Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to use this opportunity, during the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010, to reflect on some of the issues in my electorate of Farrer and particularly the rally—the protest that we saw in Canberra yesterday—which a great many people from the New South Wales Murray attended. They came up in buses, many of them leaving the day before or very early yesterday morning in order to make the point to a government which seemed reluctant to listen that, through the actions of this government, their rights to farm and to be part of a productive agricultural economy are being gradually eroded and taken away from them.

I would like to go back to last week, when I attended a meeting organised by the Natural Resources Commission, an advisory body of the New South Wales state government. The commission met with the community in Deniliquin in New South Wales to explain and describe the recommendations that it had recently made concerning the ongoing forestry activities, particularly in the Millewa area of the New South Wales central Murray and also extending to much of the red gum forests along the Murray, Murrumbidgee and Lower Darling rivers. This issue has captured and terrified—I do not think that is too strong a word—our local communities for many months now. We have seen an appalling series of blunders and mismanagement by New South Wales—not helped, I have to say, by a sudden switching of premiers late last year.

On the last day that he was Premier, Nathan Rees made the announcement that the Millewa State Forest, the Gunbower-Koondrook-Perricoota forest and the Werai State Forest would come under the supervision of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, New South Wales. So I guess he jumped the gun on a debate that was unfolding. I am not sure why he did that—I think perhaps it was to punish his enemies in New South Wales Labor, and that was certainly the word on the street—but in any case he pre-empted a report that was underway, that he had commissioned and that was being led by Dr John Williams, an ex-CSIRO scientist. He made that announcement, so that threw our communities into total confusion. As you can imagine, they did not know what the future of their industries would be and they were enormously concerned about this. However, the report process continued and took its course, and the Natural Resources Commission finally handed down that report towards the end of last year.

The meeting in Deniliquin yesterday was for the commissioners to explain what that meant to the local community. I have to say that they were not there because they wanted to be there; they were there because they were told to be there. They were uncomfortable and realised that what they were saying was very unpopular. They did not do a very good job of explaining their recommendations. There were 16 recommendations. The problem that I have with those recommendations is that many of them cannot actually be implemented by New South Wales at all. So what business is it of a New South Wales advisory body to make recommendations and hand them to the Premier of New South Wales, in the full realisation that they can only be implemented by the federal government?

The overwhelming take on these recommendations is that our sustainable red gum forestry operations in the New South Wales Central Murray can no longer continue, that the carefully controlled, monitored and, I have to say, very environmentally sustainable red gum harvesting can no longer continue. This is not just some gung-ho activity where people go out into the bush and harvest the timber they want, when they want and how they want. The care and consideration that is given to the sustainability of these forests is quite remarkable. It is all done under the close supervision of New South Wales state forests, because it is on state forest land. So the attendant bureaucracy, care and consideration that is given has really made this a great success in the past—so much so that the area has been listed as Ramsar, which is a recognition that it is an international, world-class wetland that is managed for sustainable production. So when we say ‘logging in the Central Murray’ or ‘logging the red gum’, it is very important to understand that that is an activity that is carefully controlled.

However, the New South Wales Natural Resources Commission has recommended that this end, effectively, and that total control of these forests be placed in the hands of the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service. I think it is fair to say, without putting too fine a point on it, that the people in western New South Wales have very little respect for the National Parks and Wildlife Service. I do not mean that as a criticism of the individuals who work within the organisation, because I have met many of them and they are very good people. But it is horrendously underfunded, and every year it appears that it has to manage a declining budget and more and more geographic area of national park, because there is this hunger, this frenzy, within New South Wales—driven very much by the green movement in the New South Wales upper house—to buy up more and more farmland and turn it over to national park. With that purchase comes promises to the local community that are never, ever met.

I use the example of Yanga Station near Balranald, further west in my electorate. Bob Carr made the announcement that New South Wales was going to go $30 million further into debt in, I think, 2005—a few years ago—and purchase Yanga Station, which was a prime station producing cattle and wool and which had a sustainable timber industry as well. The purchase of Yanga Station was conducted swiftly and in haste, with no proper procedure. But the community, as I said, were promised much. They were told that the workforce would come from the local community, that Indigenous employment would be given a focus and that 50,000 tourists a year would come to Yanga. About four tourists a day at the very most come to Yanga, so that might add up to just over a thousand a year. None of the local Indigenous young people have been given a job. We have been trying, and there is a great group, Balranald Inc., which was here yesterday talking to the minister to try and encourage some sort of Indigenous participation so that those young boys and girls can get jobs at Yanga. The station is not even managed from the local community; it is managed from the nearby town of Hay. So none of these promises came true, but the same set of promises is being rolled out for the proposed purchase—and I note that it has not finally been approved—of the Barmah-Millewa Forest on the New South Wales side of the river.

I come back to the meeting where the Natural Resources Commission was trying to explain its 16 recommendations. The mood in the room was furious because people did not want a group that they believed had no real connection with or understanding of their way of life and their industries telling them that their forests were overlogged, that their communities could adjust perfectly well with tourism, that 50,000 tourists a year would come and that camping areas, picnic areas and fire trails would all be maintained. We come to the issue of fire trails. It is topical in a country that burns the way Australia does. The people who maintain the fire trails in the forests now are those that work in the forest. So they are the contractors, the private industries and the state forest personnel themselves that actually maintain that network of fire trails in the forest. If they are removed from the management of and involvement in the future of the forest then they are certainly not going to be doing that.

The other thing is that when small fires have broken out there in the past it has been the timber industry that has had its equipment on the spot and that has risked its equipment and in some cases its people to get in there, where possible, and put the fires out. If you kill off the timber industry then you will not have the equipment there to move through the forest. We have seen this in so many areas: soon the system and network of fire trails deteriorates and it is almost impossible to get it back. The real criticism I have with the recommendations about the future of the Milawa forests is that they were pie in the sky—an impossible dream. Governments were being asked to provide some sort of pot of gold at the end of this rainbow that the commissioners were describing to us. So they gave a set of recommendations that have no basis in realistic funding. They simply said, ‘Government’s should fund,’ and went into a range of things that governments should fund, including proper social and economic studies about the future of this proposal and taking away the forestry option. We know that just to fund those studies alone would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars—let alone the ongoing package. People are sick of being told about packages that will help them adjust, because they know it is all complete nonsense.

If you are a young person growing up in a town like Deniliquin, Barham, Mathoura or Balranald then the activities of Canberra or Sydney are a million miles away for you. I think these country kids deserve a job when they leave school. Maybe it is in the timber mill. Maybe it is in the rice mill. Maybe it is in the shearing shed. Maybe it is as an apprentice in town. All of these options are being closed off to them. They are being told about tourism—about an interconnected global economy and financial services and IT. It is just another world away. We saw writ large in the Deniliquin RSL in the middle of last week an outlook, a theory and a set of recommendations that just made no sense. When the members of the community spoke to me after that meeting the one thing that I sensed, apart from their anger, was their bewilderment, because they knew that the underpinnings for this whole discussion were unreal in the first place.

I suspect that the Premier of New South Wales will get these recommendations and she will say, ‘Well, many of them are federal government recommendations so I can’t do anything about them. But there’s a couple here that I can do something about and they involve the creation of another national park in New South Wales. So I will sign off on that and then I will have fulfilled my obligations. It would be really good if the federal government could fulfil theirs, but of course that’s not my problem.’ We will be left with the worst of all possible worlds because we will have the recommendations that create a national park without the recommendations that consider the social and economic impacts of a future with no timber industry and the associated support.

I do not agree with any of the recommendations, but if we are going to have a national park then we need the rest of the recommendations. We heard the commissioners say that they were men of integrity and men of science. I do not question that for a moment—even though I disagree with their recommendations. I said to Dr John Williams, ‘I would ask you to add an additional recommendation to these 16—that is, that if governments cannot accept all 16 recommendations then they should accept none.’ That was clearly approved by most of the people in the room at that meeting. They recognised that we need not have this second-best solution. I renew that call. I maintain that call to Dr John Williams. As he said to us there at that meeting, these recommendations belong together. He used the term a ‘suite’. He called them a package. If you pull one or two out then they will not work. Then he was asked, ‘Do you think governments will accept them all?’ He said, ‘Well, it is unlikely.’ He has been around the game. He knows it is unlikely. So, please, Dr Williams, you do not have to undo anything that you have done but just say to the Premier, ‘Unless the 16 recommendations are accepted together none of them should be.’ It is really our only hope.

We have struggled in these towns with the drought and with low water allocations. The way a lot of people look at it, and the way I look at it too, is that if we are doing these things for the benefit of all Australians, if we are resuming environmental flows in the river and if we are saying that certain forests cannot be logged—I do not agree with that because they were being logged sustainably, but if we are making that our value and we are creating that policy—then it is not fair that one sector of the Australian population should always be the ones that have to pay.

If you drive through inner Sydney you will see signs saying, ‘Save the red gum forests in New South Wales’. I do not know how many of the residents of Surry Hills, Paddington or Darlinghurst have been to look, learned and understood the industry for themselves—I suspect not many—but it sounds good: ‘Oh gosh, there are people out there knocking over timber and we’ve got to keep these forests. We’re losing them forever,’ et cetera. Such is the nonsense that is spoken by the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Wilderness Society on this matter. Those people are not being asked to give up anything at all, but they are being asked to support a campaign. They may make donations. They are being asked to support a campaign that has seen protesters tie themselves to logging equipment in the tops of trees and a police force powerless to get them down. And then, when the poor local contractor who has a family business—and he was here yesterday taking time out of his business to protest on the lawns of Parliament House—tries to get some prosecution for this outrageous attack on his equipment, his lifestyle and his family into the court system, out come all of the high-flying barristers and legal people that can hired by the conservation movement and the green movement. They just crush him, because what else would they do? And the contractor gets nowhere. He has lost weeks of production from protests. He has no recourse to the law. He has no recourse to government. He has a set of recommendations from people who understand nothing about the industry he is in or the importance of that industry to the community of which he is a part. As I said, he came to Canberra yesterday to voice his protest on the lawns of Parliament House. He was due to speak at the rally—I am not sure whether he did. His wife and family were there to support him. I certainly was there to support him as well as many of the other farmers there.

I do not approve of the action that Mr Peter Spencer took by climbing up his pole and threatening his own life. I do not approve of it at all. I make no apologies or excuse for it. I do not know Mr Spencer. But what I responded to yesterday by attending the rally, and why the government members should have been out there attending the rally, are the sentiments, the feeling, the frustration, the anger and the disappointment. These reached a point that I have not seen in eight years of representing those communities.

I do hope that, with the prominence that that protest received and the ongoing efforts of those involved, we will see the government start to pay attention. There are a couple of things they could do. They could demonstrate their care. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry could demonstrate his care and compassion for farmers by announcing that exceptional circumstances support, which is due to run out on 31 March, will be extended for at least another six months—12 months would be better. At the moment people are in limbo land. They do not know what is happening. They know that the exceptional circumstances support runs out on that date, but they have been told nothing.

The other thing that the government could do is that the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong, could purchase water from our communities according to a plan. I do not agree with the way that this water is being resumed for the environment, but I particularly do not agree with the fact that it is being resumed with no plan. So we have, as we well know, the swiss cheese effect, where a bit of water comes from this area and a bit of water comes from that area. The interconnected irrigation equipment is left to deteriorate between those two areas, or the company is forced to supply a small amount of water at the end of a long channel where everybody has sold their water, completely without a plan. The government could resume exactly the amount of water it seems to want—and it has an insatiable appetite for it—without actually approaching it in this way, by just consulting with the local communities and the irrigation corporations, and coming up with a plan that closes off one section of an irrigation area and leaves another open so that we can maintain that efficiency with the small amount of water that we are being left with.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the face of the greatest economic threat to prosperity that has occurred in our lifetime, I think most people would agree the measures introduced by the Rudd government just over a year ago that provided for a range of stimulus measures for families, including one-off payments, the installation of energy efficiency measures in homes, investment in schools for their children, and investment in major as well as local government based infrastructure—all these things—have combined to make a real difference in each of our local communities. Because we acted early and were decisive in our approach, our economy was cushioned, and we are certainly in a much stronger position than most other countries. Our economic stimulus has meant that Australia avoided a technical recession. Our economy is going forward while most other major economies have gone backwards. We have the strongest growth, the second-lowest unemployment, the lowest debt and the lowest deficit of all major economies of the OECD.

It should be said from the outset that these same measures, responsible as they were, were voted against on each and every occasion by members of the opposition. They voted against our economic and infrastructure stimulus package despite this being a most serious threat to our economy. It was a global recession of a magnitude that had not been seen in the last 75 years. This attack by the opposition on these credible economic strategies just highlights how out of touch the members of the opposition were—or maybe they just did not care about the consequences and preferred to play politics. If the opposition had had its way and blocked the stimulus packages—all those measures which I have mentioned and others—Australia would have joined other major economies and been in recession, and tens of thousands more Australians would have been out of work.

While the government has been getting on with the job, the Liberal and National parties have been fighting amongst themselves. It is a divided coalition. Their record speaks for itself: they have had four leaders in just over two years. It is hardly a united bunch. I do not want to dwell on this but I have got to say, and I think it has to be conceded in this House, that the current Leader of the Opposition is prone to having the odd extreme view. There are just a couple I would like to draw to the House’s attention which certainly impact on local communities and communities that I represent.

Mr Abbott wants to bring back the worst aspects of Work Choices. He wants to reintroduce statutory individual contracts which cut the wages and conditions of working families. In the past I have taken a lot of the time of this House in citing plenty of examples in my own electorate of the negative impacts that Work Choices had on working families. After the last election Mr Abbott said this:

The Howard government’s industrial legislation was good for wages, it was good for jobs and it was good for workers and let’s never forget that.

That left Mr Abbott in stark contrast with the current shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, and the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr Turnbull, who all wanted to jettison as fast as possible any notion that they had had any affiliation with Work Choices. But he is not prone to be weak hearted on these things. We have seen him as the health minister in the former government also presiding over a $1 billion cut from public hospitals, freezing the number of GP training places and ignoring the need for more nurses despite a record 6,000-nurse shortage across the country. Now he has taken over the reins of the Liberal Party he says that he if he has his way he will stop the school building program. It is a vital aspect of our infrastructure proposals that is certainly making a difference in every school. I will put my hand up and say that it is certainly making a difference to schools in my electorate. Every member, whether they be Labor, Liberal, National or calithumpian, acknowledges that every school is benefiting from that. Not only is it providing opportunities for kids into the future, it is also supporting jobs, particularly in regions which are affected by a growth in unemployment, such as mine, where this has made a very significant difference.

The Leader of the Opposition also refuses to support serious action to protect our environment. This is the same man who has had seven different positions so far on the environment. At the outset of the Rudd government he was one of those who had developed the view that the opposition should vote for the CPRS. He was of the view that they should get it off the table and get it out of the way. He was advocating that as a senior member of the opposition, but now when he takes the reins he wants to oppose it. People who sit on that side of the House have got to realise that you cannot just have these sudden flights of fancy when it comes to policy. It is either solid policy or it is not. You cannot go from one position of saying, ‘Let’s sign it and get it off the table; let’s get on with it,’ to a position of opposition to the CPRS and of saying, ‘We are going to fight it on the beaches, tooth and nail.’ In that I think it actually says a lot about the people who would follow this current Leader of the Opposition.

We should also remember that he was a senior minister in a government that presided over this country for 12 years but which neglected to invest in hospitals, schools or infrastructure. That is just a matter of record. As I said earlier, over the past two years in government we have been working hard to build this country’s future. We have done this while keeping Australia’s finances strong and whilst also retaining a AAA credit rating. That is something that has been achieved not simply through the workings of a federal government. We have worked with our state and territory local governments as well, and that is regardless of their political persuasions.

Just to recap some of the highlights that we have delivered in the last two years of the Rudd government: there were the tax cuts we delivered to working families, acting decisively to support jobs and small business during a global recession which was the worst in 75 years; the abolition of Work Choices and restoring of fairness to the workplace; our investment in new cancer research treatment centres, including the one at Liverpool just down the road from me—$46.9 million delivered into the Ingham Health Research Institute at Liverpool Hospital; and our supporting record investments in solar and wind to protect our environment for future generations.

More locally, I am happy to say that work has commenced on the final stage of the F5 freeway—the widening project—which is a vital piece of transport infrastructure. It is a road corridor that is essential in connecting the outer metropolitan areas of Sydney, particularly in the south-west. Work is also well on the way, with $8 million for the refurbishment of Campbelltown Stadium, which is scheduled to be finalised shortly for the commencement of the 2010 rugby league season. As I know from my Chinese community, this is the year of the tiger. I have a hunch that this might be prophetic for the West Tigers as they play in their new stadium in the 2010 season.

In schools, the largest school building program ever seen in this country is in full swing. Members opposite are only too happy to have their local papers take their photos as they open school hall after school hall, classroom after classroom et cetera—notwithstanding the fact they voted against all those projects, I might add. These schools are not only providing opportunities for our kids as they progress; they are also providing opportunities for local tradesmen and local apprentices and doing something about localised issues of employment. This is a successful position.

The opposition want to stop stimulus. They actually want to turn it back. They want to turn it off. If the opposition got their way and withdrew the stimulus packages, they would be kneecapping our recovery, undermining confidence and threatening small business and, importantly, the thousands of jobs that are supported by small business. Clearly, it is the Rudd government that is preparing this country for the challenges of the future. We can continue to do that, and we will continue to do that, with the cooperation of state, territory and local governments.

I would like to talk briefly on another issue which is close to my heart, and justifiably is a priority of this government—national security. The security of the nation is the highest priority of this government. The Prime Minister in his national security statement in December 2008 assured Australia that we would act on that, and that it would be a priority which we would develop. The government have done that. Since being in government we have introduced a number of initiatives that I believe have gone a long way to protecting the community, particularly at our most vulnerable times. The Prime Minister has spoken about being fortunate in having highly capable police services which can respond to a spectrum of challenges, from threats to public safety through to attacks of terrorism. He has also gone on to say that being tough on crime is effectively what we are going to do, and we will do that by supporting those people on the thin blue line; those people who protect our society. We will give them the tools they need to get on and do their job more efficiently.

As people in this House know, I rarely let go by an opportunity to personally acknowledge the contribution of the men and women of our police forces who are in the fight against crime on our behalf. I appreciate the tremendous work that our police do, and I genuinely value the difficult and often dangerous jobs that police officers have. Policing is a dangerous occupation, and it is with sadness that I inform the House that on 3 January this year Northern Territory Police Sergeant Brett Meredith paid the ultimate sacrifice as he was tragically killed in the execution of his duties. I take the opportunity to offer my deepest condolences to his family, particularly his wife Aimee, their young children, their friends and colleagues, and members of the Northern Territory Police Association as well.

As a member of the parliamentary joint committee that oversights the Australian Crime Commission, I have had the opportunity to review legislative arrangements effectively dealing with elements of serious and organised crime, both domestically and internationally. As a result of this review I am very pleased to see that the Attorney-General introduced legislation, late last year, designed to combat serious and organised crime. We are developing measures to empower our police with the tools and the legislative support they need to act on our behalf in protecting our communities. For instance, as I stated in a speech last year, the 2009 organised crime bill, which has the support of state and territory governments as well, will now set the benchmark in terms of attacking organised crime by using unexplained wealth as a means to address this serious scourge of our society.

In October I also had the opportunity to travel to the United States as part of a parliamentary delegation. I took the opportunity while there to visit various police jurisdictions which are currently responsible for advancing the practices of community oriented policing services, or COPS. The COPS program is run through the US Department of Justice and brings together communities and police in ways that address local crime problems that challenge many communities. It is a partnership approach, but it always involves professional police on the ground in local communities because they know the key issues at particular localities. Rather than simply responding to crime once it has been committed, community policing concentrates on preventing crime and eliminating the atmosphere of fear that crime induces. During the course of these meetings I found a significant number of jurisdictions participating in the COPS program, and they hailed it as one of the most successful anti-crime programs available to them.

By way of background, the federally funded program was initiated in 1994 under President Clinton. As I understand it, the COPS office is administered through the Department of Justice. It distributes funds through a wide range of programs, both grants and cooperative arrangements, to state, local and territory law enforcement agencies. All jurisdictions I visited pointed out that the federal funding received was essential for implementing successful programs in community policing and, more importantly, for crime prevention and reduction strategies. They reported that the projects were most effective when targeted at trouble spots identified by the community and undertaken not in isolation, as they generally involve multiagency approaches.

On the election of the Obama government in 2008, particularly with the close support of Vice President Biden, the federal financial support for the COPS program was increased and it was therefore given a re-established priority by the Obama administration. The basis of the COPS program initially was to support local law enforcement agencies in their ability to secure police for designated projects, provided that such projects were pursued in partnership with local communities. While I was in Washington, I met with the officers of COPS and particularly with Deputy Director Webb of the Office of COPS. I learnt that, whilst law and order in the US has certainly been the responsibility of state and territory jurisdictions, it is considered imperative for the federal government to become involved, primarily through funding, to assist the development of community based policing models. In addition to providing financial assistance for community based policing projects, the Office of COPS has developed a wide range of recognised research aids and establishments to support best-practice policing throughout the United States.

One police department gave me a detailed brief of the crime prevention strategies that they had developed, particularly in relation to gang related violence. They identified a crime hot spot in a relatively small area. As a matter of fact, it was contained within a few blocks—about six blocks, I think it was. It accounted for the major crime, including shootings. The police indicated that it was characterised as a low socioeconomic area with a high proportion of welfare based single parents as well as a transient male population. Drug distribution was common. Gun related violence was prevalent, particularly amongst young street offenders. Through the financial assistance provided by the federal government through the COPS program, local police developed a safe streets program in partnership with the local community. Significantly, as a direct result of the federal government’s funding, they saw an overall decrease in crime across the safe streets team sites. Specifically, they saw a 12 per cent reduction in violent crime and in some areas a decrease of as much as 54 per cent. Also, the police through their project established a better relationship with the community and particularly the young people of the area. This was all possible through federal financial assistance in law enforcement. The police were very clearly of the view that engaging the local community in preventative strategies provided a significant measure of empowerment to the local community in helping to shape their future.

We know that the public do not differentiate between state, territory and federal governments when it comes to taking responsible action for law enforcement. What police saw there was that the communities wished to become involved, and that gave them the mechanism to achieve it. I believe that there needs to be a greater degree of acceptance that all levels of government have a responsibility for law enforcement, not just at local levels, and that also extends to community safety and crime prevention. This sits with what I said in the first speech that I gave to this place, back in 2005, where I said:

For too long, policing has been seen simply as an issue for state governments. There is no doubt that local, state and federal government policies all have an impact on crime and, therefore, there is a need for greater integration of policy responsibility in respect of policing, law and order, and crime prevention.

I believe that there is a considerable benefit for the federal government in considering direct assistance being made available to state and territory policing, with the ultimate benefits being derived by local communities in developing safer communities. I therefore encourage governments to look at this as a proposal and similarly build upon the connections that I have indicated. (Time expired)

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to speak to Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010 because my examination of these bills reveals some very interesting things in terms of the expenditure which has been incurred in the area of offshore asylum management by this government.

Before I do that, I would just associate the coalition with the comments of the member for Werriwa in relation to the family of the policeman who was killed in the line of duty. My father is a policeman and has served his entire working life as a policeman. So I am very pleased to associate the coalition with those comments.

Returning to the matter of the bills before the Committee: within Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 there are changes to the appropriations set out in the additional estimates which were released with MYEFO late last year. They contain two major changes. In the area of the Immigration and Citizenship portfolio, there is a change to outcome 4 of the appropriation for that department which deals essentially with offshore arrangements for the processing of asylum seekers. That involves an increase of $86,264,000. Also, in Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010, there is an increase in expenditure of $34 million for capital works at Christmas Island. They are large increases which the government is asking for—$86 million and a further $34 million. But when we break it down and look at how the government actually planned for this year’s budget and what they expected to happen, and when we look particularly at the area of outcome 4—and, in particular, under 4.3 for administrative expenses and departmental expenses relating to 4.3.1 and 4.3.2—the story gets even more concerning.

We have had, in the area of additional estimates, for offshore processing, an additional $132 million overall for that outcome under 4.3. That is an increase that this government is asking this parliament for of 106 per cent—a 106 per cent increase in expenditure in this area, over and above the budget. What that actually means in terms of how much the government will be spending this year compared to last year is an increase of $144 million—or an increase of 126 per cent over what was spent on these matters in 2008-09. Just to put that in total terms, the government is now asking to spend $257,429,000 this year on the issue of offshore processing, compared to an actual figure for 2008-09 of $113,778,000. This is the cost in financial terms of the government’s failed border protection policies. This is what happens when you create a highway on the sea to Christmas Island, which has become a visa factory under this government.

But let us go even further and look underneath. Let us look at some of the other increases, and look at what has happened in terms of departmental expenses. I was on Christmas Island last week and I had the opportunity of talking to a large number of people—those in the department and those working on the island—and I thank the minister for finally agreeing to allow me to go to Christmas Island and for facilitating that visit, having denied my predecessor on many occasions the same opportunity. But when I was there I became very aware of the impact on the broader Christmas Island community of the island’s carrying capacity for the detention population. It is not just how many beds are in the centres—it is how many other beds there are on the island to accommodate the absolute army of officials, assessors, health and other workers, and all of the attendant things that are necessary to provide a professional and humanitarian detention service on Christmas Island, which is necessary. But with the absolute avalanche of arrivals that we have experienced under the term of this government, these costs are now, just like the government’s border protection policies, completely out of control.

In terms of the service contractor, Serco—and I stress that Serco is doing an outstanding job on the island—the additional estimates being sought here by the government are a 58 per cent increase for this year. That is a 58 per cent blow-out, and $26.5 million in additional payments will need to be made to the contractor as a result of the explosion of the population on Christmas Island and of this government’s failed border protection policies. But what is more interesting is that when you look at the actuals for last year, 2008-09, and at what the government is now asking to spend this year you will see there is an increase of 245 per cent in payments to the contractors on Christmas Island to provide the services to meet the demand that is clearly out of control and unable to be managed by this government.

Also, there is $34 million extra in capital works. I have seen where that money is being spent. I have seen where the extra 400 demountables will be going in and where the accommodation for 212 people in demountables has just been completed. The extra 400 demountables will not be online until late April or May. Who knows? A further 88 beds in the area where it is intended to hold families in the future will not be on stream until possibly as late as May. Christmas Island is now at full capacity. As the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship confirmed yesterday in the Senate, there are around 1,800 beds and currently 1,800 people in detention on that island. That is one boat away from an overflow. It only begs people to ask the question: who is now determining how many people are coming to Christmas Island? It is certainly not this government.

An extra $34 million has been spent on providing further demountable accommodation on Christmas Island. That $34 million started flowing in December. So the government has been basically chasing its tail on this issue in trying to get as many beds as it possibly can on this island. That is necessary. No-one in the coalition is suggesting that people should be living in tents. No-one in the coalition is even suggesting that people should be living in demountables because, when we planned Christmas Island and the detention facility, we provided a capacity after noting the potential demand that may have existed in the future. In fact, the member who is currently the Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration described the Christmas Island detention facility as a white elephant and a grandiose waste of money. That was prior to the facility being opened. This government did not want to open it but it was forced to do so. Within a year its population increased more than tenfold as a result of this government’s policies.

When you look at the forward estimates you will see the government has asked for an additional $132 million, as I said, from this parliament to deal with this issue for this year alone; next year it is forecasting that there will be a 38 per cent decline in the number of arrivals. If you look at the forward estimates and just assume that the number of arrivals that we will have to accommodate and deal with on Christmas Island over the next few years is just the same as it was this year then that will cost, over those forward estimates, an additional $370 million. Add $370 million to the $130 million and that is half a billion dollars, at least, because there is no sign that, under the policies of this government, the flow of boats will be stopping any time soon.

These estimates, which are set out in these bills, paint a picture of failure of the government’s border protection policies. In terms of the dollars that are being spent, the runs are on the board, demonstrating that it is a demand driven policy that the government are operating. They have effectively opened the doors, they have changed the laws and they are in complete denial about the impact—

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Which laws would you change?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will come to that. I have not interrupted any of the speakers this morning, so I am sure I will get the same courtesy from those opposite.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Very few other people have been racist.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would ask the member for Longman to withdraw.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Longman has been asked to withdraw.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Longman.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. So let us look at the issue more broadly as to what is causing these massive increases in expenditure as a result of the government’s failed policies. Firstly, is there a problem? Yesterday in the House, the Prime Minister, in addressing his part of a debate held on another matter, posed three questions: is there a problem; are you going to do something about that problem: are you committed and is your heart in the solution?

Let us apply those same three tests to the government. Is there a problem with border protection and the rate of arrivals to this country under this government? Since the government changed the rules in August 2008, 77 boats have arrived and 3,480 people have arrived on those boats illegally. I do not shirk from that statement. If you go to the UN convention you will find in there the term ‘illegal arrival’. I do not think we should mix messages with the Australian people and try to engage ourselves in cloaked language. These boats have arrived illegally.

Nine boats have arrived this year, carrying 509 people—that is, in the last month, nine boats have arrived—with the most recent cruising into Christmas Island the other evening, basically coming into the harbour at Flying Fish Cove, with 185 people. Since 1 December last year, 21 boats have arrived. I highlight 1 December last year because this is the monsoon season. This is the cyclone season. Last year four boats came over that very difficult and dangerous time. We have had 21 boats over the summer, full of people who are literally putting their lives at risk at sea. Not even the forces of nature, not even the forces of weather—cyclones and monsoons—can counteract the magnetic effect of the policies of the government when it comes to border protection. Basically, people are prepared to take the risk, and it is an extreme risk in these summer months.

If those opposite doubt it they should talk to the people living in the Afghan community in Brisbane who are still waiting for calls from 105 people who they fear are lost at sea. It is feared 105 people have perished at sea because they got on a boat and sought to come to this country. You have to ask yourself the question: why were they trying to get to Australia? They were in Indonesia. They were in a place where their lives were not under immediate threat. They had the opportunity to register with the UNHCR there and to take themselves through the process, in which Australia is one of the most generous resettlement countries in the world. But, no, they decided, I am sure at the encouragement of people smugglers, to get on a boat. Today their families are wondering where they are, and they have been waiting since October.

I do not hear moralistic shrills coming from the government about people’s lives being put at risk. I am concerned about the welfare of the people on that boat which did not get to Christmas Island. We do not know how many do not get to Christmas Island because, when asked, the government say, ‘We’re not aware of anything happening in our territorial waters.’ You have to take responsibility when you send out an invitation. The government need to ask themselves about what risk they are placing people in by encouraging them to come to Australia in this fashion.

So, moving on, the government have created a highway in the sea and it is coming to Christmas Island for one purpose, and that is to get a visa. At the moment, more than nine out of 10 people will get that permanent visa which allows them to immediately gain access to a range of other services and, in particular, to encourage their family members to join them. As I said before, there are about 1,800 beds available on Christmas Island; that population is currently unsustainable.

So we do have a problem. There is no doubt that we have a problem of significant proportions and it requires a response. But what has been the response from this government? I quote the Prime Minister’s words yesterday when he said:

We believe that we have got the balance of the policy right …

Right for whom? It is right for people smugglers who are charging people $20,000 to risk their lives at sea! It is pretty right for the people smugglers; it is very right for the people smugglers. The government are basically saying, ‘We think that everything’s fine,’ and they wave on the next boat. When you read the press releases issued by the Minister for Home Affairs you can see that they are computer generated, which is no surprise from this government. On this same issue they are computer generated: ‘Well, it’s not our fault. It’s everything happening everywhere else.’ This is just another problem which they apparently believe they have no control over or no responsibility for.

But the people of Australia feel very differently about this, because they know that they had a government which was able to do something about this issue and which was able to reduce the arrival of boats to zero on two separate occasions in two financial years. In the course of the last six years of our government we had 18 boat arrivals. The government have had 18 boat arrivals in the last eight weeks, and their response is simply to say, ‘Well, this is all out of our control.’ They sent more beds to Christmas Island; they incurred the additional expenses as set out in these bills and basically asked the Australian people to get used to it. That is their response; they will wave it through. But they have another response, because Christmas Island is full and we are one boat away from having to do what the government have already said they would do. They said they would bring directly to the mainland those people whose claims had not yet been determined. So the offshore processing system, which has been the backbone of our border security system, will be effectively unwound—and already has been with the transfer of 30 young people prior to Christmas. This is the government’s plan: to bring them directly to Australia. I do not know what message the government thinks it is giving to people smugglers about that issue, but I certainly know what message the people smugglers will be taking: ‘We’ll get them to their waters and the Australian government, under Kevin Rudd, will take them all the way to the mainland, and they won’t even have to wait for their assessment as to whether they are a refugee to be completed.’ That is the message that they are sending.

Yesterday the minister got quite excited in the Senate when he made references to the Pacific solution of the former government. I will be very clear: what the coalition has said very clearly about what we will do at the moment—and there will be more to come before the election—is that we will do two things. We will reinstate, effectively, the system of a safe haven visa. So, if you come via this channel, you will not get immediate and permanent access to the visa arrangements that are available under a permanent visa offered by this government—which has made a rolled gold product for people smugglers under this government. The other thing we have said we would do is that we would not compromise offshore processing. We will not. I have been very clear about that; I have been saying it for six to eight weeks. I have also said very clearly, as I said on the Ray Hadley program yesterday, that Nauru and Manus are closed, so if the government want to run around talking about Nauru and Manus that is fine but what they should be doing is looking for alternative offshore processing arrangements. Nauru and Manus are unacceptable. They have been closed, and I suspect that the opportunity to reopen them does not exist. That is not the point. The point is: is the government prepared to take tough decisions to find solutions that will put a border security system in place in this country, through our visa arrangements, that will deter the activities of people smugglers and compromise the product that they are seeking to offer people who have the money to pay to get on a boat and come here while many others do not? That is what the government has to decide: whether they have the stomach to undertake the decisions that will lead to turning this terrible situation around.

The third thing that the Prime Minister said is: ‘Are you committed?’ Let me tell you why the coalition is very heated on this issue. Those opposite like to engage in this form of moral piety, self assessing their own virtue as a response to the coalition’s position rather than actually putting forward arguments and policies that will work. The coalition is concerned about this issue for two reasons, in particular, but there are many more that I will be happy to discuss over the course of this year. But let us think about this. Five people were killed on a boat that exploded last year trying to get to Australia by this channel. I have already mentioned the 105 Afghans about whom we will never know what happened. For me, saving lives is a very good reason to take decisions to stop the boats. A further reason is that there are 140,000 Burmese refugees sitting in Thailand today. They have not been waiting 100 days on Christmas Island. They have not been waiting five years in Indonesia. These are people who were born in those camps and are now raising their own children in these camps. They have been waiting for generations for this opportunity, and what this government is saying is: ‘We will take people who pay $20,000 to a people smuggler, people who get on the highway on the sea to the visa factory on Christmas Island, and within 100 days they can come straight on in.’ But if you are waiting in Indonesia or Thailand, and you have been waiting for generations, frankly you will just have to wait a little more under the policies of the Rudd government. So do not come to us with all your moral invective and your moral grandstanding when your own policies put people’s lives at risk by drawing them into decisions which put them on very risky voyages and deny people who have been waiting generations in camps for their opportunity for a fair go in Australia.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not sure that I can appropriately respond to such unctuousness, but let me say this at the outset to the member for Cook: he only indicated one thing that they would do and one thing that they would not do—two things in total. The changes that the Labor government has made to the processing arrangements for illegal arrivals are those two things—plus we no longer keep children behind razor wire. The reality is that those three things alone have not opened up some dangerous maritime highway to people who are escaping from circumstances that are intolerable and see Australia as providing them with an opportunity.

If the member for Cook is going to seriously follow his portfolio responsibilities in this area, he needs to be aware of a couple of things. The first is that the rate of illegal arrivals has been increasing since the early 2000s. In 2007 there were more illegal arrivals than in 2006; in 2006 there were more than in 2005; in 2005 there were more than in 2004; in 2004 there were more than in 2003; and so it goes on. If that is the case, by his own arguments, the Howard government’s border protection policies attracted people to this country. The reality is something different completely. The reality is that just now we are experiencing a rather large increase in the number of asylum seekers as a consequence of what happened in Sri Lanka.

The reality of the situation is that every year Australia receives applications for asylum from about one per cent of asylum seekers throughout the world. A lousy one per cent of the people in this world who seek asylum want that asylum to be in Australia. I think that number is rather small, and we could somehow be inclined to take offence that so few people looking for a better life think they are going to find it in Australia.

The member for Cook indicated two actions that they would take. One is to reinstate a safe haven visa so we would tell people: ‘We are not going to keep you in detention. You can start to build a life in Australia, but some day there is a chance that a man in a suit with a hat and polished shoes is going to knock on your door, march you to the airport and put you on a plane out of here’. What we do with people who seek asylum in this country is to let them know, ‘Yes, you’re in,’ or, ‘No, I’m sorry; you don’t meet the criteria, and here’s a flight back to where you came from.’

I had not intended to speak on matters relating to border protection and the refugee and asylum seeker issue, so I would now like to talk to matters relating to the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010 as I had planned. In particular I want to mention some issues relating to my own electorate of Longman on the northern outskirts of the greater metropolitan area now known as Brisbane.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Probably a suburb of Ipswich.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ipswich is not in the seat of Longman, but I am sure that they look after the member very well. In particular I want to talk a little about the delivery of health services in my area and the hopes that we have locally that the health and hospital reform process will provide us with better services. It is a rapidly growing area, currently with about 360,000 people in the Moreton Bay Regional Council area alone, and it is the second fastest growing area in the world or the second fastest growing area in Australia, depending on who you talk to. We certainly expect rather large numbers of people to be moving into our area over the next few years.

The Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon, recently attended two events in our area that were important in relation to health services. The first of those was at North Lakes, where we had the official opening of the 12-chair dialysis unit at the North Lakes Health Precinct. This was able to be built with a $7 million funding grant from the federal government, and the state government has now opened that facility and it is serving people on the north side of Brisbane. We all understand that kidney disease is increasing, and the need for a dialysis unit in our area was becoming critical.

I also have a personal interest in the Caboolture Hospital, having been the state member of parliament many years ago responsible for getting the hospital built. Interestingly, they are now talking about a $600 million price tag to extend that hospital to have approximately twice the number of beds that it currently has. The hospital itself is now about double what it was in the first stage, and the first stage cost $19 million. The price tag for these things has certainly escalated, so we can understand the magnitude of the challenge both for the state government, who has responsibility for hospitals, and the federal government, who really is the group that funds most things that happen. I do want to mention the fact that the Queensland state health minister, Paul Lucas, paid a low key visit to the hospital late last year and spent several hours at the hospital talking to the staff and looking at the need for expansion. Notwithstanding the need to double the hospital, I still believe that the north side is very shortly going to require a further hospital to join with Caboolture, Redcliffe and Prince Charles in dealing with the needs of the community.

The other event that was attended by the health minister was not actually in my electorate but just to the south, in the electorate of Dickson. The minister opened a GP superclinic, which of course was an election commitment of our candidate at the last election, Fiona McNamara. The GP superclinic at Strathpine will serve people from the southern end of my electorate. People in the suburbs of Dakabin and Kallangur look naturally towards Strathpine for their services, and I am very grateful that that superclinic has been constructed and is now open and will serve those people. I understand an invitation went to the opposition health spokesman, the local member for Dickson, who declined to attend the opening service. This is an interesting thing because, whilst his party is opposed to this kind of establishment, it really is the parliament, through bills such as these appropriation bills, that decides that the money is going to be spent—and in this instance spent substantially for the benefit of his own constituents. I would have thought, on that basis, he ought to have been able to attend.

Education is an important issue for us, and in recent days we have heard the argy-bargy back and forth about the My School website, where there is a rating for each school based on its socioeconomic educational advantage or disadvantage. The majority of the Longman electorate is a relatively low socioeconomic area, and education is very important if our children are going to be able to improve their circumstances in the years to come. Through the Building the Education Revolution projects—which were, again, opposed by the coalition—schools in my electorate have had $109 million invested in them. Schools coming into the electorate from the electorate of Fisher after the redistribution takes place at the next election have had a further $15 million of investment. And schools just outside my electorate which serve children of families who live in my electorate have received another $5½ million. That is roughly $130 million worth of education expenditure in the area that I represent. People are very grateful for that.

Towards the end of last year, and I do not wish to sound like a martyr but I did drag myself out of my sick bed to go, I went to a year 7 speech night at the Bribie Island State School. The reason I wanted to go to that event in particular is that it was the first activity held in my electorate in a hall that had been funded under Building the Education Revolution. It was a sports hall, but obviously a hall which could be used for other purposes. I commented at that time to the people there that anyone who believed that halls of this nature were unnecessary and of no benefit to the schools needed to spend some time at the schools and spend some time talking to parents. This hall at that school is going to make an enormous amount of difference to the way teachers are able to deliver programs to the children who are entrusted to them.

To open shortly this year is another school hall, and quite a different one. This one is at the Banksia Beach State Primary School. Banksia Beach State Primary School did not build a sports hall; they built a hall that you might call a performance venue. That primary school is quite a large school. They have built a hall with 800-seat capacity. It has acoustic panelling and a stage the size of the stages at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre. Some people might say that is a bit over the top for a primary school. But this particular primary school prides itself on its arts and simultaneously last year had a state champion primary school choir and a state champion primary school band. Part of the Building the Education Revolution is to provide community benefit as well as school benefit. In relation to this particular hall I wanted to make the point that in the Caboolture district of the Moreton Bay region that is the best performance venue available for the entire community.

In the late eighties and early nineties when my wife and I had three young children there was a children’s entertainer by the name of Peter Combe based out of Adelaide. He was very much, although a solo performer, a precursor to the modern group The Wiggles. He was very popular with young children. We sought, with his management at that time, to promote a concert of his in the Caboolture shire. We discovered that at that time there was no venue in our shire as it was then suitable for holding a children’s concert. There was no venue in our shire suitable for holding a children’s concert. And nothing had changed at all until the building that has now been completed at Banksia Beach State Primary School. As an afterthought, I notice that Peter Combe is now performing in nightclubs for the young adults who were his fans as children when he was younger and he is still doing the same songs. I guess what goes around comes around again in that sense. He is now able to make a living out of his earlier repertoire. To those young people listening today I recommend that they look out for him.

Last Sunday I was very honoured and privileged to attend St Pauls Lutheran Primary School church service at St Pauls Lutheran Church in Caboolture for the installation of Anton Prinsloo as the new principal. While I was there I was able to check on the progress of their new library building, which is indeed magnificent. I was told last year, when it was being planned, that it would be a substantial benefit to the school in enabling it to better educate the young people that our community entrusts to them. This year is the 25th anniversary of St Pauls Lutheran Primary School, a year they have been planning for. They are now moving down the path of triple streaming their school, and the library building and associated facilities will enable them to achieve those goals a whole lot easier.

We have had some discussion in this place about the Bradley review of universities. I have mentioned a number of times that it is a desire of mine to get the ball rolling towards having a university campus on the north side. The Moreton Bay Regional Council area has some 360,000 or 380,000 residents. A small campus of the Queensland University of Technology serves the community very well; however, the courses they have on offer are limited. It would be my desire to see the university expanded or a new university created to provide our young people with a broader range of study options. As most members would have done, at the end of last year I signed more than 1,000 letters of congratulation to students who completed year 12. I am sure that the members for Dickson and Petrie, who hold neighbouring seats to my seat of Longman, signed a similar number. Three thousand students completed year 12 in our area last year, and that is a pretty good population base on which to start to develop a proper university in our area.

I want to touch briefly on some other spending the government has made in the area. The State Equestrian Centre that the Moreton Bay Regional Council is building at Caboolture is a joint project between the federal, state and local governments. It is very important to the equine industries in our area, where we have training, spelling and breeding facilities for thoroughbreds, standardbred and quarter horses and activities in dressage and western riding. This is as you would expect in an area that is on the urban-rural interface, where equine activity is rife. People will appreciate that facility once it is opened. We have also invested $36 million in new social public housing—or a lot of the $36 million, because the housing is not all built yet—and over $1 million in repairs.

The bottom line is that this government is using the money that it has raised through various means from the population of Australia in an appropriate way that is benefiting the community, particularly my community. These bills, which move towards making a few adjustments around the edge where money has been allocated, are very worthy of our support. I commend them to the House.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with a group of 35 young rural Australians who have come to Canberra as part of the Heywire Youth Issues Forum. These kids come from some of the most remote areas of this vast country. All have inspirational stories to tell, and we should look to the future with great optimism, as this next generation of leaders is full of promise and potential. The Heywire Issues Forum is in its 13th year.

This year, Heywire is partnered with Left Right Think-Tank to further develop the quality of the program delivered to rural Australian youth. Left Right Think-Tank is Australia’s first independent and non-partisan think tank of young minds. It was founded in late 2008 and is staffed completely by more than 60 young volunteers ranging from 15 to 24 years of age. Left Right has two key objectives. The first of these objectives is to deliver innovative policy reflecting the position of the youth of Australia across a broad range of issues. The second is for Left Right to provide opportunities for young Australians to engage in intellectual discussion and debate, enhance their knowledge and understanding of public policy, expand their networks and develop their potential as future leaders in our society.

As a measure of the quality of this purpose, the Left Right Think-Tank has attracted and continues to attract an incredibly high calibre of individuals. This is reflected not only in its staff but also in its members, its board, its patrons and its general supporters. Today I would like to welcome to the parliament two of the senior leaders of Left Right, the executive assistant, Hayley Caulfield, and the programs director, Clay O’Brien, and pay tribute to the work that they do for the youth of Australia and for the future of our country. In his absence, I want to recognise the leadership of Left Right’s CEO, Rick Newnham. Rick has taken the idea of Left Right Think-Tank and turned it into a very impressive reality. Left Right Think-Tank is now the premier youth organisation reflecting the ideas and aspirations of young Australians. Well done, Rick Newnham.

I previously mentioned the Left Right Think-Tank in this House on 4 December 2008 and today I would like to reflect for a moment on how far they have come as a youth led organisation. Yesterday a team from Left Right ran a workshop with the Heywire participants. This workshop was focused around developing their ideas into a reality. The issues that they focused on ranged from mental health and the wellbeing of rural youth to the environment and climate change to Indigenous affairs, areas that the Heywire participants have identified as issues relevant to their communities and in dire need of action. However, in a broader sense this highlights the unique position that Left Right Think-Tank occupies. It is a forum for young people to develop an idea into a well-thought-out contribution to contemporary debate.

The principal avenue through which Left Right provides these opportunities to young people is its programs, one of which is the fellowships program, which is offered to senior secondary and first-year tertiary students. Fellows have the opportunity to meet with key players in the policy process. This takes place in an informal and relaxed roundtable setting. Participation in this fellowships program develops knowledge and offers discussion on pertinent issues through a series of seminars. Left Right fellows also compete on a policy project and then submit that project to government. The fellowships program was first run in Victoria in 2009 and is now being run in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia. The growth of the fellowships program is indicative of the growth of Left Right as an organisation. In little more than a year, Left Right has grown from a Victorian organisation with five staff members to a national organisation with a presence in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia and a staff of over 60 volunteers. This rapid expansion highlights the yearning and desire within young people to have their voices heard in the policy debate within Australia.

While in Canberra this week the senior team of Left Right will be mentoring the Heywire participants. They will also be meeting with the minister, the shadow minister for youth and some of its patrons, including the Deputy CEO of the Business Council of Australia, Melinda Cilento, and a former Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Peter Shergold. During their meetings they will be discussing how society will move forward whilst embracing the ideas and contributions of young people. Today we make decisions, the effect of which today’s youth will inherit. The Left Right Think-Tank is fast gaining momentum and taking steps towards its vision of a society that seeks and embraces the ideas of our young people. The work of the Left Right Think-Tank is an excellent example of what dedicated young people in this great country can achieve. It is important that we recognise the work and successes of Left Right but it is more important that we support and consider the contributions that young people can make to public policy. This goes far beyond just youth policy. We must remember that at any given time youth are the stakeholders in all of today’s decisions. The Left Right Think-Tank is in a unique position and offers an invaluable contribution to contemporary debate in that Left Right, by its very nature, can develop forward thinking policy without the restriction and consideration of election cycles. I certainly wish Left Right every success and I know that the parliament and its members will be supporting the worthy ideals of this wonderful organisation.

I will stay on youth issues for just a moment, if I may, and recognise a fine young North Queensland Australian, Jonathan Pavetto. He is wearing a blue tie and is in the visitors gallery. Jonathan is a classic example of what young Australians are doing today. Jonathan is 18, yet at the age of 18 he has already attended the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in New York during last year. He was one of nine representatives worldwide selected to be on the committee for water at The Hague International Model United Nations Youth Assembly in Holland in 2008. He was the first member to be selected for the THIMUN Youth Assembly Water Committee from Australia. He was also the Committee Coordinator for the Human Development and Environmental Sustainability Working Group at The Hague International Model United Nations Youth Assembly in Holland in 2010.

In the community he has been the member for Hinchinbrook in the Queensland Youth Parliament Program. He has held the position of Premier in the first Youth Parliament to be held outside of the south-east corner of Queensland. He has been President of the Hinchinbrook Shire Youth Council, Vice-President and then President of the Gilroy Santa Maria Leos Club, a member of the student representative council for three years, and so it goes on. This a fellow from a cane farm in Ingham in North Queensland. His has been an amazing achievement in the world. Currently he is studying at the ANU, and this is how I got to know him, doing a Bachelor of Economics-Bachelor of Arts in international relations and, of course, he is learning Arabic—as you do. He already speaks fluent Italian; he knows some French and he does speak the odd bit of English even though he is from the wrong end of the mafia in Ingham. I mention Jonathan—and I could go on and on—because he is a great example of what young people can achieve today with their incredibly bright minds. Well done, Jonathan.

In the time available to me I would also like to talk about health issues in my electorate of Herbert, which is based on the largest tropical city in Australia, which is Townsville. It is a city that has been largely insulated from the events of last year. It is a city with an economy that has a very broad base, with lots of money being spent. The only issues whose effects we really felt during the global financial crisis were things like a bit of a downturn in the mining industry. That has since recovered and otherwise the broadly based economy has gone very well, with defence, health and education being key drivers of that. But I do express my disappointment about the government’s failed promises on health as to my electorate of Herbert.

In the 2007 election campaign, the Prime Minister announced that he would be building superclinics that would provide 24-hour health care across Australia, and we heard that talked about in the Main Committee here earlier today. The promise to build 35 GP superclinics across the nation appears to be in tatters, with only one completed centre, which was the subject of the previous member’s speech, in operation after two years of Labor government—just one. Despite the Prime Minister’s claims that six more centres are partially complete, at least two are offering little more than conventional GP services, and one centre claimed by the health minister, Nicola Roxon, as a partially functioning GP superclinic in Darwin is in fact being fully funded by the Northern Territory government. Mr Rudd campaigned for the 2007 election promising to spend $275 million on superclinics—medical one-stop shops in areas struggling with inadequate medical services. The centres were to offer after-hours general practitioners, specialists, mental health services, chronic disease management, allied health practitioners and training for medical students and trainee specialists.

Last year, the Minister for Health and Ageing announced in my electorate that a $5 million contract to build one of the Rudd government’s superclinics had been signed. The successful tenderer was Nicholl Holdings, who have been able to provide a 24-hour GP service in the city of Cairns for some time. Last year, the company’s facility in Cairns saw about 1.5 million patients, which is 3,000 patients a week. Dr Nicholls runs absolutely superb clinics. This was a fantastic announcement for Townsville, and the minister was correct in saying that these plans for GP superclinics would take pressure off our hospitals. We certainly need that in Townsville, with problems every day at the Townsville Hospital. It goes on and on, and the Bligh government say, ‘We’re going to fix it,’ but they never do. It is just extraordinary.

Two years after the election, there is still no superclinic in Herbert, and the planned 1.5 million people a year have been really disappointed. I would have thought that three years was enough time to get an election promise in gear and operating. It certainly would have been enough time for the coalition government to deliver on such an important issue as regional health. We are not going to see the GP superclinic opened in Townsville until mid-2011. That is really poor service, and I think my colleagues would probably agree that 3½ years to develop and a GP superclinic is too long. We should all, on both sides of the parliament, be able to do better than that.

Certainly, it is disappointing for Townsville, but there was another problem—the funding for the current after-hours clinics that operate in Townsville—and I wrote to the minister expressing my deep concern about this. While the department has extended their funding, which was to be cut off in the middle of this year, the outcome is very different to what was promised at the election. The department will continue to support Twin City Doctors, located in Kirwan, up until March 2011 and the Northtown Medical Centre, located in Townsville, until June 2011. However, the after-hours GP service, which is a significant contributor to health provision in Townsville, has only been invited to apply for an extension of funding through what was described by the department as a competitive process, which we all know does not mean that the funding will necessarily be delivered.

So what is going to happen to that particular service that operates now? If it closes, how are we going to fill the gap until the new superclinic commences operations late in 2011? This is worrying. It is poor planning by the health department and the government. I guess it must be disappointing even to the Prime Minister that in its one term the Rudd government has nothing to show for its GP superclinic promise and there is no improvement in the provision of health services in my city of Townsville. While I am doing everything I can to ensure that there will be after-hours health care available for residents of my electorate, it is really difficult when you get the pushback from the department and the government in relation to timely service delivery.

During the five minutes I have left, I just want to draw the parliament’s attention to a statement from Mitch Hooke, Chief Executive Officer of the Minerals Council of Australia, a very significant, influential, highly regarded body in this country today. And of course it is about climate change policy. Mitch said in his public release:

The Coalition’s climate change policy strikes at the real intent of pricing of carbon …

There will be those who say, ‘You can’t believe what the Minerals Council says because they have a vested interest.’ I accept that.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Some say that? You probably say that as well. In fact, you just did.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, member for Oxley. I understand that. But this is a group that represents a very significant contribution to our economy, and which could be badly damaged by what is being proposed by the government. The Minerals Council have every right to have a view, and they have certainly had that view. They have welcomed the coalition’s policy that we will be providing an incentive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without negatively impacting on jobs, investments, export and growth. It is a wonderful outcome. The Minerals Council of Australia has welcomed the shift to a policy design to use incentives as a driver to reduce emissions rather than an approach that is preoccupied with penalising business to raise revenue.

The current proposal, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, places a $120,000 million impost on the Australian economy. It returns about $75,000 million to households and motorists in partial competition for price rises in electricity and consumer goods without a single cent being invested in the research and development of a low-emissions technology. It is a real shame.

I was in a parliamentary delegation to the United States last September and I went to the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York. World eminent scientists said Kyoto was a failure because it did not invest in low-emission technologies. It set targets but it did not invest in how you met those targets. They warned us that if Copenhagen was to go, it had to invest in low-emission technology. Copenhagen was a failure, Kyoto was a failure, the CPRS of this government will be a failure because it does the same thing. It does not invest in low-emissions technology. But the coalition’s proposal provides incentives, money, dollars to businesses to invest in low-emissions technology, and we are going to see that. For example, there is the NBD proposal in Townsville by James Cook University. The writer of the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald today, David Marr, showed pathetic journalism. He talked about this particular project and he talked about the opposition leader saying that the project was about turning algae into cattle feed. But what Mr Marr did not say was that it also produced biodiesel from sunlight, from CO2, from emissions—a valuable process that business can make money out of, for heaven’s sake. It was not the cattle feed side of it that was important; it was the biodiesel. It was the use of sustainable green energy—sunlight—to do this. It was the wonderful outcome that you took the CO2 from a power station and turned it into something that was of value. That is happening at James Cook University, it is working now, and those are the sorts of things that the coalition will be promoting and providing incentive for because that is the way it has to go.

The [Minerals Council] remains committed to the development of a climate change policy that includes a carbon-price incentive, promotes low emissions technologies, drives a global protocol that includes all major emitters and includes a complete mix of low-emissions energy sources.

That is a worthy ideal, and it is the sort of thing you would expect from the leadership of a body such as the Minerals Council, and I thank them for that leadership. I plead with the government: please give up on your great big new tax on everything and have a look at how we might do this in an alternative way, with no increases in grocery prices and no increases in electricity prices.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010. Just on some of the remarks of the member for Herbert: I would also like to congratulate Jonathan and welcome him here. It sounds as if he is the son of a cane farmer out of Queensland. There are a few of them around the place. We look forward to seeing him back here at some time in the future. On the GP superclinics: I have a GP superclinic that is opening in 2011 as well. You cannot expect the current government to fix up the decade’s worth of malpractice by the previous government and the opposition leader, who pulled a billion dollars out of health and slashed GP training places. You cannot expect us to fix all of that overnight. It takes time to put in place tenders. It takes time—

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I seek to make an intervention.

Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Herbert wishes to make an intervention. Does the member for Wakefield accept the intervention?

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sure, why not.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wakefield. I ask my colleague: is it true that the Prime Minister gave a commitment that if the health system was not fixed by June 2009 he would do something about it—take it over—but he has not done it?

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are fixing it, and that is one of the reasons that places like Smithfield Plains are getting a GP superclinic. We never saw any indication from the previous government that that suburb had any interest in health, and yet, in 2011, there will be a brand new GP superclinic opening in my electorate, down there on the Peachey Belt, which is an area that has cried out for medical services for a long time. The local residents appreciate, I think, the fact that we have taken some time to consult with them and talk with them about the health services they want.

I will return to the substance of my speech rather than that of the member for Herbert. This appropriation bill includes some money that was unspent in the last financial year for the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program. It was my great pleasure in two recent visits to the north of my electorate to cut the ribbon on a number of very important projects, the first of which was done through the District Council of Mallala. I was there with Mayor Marcus Strudwick, a very hardworking mayor for the local area; the CEO, Charles Mansueto; and Pat Thompson, who is a very active resident of Dublin and takes great care of the Dublin Institute. In particular, the funding has been used in the Dublin Institute to upgrade the ceiling—the ceiling in the kitchen had been falling in—to upgrade the lighting in the institute and also to give the institute disability access. That gives this very small community’s institute a new lease on life. I know that Pat Thompson is particularly happy about it. She recently had a fall, which we hope she recovers from, but I think it just highlights the importance of disability access to that institute.

I also visited my old home town of Kapunda. I was there with Mayor Robert Hornsey and a number of other councillors from the Light Regional Council: Jane Alcorn; Ron Kubisch; Bill Carrick; Dean Rohrlach, who was my old principal at high school; and Lynette Reichstein, who is a resident of Freeling. We were also there with Roland Davis, who is a council worker who manages these projects, and Rory Zilm, who also works on these projects. What we did there was reopen the memorial garden in its new waterwise capacity. The memorial garden has been there for some time. I can remember it from my youth. It is a memorial for nurses who served in various wars and also, most recently, there is a new memorial to sailors and members of the Royal Australian Navy who served. It has a unique feature fountain which was donated by Mohamed al-Fayed, would you believe, in the eighties. One of the residents of Kapunda knew Mr al-Fayed, and he was good enough to donate a fountain. That sits at the centre of the memorial garden.

We now have waterwise plantings, underground watering and a whole new layout. It is a new lease of life for these memorial gardens. It is an important part of the Dutton Park sports fields, and we certainly hope the community gets good use out of it into the future. I would particularly like to thank Roland Davis for his design work and the many hours he put into the application to get that done.

The other project that was opened in Kapunda was the Kapunda swimming pool. I can remember getting badly sunburnt at this pool. I am glad to say that it has been retiled and that disabled access has been provided. That also provides important access to aged residents as well. Obviously opening these two projects in my home town brought up many fond memories. I have got to thank the Light Regional Council and all the people on the pool committee for their hard work. I know when Kapunda Primary School have their swimming carnival—I think it is this week—they will have a lot of fun.

From there we went down to Freeling, home of the Redlegs footy club—archrivals of the Kapunda ‘Bombers’. We announced some $14,000 to keep the home of the Redlegs safe from vandals. It was $14,000 spent on CCTV and other crime prevention projects, which will allow the town to defend and protect these very important community establishments. I can remember going there as a lad to 21sts and obviously to footy games. We always lost at the footy, unfortunately, in those days, but I am sure the record has been evened up since.

We also reopened the Metiske Park. That was the first project undertaken by Roland Davis for the council. He is a resident of Freeling, so I am sure it was a labour of love. The new design saves up to two-thirds of the water they had been using to water this park. I went out there during the construction phase and met a young contractor who had one of those Dingo diggers who had been put on for the project. So it does create important local employment. It has given this park a new lease of life and has rehabilitated a public space. Metiske Park was named after another local resident who lived just up the road who had long guarded it from his front verandah and cared for it every morning. He went down there and made sure it was all clean. So to give this park a new lease of life, to create jobs and to give it a new public area in effect while the town is experiencing substantial population growth, particularly of young families, is a really good project to back and I was happy to be part of it and part of the construction of it.

From there we went to Hewett. I can remember when Hewett was just farmland, but it is now an expanding suburb. It was one of the first places I doorknocked when I was a candidate. It is a great place to live and to raise a family, but many residents expressed to me the real need for community infrastructure. Developers in the past had promised bike paths, walkways and other community facilities but they have never eventuated. I have got to commend the Light Regional Council for putting up this community centre and for the support it received by Mayor Robert Hornsey, by all councillors and of course by the state member of parliament, Tony Piccolo, who also has a great interest in Hewett. In this new project, $4 million will provide a new meeting space, 84 car parks and a multiuse venue. It is done in partnership with the Hewett Community Church of Christ. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the new reverend, Scott Combridge, and his family to Hewett. They have come from Victoria but they are South Australians originally. I would also like to thank the many members of the church who attended the turning of the sod ceremony for this important project. This project will be incredibly important for Hewett. I know they have waited a long time—some 10 years or so—to see these community and recreation facilities catch up to the growth in their suburb.

I want to talk a bit about Tony Piccolo, who is the state member for Light and, obviously, a Labor colleague of mine. He is well known for his advocacy on behalf of franchisees, as the House would know. Most recently, he has been instrumental in establishing and conducting an investigation into the issues that farmers have with farm machinery, warranties and legal disputes. In particular, he got the Economic and Finance Committee of the South Australian parliament to look into this area. The committee has produced a report called Consumer protection for farmers: reaping a fair harvest. This report highlights the experience of farmers with faulty and sometimes dangerous farm machinery. It examines the business costs that farmers incur when machinery breaks down while still in warranty or just out of warranty, the high cost of legal redress for many of these farmers, and the safety and liability issues involved for those farm businesses and for the distribution chain. The report raises many issues that should concern all members of this House, farming communities and, I think, the general public.

When looking at the report, you notice that confidentiality was requested for a number of submissions to the inquiry. Many who have issues in this area cannot easily tell their stories or take up their grievances. One family courageous enough to make a submission were Malcolm, Bradley and Andrew Lucas, who are all residents of Wakefield. A farming family, they had the courage to make a submission and give evidence, which is to be applauded. It is not an easy thing to do. I have had the great pleasure to meet with Andrew Lucas and his wife, Roseanne. They are good people and reminded me a lot of the forgotten people in Menzies’ great speech—the middle class of farmers, small business people and professionals who are not represented by unions, big business or the respective lobbies. In this case they have found a fighter in their corner. Tony Piccolo has been a vocal advocate and has given them the chance to tell their stories and put forward their point of view. This report raises a lot of serious issues concerning farming communities and we can only hope that the executives of state and federal governments have some regard to the findings of the committee.

While I am on the subject of local issues that Mr Piccolo is taking up, a Telstra tower is proposed for Hillier, which is just outside Gawler. The Gawler council have been attempting to negotiate with Telstra about the location of this tower—not whether it will exist and not whether it will be moved from this location to another but simply its location within the suburb of Hillier. It is a great pity that Telstra and their representatives have chosen to exercise their rights in the court rather than negotiate with local people. It seems to me that local landowners are prepared to negotiate in absolute good faith, and very quickly. There are a number of alternative sites which are as good, if not better, and it would not hurt for Telstra to take up their concerns and at least enter into good-faith negotiations with them, while preserving their rights, obviously, in the courts. I notice that Mr Barry Neylon has written a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, the Bunyip, titled ‘Standing tall’, where he praises the council, the DAP, Mr Tony Piccolo and me, for which I thank him, for our role in helping this local community negotiate with a very big company. We just hope that Telstra does the right thing and negotiates with local landowners about this tower.

Finally, I would like to make a few comments about the state Liberal Party’s policy called ‘Northern suburbs: time for change’. If this were a positive policy, I would not seek to criticise it, but in the press release a number of allegations are made about the Rann government, and I think they reflect on my performance as well. Isobel Redmond says:

Instead of working with the community to address issues like unemployment, declining access to health services, unreliable public transport and lack of police presence, the Rann Government has continued its game of spin which doesn’t achieve anything.

I think that is a completely wrong statement about both state and federal Labor. I can reel off things off the top of my head. On 19 February we are going to have a jobs expo. We have already held a jobs expo and provided job services to the Bridgestone workers who were, sadly, made redundant as of April. When Isobel Redmond talks about health she chooses to ignore the upgrade of the Lyell McEwin Hospital. She chooses to ignore the fact that the state government is building a GP Plus centre opposite the Elizabeth city centre. She fails to acknowledge that we are building, as of 2011, a GP superclinic at the Peachey Belt. In terms of transport she fails to acknowledge the $550 million going into the Northern Expressway and the $290 million that will be spent electrifying the Gawler to Adelaide rail line. There are many areas where Ms Redmond has failed to make any positive comment at all.

Then she says that the government have not worked on law and order. I find that extraordinary. The biggest law and order problem in the northern suburbs is the issue of people riding monkey bikes and trail bikes through our parks, on our footpaths and in our recreation areas. I have spoken about this issue many times in the federal parliament. It is an important issue because, besides the amenity issue of having a bike hurtle through a park and the noise it creates, there is also the safety issue. I am terribly worried that a child, an older Australian or a family will get bowled over by one of these monkey bikes. When the state government announced they were cracking down on these bikes, they were going to crush them, Isobel Redmond responded by saying that that was a farce. She ignores the biggest law and order problem in the northern suburbs and she says the solution is a farce. That is just crazy and smacks of someone coming down from the hills into the northern suburbs and preaching to the local community. This policy is extraordinary.

Finally, this policy proposes to fund a feasibility study to run the rail line up to the Barossa Valley. On the face of it that sounds as though it is a good thing but, if you talk to anybody in the Barossa Valley, one of the great fears held in the Barossa is that its unique rural character, based on the wine industry, will be overtaken by the development of suburbs by developers. People in the Barossa Valley have been trying to hold on to this identity. It is a very important thing to the Barossa Valley. If a feasibility study is conducted it will set off alarm bells in every developer’s headquarters around the nation as signalling that this is an area which, potentially, could be developed. You will have developers swooping in and buying up land from family vineyard owners, who currently face a very tough time. We will slowly but surely see the pressure come on to develop the Barossa Valley. I think this is a very short-sighted promise. It is glibly popular, but the reality is that it will threaten the unique character of the Barossa Valley and it will set off developers and their lobbyists and they will start cutting up the Barossa Valley and turning it into housing. It is a very short-sighted policy. It is not what local people want and certainly not what local councils want. Local councils do want to extend the rail line, but not into the Barossa Valley. I think it is a very short-sighted policy. The Barossa Valley should be very wary of it. Frankly, I am very surprised that the state Liberal Party thinks that it is a good idea, because it is a very real threat to the unique character of the Barossa Valley.

Margaret May (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For a large number of Australians, politics is something they do not really tune into until election time. Only when they are about to cast their vote do they start listening to what the major parties have to say. But I want to ask people today to start tuning in sooner, because it is important to understand how political decisions affect the quality of everyone’s daily life and indeed their future.

I will use the global financial crisis as an example. How many people are aware that Australia had the third largest spending package, as a percentage of GDP, of the developed countries during the crisis? Korea came in first, with a spending package of 6.1 per cent of GDP; the USA came in second, with a spend of 5.5 per cent of GDP and Australia’s spend was 5.4 per cent of GDP.

Why was such a big splurge necessary in Australia when we were far better placed than any other country in the world to weather the storm? Australia’s strict and well-regulated banking system was in a very sound position when the global meltdown occurred. Unlike other countries, Australia was not in deficit. In fact, our surplus was over $20 billion. To get to this position, it took the coalition and the Australian people many years of considerable discipline and unpopular decisions to repay Labor’s 1996 legacy of $96 billion of debt. But it did not take long for the Rudd Labor government to saddle Australia with bucketloads of debt, and the opportunity cost of this big spend is enormous.

The Rudd government is quick to point out those organisations which supported its stimulus package, none of which predicted the financial meltdown. But Labor has not mentioned the only international body to correctly predict the financial crisis. The Bank for International Settlements was the only international organisation that foreshadowed the financial meltdown. This same organisation has warned that the stimulus packages will only lead to a temporary pick-up in growth followed by protracted stagnation and will pose the risk of driving up interest rates and inflation expectations. Already, the Bank for International Settlements’ predictions are being realised, with inflationary pressures taking hold and interest rates rising. At the risk of sounding dramatic—and I do not want to scare the horses or the population—the poor quality spend of the stimulus package, coupled with the poor quality decisions made by this government, is compromising the options available to us, particularly in light of the demographic challenges ahead.

Up until recently, the PM and his ministers had said very little on the ageing of Australia’s population—the single biggest social issue facing this country. An official from the World Bank said that the impact of the financial crisis paled into insignificance compared to the demographic problems ahead. In the lead-up to Australia Day, and on Australia Day, the Prime Minister finally started talking about the then upcoming third Intergenerational report and the ageing of our population. This is in stark contrast to the coalition, which has always placed senior Australians at the forefront of its priorities and which, many years ago, recognised the extent of the challenge that the ageing of the population would present in the future. This acknowledgement by the former Howard government saw the release of the first Intergenerational report in 2002-03, followed by the release of the second Intergenerational report a few years later in 2007. The third Intergenerational report has now been released.

I would not have thought that placing Australia in the red and attempting to impose a great big tax through the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme would help meet the challenges that lie ahead. In the not too distant future there will be far fewer people working than now; therefore, revenue will fall. By 2050 the number is projected to decline to 2.7 people of working age to support every person aged 65 and over. Rather than build a stronger Australia, the Rudd government has cut programs and preventative initiatives that support senior Australians. In the 2009 May budget, the Rudd government cut the indexation on a payment paid to aged-care providers. Forty per cent of providers were operating at a loss before the cut, but the situation has deteriorated even further. But rather than helping the struggling industry, the Rudd government cut the indexation of the conditional adjustment payment. It needs to be remembered that the Commonwealth has direct responsibility for aged care, and the Rudd government’s cuts show a complete disregard for senior Australians.

There is no clearer barometer of the health of the aged care industry than the yearly aged care allocation round, when the government releases licences for low- and high-care beds. In the past these allocations were keenly anticipated by providers. Competition was stiff and healthy, and a large number of providers were disappointed because they missed out on the licences.

Under the Rudd government it is a very different story. Licences go begging. In the last allocation round there was a shortfall of 1,915 in the residential places handed out. Tasmania, Western Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory were all undersubscribed. To make matters worse, providers have taken the unprecedented position of handing back hundreds of licences to the department in the past two years. This is a stark reflection of the capital crisis in aged care. Now, senior Australians have to wait longer and longer before a bed becomes available, which is placing increasing pressure on the hospital system. It must be remembered that the cost of a hospital bed is approximately eight times that of an aged care bed.

Baby boomers turn 65 this year, so, at a time when there is an increasing demand for services, providers are walking away from the industry. As mentioned, the Rudd government’s response to the biggest social issue facing Australians is to pull the carpet from under aged care providers and senior Australians. It is no wonder that many senior Australians say that they feel anxious and insecure under the Rudd government. I do not blame them; I am starting to feel the same myself. This insecurity and anxiety is fed by the Rudd government’s habit of doing the opposite of what it says. A good example is to talk about prevention. The former Howard government introduced a wonderful program that kept senior Australians safe in their own homes. The program was called the Assistive Technology in Community Care program. This program funded home safety devices such as mattress sensor pads to activate lights at night, medication dispensers and communications technology for reducing isolation. These devices enabled senior Australians to maintain their independence and remain safely in their homes for longer than they would otherwise have been able to. The Rudd government cut this program in last year’s May budget—another short-sighted and costly cut, because, as we all know, injuries sustained from falls can be debilitating. Senior Australians can lose their confidence and some may even not be able to recover from the experience of a bad fall. The financial cost of falls from injuries, such as broken hips, is great. The physical and emotional cost is even greater, and yet the Rudd government has cut a program that helped senior Australians remain safe and secure in their own homes.

My electorate of McPherson has a large population of senior Australians, and the way the Rudd government is treating them has them all worried. Furthermore, the way the Rudd government manages its programs also has them worried. A good example is their Green Loans Program. Green Loans assessors are targeting senior Australians in particular, and I have had scores of calls from constituents who rang my office to check if the Green Loans scheme is actually legitimate. Many of the residents are in their 80s. They are being bullied into making an appointment to meet with an assessor and when they try to cancel they are not able to make contact with the assessor again, and this is after being told on the phone that they must have this assessment done—that it is mandatory. Then they worry about the assessor turning up at a particular time, when they do not want to see them, particularly if they live on their own. Government programs are not meant to scare people, but the way the Green Loans initiative is being run has many of my senior Australians agitated and certainly concerned.

Another worry and concern that I have is the neglect of the southern Gold Coast by all levels of government. Recently, South-East Queensland had an extension to its rail system with the completion of the track from Robina to Varsity Lakes late last year. The extension is certainly most welcome, but we now have a train that stops at Varsity Lakes, but the rest of the southern Gold Coast, including Coolangatta, where the international airport is located, misses out, and there are no plans for the immediate future. Plans to extend the track to the New South Wales border are years away. Gold Coast city is planning a rapid transit system but, again, the southern Gold Coast and international travellers have been ignored. There is no rapid transit system for the southern Gold Coast.

The Tugun bypass has now been open for over two years. It is a wonderful road, saving motorists travel time plus the frustration of waiting in lengthy traffic jams. It has taken the heavy transport out of suburban Tugun and given the local residents some peace and quiet after years and years of neglect. John Anderson and the former coalition government funded the Tugun bypass, along with the Queensland Beattie government. At the last election the coalition committed another $455 million to upgrade the Pacific Motorway from Tugun to the Gateway Motorway, and the Rudd government matched this commitment. The priority for the funding was the widening of the Tugun to Nerang section of the highway up to eight lanes. Yet to date no work has commenced on widening the M1 on the southern Gold Coast. Now we understand there are no funds left to complete this work. The state government has miscalculated and overspent. What does this mean for the M1 and what does it mean for the southern Gold Coast residents? They go on the backburner again.

The Tugun bypass cuts across both New South Wales and Queensland, and at the time of negotiation and construction was the most complex piece of infrastructure in Australia. The New South Wales government, however, did not contribute one cent to its construction. But we are now in a situation where it expects the people of Tugun to put up with a large volume of traffic yet again that will be generated from the establishment of the Cobaki Lakes Estate. Traffic from this New South Wales development—a New South Wales development, not a Queensland development—will flow into Queensland, and residents of Boyd Street are expected to sit back quietly and accept this. Why should they? We moved the traffic out of Tugun. It will now be brought back in. The Tweed Shire will receive millions of dollars in developer contributions from the Cobaki Lakes Estate, which has approximately 5,300 residences, retail and commercial developments and two schools planned. Yet it is the residents living in Boyd Street, Queensland, in the electorate of McPherson, who are expected to put up with the huge volume of noise coming from an estate located in New South Wales. There is no widening of the M1 and no entrance for those residents back into New South Wales. They are all going to be brought into Queensland.

Before closing, I just want to ask the Australian people to start listening to what the Rudd government says it will do and then watching what it does not do. It is important that they start engaging. I would like to encourage the Australian people to become more engaged in our political process, because decisions being made will impact on all of them in the future. This is an important election year, and the promises that are made in the lead-up to the election are something we all should monitor in order to understand how they are going to affect our lives.

The Rudd government is talking about a massive increase in Australia’s population. I urge people to question how that will be managed. What will it mean for our food and water supplies? What will it mean for our environment generally? The Rudd government’s industrial relations laws will come at a cost to employment and prosperity. Strikes are on the increase already, and exorbitant wage claims will set inflation spiralling. It has been reported this week that a shipping company has caved in to union threats of further strike action and agreed to wage and allowance increases of up to $50,000 over three years. This type of wage hike is unsustainable by any stretch of the imagination. Question why Labor’s Fair Work laws take us back 40 years, a real concern, particularly with China and India emerging as tiger economies and Australia’s debt being something we cannot ignore.

Anyone who has tried to pay off a credit card knows just how hard it is to reduce the balance. It takes a great deal of discipline and doing without to get that credit card paid off. I believe Australians have every right to question why this government has wasted money. These concerns need to be answered by the Rudd government, which brings me to my next point.

12:14:47 How many Australians have noticed that the Prime Minister of this country will not answer questions directly? He makes sweeping statements but when he is quizzed further there is nothing behind the statements. People may have noticed that his ministers do the same: they avoid answering questions and say the same thing. That is, they repeat their rehearsed lines or, in political speak, they just stay on the message. I hope that more people will start watching question time. I know people in my own electorate often comment on the behaviour of politicians at question time. It is of concern, and each of us should take responsibility for our behaviour in question time. It is the opportunity during a parliamentary sitting week to bring the government to account, ask the questions that our constituents want answered and, hopefully, get some straightforward answers back from the government.

People can download the parliamentary schedule. I would encourage them to turn on question time, watch what is going on in the federal parliament and begin to understand what the leaders of this country are doing for them at an electorate level. I believe that each of us comes here representing our electorates in the best possible way we can, whether we are members of the government or members of the opposition. As an opposition member, I am here to question and certainly bring the concerns of my constituents to the parliament. Government members certainly believe that they are doing the right thing by the people of this country.

Each of us has a role to play, and I think each of us should be mindful of our behaviour and the way we undertake our responsibilities in this parliament. It is a privilege to be here, for each and every one of us. On both sides of the parliament, I have made some wonderful friends in the years I have been here. I will be retiring at the next election, but I think I will always be watching question time, even when I am retired—I will not be able to turn the box off. It will be a lifetime interest of mine. I do share with all of my colleagues the privilege of being here representing our electorates, and I know that those on both sides of the parliament all feel exactly the same way.

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

Today I will seek to restrict my comments to the actual contents of Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010. The contents are very important not only for the people in my electorate of Flynn but also throughout Australia generally. The bills will provide vital funding for critical programs provided by my government and its agencies and for capital injections into new and expanding programs and projects.

The appropriation of these funds provided by these bills is sought for government decisions included in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook and decisions taken since its release. Bill No. 3 aims to provide additional money out of the consolidated revenue fund for the ordinary annual services of the government and for related purposes. The total appropriation being sought by the provision of this bill is some $1.68 billion. The key measures arising from this proposed appropriation include $0.5 million for the establishment of a key Local Government Reform Fund, $510.8 million for additional funding for the Solar Homes and Communities Plan, $290 million for additional funding for the Home Insulation Program, $45.2 million for funding for the government’s response to the H1N1 influenza virus pandemic, $40 million for additional funding for the General Employee Entitlements and Redundancy Scheme and $63 million to meet the cost of increased irregular maritime arrivals.

The proposed appropriations in this bill arise from changes in the estimates of program expenditure as a result of variations in the timing of payments and predicted increases in program participation reclassifications and from policy decisions taken by the government since the last budget. Included is an additional $510.8 million, which will be provided to the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts to ensure commitments under the Solar Homes and Communities Plan are met.

While this program was terminated on 9 June last year, it was replaced by the Solar Credit Scheme, which provides assistance to households, small businesses and community groups with the upfront costs of eligible small-scale renewable energy systems installed subsequent to the date that the previous plan was terminated. When considering the achievements of the Solar Homes and Communities Plan, which are quite substantial, and the predicted future of it, the appropriation of these funds is not only necessary but absolutely vital. More than 50,000 systems had been installed as at the end of September 2009 under the scheme, with another 70,000 expected to be installed under the program in the future. The funds that are sought for this program will ensure its continued success, a success that benefits both the community of Flynn and the environment and the people of Australia.

In addition to this, the government proposed to bring $290 million forward from the 2011-12 budget for the Department of the Environment, Heritage and the Arts to meet an increase in demand for the home insulation program. As was outlined by the department, this program will cover all eligible households until 21 December 2011 or until the date when the funds allocated for the program are exhausted. As we know, due to the fact that there has been such a high take-up of the program already, the funds needed to be brought forward to meet the demand.

In my own home electorate of Flynn in Central Queensland this program has seen huge success, which is evident in the large influx of applicants for the assistance that it provides. It has been so successful in Flynn that I have received calls from a number of suppliers of insulation that cannot source product quickly enough to keep up with the demand. It is an important program, not only for the people of Central Queensland and the electorate of Flynn but also for the people of Australia. In some parts of my electorate, temperatures quite often drop to somewhere near below zero in winter and soar above 40 degrees in summer. In these parts of Flynn, insulation makes a huge difference to homes by helping to regulate the temperature in an energy efficient manner. This program makes the lives of many of my constituents easier and their support for the program is a testament to that, with many calling our office to express their gratitude for the assistance. The bringing forward of this funding is necessary to continue to meet the increasing demand for what I believe to be an excellent program.

Another important matter that this bill seeks to address is the proposal to provide the Department of Health and Ageing with some $45.2 million in response to the H1N1 influenza virus pandemic. The funding is sought to manage this pandemic and to enhance preparedness for any future pandemics by supporting activities including but not limited to the storage, compounding and distribution of antivirals and protective equipment to health workers; production, processing and distribution of immunisation consent forms; and the conduct of an immunisation awareness campaign. As at September 2009, there were 36,028 confirmed cases of H1N1 virus in Australia. While the frequency and severity of the virus was substantially lower than its originally anticipated potential, the Australian government recognises that the pandemic needs to be properly managed. As a country, we need to be prepared for any future pandemics.

As a family man and a father of five children living in a close-knit community, I am a huge supporter of this initiative to enhance preparedness for future pandemics and the management of the virus. I have personally witnessed in my own electorate fears expressed by parents of young children about the devastating potential of the virus. It is indeed reassuring for these families to know that we as their government are actively enhancing preparation to combat future pandemics. The appropriation of funds for this excellent initiative is another vital component of this bill that has my full support.

The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations will be provided with some $40 million in additional funding to meet an increase in demand for assistance from the General Employee Entitlements and Redundancy Scheme due to a rise in bankruptcies and insolvencies. I find this scheme invaluable in my electorate of Flynn. There is no denying that we are at the tail end of an absolutely devastating global financial crisis and, while our country was protected from the worst of it by the exceptional initiatives implemented by my government, many bankruptcies and insolvencies have occurred and will continue to occur as we pass over the tail end of it.

As the member for Flynn, which is arguably—or will soon be—the economic powerhouse of the nation, I know that initiatives like this will provide employees and their families with an additional security should their employer’s situation turn sour. It is a safety net that serves a very important purpose, and the appropriation of additional funding for it is something I strongly support—not just for the people in my electorate of Flynn but for all Australians who may come to need this assistance.

An additional appropriation of $63 million is proposed for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to meet the costs of increased irregular maritime arrivals. It is quite obvious that recently there has been an increase in the frequency of irregular maritime arrivals so it is undeniable that additional funding is necessary to meet the increase in these arrivals. A new clause has also been included in the bill to give effect to the government’s decision to reduce the amount of unspent and uncommitted depreciation and make good funding that agencies have accumulated since the introduction of accrual appropriations in 1999-2000.

Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010 aims to appropriate additional money out of the consolidated revenue fund for certain expenditure and for related purposes. Appropriation Bill (No. 4) includes amounts which have previously been provided for as follows. Some $114.9 million has been reclassified from administered expenses to make payments direct to local government for the East Kimberley development package. There has been $18.3 million reclassified from payments which were to be made under the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009 to payments direct to local government for various Nation Building Roads to Recovery projects, and $10 million, which was unspent last financial year due to delays in the negotiation of funding arrangements, is proposed for the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program.

The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government will be provided an additional $12 million with the appropriations proposed in both of these bills. This will be utilised for the establishment of a local government reform fund to help councils manage their infrastructure and to plan for their future needs. In additional to this it will provide funding under the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program to support investment in community infrastructure such as libraries, community centres, sports centres and environmental infrastructure. It will improve the capability of local governments to manage their assets to better provide outcomes for communities through management of assets and financial planning processes and anticipated infrastructure needs. For all councils across Australia this is a positive step in the process of helping them build a better future for their residents.

The appropriation bills provide scope for vital funding of critical programs provided by government agencies, and capital injections into new and expanding programs and projects. It is irrefutable that the purposes for which these funds are to be appropriated are very important for the future of Australia and it is undeniable that these programs and projects are tremendously positive for all Australians.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010. This bill represents a part of the standard process of the budget cycle; however, this bill combined with Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010 seeks appropriations to the value of over $2 billion. In anyone’s language that is a significant amount of extra taxpayer money being sought by the Rudd Labor government—the very same government that has put Australia in tens of billions of dollars worth of national debt.

It is entirely appropriate that any appropriations being sought by a government, particularly any above those already budgeted for, should be examined very carefully. In this case, the amount alone obviously warrants careful examination, but, beyond that, any appropriations sought by the Rudd Labor government require an extra level of examination.

This is a necessity born of the Rudd Labor government’s extremely poor track record in managing Australia’s budget and their complete lack of follow-through on their own intentions to ensure that financial statements are transparent. It was the Rudd Labor government’s intention to increase the transparency of budgetary information under the auspices of Operation Sunlight. It was also their intention to take over public hospitals, it was their intention to end Japanese whaling and it was their intention to single-handedly solve the problem of climate change. As we have all learned, this government has had many intentions, but, after over two years in office, they remain just that: intentions. Intentions without a program of clear and executable actions amount to pipe dreams, and this government has been in cloud-cuckoo land, dreaming, for far too long.

It is now beyond any doubt that this Labor government has no ability to deliver on any of its intentions, promises or policies. For example, the intent of Operation Sunlight was to increase transparency of budgetary estimates and improve the readability of budget papers, yet this latest appropriation bill still smacks of Labor’s light touch in regard to transparency. An increase in transparency could be described in layman’s terms as being like installing a large glass window in a brick wall, thereby allowing the outside world to peer through and see what is on the other side. However, transparency according to the gospel of Prime Minister Rudd and his Labor disciples would be more akin to installing a small cat flap in the highest corner of the wall which can only be as accessed with a ladder and opened with a key. Now, the only key that regularly opens this cat flap is wielded by the freedom of information laws, and even then the Rudd Labor government does its level best to hinder those attempting to gain access to what should be classified as public information. That is hardly what I would describe as transparency in government.

The Rudd Labor government’s interpretation of ‘transparency’ makes it incredibly difficult to analyse exactly what the additional money in this bill will be used for. But, then again, that is how the Rudd Labor government like to operate: if nobody knows where the money is going, then they assume they cannot be held accountable. How wrong they are. This government has shown that it is willing to continue its spending binge and has demonstrated that it has no appreciation for taxpayers’ money. Having highlighted that point, I will now speak on this bill as it relates specifically to the Defence portfolio.

This bill includes an additional $690 million worth of extra funding for the Department of Defence—again, a considerable amount of money in anyone’s terms. Some of this extra funding will be used to account for items that are always subject to changes in their price, and that component of extra funding is therefore unavoidable. These items generally include such things as fluctuations in fuel prices, additional funding for operations and changes in exchange rates, which are all supplemented on a no-win, no-loss basis. However, these are only educated assumptions. There is no actual breakdown of the $690 million provided through this bill. In fact, this bill states that there is $528 million earmarked for ‘the protection and advancement of Australia’s national interests through the provision of military capability and the promotion of security and stability’. A further $108 million is to be used for ‘the advancement of Australia’s strategic interests through the conduct of military operations and other tasks directed by government’. It is plain to see that the level and amount of information substantiating the appropriation of over half a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money is, I am afraid to say, more than just a little light-on; it is downright shameful and a deliberate act of obfuscation.

Even if we were to believe the recent statements by the member for Rankin on this bill, where he casually stated that the additional funding would be recouped in future defence budgets, how could anyone assess the validity of those statements? There are no line items. There is no detail. There are only three extremely broad statements in this bill that give no indication whatsoever as to the use of this money.

It was only with further research that we were able to garner information that revealed that $87.7 million would be used to reimburse Defence for the costs of extending its military presence in Iraq to 30 June 2009. It was only then that we could ascertain that approximately $153 million would be used to meet additional costs arising from movements in the exchange rate, and only then that we could conclude that $29.4 million was to be used to cover overspends on operations. Furthermore, we were able to ascertain that, of the $690 million, almost half, $309 million, would be used to address pressures caused by the graded other ranks pay structure review, superannuation, rental allowances and higher fuel costs. Lastly, $43.4 million would be provided to the Defence Materiel Organisation for operating costs, and a commensurate sum would be taken from the Department of Defence operating budget. None of this detail was contained in the bill.

The government’s assertion that this money would be offset in future years is not credible, and it is simply not acceptable that there is such limited detail in the bill with regard to the appropriation of over half a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money. Finally, it is in complete contrast to the Rudd Labor government’s own intention to introduce more transparent financial information under ‘Operation Sunshine’. This is to be expected of the Rudd Labor government. This is to be expected, as it has a strong track record of obfuscating, hiding, blacking out or otherwise simply not including key financial data. This is the government that released a defence white paper some 144 pages in length while only including 1½ pages of vague budget estimates. This is the government that released a white paper that, along with the defence budget papers, was labelled as ‘the least comprehensive of the past decade’. In fact, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, ASPI, went as far as to say:

… there is a glaring absence of substantive information on funding, investment and reform.

This is the government that released the Pappas report only because it was requested under freedom of information laws. It must be remembered that the current Minister for Defence has a reputation as being a pro-accountability and pro-disclosure political practitioner, but the strength of the Rudd government’s rhetoric machine seems to drown out all attempts to reveal the truth and stops cold any attempt to gain any access to any information that may be politically damaging.

There is a very simple reason why this government would want to say that it is pro-accountability and pro-transparency: it is what it thinks the public wants to hear, and this government is all about image. I believe the Pappas report—which, for those who are unaware, is an independent audit of the defence budget commissioned by the Rudd Labor government—is a prime example of this government’s failure to embrace its own rhetoric regarding transparency and accountability of government processes. For example, the Pappas report states that, in order to deliver capability set out in the white paper, defence spending requires real annual growth of 4.2 per cent. Yet the Rudd Labor government’s 2009-10 defence budget states that real defence spending will only increase by three per cent annually out to 2018 and by 2.2 per cent from 2017-18 to 2029-30. Simply put, this means that the government cannot afford to purchase all of the capability laid out in the white paper, including its 12 new submarines, which are going to cost at least $100 billion through their life cycle. It is no wonder that this government did not want to release the Pappas review. Its conclusions simply fly in the face of its own policy intentions.

The deliberate act of obfuscation of information is the modus operandi of this government, a government that is all spin and rhetoric and no substance or policy. Perhaps that is why it believes that it can base its future acquisition policy on the central premise that the Department of Defence can find $20 billion worth of savings over the next decade. Never mind that such savings have never before been accomplished by the Department of Defence and never mind that the vast majority of commentators agree that $20 billion of so-called savings is simply an unrealistic target.

The core issue pertains to the fact that there is very little detail from which to assess the strength of this so-called savings program or to assess the strength of the government’s defence policies. As Mark Thomson from ASPI put it, ‘Very little detail is available on the program.’ He went on to say that there is approximately $5.9 billion worth of savings, identified as part of the overall program, which remains unexplained. Again, in simple terms, this means that over a quarter of the government’s quintessential Defence savings program is not budgeted for and that it certainly does not provide an adequate amount of evidence to support its central notion that the savings program is achievable. This translates into a situation whereby we cannot critique the government because we have no benchmark on which to assess the government’s policy; it is a policy vacuum. We simply have to take on faith that this government knows what it is doing—and that, my friends, really is a bridge too far.

The Rudd Labor government’s commitment to defence over the next few years is nothing more than that originally planned and less than the coalition’s guaranteed minimum three per cent annual growth. As I have stated, this government’s defence policy hinges on the premise of savings of $20 billion. Nearly the same amount that was recklessly spent on Rudd’s cash splash can be found internally within the Department of Defence, but it is still required to fund an ambitious acquisition program. The $20 billion savings over 10 years will be difficult for the Defence bureaucrats to find, if not impossible. As Geoffrey Barker from the Australian Financial Review stated after the release of the white paper in 2009:

This year’s Defence budget has retreated from transparency, accountability and reality with the speed of an Iraqi regiment fleeing into the desert. But here is the rub … nor is it possible to know how Defence will find $20 billion in savings over the decade through the strategic reform program. It was particularly galling given that last year’s Defence Portfolio Budget Statement promised that the White Paper would ‘include the fully costed Defence capability of the future and fully costed support functions informed by a long term cost model’. It didn’t—and neither has the budget.

There you go. What is outstanding about the latest defence budget is that there is not one new dollar being spent. The budget papers state against almost every new initiative:

The cost of this measure will be met from within the existing resourcing of the Department of Defence.

If that is true, why is the government asking for more money through this appropriation bill? Why does it feel so insecure about this bill that it has failed to identify exactly what this additional funding will be used for? Perhaps more worrying is that the government is asking for over half a billion dollars more than that approved in the most recent budget, which has been described as lacking in substantive detail and costings.

There is a widely held belief in academia, and even within the Department of Defence, that there has been a complete lack of transparency with regard to defence funding now and into the forward estimates. In the 2009-10 budget, there is a commitment to increase real defence spending by a maximum of three per cent annually to 2018 and by 2.2 per cent from 2017-18 to 2029-30. However, if you read a little more closely, you notice that the numbers are not what they seem. Defence’s total funding of $26.6 billion in 2009-10 shows an increase of 14.9 per cent, largely because of the $1.4 billion commitment to support our forces in Afghanistan. However, the increase in 2010-11 is only 1.45 per cent, to $27.028 billion. After that, the funding level falls even further: to $27.001 billion in 2011-12 and to $26.337 billion in 2012-13.

No wonder the government is using this bill to ask for more money; it never had enough to begin with. It never had enough to deliver on its promises contained in the 2009 white paper. This is a government that does not care what costs it incurs. It does not even care where the money comes from. All it cares about is looking good in front of the camera.

I wish to briefly outline now one further example of this government’s failure to be honest with the Australian public. I am referring to this government’s shadowy policy on Defence Force base closures. Within the Pappas report a total of 12 pages were dedicated to the topic of, as the government likes to call it, base rationalisation. Of these 12 pages, the vast majority of this information was simply blacked out purely for political reasons. This government is deliberately obfuscating this information in order to delay a politically tough decision so that it can protect marginal Labor seats. Quite simply, if this government was as serious about achieving savings in defence as it likes to think it is, then why weren’t the blacked-out recommendations in the Pappas review adopted? Instead, yet another review was commissioned—one that conveniently will report just after the next federal election. So much for transparency and accountability. Instead, this government has demonstrated that it is more than willing to put its own interests ahead of those of the community. More than that, it has demonstrated that it is willing to engage in the deliberate obfuscation of any information that may harm its members’ chances of being re-elected. In reality, if this Rudd Labor government was serious about ruling out base closures, it would not be conducting yet another review. If it was serious about saving money, it would get its hands dirty and implement its base rationalisation strategy. Instead, it has done neither; it has just postponed a tough decision via the implementation of yet another review.

This bill again reflects the Rudd Labor government’s addiction to debt. It has run out of money and it is asking for more. This is one of the most common tenets of the Rudd Labor government. The other, as I have talked about today, is that it deliberately obfuscates any information that seems to be politically sensitive regardless of the public’s right to have access to that information.

At a time when Australia’s defence forces are being asked to do more heavy lifting both regionally and globally, this Rudd Labor government is stripping $20 billion from their budget. They will tell you that it has been taken from corporate overheads and that it will not affect our frontline troops. Well, that simply is not true. It is already having an effect on our troops, on our reserves most noticeably, as they too are being asked to do more with fewer and fewer resources. They are even running out of ammunition, thanks to this government’s reckless spending policies. In typical smoke and mirrors style that we have become accustomed to with the Rudd Labor government, there is no real detail as to how Defence will secure the savings it has been asked to find, and that is simply unacceptable. What is worse is that this government is hell-bent on making sure that no-one can ever access its policy and it has a deliberate motive to hide, black out and otherwise obfuscate information critical to the natural mechanisms of a healthy democracy. This is a government that talks the talk but refuses to walk the walk. It is a government full of spin with no substance and a government that refuses to make the hard and tough decisions.

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In response to my friend and colleague the member for Paterson, I ask the House what the member for Paterson would have said to his constituents were we not to have injected our two stimulus packages into the economy last year and the previous year to deal with the global financial crisis, and the consequences that would have had for small businesses in his electorate and the concomitant loss of jobs and increased unemployment in his electorate. What would have been his answer to his constituents were we not to have put those stimulus packages into the economy? That has been borne out by the judgment of other people, not only in our own country but internationally, that we survived the global financial crisis and were at the apex of successful economies in the OECD. It is very convenient for the member for Paterson to come in here and slam the government for borrowing, but good economic policy in tough times that we have just experienced dictates that the government lends a hand and supports families, supports small businesses and supports jobs.

I am very happy to rise today to support Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2009-2010, otherwise termed the additional estimates appropriation bills. These bills seek additional expenditure of money from the consolidated revenue fund to meet the requirement of the government decisions included in and made since the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook. The total additional appropriation being sought this year is approximately $1.68 billion in bill No. 3 and $522 million in bill No. 4. In total, a little over $2 billion is proposed for requirements that have arisen since the last budget. The Rudd government is investing in Australia’s future and continues to monitor the needs of our society in an ever-changing global context. It is important to reflect on the important stimulus packages the Rudd government delivered during the period of global economic uncertainty that I have referred to. There can be no doubt that the prompt and appropriate action taken by the government assisted Australia in avoiding a technical recession. I did not hear anything from the member for Paterson, as I have just said, in relation to that.

The growth in the economy and the Reserve Bank’s decision this week to maintain the current interest rate reveals that the opposition’s call for the withdrawal of fiscal stimulus is wrong and would have been disastrous for our economy. The Rudd government will continue to work in the best interests of Australia, and the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook delivered positive news. The forecasts show low unemployment, higher growth, lower deficits and lower debt than expected at budget. The figures underscore Australia’s position as the strongest performing advanced economy in the world. The stimulus packages provided the necessary injection of funding to our economy, saving thousands of jobs and simultaneously providing long-term benefits to our local communities. Why hasn’t the member for Paterson acknowledged that?

The requirements contained in the additional estimates appropriation bills reflect the changes that arise in program expenditure estimates, reclassifications, policy decisions, program uptake forecasts and variations in the timing of payments.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Given the time, I am going to call upon the member for Dobell to move that the Main Committee adjourn. That motion has been seconded by the member for Berowra. The member for Lowe will have leave to continue his remarks at a later stage of the debate.