourne for traffic. I will get back to that one a bit later. In the first term of government, to be able to stand here and say there has been not only a commitment, but also dollars put up for a project that those on the other side could only ever talk about and never actually deliver—not working with the state government, promising half the funds but not being able to do anything—we have changed that now. We now have a state government on board, an announcement and real funding and tenders let on the job, so that things can actually happen, so the project can start and so that commuters and road users will benefit from this project by early 2010.

I and many others that I know who live out in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne have lobbied for this project year after year after year. It is really a great thing that it takes a Rudd Labor government to ensure that it happens. Of course, state members did a lot of work too and lobbied year after year to get this funding in place. I cannot let go by the contribution of both the state member for Mitcham, Tony Robinson, and the state member for Forest Hill, Kirstie Marshall. They have worked long and hard and lobbied long and hard to get this funding in the state budget, and to have it match up with and come through at the same time as the federal contribution is a fantastic result for local people.

This project also provides a new railway station for Nunawading and we will see the railway line lowered to go underneath the road along with the provision of space for a future third line. There are also new car parks to go in place and new spaces that will be put in for pedestrian access across Springvale Road.

Debate interrupted.