Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline to the House the fiscal impacts associated with the recent natural disasters and the government’s plan to rebuild the affected areas? How has this plan been received, and what is the government’s response?

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bendigo for his question. He too has been affected in his electorate. In the Bendigo electorate some 200 houses and a number of small businesses were affected, and he has been working very hard to ensure that in his community that assistance is delivered where it is needed.

The rebuild task here is going to be a huge, huge call on our resources. It is going to require very significant investments by government. We do have longstanding Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements; we had them under the previous government as we have under this government. These arrangements mean that the Commonwealth will meet 75 per cent of the rebuilding costs that fall within the NDRRAs, and also costs which come with some of the income support that the Prime Minister was talking about before.

So our initial estimate just in terms of the January floods, before you get to the cyclones and so on, is that it will cost the federal budget $5.6 billion. Of course, as we have said, two-thirds of that funding will be delivered through cuts to the budget and infrastructure deferrals, and, of course, one-third will be provided by our modest levy, which will not be paid by people who earn less than $50,000 and will not be paid by those directly affected by the floods, because it is the responsible thing to do to pay as we go.

Of course, I said before that we do have strong long-term fundamentals, but we do need this revenue for the rebuilding process to provide the certainty for those families and those businesses that their government is behind them and prepared to back them. That is why the government moved so decisively to provide that certainty to the business community. But, of course, it is a temporary levy and we do also have to make sure that, when the economy continues to grow, there is room for the rebuilding from the floods as well as the natural growth in our economy. So paying as we go is the responsible thing to do, and it is an approach that has been endorsed. This is what the Financial Times had to say:

In this age of reckless sovereigns, the choice of a levy is extraordinary, but prudent.

It is absolutely the right thing to do in our circumstances. It is absolutely the right thing to do, because Australians did want to work together to deal with these challenges in their community, and Australians have united behind what the government has done.

But, of course, the only one who has not been part of that is the Leader of the Opposition. We saw yesterday their so-called funding package, which consists of deferrals, double counts and backflips. He is all opposition and no leadership.

People might take him seriously if he had not actually come into this House on something like six occasions and supported a levy. Who was it who came into this House on 17 June 1996 to support a gun buyback levy? It was the Leader of the Opposition. Who was it who came in 2001 and supported a levy for the Ansett employees? The Leader of the Opposition. If a levy was good enough in the election campaign, it is good enough for people in— (Time expired)