Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Previously, I was warning that there may be additional businesses and entities in the south-west, other than those on the government's liable entities list, which may have to pay the carbon tax. This is the monumentally stupid and now infamous carbon tax, the carbon tax the Prime Minister and Treasurer both said we would not have. I remember that in the lead-up to the last election any suggestion by the coalition that Labor would introduce a carbon tax was described by the Treasurer as 'hysterical'. It is a tax which clearly is not an environmental plan but is a wealth distribution scheme to meet Labor's politics of envy and division of Australians.

I note that 104 local governments have also been approached by the Clean Energy Regulator in its search for new carbon tax targets, and it expects up to 70 per cent of them will pay up. This list of 104 includes two in my electorate—Collie and Harvey shires. This means that the people of Collie and Harvey may well be paying additional carbon tax directly via their power bills or indirectly through increased transport costs on all their goods and may well be paying the carbon tax again through increased shire rates.

When it comes to transport costs, there are other carbon hits. Regional communities have food delivered in refrigerated trucks and they will be hit with the diesel carbon tax in 2014. The refrigerant itself used to keep our food fresh will also be hit by the carbon tax. One large trucking company has already estimated their annual carbon tax cost for refrigerants alone at $180,000. This cost will either have to be absorbed by transport companies, many of which are still finding business quite tough, or be felt by businesses and families. Every refrigerated truck taking food to Australian families will now be the carbon tax collector for the Labor government. As time goes by, I have no doubt we will be inundated by other examples of businesses, families and communities being hit by more carbon taxes.

This is the tax the Treasurer called the very mention of, in the run-up to the election, 'hysterical'. We were hysterical to even mention that the Labor government would do this. We were hysterical, yet here we have it. This again is the tax about which the Prime Minister said only days before the election, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' Let me tell you that rural and regional Australians know very well that there is a carbon tax and that they are going to pay disproportionately, particularly through transport costs. When the diesel fuel excise change happens, Australians who live in rural and regional parts of this country will pay disproportionately. Australian businesses, individuals and families will pay, and they will pay for the betrayal of this government. This is a budget of fake surpluses and smoke and mirrors accounting. This is the budget Labor has used to further divide the Australian people. As I said previously, business after business is going to be impacted by this tax. There are a lot of cool stores and cool rooms out there and there are a lot of farming businesses that will not be able to pass on that carbon tax. They will have to find some way within their businesses to absorb that additional cost. I see over and over again in my community that this will be a further impost on rural and regional Australia. It is clearly something that the government has given no consideration to—the additional impact of the carbon tax on rural and regional electorates like my own.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure today to rise to speak on the appropriation bills and the budget. Like many Australians, I am very happy with this budget because it is a very good budget. It is a very well-crafted budget and it is one that I know my colleagues are rightfully very proud of. The budget is good for the economy and it is good for Australians.

It says a lot about the values of this government and, indeed, the values of our Treasurer that even when we need to make tough cuts we are able to ensure that we increase assistance to low- and middle-income families and pensioners. It says a lot about the values of this government that even while delivering on our commitment to return the budget to surplus we are able to make a down payment on important social reforms such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

The disability insurance scheme is all about making life easier for those who have a disability and for their families and carers—decent people who often work very hard and give so much of their life to looking after their loved ones. The Gillard Labor government believe that, as a society, we should make sure that we do all we can to improve support and services to these people to make their life a little easier. It also says a lot about the values of our government and, indeed, about the economic nous of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer that in these tough times we continue to make the long-term investments that we need in schools, in training, in education and in infrastructure. This is because we know that education is not the only key determinant of a nation's long-term prosperity but that education is the great enabler that opens up an individual's life path to better jobs, to higher wages and to improved health and social outcomes.

I also want to talk a little about the current economic environment. We can see that many economies in Europe face deep economic challenges as they struggle to deal with their sovereign debt crisis and restore growth. Developments in Europe have triggered volatility in global financial markets—the US share market is down by seven per cent since the start of May and the Australian market is down by eight per cent. We are not immune from this economic instability but, because we took action during the global financial crisis, supporting jobs through our stimulus package, we are in a very good position to weather what is happening abroad. While some sectors of the economy are hurting from a high dollar, we are doing very well as a nation. We have strong growth, low unemployment, contained inflation, a huge pipeline of investment, very low debt and we are returning the budget to surplus on time as promised.

Let us put these facts in context. Solid growth means that our economy is expected to outperform every single major advanced economy over the next two years. Our unemployment rate is 4.9 per cent. That is less than half the rate seen across Europe—10.9 per cent—and far below other advanced economies. And, we have a fantastic record of job creation with around 800,000 jobs created since Labor came to office.

I would like to take a moment to reflect on the government's record on jobs because it is a tremendous achievement. If we had listened to the opposition, who did not support our stimulus package, we would be in a situation where hundreds of thousands more Australians were out of a job. Around 70 per cent of the stimulus package was devoted to building infrastructure which will have a long-term legacy for our nation. In my electorate of Isaacs alone, over $108 million has been invested under the Building the Education Revolution program in improving the quality of education provided to students and generating jobs. This investment kept the construction industry going during 2009 and 2010 and into 2011, a time when there was a sharp downturn in other projects in the construction industry across Australia and in my electorate. I heard time and again when I went to open Building the Education Revolution projects in my electorate not only congratulations from school communities on the lasting benefits to their schools of the buildings that were constructed but also congratulations from those involved in the building of those projects—tradespeople and people in the construction industry who knew and indeed said to me often, 'Were it not for this Building the Education Revolution program I would be at home with my feet on the couch twiddling my thumbs while I looked for work.' That is the difference we have made.

It is worth contemplating the difference that has been made by the stimulus package and indeed the difference that is made by that kind of economic policy in general. It is worth contemplating the waste that would have occurred had we not stimulated the economy. The waste I am talking about is the waste that comes with recession—failed businesses, lost jobs and long-term unemployment. The opposition loves to wallow in talking about waste, which occurs in every single human activity: it is always possible to point with the benefit of hindsight to some kind of waste somewhere in some project. But there are two kinds of waste. There is the first kind of waste, which I have just spoken of—lost jobs, failed businesses and long-term unemployment—and the other kind of waste, which is some overspending in some aspects of some projects and, even there, just to take the Building the Education Revolution program as an example, only a very small proportion of projects were identified as having generated some kind of waste. Given the choice between the two kinds of waste, I know the kind of waste that I would prefer. We stand for jobs. We have generated jobs, and we have also acted by getting rid of Work Choices to make sure that, when people do have a job, it is a secure and fairly paid job. That is what we stand for, and that is because we manage the economy in the interests of working people.

The list of economic achievements goes on. There is low inflation—it is well within the target band at 2.1 per cent in the March quarter; there are low interest rates—the cash rate is sitting at 3.75 per cent, lower than at any time under the 11½ years of the previous coalition government; we have very low debt—net debt as a percentage of GDP will peak at around one-tenth of the level of the average across major advanced economies; and now, as promised, we are returning the budget to surplus in 2012-13, ahead of every single major advanced economy. Our strong fundamentals together with our proven track record make us uniquely placed to deal with the worst that the world can throw at us. The budget gets our economic settings right because, by returning the nation's finances to surplus, we give ourselves a buffer to act in the future. We acted decisively to stimulate the economy after the global financial crisis by going into a temporary deficit and now, as the economy improves, we are allowing monetary policy to play a bigger role.

People listening to the bleatings of the opposition should bear in mind that this is a growing economy: it is in growth, and is going to continue to grow. Those indicators that I have just run through should come as a reality check to those opposite, who continue to talk the economy down at every opportunity. I see that the member for Indi is with us in the chamber. She is one of those who talks down the economy for partisan and temporary political advantage at every opportunity, ignoring the economic indicators that on every measure show the strength of our economy and the skill with which we as a Labor government have managed this economy in the interests of working people. The budget has been well received by Australians, and I think this is because at heart Australians are an egalitarian bunch—we understand, and indeed expect, that fairness will be at the heart of economic policy-making. I know that those opposite have no regard for fairness. When they have been in government they have shown that and also from opposition, with their rejection of those parts of the budget that they have thus far been able to bring themselves to express a view about—because one would not actually know, listening to the opposition leader's budget reply speech—such as the schoolkids bonus, something that will help Australian families with kids at school deal with the costs that they are facing. That policy, that measure, has been rejected by those opposite.

I think that emphasis on fairness is why people have been so supportive of the tough savings that have been made in this budget, and indeed people have been encouraged by the support that we have given to parents, to pensioners, to students and to the unemployed. As the Treasurer often reminds us, for many Australians it feels like it is someone else's mining boom. That is why our budget contains important measures to help households make ends meet. More than 1.5 million families will benefit from increases to Family Tax Benefit Part A from 1 July next near, with nearly half of those taking home an extra $600 a year. Again, we can say that, because of the rejection of this policy by the shadow Treasury spokesman, the member for North Sydney, who has rejected this increase in Family Tax Benefit Part A, those opposite simply do not care about the cost of living, do not care about those struggling to make ends meet in our society.

There is to be a new supplementary payment which will help the unemployed, students and parents on income support meet the costs of essential bills, worth $210 a year for singles and $350 a year for couples. This package, combined with the new schoolkids bonus, which will support over 9,000 families in my electorate, will provide around $5 billion in total in support to households, which will in turn support consumption, business activity and jobs across the economy. And of course this builds on the households assistance we have already announced as part of the clean energy future package that will see increases in family payments, allowances and pensions begin flowing over the next few weeks as well as tax cuts for all taxpayers earning up to $80,000 a year from 1 July through a tripling of the tax-free threshold—another measure which the opposition have made clear they are quite happy to take away; another measure which the opposition oppose.

I want to finish up before commending the bills to the House to remark on what has been another shameful and misleading scare campaign being waged by the opposition, who long ago departed from reality when it comes to economic growth—or, indeed, addressing climate change for that matter. But I am not going to talk about the scare campaign on climate change; I am going to talk about the scare campaign on debt which the opposition have been running. It is nothing more than a misleading attempt to garner some economic credibility, and I can understand why the opposition might crave economic credibility: because this is an opposition which would have stood idly by and let hundreds of thousands of Australians lose their jobs by failing to act when the global financial crisis hit. This is an opposition which have a $70 billion black hole in their costings—self-admitted.

Let's be clear: Australia's public finances are among the strongest in the world, underpinned by very low public debt, strong fiscal discipline and a return to surplus in 2012-13. We did the right thing going into temporary deficit to stimulate the economy after the global financial crisis; we acted to ensure that this crisis did not turn into a prolonged recession here, as it has in so many other nations. Australia's net debt peaks at around one-tenth of the average of major advanced economies. For the first time in Australia's history we have been awarded the gold plated AAA credit rating by all three global rating agencies—a status never achieved by the Liberal government in its 11½ years of government. And now, again by way of comparison with other countries, Australia is one of only eight countries in the world to have that AAA credit rating with a stable outlook from all three major rating agencies.

This is a very good budget. We are returning the budget to surplus, on time and as promised. It is a fair budget because we are spreading the benefits of the mining boom to help families on modest incomes and small business. And it is a budget for the long term because it gets us back in the black while continuing to make investments in the nation's future—investments in education, in training, in health and in infrastructure.

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No.1) 2012-2013 and associated bills—and how can one not comment on the previous contribution? It is pitifully embarrassing in some ways when we hear members on the other side talk about standing for jobs. There is only one job they are standing for and that is saving Julia Gillard's at any cost—whether it is at the economy's cost, whether it is at Australian workers' cost, it is to save that job. The previous speaker went on to talk about talking down the economy and criticised us for not being egalitarian. Well, while he is over there bagging the opposition for supposedly not being egalitarian, perhaps instead of just receiving the votes of the members of the Isaacs electorate, he might decide not to live more than 26 kilometres away and join them. Aren't they good enough to live amongst? It is not as if there has been a redistribution and his house is slightly outside the electorate. But that is the typical patrician arrogance of some members opposite, who talk about egalitarianism, who talk about the worker, but God forbid they live amongst them: 'We couldn't have that! We couldn't have leaving the leafy suburbs of East Malvern to live amongst the workers in Isaacs! But they can vote for me, they can put me in parliament—that's my entitlement, I suppose.' It is not just former union officials in this place who are used to an entitlement culture, it is also the patricians on the other side. So perhaps if he wants to be egalitarian, to live amongst your own people would be a good start, or even a little closer than more than 26 kilometres.

What do we see in this budget? The same deception, the same fraud, the same pretence to care about the Australian people and Australian workers as we have seen from the contribution from the member for Isaacs. We see a really amateurish attempt to con the media and Australian voters that somehow this government has all of a sudden become responsible. All of a sudden they are going to deliver a wafer-thin $1.5 billion surplus for the 2012-13 year. This is despite the fact that they have not produced a single surplus. This is despite the fact that they get all their figures wrong at every single stage of the prediction. And how have they achieved these cooked books of a budget surplus? It has something to do with raising this year's deficit from $23 billion to $44 billion by bringing forward spending and with having money for projects like the NBN off the budget.

When you do all those tricky measurements and manoeuvres of moving money into one year and pushing it out to forward years, of course you are going to get some pathetic wafer-thin margin. In fact, just by bringing forward two programs, the back-to-school payments and the local government grants, the government are artificially saving $1.5 billion. But what is the point when they are still borrowing $100 million a day? What is the point when the government are saying they have to increase the debt ceiling by $50 billion? If they were going to achieve a surplus, or if anyone believed they were going to achieve a surplus, they would not need to increase the debt ceiling from $250 billion to $300 billion. The reality is they do not believe it either. And when you do not believe what you are prosecuting, it makes it very difficult for anyone else to believe it. It is interesting that when the Treasurer—sometimes you have got to remember that Wayne Swan is the Treasurer; woe, what depths we have sunk to as a nation—was asked about why he would need to raise the debt limit if he, supposedly, is going to deliver a surplus, he said, 'Well, very simply, this is no big deal.' I have news for you, Mr Swan: $50 billion is a very big deal. The net debt, which is rising to $145 billion, is a very big deal. Your reckless spending is an enormous deal. Whether this Labor government is led by Julia Gillard or Wayne Swan or Bill Shorten or Mr Smith or Mr Combet or Mr Crean does not matter; it does not matter who leads the Labor Party to the next election. There is one fact for certain: they will not be the ones paying back the enormous debt they have amassed and squandered through their gross and base mismanagement. We have seen in 18 months this government's estimated deficit for this year blow out by $12 billion. Just like that, $12 billion. If $50 billion is no big deal, what is $12 billion to this government? In the last four years their cumulative record deficits have reached $174 billion. This is a government of records—record lows when it comes to accountability, record lows when it comes to good policy but record highs when it comes to absolute front and absolute mismanagement of taxpayers' dollars and borrowed funds.

We keep on getting told this is a great Labor budget. What is this great Labor budget doing? It is delivering the world's biggest carbon tax, rendering our manufacturers even less competitive against imports that will not have a carbon tax imposed upon them, and it is stifling confidence like you would not believe, at a time when companies should be taking advantage of the high dollar to bring in machinery that will set them up to be that bit more productive, that bit more competitive, at the next upswing in the economy. They are not doing that, because they just do not have any confidence to go out there and borrow money—let alone what this government's budget and its carbon tax are doing to confidence in the consumer market.

The Labor Party talks about scare campaigns. The opposition does not need to run any scare campaigns, because this Labor government is scaring the hell out of voters as it is. They look at you; they look at your record. They do not look at what you say. They look at what you do because you say there will be no carbon tax under a Labor government, yet there is; you say there will be a deal with Mr Wilkie on pokies, and there is not; and you say there are going to be budget surpluses, and everyone knows that is an absolute farce. The more this government neglects the wishes of mainstream Australia purely to stitch up yet another day, yet another week, yet another month, yet another 18 months in government, the more it will stand condemned. There must be some good people on the other side who know all of this. Where are they? It is their responsibility to stand up for good government because by their silence they too risk being condemned by the utterly unworthy incompetence that has debased the Australian parliament like never before.

As a member representing a rural and regional area, it pains me to see what this budget has done to rural and regional areas. We have seen the deferral of almost $1 billion for water savings infrastructure that would have meant farmers could upgrade, irrigators could upgrade and local businesses could have some confidence that there is this investment in important infrastructure. But that has been deferred. What this actually tells us about the government is that it does not really care about efficient and effective use of our scarce resources like water; it does not care about even more delays in dealing with the issues in the Murray-Darling Basin. It just shows you that the care factor is nil. And why wouldn't it be, when the Murray-Darling Basin is dominated by coalition electorates? It does not really care about the people who live there or the businesses—otherwise, the funding for this priority issue would not have been pushed to outward years.

We have also seen that this budget has the lowest road funding in a decade. Country people know that there are significant fatalities and that they, proportionally, suffer more from road fatalities. Safety on roads is a basic, fundamental expenditure that is required, not just for people to be safe but for them to move around and for commerce to operate. But this budget contains zero new spending on roads or rail in the 2012-13 year and, overall, expenditure on roads plummets from $6.2 billion in the 2011-12 year to $2.6 billion in the 2012-13 year, with at least $2.3 billion brought forward or deferred from 2012-13. That is a great disappointment to the people of my electorate. That is a great disappointment to rural people across the country—and to those living in our capital cities, particularly in the developing outer suburbs.

Where have the government cut money? Let us have a look. What is one of the basic responsibilities of a national government? One would have thought that having a functioning, viable defence force would be a basic primary responsibility of a national government. But what have we seen? Their waste and mismanagement, throwing billions down the drain, has meant that they have got to cut defence by $5.5 billion. That is a 10 per cent reduction in overall investment, and the biggest single reduction in defence spending since the Korean War.

We know that this government is going to cut 1,000 defence jobs, and it is up to this government to explain where those jobs will be, right across the country, and also to give a guarantee to the serving men and women of this country and their families that soldiers will not face increased risks from lower investment in the things that keep them safe, in soldier survivability and relevant equipment. You give that commitment, Prime Minister, because that is the least that our serving men and women and their families deserve.

But, then again, this is probably like other groups in the community that the Prime Minister does not like—she thinks: 'Oh well, predominantly they probably don't vote for the Labor Party, so who cares? We can cut money from defence.' That may be a bit of a cynical approach, but you know what? That is what people out there in the electorate of Indi tell me. That is what people out there in the electorates in the west of Sydney tell me. That is what people on the main streets of our capital cities tell me, because they cannot trust, they cannot have faith, and they are extraordinarily cynical about such a transparently Machiavellian government.

What else does this government do? It does actually harm an area that is extraordinarily significant to country areas: the health workforce program. Sixty-seven point nine million dollars has been torn out of the Rural Education Infrastructure Development Pool, Health Workforce Australia programs and the health workforce flexible fund. And why? Why have these programs been cut? No explanation has been given and, when we have the issue of an increasing, ageing population and when we have great demand for health services and health professionals, now is the time we can least afford to cut back on these programs. Country people need to travel. Country businesses need to use transport services and freight services. They are also going to be slugged disproportionately because the government has budgeted to increase heavy vehicle user charges by $160 million next year.

With all of the promises this government have made, with all of the money they are giving out, do you know what people are saying? They are saying, 'Please, get rid of this mob as soon as possible. We will take the money they give us, but we are not going to vote for them. What do they think we are—stupid?'

Geoff Lyons (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just get amazed by the contradiction in all of this. The Liberals were higher taxing than we are. We have a deficit which was to keep people in jobs and we have a debt that is more than manageable and that the World Bank insists on us having. So I am just amazed that this is even raised. But they are not smart enough to know that they are trying to fool many of the people most of the time.

The budget handed down in 2012 by the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, will deliver a strong and fair future for all Australians. This budget is about spreading the benefits of the mining boom to all corners of our country by delivering much needed financial relief for families and businesses under pressure. The Gillard government understand the pressures on working families to make ends meet. That is why we are easing those pressures through tax cuts and increasing payments.

We are also boosting assistance to older people to support them in their retirement or while still working and have introduced new initiatives to help younger people support themselves while studying or learning a trade. This budget delivers a surplus not only for this year but for the next four years—a powerful endorsement of the strength of our economy, resilience of our people and success of our policies. Our economy is one of the world's strongest, which is a testament to Treasurer Swan's sound economic management. This budget will continue to put downward pressure on interest rates whilst also providing the vulnerable and less fortunate with more disposable income. A combination of these factors can only create increased confidence in our economy, which in turn will be good news for small business operators not only in my electorate of Bass but Australia wide.

From the firm foundations of a surplus budget the Gillard Labor government has announced new policies to spread the benefits of the mining boom. We understand that Australian families face many pressures. That is why we are delivering $47 billion in personal income tax cuts and tripling the tax-free threshold to benefit low- and middle-income earners. The $3.6 billion Spreading the Benefits of the Boom package is sharing the proceeds of the mining tax with families and small businesses. From 1 July all small businesses can immediately write off eligible assets that they buy for less than $6,500 and up to $5,000 for cars and utes. This will drive investment and improve productivity in small businesses around the country. This news is warmly received by the business community in my electorate.

The Tasmanian business community have also embraced the continued rollout of the National Broadband Network, being laid out as we speak. The NBN enables small businesses to reach out across the globe in a way that has never been available to them before. This enables them to grow their businesses, accessing new markets, opportunities and avenues for promoting their businesses and products both nationally and internationally. Many businesses in my electorate tell me they are taking orders, bookings and inquiries for their products through an ever-increasing capacity over the internet because of the high speeds and capabilities that the NBN provides.

Recently Senator Helen Polley, Senator Catryna Bilyk, Senator Carol Brown and I were in Scottsdale and we heard from local businesses there about how the NBN has assisted them in doing business more efficiently. I believe that technology has changed all of our lives for the better. We can now communicate with loved ones on the other side of the world or conduct business at any time of the day. We can find out news in an instant which would have previously taken days or weeks. In Australia governments and the community are embracing these opportunities as we roll out the National Broadband Network to homes across the country.

In the 21st century communications has become an essential utility, like electricity and water. Australian families rely on it and Australian businesses need it, yet those opposite see it as a cost, not an investment. They fail to see the opportunities it can provide. The Tasmanian Liberal state team have embraced the NBN. A former member of this place, now a Liberal member of state parliament, Michael Ferguson MP, claims that the opportunities of the NBN are tremendous. Without world-class broadband Australia will fall behind the rest of the world and our economy will suffer. Our businesses will not have the tools they need to compete with businesses around the world. Those opposite have a policy of putting communications towers on every second hill and 100-year-old copper wire as the communication model for the 21st century.

The great challenge for Australia is to harness the wealth from the current resources boom to improve our productivity and diversify our economy. The Gillard government is taking this decisive action to support those with a disability. To get the care and support they need and deserve, the budget commits $1 billion over four years to roll out the first stage of the NDIS, which I hope will be trialled in Tasmania. The budget also provides $515 million to address the immediate dental care needs of people on the public dental care waiting list. This is important because the current lack of universal access to high-quality dental health services has a significant impact on the health outcomes of Australians.

I was also pleased to tell my electorate that 15 per cent of the people in Bass will benefit from the extension of the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program. This will now include screening for people over the age of 60, in 2013, and over the age of 70, in 2015.

For families, the schoolkids bonus will include new cash bonuses of $410 for each child in primary school and $820 for each high school student. This replaces the Education Tax Refund: locally in Bass there are an estimated 1,250 families missing out on this payment. There are 6,900 families in the Bass electorate who expect to receive these new benefits. There are also more than 9,000 local families who will receive an increase of up to $600 on their Family Tax Benefit Part A payments. This is in addition to the supplementary allowances that we will be delivering to help with the cost of living for 9,646 young people, single parents and unemployed people in my electorate of Bass.

Also in this budget was $5.2 million for improvement of the Bell Bay intermodal terminal. This project will improve road and rail access to the Burnie intermodal terminal to allow it to manage expected growth. I look forward to this project and the opportunities it will create.

I also had the pleasure of making the pre-budget announcement of $6.8 million for St Giles to redevelop the Amy Road site to include paediatric centre implementation of modern e-health structures for people with a disability. The Gillard government is committed to helping Australians gain improved access to quality health care where and when they need it. This funding will go a long way to helping to meet the current and future demands of paediatric disability services right across Tasmania.

As a Labor government we will always manage the economy in the interests of working people. That means delivering a surplus while also making room for critical investments in health infrastructure. This is a big win for Launceston. Not only will this mean improved paediatric and disability services for all Tasmanians but the facility will mean more health professionals are attracted to the area. Ian Wright, the CEO of the St Giles Society, said that this means for the first time in 75 years St Giles will have purpose built premises that are family and workforce friendly and provide opportunities for increased professional and specialist collaboration.

The St Giles Society successfully applied for funding from the government's Health and Hospitals Fund. Their application was assessed by the independent HHF advisory board. This initiative is one of many projects being funded by the HHF in the 2012-13 budget to help regional health services networks manage the expected increase in demand for services over the coming years. This, together with $18.7 million for the Scottsdale Defence Science and Technology Organisation, demonstrates Labor's commitment to the north-east. Improvement of the DSTO had been under consideration for the past 15 years. It is now being funded by the Labor government. Between 20 and 30 new jobs will be created during the construction phase of the project and, for the most part, we hope with subcontractors from the north-east of Tasmania employed on the construction work. The works include the redevelopment of a food technology facility, upgrade to existing chemistry and nutrition labs and improvements in the site infrastructure and working areas. The redevelopment will result in a modern food science facility equipped to meet the future nutritional needs of the Australian Defence Force personnel and support their performance in highly demanding operational environments.

The redevelopment of the Scottsdale site is part of an initiative to establish a new centre for food innovation for which the University of Tasmania and the CSIRO are partnering with the Defence Science Technology Organisation. The north-east region has been particularly hard hit in recent years with a downturn in the dairy processing and forest industries and the closure of vegetable processing facilities. I believe this region has a bright future, thanks to projects such as this one and through our investments in irrigation infrastructure and the National Broadband Network.

The 2012-13 budget delivered a further $102.6 million to start, progress or complete road projects in Tasmania. Already, the federal Labor government has increased annual infrastructure spending per Tasmanian from $157 to $264. This is significant. After 11 years of Howard government neglect, we are acting. Some of the major projects that will go from drawing board stage to construction in the coming financial year are the North East Freight Roads package—federal contribution $34 million, including widening and realigning of the Bridport Main Road—$1.6 million to eliminate another 12 dangerous black spots in Tasmania and $38.7 million to assist councils across the state to maintain and upgrade their local roads.

Not only are we investing in infrastructure but also we are investing in skill development of our workforce for the future. The federal government is helping 260 workers across Tasmania to undertake further training to meet the skills of industry. Labor is negotiating with the Tasmanian government to provide HECS-style loans for local students studying for a diploma or advanced diploma, allowing TAFE students to study now and pay later. The federal government is negotiating with the Tasmanian government to provide subsidised training places for local people who want to gain new skills up to certificate III, and that will also roll out from July. This is great news for the north-east of Tasmania.

The Greater Launceston Plan will receive $320,000 in funding as part of the federal government's Liveable Cities Program. The funding will allow the region to plan for its future, taking into account future public transport, water and land use needs, the best placement for new employment and industrial precincts, population growth, demographic change and community aspirations.

The Labor government believes in the tremendous opportunities of the mining boom and that they should be fairly shared with all Australians. The mineral resources of Australia are owned by all of us, therefore the benefits from the resource should be shared by all of us. This budget does exactly that. It delivers much-needed financial relief for families and businesses under pressure. It will protect low and middle income Australians and our most vulnerable communities. Along with reforms like the historic first step towards a National Disability Insurance Scheme, aged care and the blitz on dental waiting lists, the Gillard Labor government is returning the budget to surplus on time and as promised. We will continue to support those most in need.

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to talk on the Appropriation Bills 2012-13. It is no secret from the rhetoric used by the Treasurer and other members of the government that this is a budget that seeks not to unite but to tear apart. It does not seek to do anything to create wealth but just distribute wealth. As the Treasurer has admitted, this is a typical Labor budget. It is full of the usual Labor tricks, using smoke and mirrors that one has come to expect from this government. Labor has massaged the numbers to create the illusion of this microscopic surplus, pushing critical expenditure out into other financial years. What has become apparent is that Labor has unquestionably delivered another budget failure.

I wanted to concentrate on a number of areas but I wanted to start on my home state in Western Australia and the negative effects of this budget for Western Australia. Western Australia has all but been ignored by the Gillard Labor government in this budget, especially when it comes to the distribution of the GST. The Labor government is set to slash $11 million from the national GST pool over the next four years, including all federal payments. Western Australia will receive just 88c in the dollar on a per capita basis which is the lowest in the nation. Despite the fact that Western Australia has the fastest growing economy in the country and has created 50,000 new jobs in the last 12 months alone, anyone with an understanding about what is going on in the Australian economy will know that it is the strength of the Western Australian economy that is actually masking the weakness of the Australian economy in general. In comparison, New South Wales will receive 94c in the dollar, Victoria 93c and Queensland 98c in the dollar. Under this Labor government Western Australia faces its share of the GST plummeting to a measly 29c in the dollar within two years—a situation that the Western Australian government and all Western Australians do not believe is feasible to continue.

The larger than expected GST cut will have an acute effect on the state's economy, with only $656 million allocated for the next financial year. Labor are taking the benefits of Western Australia's mining boom away from the local community and local businesses, and are instead spreading it amongst a range of projects on the east coast. Tasmania and the territories are set to receive about $660 million worth of Western Australia's GST revenue this coming financial year—a figure that is likely to only increase in the following years. When asked by the West Australian why Western Australia had received such a small part of GST distribution, Treasurer Wayne Swan replied that he had 'spread the benefits of the boom to the sort of people who are actually under costs of living pressure'. I would like to say to the Treasurer on behalf of my electorate of Stirling, and the local families and local businesses that I represent, that they will be offended that he does not think that they are under costs of living pressure. It just strikes me as breathtaking arrogance to say that about these hardworking Australians.

Labor claim that this budget is about helping hardworking families, yet in the same breath this government are set to launch the world's biggest carbon tax, with dire consequences for local businesses and the families whom they support. Electricity prices are set to soar by 10 per cent and gas by nine per cent in the first year of this tax alone, a rate that many Australian households will not be able to afford. The Western Australian government have tried very hard to help Western Australian families as best they can by only increasing electricity prices by 3½ per cent, at a cost to them which was revealed in the recent state budget of $300 million.

The budget papers confirm that despite falling international prices, Labor's toxic tax will go up to $29 a tonne in just three years. At a time when families require all the assistance possible to deal with these sharp rises in daily living pressure, this government can justify spending an extra $36 million on taxpayer funded carbon tax advertising over the next two years. Of course, although it is carbon tax advertising, it does not once mention the carbon tax. I think most Australians would believe that this is $36 million that could certainly be better spent.

Predictably, Labor have stopped funding vital local programs in my electorate of Stirling. The award-winning Real Connections program was a great example of a local community working together to engage Stirling's young people and in return create a safer and more secure future for our neighbourhoods. Yet the Gillard Labor government have ceased to fund this great local program, knowing full well that this is a program that cannot continue without that funding. This is just another example of the Gillard Labor government's inability to understand what is important to my constituents. Another funding opportunity that the government never bothered to follow through on was the Reid Highway/Mirrabooka Avenue overpass, which this year was completed solely by funding from the West Australian Liberal government. Hundreds of local families in Stirling have raised this black spot with me and the need to improve it, and it was at one stage the worst black spot in Western Australia.

This year's budget demonstrates no plan the build a stronger economy, repay debt or create secure jobs. One of my biggest concerns for Stirling residents is that the budget papers forecast a rise in unemployment to 5.5 per cent. Last year's budget promised half a million new jobs over two years, but the government now expects that that target will be missed by 200,000 jobs. Meanwhile, the government is cutting $200 million out of the Job Services program.

My constituents in Stirling are under real cost-of-living pressures, even though the federal Treasurer does not understand or realise that—indeed, he has contemptuously said that it is appropriate for him to take money away from them to fund people who are apparently under real cost-of-living pressures elsewhere. Clearly the carbon tax, once it is introduced in the next 40 days, is going to contribute to that cost-of-living pressure. I am greatly concerned about what that might do, particularly for some of the vulnerable suburbs in my electorate—suburbs that have traditionally voted Labor, by the way. I am greatly concerned about what that might do because these are suburbs that have traditionally had entrenched disadvantage within them and contain many vulnerable communities, including many new arrivals to Australia, who have arrived under our very generous humanitarian program—the legal way—so I am very concerned about what this cost-of-living pressure is going to mean for those communities.

I wanted to say a few words about my portfolio responsibilities of Justice, Customs and Border Protection, particularly about Labor's gross mismanagement of these particular responsibilities. Australia's border protection and national security agencies have been systematically targeted by the Labor Party since the Labor government came to office. They are agencies that are already under unprecedented strain, and they are being asked to perform miracles with the resources at their disposal and the pressures that they are under because of the complete collapse of any semblance of an orderly border protection system in Australia. It is very difficult for me to understand why these agencies have been so systematically attacked by Labor at a time when those border protection pressures are so obvious for anyone to see. Yesterday we had two boats arrive here illegally. A day before that we had a record-breaking arrival of 175 people, yet Customs has had a cumulative budget cut by the Labor Party, since the government changed, of $750 million. It has also had significant personnel cuts. So their responsibilities are increasing dramatically, yet their budget and personnel are decreasing dramatically. Clearly that is going to make it impossible for them to do the job that is expected of them, which is to protect Australia's borders.

I am at a loss to understand why every Labor budget has done the same thing to this agency. As a result of the latest cuts that Customs and Border Protection will be subjected to under this budget, we are going to have fewer sets of eyes and ears checking for drugs and weapons at Australia's international airports and ports. There will be less cargo inspected and there will be fewer staff to patrol our borders. This of course is a great leg-up for criminals who want to bring contraband into Australia, such as illegal guns, drugs and precursors to drugs. It is one of the reasons we have seen such an enormous up-tick in illegal guns coming through our borders—because of the difficulty that Customs has in actually doing its job. Labor are failing to do what I consider to be a basic job for a federal government, which is to protect our borders from outside threats.

In this budget alone Labor are cutting another 190 staff from Customs. As I said, the cumulative total of these cuts, including that 190 personnel, is a whopping 750 staff since the government changed in 2007. With 314 illegal boat arrivals having come since the government changed in 2007, carrying over 18,000 people, it is really no wonder that Customs are struggling to do the job that is expected of them.

Customs are suffering from these budget cuts in their border protection responsibilities, but also money has been cut from passenger facilitation—which means that, when you are queuing up at an international airport in Australia you can blame the excessive queues and the difficulty that you are having in getting processed on these very significant budget cuts. A further $10.4 million was taken from passenger facilitation in this budget, at a time when passenger arrivals are to increase from 32 million to 38 million within the next four years. The $34 million hit that Customs has already taken has had the effect of reducing staff across primary Customs sites at eight major international airports, and the further funding cuts that have occurred in this budget are clearly going to make that worse. At a point when Customs continues to struggle, Labor have decided to take the scalpel to Customs in this budget. Due to the fact that I am running short of time, I will highlight some of the further cuts that have been made to this agency: $25.9 million cut from their overall budget; $8.7 million slashed from Customs and Border Protection enforcement programs; $2.5 million cut from trade facilitation; $7.2 million axed from the civil maritime surveillance response; and $3 million cut from Customs and given to ACLEI, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. I am deeply worried about the state of Customs under the Labor Party. You cannot keep increasing their responsibilities in this way by failing to control illegal arrivals into Australia and then savaging their personnel and budget and expect that they are going to be able to do the job to the standard that is expected of them by the Australian people.

Sadly, it is not just Customs that has been hit systematically by the Labor Party since they came to office. The Australian Federal Police, an agency that is also at the front line of dealing with Labor's border protection crisis, has also suffered both budget and personnel cuts under the Labor Party. Labor have cut AFP staff numbers at a time when the AFP is stretched beyond capacity and is dealing with unprecedented pressure to respond to the chaos on our borders and the chaos that is being created within Australia's immigration network, and to respond to the unfolding gang crisis we see on our streets, which has been facilitated in part by Labor's failure to manage our borders. Labor's response to this chaos is to cut a further $139 million from the AFP. In the last two budgets, Labor have cut 95 staff from the AFP and stripped a massive $264.5 million worth of funding, making it incredibly difficult for the AFP to do its job of enforcing national security. Labor have again broken their promise to create 500 sworn police officers, a promise which was made by Kevin Rudd in 2007 and which Labor keep on putting off in every budget cycle. Again, it has been put off in this budget; indeed, this year $25.9 million has been deferred from that recruitment of 500 police, and that money has gone straight into propping up Labor's dodgy surplus figures. In its prebudget submission the Australian Federal Police Association rightly prioritised the fulfilling of these 500 sworn police officers, and I am sure it will express its disappointment to the government about what their failure to fulfil this commitment will mean.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing the government have done in this budget within the policing portfolio is that they have seen fit to take $58.3 million away from proceeds-of-crime funding. As members will know, this funding is used. It is taken from criminals when they commit crimes under Commonwealth law and it is used for crime prevention programs, as a general rule, or in other ways that might help us prevent crime. Labor are taking that money and using it to prop up their surplus. They are taking directly from criminals in order to come up with a measly surplus that nobody believes they will actually hit anyway.

In view of the time, I will not go on about the other cuts that have been made within my portfolio area. But all Australians should be aware that this Labor government has systematically targeted national security agencies and our law enforcement agencies. This budget and these personnel cuts are going to have enormous negative consequences for those agencies in doing their jobs. This has been a terrible budget for my portfolio, and I commit the coalition government to having a look at doing what we can to reverse the damage when it happens— (Time expired)

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer's fifth budget, handed down nearly two weeks ago, was a decisive budget. It was a Labor budget, it was a clever budget and it was a budget firmly focused on the future. This is my second budget as the member for Canberra and I would like to congratulate the Treasurer for a budget that both supports and assists families facing cost-of-living pressures and returns our budget to surplus. The surplus will provide a buffer in uncertain global economic times—and times are indeed uncertain. The surplus will also give the Reserve Bank further room to cut interest rates and the surplus will allow us to protect low- and middle-income families and our most vulnerable communities. We will achieve this by delivering some of the biggest reforms for a generation, such as the $3.7 billion aged care reform package. This 10-year program will create a flexible and seamless system to provide older Australians with more choice, more control and easier access to a full range of services, when they want them and where they need them. It will position us so that we are able to meet the social and economic challenges intrinsic to an ageing population, particularly here in Canberra.

By improving our economic bottom line, we are also able to take the very first steps towards implementing the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The Gillard government will invest $1 billion to see this scheme launched in July 2013, one year earlier than planned. It is the most fundamental social policy reform this country has seen since Medicare. It will revolutionise disability services in Australia and give hope to the 400,000 Australians who are living with a significant or permanent disability. Under this government, we will start to see this change occur. There will also be a $515 million blitz on public dental waiting lists. This funding will help to boost the public dental workforce and improve infrastructure for dental services in regional, rural and remote areas.

Aged care reform, the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the dental waiting lists blitz are only possible because of the strength of the Australian economy and the capacity of this government to return the budget to surplus, despite global pressures which ripped $150 billion from government revenues. This made our job tougher but it did not deter us.

As someone who is deeply committed to education and understands the ability of education to empower and transform, I am particularly proud to see such unwavering commitment to education in the budget. I again welcome the new school kids bonus policy, which will replace the underutilised education tax refund and help families afford to pay for the additional costs which always come up throughout the year. The school kids bonus will see a cash payment of $410 for each child in primary school and $820 for each child in secondary school, paid directly to families. Around 6,750 families in the Canberra electorate will benefit from this bonus. It is a wonderful initiative, one I was pleased to be at the announcement of in the neighbouring electorate, your electorate of Fraser Mr Deputy Speaker Leigh, earlier this month with the Prime Minister and the minister for families.

The parents I have spoken to since then are incredibly supportive of the game. They know it is going to be a huge benefit, particularly when it is time to pay for new school shoes, textbooks or computers. The government is replacing the education tax refund with the school kids bonus because around 80 per cent of families were not receiving their full entitlements under the education tax refund. Because the school kids bonus will be paid automatically and upfront, it will mean that Canberra families will not need to keep receipts for months and months—it is a guaranteed payment. Canberra families will receive the full amount every time so that, if they lose their receipts, they will not lose out. Canberra families will not have to pay out of their own pocket and then wait months to be paid back, and Canberra families will not have to bother about the paperwork.

This is just one of the ways the Gillard government is helping families in Canberra who have school-age children to make ends meet. I know it will go a long way to taking some of the pressure off families in my electorate who do everything they can to ensure their children get the best possible education. I am also pleased to see the Gillard government invest further in maths and science, subjects which attract some of our best and brightest students to the ACT. Labor are keen to see an increase in the number of students studying maths, science and engineering, and to help achieve that goal we are investing $54 million in a package that will address some of the key concerns raised by the former Vice-Chancellor of the ANU, Professor Ian Chubb, in his Mathematics, engineering & science in the national interest report. This investment will build on the $8.9 billion investment in science and research in this year's budget and will help address the issue of emerging skill shortages in sectors such as engineering, which are highlighted in Professor Chubb's report. This investment will also help us discover ways to encourage more students into undergraduate maths and science courses, which previous HECS and HELP subsidies just were not addressing.

Health is of course another area Labor is deeply committed to, and it shows in this budget. There is $1 million to begin the construction of the Eccles building at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the ANU, and Labor will also be investing around $1.3 million in the establishment of a chair in plastic craniofacial surgery here in Canberra. Again, I was proud to be at the announcement of a major budget initiative with the Treasurer and the Minister for Health when the $49.3 million investment to extend the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program was revealed. This investment by the government will significantly reduce the burden of bowel cancer on Australians and their families. Now more than 12,000 suspected or confirmed cancers will be detected through free screening, and between 300 and 500 lives will be saved each year as a result of this investment.

According to the latest census data, 10.3 per cent of people in Canberra are over the age of 60 and will therefore be eligible for this screening, so it is a great boon to Canberra. This is also in addition to the $15 million already committed to the ACT's GP superclinic by Labor. It is a superclinic that will spread across Canberra, across the ACT, with one of the clinics down in my electorate in Calwell.

I move now from health to healthy lifestyles. When it comes to getting active, Labor is delivering for the Canberra community. At a grassroots level, more funding will be put into the highly successful Active After-school Communities program for the 2013 school year. I had the great pleasure of seeing this program in action just recently at an after-school basketball event at Tuggeranong stadium. It was clear that the kids were having a lot of fun, almost as much fun as their mentors, and it is a great way for kids to stay active and get involved in community sport, particularly after school. So I have no doubt that the $39.2 million in the budget to extend this program will be money well spent, particularly here in Canberra.

Labor is also investing in professional sport here in the ACT, with $2.5 million going towards new broadcast-quality lighting for Manuka Oval. This funding will be matched by the ACT government and it will attract new opportunities such as the 2020 and international cricket matches and preseason AFL games.

There is also substantial money in the budget for the National Capital Authority, which has a special place in the life of Canberrans and in the nation. Labor is investing $11.9 million to help support the NCA's role in the development of our national capital. This budget commitment is in response to the 2011 Canberra: a capital place report, by Dr Allan Hawke. Canberrans are proud custodians of our national capital, but at the same time Canberra has grown over the years to become a living community with its own identity. The role of the NCA is to find a balance between the two and work productively and collaboratively within our community. Therefore this funding is greatly appreciated, and I look forward to continuing to work with the NCA, particularly in the lead-up to Canberra's centenary next year.

As well as funding for the NCA, our national institutions also received a funding boost in this year's budget. Just from being around town and talking to the heads of a number of these agencies, I know they are very grateful. There is supplementary funding of $39.3 million in the budget for our pre-eminent institutions to help keep them strong. This additional funding will allow our institutions to expand their capacity to open up their collections for community, education and research uses. Canberra's collecting institutions are recognised internationally as some of the very best, and I am proud to be part of a government that is committed to the delivery of their programs and services. This funding includes $7.7 million for the National Archives of Australia, $6.7 million for the National Library of Australia, $5.5 million for the National Museum of Australia, $5.3 million for the Australian War Memorial, $4.3 million for the National Gallery of Australia, $3.4 million for the National Film and Sound Archive and $1.9 million for the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House. A further $2.7 million will allow for the transition of the National Portrait Gallery to become an independent statutory authority from July 2013, bringing it into line with other major national cultural institutions. This will give the gallery well-deserved recognition as an iconic national institution. These funding decisions continue to highlight the importance of Canberra to the Gillard government, particularly as we approach our 100th birthday next year.

This is also a budget that continues to deliver vital infrastructure to Canberra as well as funding for the Black Spot Program which makes our roads safer. The budget will deliver a further $21.4 million to start, progress or complete further road projects in the ACT. Then there is $144 million in funding for the Majura Parkway, and we have also contributed $18.5 million for the Monaro Highway duplication. And there is $1 million going towards eight black spot upgrades in the ACT. This money will help fund safety improvements such as better traffic signals and roundabouts—because we do love our roundabouts here in Canberra. A number of those upgrades will be taking place in my electorate.

Finally, this is a budget designed to support small business, including the 17,600 small businesses in the Canberra electorate. Labor's initiatives for small business will encourage investment and help businesses that may have fallen on tough times. The $6½ thousand instant asset write-off scheme, which I really love, will help small business by supporting cash flow and encouraging businesses to invest. And there is the loss carry-back initiative to help companies through tough times and encourage them to invest and grow. Small business will also benefit from the Small Business Advisory Services program, which will be extended for another four years, thanks to $27.5 million in funding.

There is a lot in this budget that Australia can be proud of. There is a lot in this budget that Canberra can be proud of. It is a clever budget and it highlights the clear plan Labor has for Australia's future which includes a stable economy with a modest surplus. However, I was disappointed to see some of the tough decisions in this budget, although I acknowledge these tough decisions are what will get us to a budget surplus. A reduction in Public Service staffing levels, even though it will only take us back to 2009-10 levels, is of course disappointing. For the past two decades I have been a fierce advocate for our Public Service. That is why it is hard to hear the news in the budget that around 1,500 Canberra based positions will be lost, albeit through natural attrition and voluntary redundancies. It was disappointing because I, like my Canberra colleagues, fought extremely hard to prevent any cuts to the Public Service in the lead-up to this budget. But I take heart in the knowledge that it could have been worse—much, much worse. Under a coalition government it would be much worse. They are the ones who brag about cutting 12,000 public servants and they are the ones who have not ruled out cutting 20,000 jobs and razing whole departments.

So, yes, there are tough decisions in this budget, some that disappoint me as the member for Canberra, but I do believe that Canberra knows the alternative would be a lot worse. And I do believe that there is a great deal that will benefit Canberra as a result of this budget. As I said at the beginning of my speech, this is a budget that both supports and assists families facing cost-of-living pressures and it returns to a surplus. These are the hallmarks of this government's fifth budget and these are the economic decisions on which we should be judged. I commend the bills to the House.

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

This is a budget that is based on spin and deception. This is a budget that achieves a meagre surplus based on sleight of hand rather than sound economic management. The Treasurer said this is a Labor budget, that it is 'Labor to its bootstraps'. And he is right. This is a Labor budget that breaks promises and makes new ones. This is a Labor budget that increases taxes and makes no genuine attempt to rein in spending. This is a Labor budget that reintroduces class warfare and the politics of envy. This is a Labor budget that does not seek to grow the economic pie but, instead, to reallocate its pieces. As we saw in last year's budget, the debt ceiling is being increased. At the same time as the Treasurer seeks to convince Australians that the budget is in surplus, they are increasing the credit card limit of this country by another $50 billion. This shows that not even the Treasurer thinks that he will deliver a surplus and by hiding the increase of the debt ceiling in Appropriations Bill No. 2 the parliament does not get a chance to debate this measure independently of the budget. According to the Australian Office of Financial Management, there is currently about $227 billion worth of Commonwealth bonds on issue, about $221 billion of which is factored towards the current $250 billion debt ceiling. This government's excessive spending has required them to raise the debt ceiling to more than three times the Keating Labor government's previous record deficit of $96 billion that took the coalition government nearly a decade to repay. I say excessive spending because this government is spending more than $100 billion a year more than the last Howard-Costello budget. To put that in perspective, that is a 40 per cent increase in the size of spending over a four-year period when inflation for the same period has been 13 per cent. The reason members of the coalition speak about debt is that the coalition knows what it meant to pay off Labor's debt when we were last in government. We are the only party capable of repaying debt and generating a real surplus.

Only weeks ago the Prime Minister was promising that there would be money in this budget for a national disability insurance scheme. The funding announced in this year's budget showed that this announcement was a cruel hoax on those families who were waiting for a real national disability insurance scheme. Because of this government's poor record on the delivery of programs, the coalition have extended the invitation to create a joint committee of the parliament to be co-chaired by the disabilities frontbenchers from both sides of politics. This would provide non-partisan cross-party support for the oversight and implementation of the NDIS because an NDIS should be owned by the parliament and by the nation as a whole.

Why raise the NDIS straight after Labor's record levels of debt? Because the interest payments on that very debt are reaching an alarming $8.2 billion and this $8.2 billion interest bill would fully fund a fully implemented national disability insurance scheme. That is the demon of debt, that the interest bill that comes with it restricts the ability of future governments to deliver services. Until a coalition government is elected and the debt is repaid, the interest bill will be reducing the ability of those governments to deliver to the Australian people. I will speak more on the Pacific Highway later in my contribution, but $8.2 billion would cover the cost of the complete duplication of the Pacific Highway. Just one year's interest bill would complete the duplication of this dangerous road.

One of the real concerns about this budget is that, as I said, it is a budget bill on sleight of hand. There are a number of accounting tricks that have been used to manufacture a surplus for next year. The first of those is to bring forward spending from next year into this year, blowing the projected budget deficit from the original projection of $12 billion to $44 billion. I ask you, Deputy Speaker, would you believe a Treasurer who predicted $12 billion and delivered a $44 billion deficit when he was promising a $1.5 billion surplus? It is a very skinny margin indeed. Ironically, the plan to spend this money early will increase the interest paid on the debt to fund it, as the money is being borrowed for a longer time. The Australian taxpayer is again paying more for the failings of this government.

The second accounting trick that the government has relied on to claim a surplus next year is to have massive cuts in the range of government programs for the 2012-13 year only. Effectively what the government is doing is appropriating next year's funding in this financial year or pushing it out into 2013-14. As the shadow Treasurer pointed out last week at the National Press Club, the coal sector jobs package will cost $220 million this year, $10 million next year and, miraculously, $220 million in the year after that. Once again it is a sleight of hand. The best way that this government could support coal sector jobs is by dropping the tax that was not mentioned in the budget speech, the tax that it does not want to name, the carbon tax. The Energy Security Fund is another example of a 12-month spending freeze, with spending going from $1 billion this year down to $1 million next year and $1 billion the year after that. The third and largest trick the government has played to create a surplus is to take key expenditure items off budget. The NBN and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation are off budget and NBN spending, for example, of $5.8 billion is not included in the calculations of the current forecast surplus.

Although the promise of the 43rd Parliament was transparency, this government has done no such thing with spending in this budget, and the NBN is a clear example. If the government wanted to be transparent with its spending, it would have included the cost of the NBN on budget. If the government wanted to be transparent about the cost of the NBN, it would have asked for a cost-benefit analysis of the project, rather than pretending it was trying to create a project that provided value for taxpayers' money over and above what was spent. We will believe that when we see it. As highlighted by Tony Abbott in his recent budget reply speech, the $50 billion for the NBN would have been sufficient to duplicate the Pacific Highway, Sydney's M5, the road between Hobart and Launceston, build the M4 East in Sydney, the Melbourne Metro, Brisbane's cross-city rail, upgrade Perth airport and still leave $10 billion to upgrade faster broadband.

The government's budget was also a major disappointment to North Coast residents with regard to the Pacific Highway. In the lead-up to the Treasurer's speech there had been leaks about what funds were being committed. For example, we had the member for Lyne posturing about expending political capital in order to deliver the highway funding. This was nothing more than political theatre from the member for Lyne who has betrayed his constituents by propping up this incompetent government, a government that hinders the stability of our economy and threatens the very standing of this parliament.

On budget night we found out that the devil was in the detail with regard to the additional funding for the Pacific Highway. Importantly there was no additional funding next financial year to accelerate the highway. The fact only confirmed what I have been saying for some time, that the 2016 deadline for this road will not be achieved. It is a reality that has been evident for some time, but denied by this government. According to the New South Wales government's most recent Pacific Highway update, as of the 29 February 2012, 346 kilometres of the highway are completed dual carriageway, about 60 kilometres are under construction and 121 kilometres have received planning approval and are now being prepared for construction; about 50 per cent of the final highway length of 664 kilometres is now dual carriageway. Anyone who believes the remaining 318 kilometres will be completed by the end of 2016 is not being fair dinkum with North Coast residents.

Back to the budget and the devil being in the detail. The budget does set aside $3.6 billion for a nation-building program between 2013-14 and 2016-17 to 'enable further major infrastructure projects'. The government only suggests 'this funding could be allocated towards the Pacific Highway duplication'. However, that funding is conditional on the New South Wales government's funding contribution. We have heard a lot of talk from the member for Lyne and Minister Albanese about Pacific Highway funding, but unless this is an unconditional commitment to the road this is nothing more than hot air.

The Pacific Highway is the most important road project in the nation. It is essential that this funding be quarantined for the highway. North Coast communities want governments to stop the bickering and get on with the job of duplicating the road. They are sick of political power plays that have become a hallmark of the former state Labor government with the likes of Joe Tripodi, Michael Costa and Carl Scully when they were state minister for roads. I thought the House of Representatives had moved on from the situation when the current federal minister honoured the funding commitment set aside by the Howard government and provided additional funding for the Kempsey bypass which was welcome indeed.

I believe that all levels of government should be committing the maximum amount possible to get this dangerous road duplicated as quickly as possible. I am already on record saying that the maximum amount of funding should be targeted towards black spots with the worst accident records and getting the trucks off the main streets of our local communities. In my view the next project which should receive funding commitment is the Warrell Creek to Urunga section where 27 people have lost their lives in the past five years. Whilst there is a commitment for Nambucca Heads to Urunga, that needs to be extended further south down to Worrall Creek, to take the traffic out of the main street of Macksville and to bypass the notorious Macksville bridge, which is now decades past its use-by date. There needs to be bipartisan support for completing this highway just as quickly as possible.

Kempsey Hospital is an important piece of medical infrastructure in my electorate and I would like to note that there was $40 million from the Commonwealth to fund the upgrade of Kempsey Hospital, which is being matched, dollar for dollar, by the state. This funding is long overdue and I would certainly like to acknowledge those in the Kempsey community who have worked so hard to push for this upgrade. Whilst I am not in a position to recognise everyone, I would like to note the energy of former Kempsey shire council mayor John Bowell, the current mayor, Liz Campbell, the medical staff of the hospital and the wider Macleay Valley community. Just four years ago I launched a petition on this issue with John and Liz and nurses Di Lohman, Jennifer Clarke, Jo Hensler and Linda Weir. In no time we had some 4,400 signatures from across the shire, and I tabled the petition in the parliament later that year. Whilst it has been a long wait, the Kempsey Hospital upgrade will certainly be a welcome increase in the capacity to deliver medical services to the people of the Macleay Valley. I think it is a project which will be certainly welcome for years to come.

But the real concern in relation to this budget is, as I said, that it is a budget bottom line by a sleight of hand, it is a budget bottom line that depends on very optimist forecasts, it is a budget bottom line that, with the Treasurer's past performance, you have no confidence will be achieved. There is no confidence that he will actually achieve it. This is a Treasurer that has delivered some of the biggest budget deficits in our nation's history. To think that miraculously through shuffling the money around he can come up with a surplus does, I think, certainly defy credulity. I think that people have a right to certainly suspect that this Treasurer will not be able to deliver. He has not delivered in the past and he is unlikely to deliver this time. He is certainly quite happy to shackle this economy to a devastating carbon tax, a carbon tax that can only depress economic activity, a carbon tax that can only make the budget outcome worse, a carbon tax that is so reviled by the Australian people that he did not even mention it in his budget speech, a carbon tax that those on the other side of the chamber do not want to mention. It is about time that the government faced reality and looked towards repealing the carbon tax.

We in opposition cannot save them from themselves, but certainly their voters are very unhappy. When you walk down the street of any town in Australia, what is the number one subject that comes up? It is the carbon tax: the impact of the carbon tax on 'my cost of living', the impact of the carbon tax on 'my business'. There is the fact that people have lost confidence in the ability of this government because primarily of the broken promise on the carbon tax. This carbon tax is not good for Australia. This carbon tax is not good for the Labor government. It is a major factor in the revulsion that is out there in the electorate as a result of this broken promise on this carbon tax. There is the ridiculous nature of the tax, of imposing a far greater level of taxation on this country than is imposed anywhere in the world. It is about time the government came to its senses, listened to the opposition and looked towards repealing this tax. It is a tax that is only going to drive Australia further into debt. It is a tax that is only going to drive up unemployment. It is a tax that is going to deny young people opportunity. It is a tax that is even going to tax you to dump rubbish. It is an amazing tax. It is a tax that only Labor could come up with. So incompetent has been its implementation that we have councils who do not even know whether they are going to have a tax liability or not. Forty days out from the implementation of the carbon tax they still do not know which council it applies to. This is a budget that is not going to take Australia forward. This is a budget that is just going to muddle on in the Labor way, as we have seen from this current administration.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I warmly welcome the budget and congratulate the Treasurer for spreading the benefits of the mining boom—not just to all corners of our country but to the communities in my electorate, in Ipswich and the Somerset region—and for the much-needed relief that families and businesses will receive in this budget. The infrastructure spend, the roads spend and the assistance that is going to go to households and individuals who are pressed by cost-of-living pressures are all very important. The budget does say a lot about where the priorities of this Labor government are for middle- and low-income earners. It is a statement of our beliefs, our values, our ethics.

Those opposite do not quite get that. Those opposite wax on about dire financial Armageddon, but the truth is that our economy remains strong, with growth of 3.25 per cent of GDP and unemployment of 4.9 per cent. In my electorate unemployment is 4.7 per cent; it used to be double the national average during difficult times and now it is below the national average. Inflation is at 3.25 per cent and the tax to GDP ratio is the lowest for many years: from 25.1 per cent under the previous coalition government, when we came to office, down to 23.8 per cent this year. We have a government deficit to GDP ratio about one-tenth of that of OECD countries. We have made $33.6 billion in savings in the budget and yet paid out $5 billion in new payments to middle- and low-income earners.

All this is being done in the context of the kick-starting the NDIS with $1 billion and aged-care reform with an extra $3.7 billion, which is being rolled out for much-needed reform as a result of the Productivity Commission recommendations for both a national disability insurance scheme and aged-care reform. Apart from that there is the $1.75 billion partnership we have undertaken with the states through the COAG process just before the budget in April 2012. All of this is in the context of the loss of about $150 billion to $160 billion as a result of the global financial crisis, something that those opposite never seem to mention. We have done this to provide assistance to low socioeconomic areas, areas of disadvantage and disability. For example, 150,000 more university students are studying in places like the University of Southern Queensland and the University of Queensland Ipswich campus. More students than ever before are doing tertiary and TAFE studies as a result of this government's initiative. We have got more people working now—11.5 million Australians are in the workforce. We have created on our watch 800,000 employment positions.

This is in the context of what we have seen with our fellow Western nations—the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, other countries in western Europe, Canada and New Zealand—where they have lost 27 million jobs since the global financial crisis. Growth in our economy is back, whereas in a lot of countries in the Western world they are still dealing with negative growth and their economies are much slower. These are facts that cannot be denied, and that is why we have received a AAA credit rating from all three major international rating agencies.

The coalition never gives us credit in relation to that, but those are the facts about our economy. At the same time we have brought in a minerals resource rent tax which will make a difference in states like mine, Queensland. In this budget there is money set aside for one of the projects that is in my electorate that we are funding under the Regional Development Australia Fund through the minerals resource rent tax. That project in my electorate, funded to the tune of $2 million in this budget, is the Somerset Civic Centre in Esk. Construction is already underway. I thank the Somerset Regional Council for their consultation with the local community about that project and for the financial contribution they have made to that project. It comes as a result of the fire in the Lyceum Hall a few years ago. There was only one place in the Somerset region, pre BER funded school halls, where the people in the region could meet, and that was in the Lyceum Hall in Esk. As a result of the fire there has not been a place like that. This project will bring employment and a flourishing of the arts in the Somerset region. The Esk community is an older community but it is the government administrative heart of the Somerset region and a civic centre will make a big difference. The funding is in the budget. Those opposite are against this type of funding because they voted against the funding source for this particular funding.

Further, we have given $54 million recently to the Queensland government Main Roads Department. Jeff Weeks, the district manager in our area, tells me he has the funding for the Brassall interchange, at the intersection of the Warrego Highway and the Brisbane Valley Highway in Ipswich, which is much needed not just for my electorate, Ipswich and the Somerset Region, but also for the Lockyer Valley, Toowoomba and Brisbane. This funding has been provided. Again, that is an example of this government listening to the mayors of South-East Queensland, the businesses of South-East Queensland and also the people of South-East Queensland who have been urging for that particular thing to be undertaken for many years. It was the No. 1 priority for the mayors of South-East Queensland at the last federal election, but those opposite could not find it in themselves to make a commitment to it. Then, when it came into this parliament, the coalition voted against funding for the Blacksoil interchange.

Recently we saw the opening of the Dinmore to Goodna section of the Ipswich Motorway. Mr Albanese was there at the sod-turning of that project and he was there at the opening with my good friend the member for Oxley. Together we campaigned for that road-funding project, again supported by the councils of South-East Queensland. Of course, the coalition opposed funding for the Dinmore to Goodna section of the Ipswich Motorway for three federal election campaigns in a row. But it has now been opened and there is recognition of that funding in this budget. At $1.76 billion, this is Queensland's largest ever federally funded road project. There are six lanes from Dinmore to Goodna, service routes down the side north and south, and it is a great funding project. It has made and will make such a difference to the lives of the people of South-East Queensland, but those opposite did not have the wit or wisdom to support this project and have campaigned against it repeatedly.

Also in my area, the Ipswich City Council continues to get funding. There is $6.55 million for the council as Roads to Recovery funding. There is a record amount of $1.3 million for the Ipswich City Council's road funding projects this year. In our time in government, the Somerset Regional Council has also seen an increase of about 400 per cent in Roads to Recovery funding for that region. There is $3.2 million for Roads to Recovery across the cycle from 2009 to 2014. There is $653,000 for the Somerset Regional Council in this budget. We will deliver more and more funding through this budget and beyond with the Regional Infrastructure Fund, comprising $6 billion in funding targeted at states like mine, Queensland. We have large infrastructure demands in rural and regional areas and mining areas, but of course we know that those opposite, whether it was in relation to the Blacksoil interchange or other projects on the Bruce Highway or the Capricorn Highway or others, voted against the funding.

For my local area a tremendous amount of assistance has been provided in this budget as part of our clean energy package but also as part of the schoolkids bonus that we just rolled out. We are seeing 23,500 local pensioners benefiting from our historic pension reforms, including the biggest increase we have seen in pensions in 100 years. Some 23,500 local pensioners and more than 900 local self-funded retirees are receiving additional assistance in this budget. There is $338 a year in pensions and $510 for couples as part of the Household Assistance Package. We are seeing 4,310 local families receiving an additional $600 annual carers supplement, boosting their assistance.

We are seeing a lot of difference in terms of family funding as well. The schoolkids bonus benefits 11,000 local families to the tune of $410 a year for each child in primary school and $820 for each child in high school. That adds up to about $11 million worth of assistance for families in Ipswich and the Somerset, in my region. All up, 19,400 local kids and schools will benefit from the schoolkids bonus. Currently 2,100 families in my electorate who are missing out on the education tax refund will benefit from the schoolkids bonus. It is a shame, a tragedy and a disgrace that those opposite failed to support this legislation through the House of Representatives. But I also think the benefits we will see will be increased in superannuation. Forty-three thousand local workers, whilst we roll out the benefits under the minerals resource rent tax, will see increases in superannuation from nine to 12 per cent. That is an enormous amount of assistance to families, and it is this government and previous Labor governments which have built the superannuation scheme in this country—a $1.35 trillion funding pool opposed length and breadth every time by those opposite, whether it is this opposition or other incarnations in previous years, when the likes of Hawke and Keating were bringing forward superannuation reforms that gave people dignity, respect and financial security in retirement.

We are also seeing important funding in help for local businesses. We are seeing local businesses receive the benefit of the $6,500 immediate asset write-off. I had the benefit of speaking at one of those forums recently. It was put on by the Business Enterprise Centre Ipswich Region, and that was an important function. I went there and spoke to quite a lot of businesses in relation to what we are doing and the $5,000 asset write-off. One of the things also added to the benefits is the capacity to roll forward losses in relation to that and carry forward, and I explained that to them. I was pleased to see the Minister for Small Business speak on that particular small business futures initiative—a BECA initiative. He spoke online to people there, and I spoke beforehand. Once again we see the benefit of this.

We would have liked to give tax cuts to corporate Australia and 10,700 local businesses, but the party of Menzies—the party that parade, pose and preen as the party of business—could not bring themselves to actually vote for a tax cut for small business. They could never even bring themselves to vote for it. We knew they could not. They said they would not. They are on the record. This is a party that seem to oppose every savings measure that we want to do, says that they will give every tax cut that we want to give and says that they will provide financial assistance but will oppose every revenue source that we bring into this parliament. It is not voodoo economics they are talking about; it is magic pudding economics for those opposite. This is the party that have a $70 billion crater in their costings, and we only discovered a $10.6 billion hole in their costings because of a minority government situation and the fact that there were negotiations between the Prime Minister and the Independents and the Leader of the Opposition and the Independents.

But guess what. These are the people who cannot bring themselves to vote for good economic policy that helps families. In my electorate they are insulting those 11,000 families by saying to them that the mums and dads in Ipswich and the Somerset region cannot be trusted with money, because they will spend it on booze, gambling, the pokies and all kinds of stupid things. But they cannot bring themselves to be consistent, and I find that amazing about this mob opposite. You have the Leader of the Opposition saying he is going to support an NDIS. I had a forum last week at Focal Extended with the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. It was supported wonderfully. We had to explain to people there that, while the Leader of the Opposition says one thing, his shadow Treasurer will not support an NDIS, going by the words he provided at the National Press Club. So they will say one thing to one audience and another thing to another audience. They will make it up as they go along. The coalition should support these budgetary measures because they will make a difference not just in the lives of businesses but in families across the length and breadth of this country, including in Ipswich and Somerset. (Time expired)

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on the appropriations bills before us. These appropriations bills, of course, form this year's federal budget. They were not just a missed opportunity, but irresponsible given the economic situation that we find ourselves in. Our high-level numbers still look reasonably healthy in unemployment and growth prospects, but these cloud underlying weaknesses and there are significant storm clouds on the horizon. When you take out Western Australia, for example, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria are all close to zero or negative growth. Retail has flatlined, manufacturing has flatlined and is laying off workers week in, week out and housing approvals are at their lowest levels for many years. Meanwhile, when you look at the situation overseas, it looks quite dire. Greece is facing a political and economic crisis which will have implications for the finance sector across the globe. Many China analysts are predicting that their growth is slowing. And America, while it seems to be recovering, is still not fully out of the woods yet.

This is the context of this year's budget, where we have economic insecurity at home and storm clouds on the horizon abroad. It is because of this that the budget is particularly irresponsible, because it further undermines economic confidence, does nothing for cost-of-living pressures and increases employment insecurity. At this time under these difficult economic conditions we should be doing everything we can to make the economy stronger in order to create wealth. This means running budget surpluses, curtailing government expenditure and, where possible, reducing government taxes so that there is a healthier environment for businesses to thrive. But in fact this budget does the opposite. Let us go through and look at some of the top-line figures.

To start with, the budget continues the government's spending spree. They would have you believe that this budget was all about fiscal consolidation. That was the mantra from the government this year. But when you look at the figures they tell a different story. The budget papers actually increase expenditure by $2.2 billion over the next 14 months—an extra $2 billion in the next two months alone and an additional expenditure of $0.2 billion over the following 12 months. On a cash basis there is an additional $8.7 billion of expenditure next financial year. The government talk about fiscal constraints but clearly they are not delivering in this regard, because the bottom line is that they simply cannot control their expenditure.

When you look at the overall aggregate expenditure, the government is now spending an unbelievable $100 billion a year more than what it inherited in 2007. That is a 40 per cent increase in government expenditure from five years ago, when inflation was only 13 per cent. What has that extra $100 billion a year delivered? Do we look around the country and see that all the freeways have been fixed, that there are new rail lines in place, that the port bottlenecks have been addressed? Do we see the Rowville rail finally built after all these years or the Eastern Freeway connection to the Tullamarine? No. We do not see any of those things. We do not even see those under construction at this stage. Rather, expenditure has been out of control and the quality of expenditure has been as poor as the overall volume of expenditure.

We have had 20,000 additional public servants with that extra money. We have had pink batts put in hundreds of thousands of people's roofs and then ripped out of hundreds of thousands of people's roofs. We have had school halls built at twice the price as they could have been built. We have had billions extra spent on border control. We have seen waste after waste of expenditure. That is the legacy of this additional $100 billion per annum. This is the travesty: that we have so little to show for all of this additional money which the government has been expending. We have so little to show for all the additional taxpayers' funds.

We have talked about the expenditure side. When you look at the revenue side there are another six new taxes in this budget, bringing the number of either new or increased taxes since the government came to office 4½ years ago to a grand total of 26. Next year residents will be slugged an additional $39 billion in tax compared with this year. That is the fiscal consolidation—an extra tax slug of $39 billion for next financial year.

And, of course, the company tax—dare not speak its name—promised for so long failed to materialise on budget night. The government made a big song and dance about this, saying it was going to be delivering tax cuts to all of these companies and small businesses. The member for Deakin, who sits in the seat adjacent to me, wrote to every business in his electorate, two days before the budget, claiming that there was going to be a company tax cut in the budget. And, of course, it did not materialise. It was another broken promise from this government.

We have looked at the expenditure and at the revenue; now let's get to the debt, because this is the granddaddy of them all. As you would be aware, over the last four years we have had the four biggest government deficits in Australian political history. This government continues that pattern. The debt ceiling will increase, incredibly, to $300 billion. It has gone up to $200 billion, then to $250 billion, and in the fine print of these budget papers it shows that they need to increase the debt ceiling by an extra $50 billion to $300 billion. This goes to the farce of the government's claim to be in control of their expenditure and running surpluses. Clearly, if they were running surpluses they would not need to increase the debt ceiling to $300 billion. Net debt will climb to $145 billion, an increase of almost $40 billion since last year's budget.

By 2015-16 the government will spend $8 billion a year just on interest repayments. That money just disappears. It does not go towards anything. That $8 billion a year could build eight tertiary hospitals around Australia. It could build the Rowville rail link four times over, year in, year out. It would build the connection from the Eastern Freeway to the Tullamarine Freeway, in Melbourne. But that $8 billion will be gone next year and the year after that and the year after that, just on paying the interest on the debt. That is the price of Labor's legacy of waste and reckless spending.

It took the coalition almost a decade to pay off the $96 billion of debt we inherited back in 1996. It is now $145 billion, and still growing, and Labor is still in power. How many years is that going to take us to pay off once we get back into power? I do not know. Certainly, at the rate of the surplus the government claims it will deliver next year, it will take 100 years.

Let me make a couple of other points on the specifics of the budget. First, the carbon tax. At the end of the day this budget was a carbon tax budget. It may not have been mentioned by the Treasurer in his speech and it may not be mentioned in the $37 million of ads that are running non-stop at the moment, but the 2012-13 budget was very much a carbon tax budget. This carbon tax will increase electricity prices by 10 per cent in the first year alone. It will increase gas by nine per cent in the first year alone. According to the Victorian Treasury it will cost 24,000 jobs in Victoria alone, including 500 in my electorate. It will increase government rates by an estimated three per cent across the board, according to the Municipal Association of Victoria. That is an extra $1.5 million in the municipality of Knox. Over the next 40 years—and this is perhaps the most astounding figure, and it is in the government's figures—the carbon tax will cost the economy $1.3 trillion, which is the equivalent of an entire year's GDP of this nation, gone on the carbon tax. That means we will have to work for an entire year, every single man and woman in this country will work for a year, just to pay the carbon tax. That is what they are doing. It is an incredible figure and it is the government's own figure—it is not ours. These price increases that I have been talking about are just the start, because the tax will increase—it is legislated to increase from $23 to $29 over the next three years, and that is forecast to continue to go up and up, all the way to $135 by 2050.

There are a couple of other items I would like to touch on. Firstly, the NDIS. On this side of the chamber we are very supportive of the NDIS. We have called on the government to make this a bipartisan commitment and to have a bipartisan team look at that and oversee its implementation. We were pleased to see that at least some money was put towards it in the budget—$1 billion. What I am disappointed about is that the Productivity Commission recommended $3.9 billion. So there is a $2.9 billion shortfall. I believe that the government is raising the expectations of the disability sector and it will not be able to deliver on those expectations.

Secondly, the schoolkids bonus. The government, day in day out, have been saying that we do not support providing additional assistance for families to pay for their school education costs. That is wrong. We do support that. We supported the existing education tax offset program. In fact, we took to the last election a policy to increase the education tax offset program to $1,000 for a secondary school child and $500 for a primary school child. But, importantly, we insisted that there be a strong nexus between the program and what the money is spent on. That means that an individual simply had to collect their receipts and they got their money back through the tax system. It is called 'accountability'. I know it is a word which the Labor government have difficulties with, but on this side of the House we think it is important. It is important for the taxpayer to ensure that their money is going towards the stated purpose and it is important that the recipients of the benefit use the money for its stated purpose as well. 'Accountability' is an important principle on this side of the House. We just wish the government would pull out the dictionary and work out for themselves what that word means, and apply that term to more of its government programs.

Finally, school funding. There were big expectations about this budget's delivery on the Gonski review. We had heard that the government was going to be legislating for the next quadrennium of funding for nongovernment schools and government schools. But when you look at the figures, it does not deliver on the additional $5 billion, which the Gonski review recommended. In fact, it does not even deliver on $1 billion. It does not deliver on $500 million. It delivers over the forward estimates only $5 million—that is, Gonski has been scrapped. It will be another broken promise. It will be another case where expectations are set up in a government sector and with millions of parents, and those expectations will not be delivered. In conclusion, this is a missed opportunity. This is an irresponsible budget. It is based on increased taxes and on spending which is out of control, and it will simply increase government debt, which future generations will have to pay for.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be able to speak to Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2012-2013 and related bills, or the budget bills, as we know them. I am particularly pleased to be speaking to them because I know that many of the measures in the budget can best be described as providing accountability—being accountable to the needs of at least the people that I represent in the federal seat of Calwell. To me, that is largely what accountability is: it is responding to the needs of the people that you represent in this place. As I have said many times, Calwell is ranked among the 10 most socioeconomically disadvantaged electorates in Australia. So I welcome, and I know my constituents welcome, the measures that were introduced in the budget, because they are measures aimed at alleviating the pressures and, in particular, the issues that are associated with social disadvantage.

The budget will widely benefit my constituents because it does address the real issues that my residents talk to me about in the daily conversations and contact that I have with them, and I want to concentrate on some of those areas that have been areas of concern and angst in the electorate for some time. In fact, the whole area of dental care and its affordability is one of the issues that have been a matter of concern to me, on behalf of my constituents, since the time that I became the member for Calwell.

I also want to talk about the National Disability Insurance Scheme that is being implemented by the government. I have a very high number of constituents who are going to benefit from this insurance scheme and, as far as they are concerned, it has been a long time coming. It is not a con job, and it is irresponsible and cruel to describe the National Disability Insurance Scheme as such.

The other area that my constituents constantly raise with me—of which I am also aware because I have children and they are at school—is that raising children and paying for schooling is very expensive, no matter what age bracket you are in and particularly if you are in the lower socioeconomic age bracket. In addition, as an extension of schooling and getting kids through school, there is the whole concept of children's future prospects and opportunities. The budget addresses this issue of training opportunities for young kids—I think especially of those young people in my electorate—and, at the other end of the spectrum, for mature residents who either want to re-enter the workforce or have lost their job. A considerable number of people in my electorate, as a result of Qantas's announcement yesterday, have lost their jobs, with some 400 jobs lost from Melbourne airport. These are people who are going to need to find alternative employment. They are lucky; they are in a highly skilled area and they may not need as intensive retraining as others. Nevertheless, they are people who have to either find other jobs or re-enter the workforce in different ways.

This year's budget does have a very firm focus on providing a better future for the people in my electorate. It also has a focus on creating jobs and providing training opportunities. Very importantly, it introduces some significant tax cuts and substantial superannuation increases. In relation to tax cuts, I cannot emphasise enough the importance to lower income earners of lifting the tax-free threshold. In fact, we have tripled the tax-free threshold from $6,000 to $18,000. This is not a small piece of tax reform; this is a major piece of tax reform, and it is one that is going to have an immediate impact on people who live in my electorate. I can tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, there are some 58,000 taxpayers who will receive a very welcome tax cut on 1 July. For about 48,000 of those, it will be at least $300. And, in my electorate, some 5,000 residents will not have to pay tax at all as a result of the tripling of that threshold. If anything contributes to alleviating the cost and the burden of living expenses, it is this measure. More importantly, it provides some equity in the tax system. So, as things stand, the average wage earner in Calwell will, it is estimated, pay about $1,200 less tax than they did in 2007-08 as a direct result of Labor's tax cuts. This will apply to low- and middle-income families.

The other area which causes angst in my electorate is the whole issue of the ageing population and the pressures that come with that. Pensioners—and there are many elderly pensioners in my electorate—will benefit from one of the biggest ever increases to the pension. Singles will receive an increase of $154 a fortnight and couples an extra $156 a fortnight. Self-funded retirees are also not ignored in this budget. Singles will receive an extra $338 a year and couples $510. Thousands of my constituents will also get a boost to their retirement nest egg as a result of the government's move to increase superannuation contributions from employers from nine per cent to 12 per cent. For the average worker in my electorate—and it is always very important to see the impact of the budget through the prism of the impact it has on your electorate—this will mean an extra $108,000 put away for their retirement. That is no insignificant amount of money.

My electorate has one of the largest multicultural ageing populations in Australia. Calwell has two groups in particular—the Italian migrant community and the Greek migrant community—who were amongst the first to come here in the post Second World War migration. These people are now ageing and they are ageing in great numbers. Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to represent the government at the National Institution for Social Assistance, an Italian organisation which administers the Italian pension for Italian residents in Australia. Among the 250 people who were there, the main discussion was about the needs of an ageing Italian community here in Australia.

These are hardworking Australians who have dedicated their working life to building this country. They came here in the post Second World War immigration program, which was implemented, incidentally, by Australia's first Immigration Minister, Arthur Calwell. They have integrated well—yes, they have. The Italian community, the Greek community and the Turkish community, now in their third generation, have integrated well. These once new Australians have now grown old and, although they have effectively built this country, they now in their twilight years have needs which the government must be sensitive to and must be responsive to. This budget commits $3.7 billion towards aged-care reform. This funding will support people so they can live independently at home for as long as they choose and so they will not ultimately be forced to sell the family home in order to meet their needs. This is very important to migrants in particular—they value their family home.

These measures are very good, solid Labor policy. They are the reason I am a member of the Labor Party. This budget reflects my accountability as a member of parliament to the needs of the people who live in my electorate. I can tell you that this particular measure has gone down very well in my electorate and I can also re-affirm that the committee I chair, the Joint Standing Committee on Migration, in its very broad-ranging inquiry into migration, has picked up the need for government to tailor its aged-care policy to suit, and to be sensitive to, the needs of a very large ageing migrant community.

I did say that the whole issue of affordability of dental care has been on the table for as long as I have been the member for Calwell, so I am very pleased that the measures in this budget address the availability of affordable dental health. I have received a number of letters from my constituents in relation to this, so I would like to read from a letter from Ms Maria Kowatsch from Attwood, who wrote to me just before the budget. I think she sums up very well the concerns of the electorate. She wrote:

I currently work as a dental assistant, and found that there were many people who struggle with dental treatment and sadly end up crying on a dental chair because they cannot afford to get proper treatment.

This is someone who works with people who are wanting dental care. She said:

I have done some of my own research and found millions of people in Australia, in fact one in three, many of whom are elderly, disadvantaged, say they can't afford to go to the dentist. This creates a preventable burden on the health system. An estimated 500,000 people are on waiting lists for public dental care with average wait times of 27 months and in some cases higher than five years. More than 60,000 avoidable hospital visits are caused every year by dental problems.

This epidemic of dental neglect, which could be avoided through regular dental health checks, has a profound effect on the lives of many Australians. It affects their ability to talk, to enjoy food and maintain adequate nutrition, and to sleep. It can prevent people getting a job, renting a house or securing a loan. Importantly, it also affects their self-esteem. It complicates other health issues, making people more likely to end up seriously ill.

If the government were to bring dental care into Medicare, it would mean oral health is treated like any other part of the body.

So it is with great pleasure that I can say to my constituent Ms Kowatsch that she has been heard by this government.

This year the Labor government moved to allocate $515 million worth of measures to improve dental care across Australia. This money is aimed at improving dental care services and reducing waiting lists. The intention is to lay the foundation for a new way of providing dental services, ensuring those most in need will receive care when and where they need it. This means that a large number of people in my electorate are going to be very happy recipients of a program that will tend to their needs.

Unfortunately I am running out of time. On the National Insurance Disability Scheme, as I said earlier, it was cruel to suggest that it is some sort of con job, and I know that the opposition has suggested that. I have worked for years with Brite Industry in my electorate. This is a wonderful organisation, especially the parents of Brite, that assists people with disabilities in low-skilled employment. Those parents that I talked to for years always talk about their angst and concern about the future for their children and how they will be able to sustain some form of lifestyle. It is just amazing that we are able to be accountable to the needs of those people and that we are able to respond and hear their calls for government to act in the area of public policy that has been neglected for a long period of time. The $1 billion scheme which will roll out over four years and provide support to about 10,000 people with permanent disabilities is a scheme that is widely welcomed and much welcomed in my electorate. I welcome it and want to congratulate the government on having the courage and foresight to implement it. Any suggestion that it is not worthy or that it has shortcomings is just sour grapes from an opposition that did not have the fortitude or the courage to do something about this issue when they were in government. At the very least they can acknowledge that we are heading in the right direction for vulnerable Australians.

John Forrest (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My reaction to this budget and that of my constituents can only be described as disappointed. They and I are not swayed by smoke and mirrors nor the prospect of a meagre surplus to compensate for four years of irresponsible spending. Nor are they persuaded by handouts: if Labor has not been able to manage a surplus for four years during a mining boom, they very much doubt it can be achieved in the next year. What they have seen from this government is a massive accumulation of debt, and they are very concerned about what debt is doing in Europe—in Greece, Italy, Spain and Ireland—and worry about it happening here.

Accumulating debt is not necessarily a bad thing as long as it is serviceable and as long as the funds so raised are spent judiciously, wisely and fairly across all regions of the nation. What the past few years have seen, however, is a lack of prudential management and good governance. So many programs, like the Pink Batts program and the prolific BER spending, without good fiscal control have seen so much of these precious borrowed funds wasted. Commonwealth investment can yield enormous benefits if spent wisely.

Tonight I would like to outline some important opportunities in the division of Mallee which I have aspirational hopes could be recognised. Mallee has nine proactive municipalities, including the Horsham, Mildura and Swan Hill rural city councils and the Hindmarsh, West Wimmera, Yarriambiack, Buloke, Northern Grampians and Gannawarra shires. The division of Mallee has recently grown in the redistribution from 70,694 square kilometres to 73,879 square kilometres. This has included a city in Stawell and the surrounding towns of Halls Gap, Great Western, Marnoo and Glenorchy. Mallee is bordered by the Murray River in the north, the South Australian border in the west, the division of Wannon in the south and Bendigo and Murray in the east—an area more than one-third of the geographic area of Victoria.

Our ambitions are similar to many other places outside our capital cities—fair access to age and child care, mobile telephone service and internet broadband access, protection of water users' and irrigators' water rights, a fair deal for irrigators under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, improved transport infrastructure, health, education and a greater emphasis on trades training. But it goes further than that. We have plans that need investment and a system that encourages people to be entrepreneurial and removes bureaucratic barriers to enterprise, none of which has been seen in this budget.

The following are some of the aspirational opportunities in Mallee. Our long-term vision must include a standard rail gauge link from Geelong right up through Mallee to the transcontinental rail line to properly connect Victoria to the national rail grid. The Mildura Development Corporation has welcomed the Victorian government's support in seeking some $5 million of Commonwealth funding for a full feasibility study—not in the budget. There is enormous passenger and freight potential for the whole of Victoria under this proposal, described as a strategic corridor of the AusLink National Network. The project could significantly boost economic development opportunities not just for Mildura but for the nation. It would reduce rail congestion through Adelaide by 50 per cent and save up to 32 hours delay at Dry Creek, Adelaide for trains awaiting reconfiguration. It would access the world's largest mineral sands deposit between Mildura and Broken Hill, which are estimated to be 1.8 million tonnes per annum by 2014. Iluka's richest deposits are in Ivanhoe, New South Wales. It is currently not feasible to deliver to their Hamilton processing plant by rail. In addition, inland Australia would have direct access for produce, livestock and minerals to the ports of Adelaide, and the Riverland region in South Australia could have direct access via Mildura to east coast cities and international markets. It is not just about Mallee. International freight gates at Broken Hill, Ballarat, Geelong, Horsham and Mildura would complete the connectivity configuration of rail freight identical to the successfully implemented projects in France and Saudi Arabia.

Passenger rail opportunities, including a Darwin-Melbourne link, would also be provided and give a significant boost to the tourist industry in Mildura, Broken Hill, Alice Springs and Darwin and would greatly assist the reopening of the Mildura-Melbourne passenger train. And there would be a significant reduction in greenhouse emissions by taking trucks off the road. I have long supported the need for Murray River crossings. The ancient timber bridge at Swan Hill is long overdue for replacement. We are still using the bridge constructed in 1896 more than 100 years later. Swan Hill is a main commercial administrative centre and a popular tourist destination, and a new bridge would enhance economic activity. Horsham and Stawell are on my list of concerns. The Western Highway bypasses have been deferred in this budget until 2014. Budget allocations to be spent this year, next year and the year after have been deferred in preference to spending on the western suburbs of Sydney. That is political and very disappointing to my constituents. The Western Highway is a federal highway and these works would improve interstate traffic flows between Melbourne and Adelaide and reduce congestion and bottlenecks, particularly for the city of Horsham. It is a 6.5 kilometre section of the highway and passes through residential and commercial areas, schools and highly congested pedestrian areas. It is of concern that Horsham will continue to grow as a regional centre, and investment in this highway is due now, not later.

While focused on the Wimmera region of my electorate, can I ask the House to spare a thought for Wimmera irrigators, who want to sell off all their combined 28,000 megalitres to the federal government at a fair price. The Wimmera is in the Murray-Darling Basin. So much of this money could be reinvested in the district's economy and create jobs and opportunities.

Another aspirational project I have supported for decades is improving interpretive weather radar. Such radar exists at Mildura, but there is a huge black hole between Mount Gambier and Yarrawonga. The Wimmera Development Association has proposed that the Bureau of Meteorology establish a new Doppler radar in the centre of the Wimmera-Mallee region which would return an investment of $7.7 million in increased grain productivity. Improved weather resources are a key element in emergency control, aviation, water resource forecasting, flood monitoring, and social and community planning. Such a project is vital for agriculture and horticulture.

Another disappointment in the budget was the lack of commitment for vital upgrading of the Swan Hill District Hospital, despite a very expensive submission. Swan Hill deserves funding for major project works for this hospital. Whilst we are grateful for the small amount of funding for the Warracknabeal Hospital and the Sunraysia health services, the harsh reality is that it was Swan Hill city's turn. The health services face functional issues arising from poor design and old infrastructure. An increasing need for high quality acute and subacute health care, residential aged care and mental health and community health services in the Swan Hill region is exacerbated by depleted infrastructure. It is Swan Hill's turn and we are very disappointed not to have been included in the government's program and in this budget.

Seven of the nine municipalities in Mallee electorate are under enormous cost pressure due to serious flooding in late 2010 and early 2011 when above average seasonal rainfall flooded too many of our towns. This did enormous long-term damage to roads and bridge infrastructure and eroded council assets generally. Work continues to repair and replace patched up assets but this is incurring an excessive level of borrowing from all of my municipalities and they need assistance. I would be grateful if the government would consider extending the Roads to Recovery program to give these councils some confidence. The damage to many local roads is substantial and impedes social and economic activity, especially the carriage of farm produce in good condition to grain terminals and livestock markets.

Also, I have championed the cause for water reform investment. The piping of the Wimmera-Mallee stock and domestic supply system gives me a great deal of satisfaction for the role I played in ensuring its funding. It is a $1 billion project entirely contained within the division of Mallee. I am proud of that. But there is still much more to be done. That project has given water security and confidence to an arid part of western Victoria.

The Robinvale and Woorinen projects—old soldier settlement districts—are now completed and are modern water supply schemes, but the Sunraysia irrigation modernisation project is becoming urgent to bring irrigation water delivery up to acceptable efficiency and environmental standards, and it is long overdue. Full implementation of pressurised irrigation water on demand means less water is required to grow a crop. Less water more often provides reliability and opportunity for investment in alternative crops. Applications can be matched closely to daily plant requirements and the latest irrigation and plant nutrition technology can be utilised with almost zero groundwater discharge. It is good for salt control and good for productivity, resulting in a healthier crop, higher production per megalitre, ability to adjust and manipulate production and reduce production overheads and, as I have mentioned, to reduce salinity—a huge challenge in north-west Victoria.

Such expenditure would help kick-start the regional economy, which has endured a decade of drought and then floods, and low commodity prices for traditional crops for too many years. Most horticultural cropping properties have already invested in an on-farm irrigation system but need a supply system in order to compete with their competitors on international markets. The existing supply system in the Sunraysia of the Mildura region can only be described as primitive.

Long also I have championed the cause to make the Mallee the solar power capital of the nation. The one thing we can offer is reliable sunlight. More reliable sunlight is an issue for this form of renewable energy. Mildura's TRUenergy 180 megawatt Mallee Solar Park project is being facilitated by the Mildura Rural City Council, the Mildura Development Corporation and the Victorian Department of Primary Industries Office of Solar Power. I would like to see that project reach its full fruition. The estimated cost is around $700 million and possibly between $250 million and $300 million support by the Solar Flagships Program is needed to make it a reality. The opportunities provided by such an investment are enormous for an arid, dry and struggling region, which is much of my constituency. At this point the application has been submitted to the Solar Flagships Program for federal funding and we wait patiently.

The items I have mentioned are all headline items. There are so many more I could refer to about the aspirations of this division of Mallee, but the people out there are like me—we just want to create jobs, more opportunity for prosperity, to build the infrastructure we need and deserve, to provide better health and education and to enhance quality of life. We want a tax system that rewards hard work, not one that unfairly penalises those who create wealth, and then to distribute it through employment. That is the way the economy is supposed to work, rather than government interference to adjust wealth. We want a world-class education system and we want secure borders. We want better regional health services and a compassionate welfare system which expects personal responsibility as well as provides a safety net.

It is with a great deal of pride I acknowledge all those in the federal division of Mallee who put enormous energy into ensuring this part of the world achieves its full potential. Far removed from Canberra and federal budgets, it is sometimes forgotten that such communities deliver the nation's wealth. I am proud of their determined resilience and it is a great honour to represent them in this place. They deserve proper recognition so that they can reach the goals they set for themselves in being part of a very productive region of Australia. Their hopes and aspirations deserve to be achieved. I commend them and report to the parliament their disappointment as this budget misses the mark in terms of their interests.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The budget is that time of year when government members talk about how fantastic the budget is and members of the opposition talk about how rubbish it is. It is a bit of a ritual really, but underneath all the heated rhetoric there is a lot to be learnt. I would argue that this is the time of year when the government gets to express its values in a real and practical way. In terms of the vernacular, it is where the government gets to put its money where its mouth is. Spending and savings measures are set out in the budget papers in black and white. It is an obligation upon government, I would say, but it is not an obligation upon members of the opposition. They can say all sorts of things about what they would like, and in the budget debate they can speak for an entire 30 minutes without mentioning any numbers, as we saw a few weeks ago.

Something that really is remarkable about this budget is that it is being delivered in difficult circumstances. We have a patchwork economy and enormous international uncertainty, particularly uncertainty associated with the European debt crisis and how that could lead to contagion around the world, and how it will affect us here, a long way from Europe, but we are still connected to those markets. We have declining tax revenues, which is a matter that is not always picked up by those on the other side. The tax as a percentage of GDP is as low as it has ever been in the last 20 years. Despite these circumstances, the Treasurer has managed to pull off something that is quite remarkable.

We have been able to do this because of the strict fiscal discipline that we have imposed upon ourselves. They include: the budget rules that any new spending must be offset by a commensurate savings; the growth in real spending should be limited to less than two per cent of GDP until the budget returns to surplus over the cycle; and our determination to return the budget to surplus in accordance with the needs of the economy at this point in the cycle. What is remarkable about the budget is that we have been able to deliver what we said we were going to deliver against all of those backgrounds. We have navigated our way through the troubled waters and delivered real benefits to working people—benefits like the National Disability Insurance Scheme, a $1 billion investment for the commencement of that scheme, which will make an enormous difference to families in my electorate and families all around the country because no longer will people be discriminated against on the basis of how they acquired their disability. The federal government will say that we have an obligation to assist irrespective of how you obtained that disability.

There is the enormous commitment we have made to backing in the reforms recommended by the Productivity Commission inquiry into the aged-care sector. Over $3 billion, closer to $3.8 billion, is going to be invested to aged-care reform, which includes an additional 40,000 home care places. $290 million is going to be invested into addressing what is the real epidemic of our generation, the epidemic of dementia, and how we deal with the growing occurrence of dementia in our communities. We are providing over 30,000 residential aged-care places with new fairer placement options for people in the aged-care sector. And there is an additional $1.2 billion to build our aged-care workforce.

In addition to that we have delivered a $5 billion package for assistance to families. You will not hear many on the other side of the House, those in opposition, saying much about this, and there is a very good reason for that. They did not support it, they voted against it and, if they ever find their way into the Treasury benches, they will be repealing the benefits. They are benefits like the $1.8 billion increase to the Family Tax Benefit part A which is delivering up to $600 per annum per family. There are also benefits like the $2.1 billion that we are spending for improved assistance for families with schoolkids, the schoolkids bonus. There will be $410 for every primary school child and $820 for every secondary school student. You will not hear support from those on the other side for this. Or maybe we will be surprised about this and maybe you will find some courageous voices that disagree with their leaders and will argue against the abolition of this much-needed money to families.

Of course, that builds on the work that we have already done with the increase in the childcare rebate to 50 per cent and the Paid Parental Leave scheme of 18 weeks paid leave at minimum wage, which is a long overdue reform and introduced by this Labor government because we are committed to it. In addition to these two important areas—assistance to families and assistance to the aged-care sector—there is $1.1 billion in extra spending on supplementary allowance for job seekers and those on youth allowance of $210 for singles and $350 for couples per annum. The member for Forrest talked about needing a tax system which creates incentives to get people to work. Nothing could be more important than that in the reforms to the tax system that we have put in place in this budget. Everybody earning under $80,000 a year will be receiving a tax cut. The thing I am most proud of is the incentives we are putting in place for people who are earning under $18½ thousand. These are part-time workers, single mums, mums returning to work, students who are attempting to support themselves as they make their way through university or higher education. This is typically the group of people doing part-time work and earning less than $18½ thousand a year. We are ensuring that one million people out of our eight-million-strong workforce will be removed from the taxation system. They will not pay tax, and that is a great Labor reform.

There is $500 million for dental health. This is long overdue. Those opposite abolished the Commonwealth dental scheme. We are putting $500 million as the first instalment in our efforts to overhaul and provide Commonwealth assistance under a Commonwealth scheme. The majority of this $500 million is dedicated to an assault on public dental health waiting lists.

For someone like me this is not a sexy issue, but the budget also puts aside funds for bowel screening. If you come from a family with up to four generations who have either had or died from bowel cancer, you would welcome this new initiative whereby we are providing free bowel screening for everybody over the age of 60. It is my sincere hope that we are able in future years to bring that down to at least 55 and even earlier for people in high-risk categories. It is an important Labor reform which adds to our other healthcare reforms.

When you look at all of this and listen to the carping and negativity from those opposite you have to scratch your head. You can imagine if these guys had been guests at the wedding in Cana they would have said to Jesus, 'That water-into-wine trick wasn't too bad, but what's for desert?' The budget contains magnificent reforms, increased benefits for families, tax relief, an injection of funding into the dental health scheme, all on the back of other great Labor reforms, and they are carping and carrying on, looking at the hole and not the doughnut.

The budget initiatives mean a great deal to constituents in my electorate. I mentioned the schoolkids bonus. This is a massive injection into the Illawarra and Southern Highlands economy. I estimate it is a $27 million annual recurrent injection of cash directed at low- to middle-income households. It means a great deal to those families and a great deal to an economy which is struggling in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and a high Australian dollar and what that means for manufacturing and associated industries. I am pleased that there are about 11,000 families in my electorate of Throsby who will receive the additional $600 or $300 from family tax benefit part A increases. There are around 4,700 families with kids turning 16 over the next five years who will get up to $4,200 in extra family tax benefit payments if their kids stay at school. An incentive to keep children at school is good for the households and it is good for the children. We know there is a direct link between children who stay at school and their later life opportunities, their propensity to be in full-time employment once they leave school.

I am pleased that in the 2012-13 budget there is $2.2 million for the Roads to Recovery program which provides funds directly to local governments to work on local road priorities. There is an assignment of $20 million in the budget for the Maldon-Dombarton rail link, to get the engineering work up and ready so that it is shovel-ready. I hope that the money is delivered through the minerals resources rent tax, which those in the opposition parties have voted against—they oppose taxing the superprofits of some of the wealthiest mining companies in this country to provide infrastructure to regional areas like my own and their own, I dare say. What is really good about this budget is that it does not stand alone. It builds on the great economic and social record of this government. Not enough is said about the social record of this government. We aim to build a strong economy, but that is not an end in itself. An economy is not an end in itself. The end in itself is what that delivers to ordinary Australians, to all Australians, in terms of their wellbeing, their standard of living and their lifestyle. When you are in a position to say that in the four years since you have been in government over 800,000 jobs have been created, you can say your priority is creating jobs, and the surest way to lift a family out of poverty is to ensure that people are working and that there are jobs for that family in that region.

We have copped some criticism about the absence of any great narrative within the budget about the carbon price. Let me fill that gap. This is an important reform, a difficult structural reform. But it is one that we have put in place in a Labor way, and that is a way that says, 'We understand that a change is coming down the track.' There are two options. The coalition option is to either deny that climate change exists or go and find yourself the biggest damn bucket of sand and stick your head in that bucket of sand. That is the coalition way—stick your head in that bucket of sand and pretend that this stuff is not happening. We reject that because we understand that that does great damage to the Australian economy and to ordinary working people as well. If you do not prepare yourself for massive economic change—and this is the lesson of the 1970s and early 1980s—the working people of this country will suffer. We are preparing ourselves for that massive economic change and we will be doing it gradually, and providing assistance to households and businesses along the way. The proposition of the coalition is to reject climate change and stick their heads in a bucket of sand but throw a few bucks around to pretend that they are doing something along the way—the few bucks are $1,300 per household per annum. The coalition are literally proposing to tax poor people and redistribute that money to rich people in the name of reducing our carbon pollution. It is absolutely perverse.

I was very interested to hear the member for Forrest and the contributions from many other coalition members in this debate on the importance of infrastructure—courageous contributions, I have to say, from the former government that actually went backwards when it came to spending on infrastructure and that left us with a $42 billion national infrastructure deficit. We have gone a long way to filling that deficit, with over $36 billion in projects around the country. We have rebuilt one-third of the national freight network. We have doubled the spending on roads to $27.9 billion—something for which you never get any credit from the National Party. We are spending more money on roads in National Party seats than they ever did or ever proposed to do. Ours has been a remarkable achievement when it comes to commitments to infrastructure.

We have managed to do all of this at the same time as reducing the tax to GDP ratio. The opposition talk about high-taxing governments, but one of the things that they are very embarrassed to admit is that, in the 12 budgets that were delivered by the coalition, the tax to GDP ratio was 23.4 per cent—whereas, under this government, it is nudging 21 per cent. We are a low-taxing government and have provided great social reforms in the interests of ordinary working people. I can only reiterate what I said earlier: if those opposite had been at the wedding feast at Cana, they would have said, 'Jesus, great trick with the water into wine, but what's for dessert?'

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the fifth time we have had this Treasurer walk into the chamber and deliver a budget speech and this will be the fifth time the figures do not add up. They have never added up before and they will not at the time of the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook in December, and they will not any time between now and September 2013, when the final figures for the financial year ahead come in. To arrive at the $1.5 billion surplus claimed by this Treasurer, we have seen trickery with the movement of expenditure forward into this financial year or delayed to a following financial year. I will speak of those matters later in my contribution; however, I will take the opportunity to deal with the Treasurer's constant smokescreen and the facade he puts up about the reasons why he has inflicted upon this nation the four biggest deficits in history. He says it is the GFC and the reduction in revenue receipts. Strangely, he never talks about the waste that he has allowed, so let us go through how badly this government have stuffed up and inflicted generational debt on this nation. Speaker after speaker on the government side can announce how proud they are of the government's record, so I will talk about the highlights of the Rudd-Gillard government because they have had some truly magic moments since late 2007. These great efforts have, of course, created a projected net debt of some $147 billion, which will take some two generations of the Treasurer's projected surpluses to pay off—two generations where our children and our grandchildren will live under the handbrake that this government have installed on our economic vehicle.

Before speaking of these specific matters I would like to cover an example of the Treasurer's lack of credibility to set the scene. It stems from his pathetic failure in question time today after being asked on two occasions about the Labor government's border protection policy, which is defined by 314 boats and over 18,000 people arriving. He called our policy a failure, and what a joke that was. During the Pacific Solution, from September 2001 to June 2007, 1,637 were detained at Nauru or Manus Island. The former Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Evans, said in a media release on 8 February 2008 that 705 of those detained came to Australia. That represents 43 per cent of the total of those detained. In those years we averaged less than three boats a year. When later asked by the Leader of the Opposition in the second question what sort of failure the Treasurer was talking about given that we had averaged three boats a year compared to the Labor government's two a week, the Treasurer said, 'I can certainly confirm that virtually all those people they sent to Nauru came to Australia.' So, according to the Treasurer, 43 per cent, which is what the former minister said, is virtually all. No wonder every budget prediction he has uttered has been completely inaccurate. Today the Treasurer misled the House. Today he specifically said words that are not true. It is consistent with all his past work.

On the government's mismanagement of our borders this has resulted in cost blow-outs beyond even this government's pathetic forecast of almost $4 billion, and no doubt that figure will rise. If the Labor government had left a working policy alone then the NDIS could have been paid for and 400,000 Australians with profound disabilities would have been assisted instead of just 20,000 over two years. Then there was the $1.7 billion in blow-out costs and billions of dollars wasted when value for money was not achieved due to the lack of administration of the BER program. The set-top box program cost taxpayers $308 million and there are estimates that the same result could be achieved for just $50 million—another wasteful fiasco from this government. Then there was $1.7 billion wasted in the Labor government's home insulation scheme, which was linked to four deaths and 200 fires. And what about a billion dollars in consultancies since 2007—a record to be proud of, to be sure! $300 million was wasted on the Green Loans fiasco, and they should stand up for that one too. And the school computer program blew out by $1.2 billion. Then there is the waste associated with the failed GroceryWatch, cash for clunkers, Fuelwatch, the stimulus cheques to dead people and pets and other such wasteful efforts. These examples show that this is a government that, despite having the entire public service at their beck and call, cannot administer and implement programs. It is not a record to be proud of, particularly when we must remember that every dollar that is generated in taxes comes from the productive people, businesses and areas of this nation and its economy.

My point is that this government has had challenges and the Howard government also had challenges. The difference is how you meet the challenges and also provide what the people of the nation need. The reality is that if a government makes hard decisions and manages the nation's finances carefully then maybe you cannot afford to do everything you would like to. I recall on several occasions the member for Blair speaking about what I believe was the Ipswich Motorway and how the Howard government never spent the money but the current government has. Clearly, if you are not afraid to borrow $100 million per day, as Labor does, you can do such things. If you are prepared to saddle debt on our children and grandchildren then you can do it all, but it is not right to do so. The Treasurer and the Labor government have shovelled money out the door, living beyond the means of this country, and will impose generational debt as a result. Having spoken about this government's disgraceful effort in waste and mismanagement, I will now turn to this budget. It comes as no surprise to those on this side of the House that the government has been asking itself many questions in question time as a method of promoting their pretend surplus. The government members we have heard from have been trying to create the view that the government will be returning the budget to surplus and that this somehow means it now has some credibility in economic management. But we all know that this year's budget, like all Labor budgets, will be full of smoke, mirrors and spin. There are three main things that the government has tried pathetically to advance in the budget—the urgency of returning the budget to surplus, boosting productivity and the transparency of costings—which are all problems and mistakes that have been created by this government due to its actions of reckless spending, broken promises and policy backflips.

This Labor government desperately needs to return the budget to surplus to try to stop it losing face even more. As the previous coalition speakers have stated, this government has lost the respect of the Australian public. It is no longer trusted to run the country in a competent manner. This government has no economic plan. It is driven by self-interest. The government is willing to say and do anything, including deals with the Independents, simply to remain in power. But what the government does not understand is that the Australian public are smart people and can see straight through the smoke and mirrors. They can see through this government's actions of artificially moving spending out of next year and into this year and the year after. The government is trying to deceive the Australian public, shuffling money and taking spending forward or back, out of 2012-13. For instance, it is spending over $1 billion each year on the Energy Security Fund, except in 2012-13, when the government is spending less than $1 million. The government is hiding other items, such as the bulk of the NBN Co. expenditure, a real $100 billion black hole.

It is well understood in the Australian community that, despite claiming a surplus, the government still does not have a plan to repay the debt, build a stronger economy or protect jobs. The Treasurer's mixed messages regarding the budget show that Labor's No. 1 priority is to create the illusion that it can be trusted, when really all it is doing is reinforcing the confusion and the crisis of confidence throughout the community. The fiddling of the figures and the methods such as the raising of the debt ceiling from $250 billion to $300 million are further proof that this government cannot be taken seriously. To further emphasise that point, this government expects Australians to believe that it can turn around a 2011-12 budget blow-out of $44 billion to a $1.5 billion surplus. It blew out to double what the government told us, yet now the government expects the citizens of this nation to believe its $1.5 billion claim.

I question whether the government believe it themselves. They obviously do not, because of the increase of $50 billion in the government's credit card limit, to $300 billion. This historic deception, this generational illusion makes no sense and is without logic. The Treasurer says that, despite allegedly reducing expenditure by more than $45 billion from this current financial year to the next, he still needs an extra $50 billion on the credit card. No-one is buying the fiction, Treasurer.

Regardless, the government has no credibility, and history has told us that what it says and does are more often than not two completely different things. So it will come as no surprise to anyone on this side if in another 15 months from today it is revealed that this budget has not actually achieved a surplus. It will come as no surprise because there has been a $20 billion deterioration in the budget this year and the government is expecting that by September 2013 it will have delivered a surplus of $1.5 billion. It does not make sense. It has created this position through active and popular spending habits, and anyone with the slightest understanding of economics can see that it clearly does not add up—not to mention the fact that Labor has not delivered a surplus since 1989-90.

The government's lack of credibility also relates to the problems with productivity. While in opposition they were very happy to sit back and criticise the Howard government over productivity figures and then make bold claims about how they would increase productivity if in government. However, this is just more Labor spin, as figures released by the ABS have revealed that Australia is now less productive than it was 10 years ago. According to the ABS, productivity has regressed by 2.1 per cent in the last 10 years. An article titled 'Productivity takes Swan dive' published in the Australian in December last year says:

This situation is in stark contrast with the preceding 12 years under the Howard government, when labour productivity rose at the average annual rate of 2.9 per cent.

As usual, the Treasurer tried to come out and reassure the public:

You can't read too much into productivity figures for a single quarter or even a couple of quarters.

The average Labor productivity growth across the full Rudd-Gillard term has slumped dramatically compared to when we were last in government. So Labor were happy to criticise the Howard government on productivity figures for a quarter or even a couple of quarters and claimed that they could do things so much better, but that is at odds with the current situation—declining productivity, a pretend surplus and a government that has lost the trust of the public through saying one thing and then doing another. Labor inherited a $20 billion surplus and $70 billion of net worth, and have run up deficits of $167 billion since being elected in 2007. This equates to $4,878 of debt per taxpayer, and to pay for this debt Labor are still borrowing $100 million every day. The interest payments on their debt will be running in excess of $20 million a day by 2014-15. And yet the Prime Minister cannot understand why the Australian public have lost faith in this government, a government so out of touch with the views of Australian residents.

Residents in my electorate of Cowan are sick of this government introducing new taxes in a bid to get more money to make up for their waste and mismanagement. They are sick of their hard-earned money being collected by a government whose mentality is to tax and spend. Labor's solution to every problem is to tax it and increase the cost for Australians. Since 2007 this government has announced over 20 new or increased tax grabs, including the carbon tax and the mining tax, which were both huge hits to Western Australia. How can introducing the mining tax, which is aimed at making Australian businesses and industries less productive and less competitive in global markets, help increase productivity? Or how can an economy-wide carbon tax, the biggest carbon tax in the world—which will not result in changes to world temperatures—increase productivity? As Winston Churchill said, a nation trying to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

Labor has an appalling record in forecasting its budget and economic numbers, and an equally poor record in forecasting its economic growth figures. I believe Australians will remember this government for massive debt and deficits, unrestrained borrowings, new tax grabs, mismanaged programs and, above all, pure incompetence. The coalition is an alternative government for the Australian people. We have policies and economic management strategies that will provide hope, reward and opportunity to all Australians. We will not take the easy path, trying to buy people with cash giveaways and cutting key programs and funding sources to create a budget surplus. We have a strong economic record and the knowledge and ability to get this country back on track. We will also not have a record which takes growth in defence spending back to the levels of the 1930s. There can be no doubt that the Treasurer delivered not a surplus on budget night but just the hope for a surplus. The Australian people know that this Treasurer has never come close to delivering what he predicted on each of the four budget speeches so far.

On Monday night, the government backbencher, the member for Fowler, categorically declared that a surplus had been delivered by the government. He said 'we have delivered a surplus budget'. The reality is that this government has nothing but red ink against its name and to claim otherwise is untrue. In September 2013 the final figures for the 2012-13 financial year will be in and only then will the final truth be known. I do wonder, however, what the MYEFO will reveal. I suspect the government will be in a lot of trouble in seven months time and the attempted spin will be fascinating. Perhaps when the government realise their failure to control their spending again, what we will see is the change of Prime Minister that everyone knows is coming, and a quick election before the deception is obvious.

The government claims that this budget is about a surplus, support for families, productivity and transparency but in reality it was only ever about smoke, mirrors, spin and politics. Unfortunately for you, the Labor government, the people of this great nation know that, too.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Cowan's contribution shows exactly what is wrong with the modern Liberal Party. It was an absolute litany of negativity; not a single positive acknowledgement that Australia by world standards today is a miracle economy; not a single acknowledgement that we have unemployment beneath five per cent—and he leaves now because he does not want to hear the good news. Every day in the chamber when unemployment figures come up do we hear a single 'isn't that great' from the opposition; a single 'Hear hear!, Terrific work, having all these Australians in work'?

Never! That litany of negativity, the constant chipping and undermining of confidence in Australians and of Australians' confidence in themselves and in our economy at a time when, if you look around the world, you see how important are confidence and stability, is incredibly unpatriotic. It is incredibly damaging to Australia's sense of itself. I do not expect the opposition to agree with us on a whole range of policy settings. I know they have other priorities: they do not want to help disabled people, they do not want to invest in school education—

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Rubbish!

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You do not want to support the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You know that's not true.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You do not want to invest in health, you do not want to invest in education, you do not want to support moving the poorest workers out of the tax system and you do not want to invest in a whole range of things that are priorities for Labor governments. What I do not expect is this talking down of Australia, talking down our success as a nation in keeping people employed during the global financial crisis. They talk down our success: look at our debt as a proportion of our GDP compared with other nations, where in many instances it is 10 times higher.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What is that, Minister?

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member opposite asks: why is that? Why do you want to talk down Australia's chances or why is it that our debt is so much lower than other nations? The answer to both of those is perplexing.

The approach we have taken in the health budget gives a good illustration of the approach that this government have taken in this budget as a whole. We have made sensible, targeted, defensible and clinically appropriate savings so that we can fund the things that are priorities for us as a government and for us as a community. This government will spend $74.5 billion on health and ageing in 2012-13, which is a $20 billion increase on Tony Abbott's last budget as health minister, which was $51.8 billion in 2007-08. In this budget we have made new investments in areas of need, including over $500 million—$515.3 million—in a better dental scheme; $475 million for 76 projects through the Health and Hospitals Fund, investing in communities right around Australia; $49.7 million to expand the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program, initially to five-yearly screening for the target age group, moving eventually to two-yearly screening; $233.7 million to continue the rollout of a secure, national, personally controlled e-health record, which will make such a difference to patients and to clinicians; $713.5 million over 10 years for primary, allied and dental Indigenous health services in the Northern Territory, investing in an area where many Australians know that some of our most disadvantaged Australians live; and $3.7 billion to build a better aged-care system. To do that, of course, we have had to make savings. When we have looked for those savings we have looked at the areas where, with clinical advice, we could make a responsible, targeted cut. We have saved $96.5 million by capping benefits under the extended Medicare safety net to discourage excessive fees and prevent misuse of Medicare to pay for cosmetic surgery, $47 million by requiring practitioners performing diagnostic services such as X-rays to have minimum qualifications and $104.6 million through price reductions to Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme medicines. We are also looking at private health insurance policies that subsidise what are called 'natural therapies' and making sure that government subsidies are only paid where those natural therapies are determined to be effective.

Turning in more detail to dental health, delivering more affordable oral health and improving access to dental services is a major priority for this government. In fact, one of the first things I mentioned in my first press conference as the health minister was that it would be a priority for my term as the health minister. $345.9 million will be spent as part of this package on delivering services for the 400,000 people who are currently on dental waiting lists in the states and territories, making sure that those people who have been waiting for much too long will get the care they need sooner. Of course, other people will join those lists.

We will need to do more in the future and work with the states and territories to continue to invest in this area, including through, for example, our $35.7 million investment to increase the number of placements available on the Voluntary Dental Graduate Year Program from 50 to 100 by 2016; $45.2 million to introduce a similar scheme for oral health therapists, offering 50 places per annum from 2014; $77.7 million over four years for relocation of infrastructure grants, because we know that there are some communities around Australia where even if you have money in your pocket you cannot see a dentist because there simply is not one; and $10½ million over three years allocated for a national oral health promotion campaign. Today, we have once again a rising number of children with caries. Some people will tell you that that is diet; some people will tell you it is soft drink; other people will tell you it is too much bottled water because the kids are not getting fluoride in their water; and others still will tell you that as parents we have simply lost the habit of teaching our children to brush their teeth and spending the time every morning and every evening supervising. I can tell you: it does not happen in our house unless it is supervised. I have one who is a tooth-brushing avoider. Another investment is $450,000 over three years for a pilot program to support pro bono dental services to improve access for disadvantaged Australians. We know that many dentists are doing pro bono work right now. They are working with homeless people, with women and children in shelters who have left home because of domestic violence, and with refugee communities. They need a bit of help organising that and making sure that the bookings are organised and that people are going to turn up. We should reward that initiative and decency by supporting that effort.

I also want to talk a little about bowel cancer screening. Bowel cancer is a terrible cause of death and illness in Australia and it is a very preventable cause of death and illness. Bowel cancer is the cancer that is picked up early. It is very treatable and has a strong recovery rate. From 1 July 2013 people turning 60 will be invited to join the program. From 1 July 2015 people turning 70 will be invited to participate in the program. That means we will have five-yearly screening in the target population group, from the age of 50 to 70. Around five million Australians will be offered free screening over the next four years. In offering the screenings, we also need to make sure that people take up that offer. It is a very simple process. Returning that test can, literally, be life saving. We have noticed that there are some communities that have lower test return rates than others and we will have to work, in particular, with those communities to make sure that people take the test and return the screening kit. That program will be an additional $49.7 million over the next four years. By making this investment, as I said, we will also commit to moving to two-yearly screenings for all of those Australians aged between 50 and 74, which will then meet the National Health and Medical Research Council recommendation on screening.

There is so much great stuff in this budget when it comes to health, but I want to speak for a little while about the rural and regional health facilities and buildings. The government is committing $475 million in this budget for 76 health construction projects around Australia, bringing the total investment in the Health and Hospitals Fund to $5 billion. Much of it has been spent in rural and regional locations. It includes, in this most recent round of 76 projects, fantastic projects like redeveloping and continuing hospital and multipurpose health services in regional areas like Broken Hill, Bundaberg, Griffith, Hillston, Kempsey, Lismore, Peak Hill and Warracknabeal, as well as new and upgraded facilities to support additional dental services in places like Cranbrook, Murray Bridge, Narrogin, the Pilbara and Kimberley regions and Yamba. There is also additional funding for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, an aircraft-patient transfer facility, mobile oral health facilities and staff accommodation.

I was lucky enough to go to Lockhart River in Aurukun with the Royal Flying Doctor Service just last week and to see the absolutely marvellous work the Royal Flying Doctor Service does, to meet with CRANAplus—the remote area nurses and allied health people—and, most particularly, to meet with the marvellous community leaders and health professionals in Aurukun who are doing fantastic work in their own community, as well as people from outside that community. They are visiting and providing services and really doing brilliant work, and not just in the health area. I was so impressed by what they are doing in community policing as well, and what they are doing in the revolution that has happened in the school at Aurukun. They have gone from low attendance rates to great attendance rates and from low literacy rates to vastly improved literacy rates because of the leadership of their elders—their community leaders.

We are also investing in increasing the numbers of doctors, nurses and other health professionals who can be trained in areas like Broken Hill, Ulverston and Katherine by providing those training facilities and by providing accommodation. We know that medical students who train in rural or regional areas are much more likely to go back to those areas when they are practising. That is our long-term commitment to addressing some of the workforce shortage issues that we have in rural and regional areas.

The other area of important investment in this budget is $233 million which will continue the rollout of our national secure personally controlled e-health records to make sure that we provide better treatment and safer and better health services for patients, along with more convenience and the ability of health professionals to communicate better and more securely for the benefit of their patients. From July this year, Australians who want to will be able to register to create a personally controlled e-health record, which will give them a lot more security when it comes to managing their own health care. It will also make sure that, wherever they are in Australia, if they need to get access to their medical records or check the medication they are on they will be able to access that information. It will also help parents keep track of the immunisation records of their children, for example. We have made good progress in the last two years in the development of the e-health system. We are taking a moderate, staged, incremental approach. It is a little different to how some other countries have done it, but we think it is a more sensible approach when it comes to the rollout of an e-health system.

This budget is one that I am profoundly proud of. I would have loved to have time to talk about some of the broader issues, not just in my own electorate but across Australia, but, in conclusion, I just want to say that this is a budget that is full of Labor values. It takes the benefits of the mining boom and makes sure that all Australians—those Australians who have felt like they have not been participating in that prosperity that we share as a nation—can participate in that prosperity. We are investing in services and investing in support for low- and middle-income families—those who need it most.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is sad to reflect that nowadays Australia is led by a Prime Minister whose electoral game plan is to engender class warfare to save her own political skin and with a simplistic view of Australians as either billionaire businessmen or worker battlers. That was evident in last week's budget, which abandoned 350,000 tourism business owners, 90 per cent of whom own struggling small businesses and fit into neither category. They are the backbone of the tourism market and hospitality industry, doing our nation's heavy lifting. Australia needs good government that supports investment, rewards enterprise and restores confidence, a confidence that has been crushed by the indifference and indulgence of the Gillard years. Yet the budget delivered on 8 May cancels the undertakings that the government had previously made to business for real tax relief.

Tourism expenditure is mostly a discretionary spend and is a price-point sensitive market. Yet since coming to power in 2007 Labor has made it more expensive to visit Australia through a series of cash-grab measures and has made it less attractive through reducing service provisions. It is not surprising that Australia has fallen from fourth place, when the Howard government left office, to 13th last year in the World Economic Forum's travel and tourism competitiveness index. These measures have been introduced at the same time as the tourism and hospitality sectors have been doing it tough. We have seen anaemic growth in many of our largest markets for inbound tourists exacerbated by a strong dollar. We have struggled to compete with new and highly competitive destinations in our region and we have survived the impact of natural disasters such as the Victorian floods, the Western Australian bushfires and Cyclone Yasi. Tough times for tourism are nothing new.

Just as the Howard government rose to the challenges of the collapse of Ansett, the SARS virus and 9-11, so an Abbott government will keep faith with the tourism market. We will restore its competitiveness and tackle the widening trade-tourism deficit. This will include repealing the Gillard carbon tax, with its disproportionate impact on the tourism and hospitality sectors and their energy intensive businesses. The sector are appalled that, despite employing almost one million Australians, they were not awarded any direct industry-specific compensation beyond the Great Barrier Reef visitor levy reduction for marine tourist operators, for the select few. Tourism and hospitality will also benefit from a future coalition government putting government finances in order to relieve interest rate pressure, reducing burdensome regulations and tackling the sector's 36,000 worker shortage.

Recent treatment of the tourism and hospitality sector leaves any observer knowing that Labor thinks tourism is a luxury, an unnecessary part of the services sector, less deserving of help than Australian steelworkers, who received $300 million in carbon tax assistance. To those opposite who think along these lines, I say to you that the service sector, as in many Western economies, represents 80 per cent of our economy, and tourism is one of the most important parts of the service sector. Tourism's contribution to Australian gross domestic product is $73.3 billion or 5.2 per cent of the Australian economy. That is twice the contribution made by agriculture. In Australia tourism directly and indirectly employs 907,100 people, representing 7.9 per cent of total Australian employment. That is four times the mining sector but, unlike mining, accommodation and food are shrinking. Arguably tourism is most deserving of support because it is one of our best economic multipliers. For every dollar generated in tourism, an extra 91c is generated elsewhere in the economy. What is good for tourism is good for Australia. What is bad for tourism is bad for Australia.

The tourism sector is doing it tough. Australians now spend in excess of 132 million nights abroad each year. During its peak in the Howard years, Australian tourism generated a trade surplus of $3.584 billion. Next year the sector will have a trade deficit of $8.7 billion. Yet, although the sector was already stressed, in the 2012 budget Labor has failed to provide adequate carbon tax compensation for tourism. To be clear, the tax stands to destroy 6,400 jobs in tourism, mostly in regional and rural areas. Labor has reduced Tourism Australia's budget by 6.2 per cent or $8 million in real terms. Labor has increased the passenger movement charge by 17 per cent, from $47 to $55 per passenger, and now CPI indexed. Labor has passed on $118.1 million in costs related to AFP security at airports, which will increase ticket costs. Labor has announced cuts to Customs staff, potentially increasing tourist wait times at airports. Labor has undermined its own six-day-old policy, announced on 2 May, to attract investment for new hotels with its managed investments trusts tax. Budget measures applied this year, as every year, cannot focus on any portfolio in isolation. The totality of Labor's economic mismanagement has consequences that must be paid for. Australia's net debt, now over $140 billion, dwarfs the $96 billion debt left to us by Keating. Over the past few months we have all noted that Labor's policy is to encourage illegal boat arrivals at Christmas Island, but there is no support for the profitable cruise ship industry's access to Sydney's Garden Island. Because of Labor's failed policies, including our ballooning asylum-seeker costs, we now face an economic crisis.

Through these bills, Labor now seeks to extract even more money from the industry least able to withstand this punishment. Nothing demonstrates this more clearly than the massive hike to the passenger movement charge. The PMC is a departure tax paid by all passengers departing Australia. The government has announced that the PMC will rise from $47 this financial year to $55 in 2012-13. The price of air tickets will increase by $8 per passenger. According to the Tourism and Transport Forum, this will mean a family of four from New Zealand, Australia's biggest source market, will pay more than NZ$280 just to leave our country, reducing the amount of money they spend while they are here. It will lead to a reduction in economic activity that will threaten jobs. It will collect as much as $1.04 billion by 2015-16, and this is the equivalent of $2.85 million per day. For example, a one-way fare of $69 is the equivalent of 1,667 people flying from Sydney to the Gold Coast every hour, filling more than nine Jetstar planes.

Of this $1.04 billion, Tourism Australia will receive only $134 million, in 2015-16. For every dollar given to Australian tourism, it is robbed of a further $8. This tourist tax hike in itself will not solve our outbound tourism crisis unless it is matched by investment. As the coalition's staycation.org.au campaign highlights, since the Australian dollar reached parity with the US dollar in 2008 Australian tourism has been hurting. Australians, who traditionally make up three-quarters of our visitor economy, have been leaving our shores in droves, and the 2012 budget has not helped. In fact, the government's reduction of Tourism Australia's budget by more than 17 per cent in real terms since 2008 has served to hasten the industry's decline.

When Labor reformed the PMC in 1994-95, the rationale was to cover the cost of Customs, Immigration and quarantine, plus funding to cover short-term visas. Since then it has steadily grown from its $27 per passenger base. Under the Howard government, moderate increases were applied to cover the cost of the then Australian Tourist Commission and the See Australia First campaign, and to boost screening at airports for foot-and-mouth disease. Under the Rudd and Gillard governments, two more increases have been made, the first with no rationale or explanation given. Then, this year's budget announcements included earmarking only 10 per cent of the increase for an Asian marketing fund.

Where this tourism tax is concerned, there are important differences between the Howard era and the Rudd-Gillard era. The coalition can look tourism operators in the eye and justify its increases. Labor can do so for only 10 per cent of one of its increases. Labor cannot point to an original rationale for the PMC and then link it to its tourist tax hike. In this budget, Labor will allocate $7.9 million for SmartGate passenger facilitation, whilst at the same time cutting $10.4 million from passenger facilitation. This is a Labor con job, giving with one hand whilst taking even more with the other.

They are also cutting 190 staff from Customs, which will increase passenger processing times at our airports. It is reasonable that there should be some measures of cost recovery in maintaining our immigration program, and this should be reflected in the PMC. When Labor introduced the PMC, $8 of the total $27 covered short-term visas. Now, because of Labor's inability to manage our borders, this government expects tourism to pay the price. The Department of Immigration and Citizenship's operational costs are through the roof because of illegal boat arrivals, up over $800 million between budgets. That is $4.7 billion since the 2008-09 budget. Some in the industry ask, 'Why are we still paying for the See Australia campaign?' The obvious point here is that, under the coalition, as the PMC went up our funding for Tourism Australia also increased. Conversely, PMC increases have continued under Labor whereas their funding for Tourism Australia has decreased. The tourism sector understands their obligation to maintain their $8 per ticket share of disease management, but this should not be used as an excuse to hide Labor's waste and mismanagement in other areas.

The aviation sector cannot withstand the endless hikes on top of the $6 million cut to the en-route subsidy scheme and paying for baggage screening that have already been announced. In five weeks time these rising costs will be exacerbated by the arrival of a carbon tax. The Tourism and Transport Forum submission on the impact of a carbon tax stated that it would 'kill off up to 6,400 jobs, mostly from regional and rural Australia', and mean also that the net beneficiary would be outbound tourism.

Recently the coalition has highlighted that the government's reduction of the Great Barrier Reef visitor levy to offset the carbon tax impact shows that they have begun to 'pick winners' and that that was at the expense of marine park authority research and reef management. In this budget the government has topped up funding towards the Great Barrier Reef Foundation to make up for its reduction in the reef visitor levy. I say to the Prime Minister: stop this money-go-round and drop your carbon tax! 'Picking winners' like reef tour operators ignores other marine tourism operators, like the Spirit of Tasmania, who have announced they will pass on an extra $3 per passenger per journey and an extra $6 per passenger vehicle per journey. The Spirit of Tasmania’s announcement follows similar ones made by airlines which mean that a family of four holiday from Perth to Cairns will cost an additional $24 in airfares.

We simply do not know the full cumulative effects because Tourism Research Australia has been prevented from undertaking carbon tax modelling. The Treasurer pre-announced his tax loss carry back measure as one to help businesses that were suffering in the two-speed economy. Yet the conditions applied to the $700 million tax carry back fillip mean that those in the 'fast lane' will be eligible but for those hoping for relief only incorporated companies or those businesses taxed as companies are eligible. Even then, only those that have made a profit in one of three years can apply. The reality is only 24 per cent of all businesses are incorporated. Tourism and hospitality is a classic small business sector: 90 per cent of these businesses employ less than 20 people. The ATO found in 2009-10 that 35 per cent of companies were trading at a loss. And since 2008 a great many tourism businesses have been posting consistent losses.

This measure is a mirage. On 2 May the Minister for Tourism launched the Australian Tourism Investment Guide, a policy to attract investors to build new hotels in Australia, and I applauded the move. Yet on 8 May the budget includes a management investment trust withholding tax that has made such investments less viable for many overseas investors. Tourism Accommodation Australia has referred to legal advice recommending 'that non-residents holding Australian assets through MIT structures consider whether an MIT remains the most appropriate structure for their investment'.

Secondly, the Treasurer also announced the removal of the 50 per cent discount on capital gains tax for offshore individuals, meaning it is now less attractive for offshore individuals to invest in, say, strata title hotel developments. The news comes as a further blow to the Minister for Tourism, Martin Ferguson, whose ability to deliver for the tourism industry has been called into question with his government's decision to increase the PMC despite his repeated, separate assurances that this would not happen.

Since the crisis in outbound tourism in 2008 this government has treated the tourism and hospitality sector as the country's 'cut and come again' magic pudding. The cuts outlined in this budget will mean many in-bound tourists will choose not to come again. This government needs to realise the importance of the tourism and hospitality sector with the million people that it employs and reward it appropriately, not put in the way barriers that will stymie growth and stymie opportunity. This government needs to follow what the coalition will do, which is to restore reward, hope and opportunity.

Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a pleasure it is to be able to speak to this latest chapter in the story of the economic management of this country by this government and talk about matters of weight and importance to this country instead of the muck that we have been wallowing in in the last two days in the other chamber. The story so far is a great one indeed. This government has navigated the worst economic crisis in our history since the Great Depression. It has managed the exit from two wars that we inherited from the coalition, the worst floods and fires in our history, the collapse of ABC Learning, the swine and equine flu challenges and all to great success, so what we see at this point in time is the greatest alignment of macroeconomic indicators in the country's history, an alignment that was never seen under the coalition, never matched by the coalition and, in many cases, not matched in Australia's history.

What are they? We now have interest rates of 3.75 per cent, never matched by the coalition. Since the election of this government, if you have a $300,000 mortgage you will be saving $3,000 a year on that. Inflation is around 1.6 per cent and unemployment is 4.9 per cent. I would like to indicate that in Eden-Monaro, the unemployment rate is in fact 2.8 per cent, which is a wonderful achievement that we have pulled together to achieve as a team effort. We have also delivered record terms of trade and record investment. There is a $490 billion investment pipeline in the wake of claims by the coalition that our mineral resources rent tax and other measures would dissuade investment. These are record levels of investment, so it gives the lie to those claims.

We also see, for the first time in Australian history, the major credit agencies—Fitch, Moody's, S&P—rating us at AAA for the first time in our history. This was never achieved by the coalition. Our very, very low levels of debt compared to the international community and all comparable developed countries make us the envy of those countries at 9.6 per cent. If you look at some of the historic figures, during the First World War it was 50 per cent of GDP and 140 per cent of GDP in the Second World War. Many times in our history it has been around the eight, nine or 10 per cent mark. We are on track with our sound fiscal policies and economic management to amortise that debt to bring it down to 0.5 per cent in due course.

This magnificent record of achievement, an unparalleled record of achievement, is a tremendous narrative. It is also part of how this government is achieving the economic reform so necessary for the future of this country—those dead years, Rip Van Winkle years wasted under the Howard government with the boom when we were not investing in the very key measures that were necessary to avoid the impacts and distortions of the mining boom which can create the so-called Dutch disease effect. The things that needed to be done then and were not done are being done now: the investment in infrastructure, the investment in innovation, the investment in skills. A good example of that in my own area is three new trade training centres in Eden, Bombala and Bega; the expansion of the facilities of the Queanbeyan TAFE; and the investment of $3 million in the Wollongong Access Centre facilities in Batemans Bay, offering new vocational and trade training opportunities to the kids in our region. This is contributing in itself to the new apprenticeship levels and jobs in the area that has got us down to that 2.8 per cent unemployment level. We are also taking the benefit from the massive investment in infrastructure and projects.

What also amazes me is that we hear a lot from some members of the coalition who claim to represent rural and regional Australia, but all we saw during their years was the vacation of services from rural and regional areas. They would look at a country school, and what would they do? They would give it a flagpole. My area is a great example of what is happening in rural and regional Australia: $100 million has gone into the 70 schools in my region. When I travel around the 70 schools the parents, the teachers and the kids have nothing but praise for what this transformation of our educational landscape has delivered.

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

Hear, hear! You won't read that in the Murdoch press.

Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Absolutely, we did not read it—in fact, we read the opposite. But what we are seeing now is the kids in the country schools getting the same quality of education as kids in the cities for the first time, because new technology that has gone into those schools accompanying the BER—interactive whiteboards, connected classrooms that were not there under the coalition and were not invested in by the coalition—is enabling those kids to get courses, training and teaching that they were not able to get before.

Added to that is the $332 million coming in to Eden-Monaro in investment in our health. When I surveyed my electorate, I had an overwhelming response, over 7,000 responses, and 99.9 per cent of the top priority listed in the survey was health. People in rural and regional Australia suffered the denigration of those services over many years of neglect under the coalition. The billion dollars that was ripped out of the system by Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, when he was health minister is now being redressed by this government. I have seen the investment in primary healthcare facilities with the surgery in Bombala Street in Cooma, the surgery and facilities at the MPS in Bombala, the Queen Street private health facilities in Moruya, the mobile dental services on the coast, the dental surgery in Dalmeny, the brand new primary health service in Tuross Heads and countless facilities benefiting from our after-hours service injection of funding. Now we are seeing the GP superclinic fully operational and functioning in Queanbeyan. There is funding in this budget for the GP superclinic in Jindabyne. We will see next year the work commence on the $170 million new regional hospital in the Bega Valley, servicing our region with state-of-the-art facilities. This investment is magnificent, overdue and highly necessary in a neglected region like mine. This is what rural and regional Australia is getting from this government.

There are other benefits in this budget. This is a budget that delivers for low- and middle-income earners and for all Australians but also delivers some of the big visionary reforms that we were looking for to move this country forward to those new frontiers in disability issues and in aged care. We now have $1 billion towards the National Disability Insurance Scheme and a $3.7 billion funding commitment towards the reform of our aged-care sector, particularly to look after those long-suffering aged-care workers who have really been behind the door in terms of proper wages and conditions over many years. This is historic. It adds to the other historic measures in the improvements in our pension funds with, on a 100-year scale, an increase that we have never seen before, the introduction of the Paid Parental Leave scheme and the mining resource rent tax that finally gives Australians a fair share of the resources that they only get one chance to get the benefit of. These things are historic.

We are also seeing the measures that the health minister announced just earlier here to encourage the health workforce and deal with the health workforce shortages that we have. I will not go over those, but certainly they are having an effect. Just a week or so ago, the health minister was with me travelling around the electorate announcing a new $31 million scheme to really tackle that health workforce issue in our region with new facilities and training facilities and student accommodation in places like Moruya, Bega and Cooma. This is addressing the issue from every end of the spectrum.

Also in this budget we are delivering on the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program that the minister talked about. For the 16.1 per cent of people in Eden-Monaro who are over the age of 60 this will be a very important preventative health matter and one that I know they will welcome, along with the $500 million dental health blitz which will improve dental facilities in rural and remote areas. These are things that people in rural and regional Australia salute and welcome.

The Paid Parental Leave scheme has been taken advantage of by 790 local families in my area. The pension reform that I mentioned is benefiting 27,100 local pensioners in Eden-Monaro, with them receiving an extra $154 a fortnight if they are a single pensioner or, if they are couples on the maximum rate, an extra $156 a fortnight combined. We have seen the carer supplement improvements and the senior work bonuses that are benefiting 27,100 local age pensioners in my area who can now keep working and still earn up to $250 a fortnight and not affect their pension. This is a welcome reform for them and it helps us to encourage the retention of skilled and experienced people in the workforce. We are also receiving benefits through the family assistance payments, the Family Tax Benefit Part A and B injections and the single parent funding. Also my 48,000 local taxpayers getting their tax cuts on 1 July have seen three tax cuts in a row delivered to them now, which has greatly improved their circumstances. In fact, the wage earner in Eden-Monaro now pays $1,200 less tax than in 2007-08 as a result of those tax cuts.

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

Plus the interest rate cuts.

Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Absolutely. The interest rate cuts have also enabled them to better deal with cost-of-living pressures. We are also seeing the superannuation benefits that are coming from the mineral resource rent tax, 41,500 local workers are going to see their superannuation guarantee increase from nine per cent to 12 per cent, and the benefits for the 18,200 small businesses in my electorate who will be able to take advantage of the loss carry-back program, the $6,500 asset write-off and the $5,000 vehicle write-off. Many of them have already talked to me about how they have utilised those provisions and how they took advantage of the 50 per cent write-off during the GFC. Many businesses have retooled, re-equipped and taken advantage of those provisions in other ways, as they have all around Australia.

Mr Gibbons interjecting—

Now the school kids bonus will help my lower-and middle-income earners deal with the cost of putting their kids through school, not, as the Leader of the Opposition abused them, by wasting that money on poker machines. That was an insult to them of the worst and highest degree. They were certainly not impressed with his attitude to providing them with assistance with the costs of education.

Mr Bruce Scott interjecting—

There are 8,250 families in Eden-Monaro, who are expected to receive a total of $400 a year for each child in primary school and $820 a year for high school kids. For the parents of our 14,500 local kids this will certainly be very welcome.

Honourable members interjecting—

I mentioned that infrastructure is a key issue. We need to unclog the arteries of this country and improve ports, airports and roads. This budget delivers on the $60 million Bega bypass. It is 40 years since this project was first announced and the land corridor provided for this project. Now, finally, it is to be delivered. The main construction phase of the bypass will commence next month. We have also seen $3,822,000 delivered in this budget for the Roads to Recovery program, which is vital for the struggling councils in my region. We have also seen of course $2.5 million going to heavy vehicle safety road stops. It is important for the virtuous circle that we try to create in our country towns to make sure that their local amenities and sports facilities are dealt with too. We have invested heavily in such projects right around the region.

It is also part of the vision that we have for rural and regional Australia that we are delivering on the NBN and the clean energy future package. It is an exciting time for Eden-Monaro, which is seeing over $1 billion of investment in renewable energy projects. We have the Infigen Capital Wind Farm near Bungendore, which has 60 turbines. Infigen is going to add another 40 and is going to build a 50-megawatt solar farm there. We have a $700 million wind farm project being built around Boco Rock, near Nimmitabel. ActewAGL is drilling a geothermal sweet spot near Nimmitabel. We have Carnegie Corporation doing a wave energy project off the port of Eden. Its first test-buoy will go in next year. Of course, we have Snowy Hydro, the grand-daddy of them all. The Frontier Economics study that the New South Wales coalition government commissioned indicated that our region would be one of the top four in the nation to benefit from the clean energy future package and that there would be 2,300 new jobs generated by that package. My region understands that benefit. It understands that the future of the region is being preserved by the investment in a cleaner environment and our securing a clean energy future plan. The NBN also is so critical to rural and regional economies. I have a $200 million timber precinct investment from Dongwa, a Korean company, going into Bombala.

Opposition members interjecting—

Dongwa intends to build a particle-board-manufacturing capacity that is incredibly and totally dependent on the NBN, because of the state-of-the-art equipment it intends to put in. The coalition intends to rip that opportunity out of rural and regional Australia by denying it the NBN. That is a complete betrayal of rural and regional Australia.

Eden-Monaro will not accept having this bright, shining future be ripped from it by a coalition so ready to sacrifice our opportunities and avoid the hard decisions. My community are not that timid, narrow-minded, defeatist, cowardly people the coalition believes them to be. They are ready to reach out and embrace the future with imagination and courage. Eden-Monaro is ready to show leadership. It is a shame that the coalition is only ready to lurk in the shadows, fostering confusion, fear and despair.

Honourable members interjecting—

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

Order! Before I call the member for Maranoa, there has been far too much static coming from both sides of the chamber, which is making it very difficult for the chair to absorb the valuable contributions that are being made in this chamber tonight.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the protection, because I do want to make this contribution after what I just heard from the parliamentary secretary and member for Eden Monaro. His speech was very comprehensive. We heard a great deal about the rorts being put into Eden Monaro through the regional grants program. While I know that not one cent has gone west of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland, we have heard about multimillion dollar after multimillion dollar of regional rorts going into Eden Monaro. And this is what I am really surprised by: not once did we hear the words 'carbon tax'. I must read the Hansard tomorrow—I may stand corrected and will make a correction if I am wrong.

This budget did nothing for the real economy of our nation. A budget must address business confidence in this nation. I travel extensively in my vast electorate of Maranoa and small business after small business have said they have no confidence in investing in the future. They do not feel they have a future and any confidence will be dampened down with the introduction of the new tax announced in this budget—the carbon tax to begin on 1 July.

The other thing this budget did nothing about was addressing issues very dear to my heart: the city-country divide and the equality of access to health and education. Research papers which have been written show the numbers out there are quite alarming and are getting worse and worse. I will touch on that later.

This government is very good at introducing new taxes such as the mining tax and the carbon tax. With the huge global uncertainty out there at the moment, Europe is in a fragile state and the American economy is trying to recover from massive debt and record unemployment. But this government wants to smash the very economy that creates jobs and wealth for all Australians by introducing the carbon tax, which will cascade through the system. At every point when people purchase a product—food, electricity, registration and fuel for their car—the carbon tax will have a cascading effect. It will hit every element of our economy. It is not rebated to businesses like the GST at each point of sale. It will be passed on to the next level and consumers will have to pay.

We are the luckiest country on earth. In this global uncertainty why would any government want to hit the very economy that is going to be so important to an improving economy in the future? Is it any wonder that Australian people have no confidence in this Prime Minister? Workers are certainly worried about their jobs, but we know that this Prime Minister is only interested in her job.

The government are predicting a $1.2 billion surplus in the 2012-13 financial year. This time last year they were predicting a $12 billion deficit, which grew to $23 billion and now is $44 billion. If they cannot get last year's figures right, how can we possibly believe that in the forthcoming financial year there will be a $1.2 billion surplus, when they were out by $21 billion in the last financial year? It is just fanciful.

We also know that this government is great at spending money. Also included in the budget papers was a facility to increase the borrowing capacity of the Commonwealth from $250 billion to $300 billion. Try going to your bank and saying: 'We've got to increase our debt,' when you have had deficit after deficit. In fact, this government has not brought forward one surplus. They do not know how to spell the word, I am sure.

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

Didn't you read the budget papers? $1.5 billion.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Now they are trying to say that in the next financial year there will be a surplus of $1.5 billion. Really! Just look at the record. I say to taxpayers out there, the hard working Australians, just look at the record and that will tell the story. The carbon tax will have a very real impact on my electorate—and not only my electorate but also right across Australia. Look at the impact on outback tourism, a significant part of the economy particularly at this time of the year. Southerners from other parts of Australia get out of the frosty plains of the cities and towns and come to western Queensland to see the wonderful weather and tourist attractions that we have out there. But it will cost them more to get there, whether they come by bus or plane or drive in their own vehicle. When they get there the accommodation will be dearer, so it will cost them more to travel. Outback tourism is a significant part of our economy in western Queensland.

Food producers are at the start of the chain of food production in this country. They will not be able to pass on the increased cost of electricity when they pump water, or grow food or fibre or cereal grains, as they do in my electorate. A few weeks ago I was in Stanthorpe looking at the possible site for a new dam which has been on the drawing board for over 20 years. It is a significant salad vegetable production area in Queensland, particularly in the summer months because it has a moderate climate. Those producers will not be able to pass on to the consumer the increased cost of producing that food. They will have to absorb it or not grow it. One of the concerns they raised with me, and others who were with me at those meetings, was that perhaps it would be cheaper to import it from overseas where the Australian carbon tax would not impact on the cost of producing basic food items.

I have two councils—Western Downs Regional Council and the Maranoa Regional Council. They have been identified as great big polluters and they are going to have to pay a carbon tax. Who will pay it? The councils will pay it but who will pay it ultimately? The ratepayers—the pensioners, the senior citizens, the businesses whose costs will be driven up. It is not rebateable. Will the farmers be compensated for the increased cost of production? This government seems to say that what it pays upfront is a compensation for the increased cost of living for a household. But no, the farmers will have to absorb it.

We talk quite often about a two-speed economy in this nation but what we are is two nations in this country that we all so love. We talk of the horizontal fiscal equalisation distribution of the GST welfare state. What I would like to see is some horizontal fiscal equalisation of that money, when it is transferred to states, to across the states, to the rural and remote parts of Australia. One particular priority for me is the area of health. The other day I was looking at the work of John Humphries from the Monash University School of Rural Health. To put it this way, if I were to hold up two photos of two newborn babies, identical in every way except that they lived in different Australian postcodes, they would show the difference in postcodes meant a difference of up to seven years in life expectancy. That is because one comes from rural and remote Australia compared to one living and growing up in the capital cities. The Monash University study showed that life expectancy in Australia decreases as remoteness increases. As I said, it is a differential of up to seven years, merely on the basis of the postcode of where you were born and grew up and lived. That paper also went on to say that life expectancy is increasing 20 per cent faster for urban Australians than their country counterparts. So, the lot for those who live east of the Great Dividing Range—anywhere between Port Douglas and the mouth of the Murray River—is that you have a greater chance of living another seven years. For those who live in urban Australia it is rapidly increasing; yet there has been no significant increase for those who live in rural and remote Australia. That is an issue that all levels of government have to address.

I think the big thing here really is access to education, specialist services and primary health care. We need to make sure that we can bring more services to those people who live in rural and remote Australia. Those figures should ring alarm bells for every level of government in this country. I repeat that number: a child born today in rural and remote Australia, just by virtue of the postcode where they were born, has a life expectancy seven years less than if they were born in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane or anywhere east of the Great Dividing Range, which is a great divide. It divides this nation into two nations, not one. That is an issue that has to be addressed and it is one of the great passions that I have.

I also want to talk about the issue of access to post-secondary education, because that is another area where we have a great divide. The participation rate in post-secondary education—

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You should welcome our skills package!

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will come to that. The participation rate in 1996 for students from rural and remote Australia was 18 per cent. By 2006 it was 21 per cent. In metropolitan Australia in 1996 it was 28 per cent and in 2006 it was 35 per cent. For those students from remote Australia the participation rate was one per cent. The member on the other side might scoff at this, but I represent a rural and remote electorate and I am passionate about the great divide that exists in this country. We have two nations, not one. I can put it another way. If you look at the population aged between 15 and 64 in Australia today, 27 per cent of them live in regional and remote areas, whereas 19 per cent are higher education students. But look at the participation rate. In 1996, 18 per cent of students from rural and remote Australia participated in post-secondary education. By 2006 it was 21 per cent. In metropolitan Australia the participation rate was 28 per cent in 1996, it rose to 35 per cent and it is still escalating.

What does that tell you? That assistance for students who live in rural and remote Australia so they can afford to access post-secondary education is the issue that must be addressed by government. The parents do not have the ability to send all their children away—these figures confirm it. Governments at all levels have to address this issue. Urban Australians have subsidised urban transport to access university or TAFE colleges. They can live at home and they can have a job if they remain at home. But those who live in rural or remote Australia have to leave home to gain access.

It is an issue of equality of access in the areas of health and education. It is an issue I am passionate about and we as legislators have a responsibility to make sure that we do more than has been done in the past, because the gap between rural and remote Australia and metropolitan Australia in the area of health and life expectancy and in relation to access to post-secondary education is widening. We talk of horizontal fiscal equalisation for the distribution of GST revenue to the states. Tasmania gets more than Western Australia, and we all agree that we should be a Commonwealth sharing in the common wealth. But when some of those funds go to the states why can't it be applied to ensure that your geographic postcode has no bearing on your life expectancy or your education opportunities? Today it does—the postcode where you were born, where you live and where you grow up.

People say, 'They choose to live out there.' Well, that is where their job is. That is where the great wealth of this nation is generated—in the mining sector, in the agricultural sector by the food producers of this nation. They live there and they produce this wonderful food for us, which is so often taken for granted in this country. My time is just about up—in fact it is—but I just want to say that it is a passion of mine, the inequality between people living in rural and remote Australia and those who are living in metropolitan Australia. The gap is widening. It is something that the government did not address in this budget and it is something that I will have on my agenda in the lead-up to the next election. (Time expired)

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I first welcome the comments by the previous speaker, the member for Maranoa, insofar as he was saying that skills are important. Skills are important for the life chances of Australians right around the country, so I hope that the member will recognise the huge investment that this government has made in this budget in skills, in particular by allowing anyone in this country who wants to obtain a certificate III to have a government subsidised place. That is of critical importance because we know that people who have a certificate III can ensure that they have a better earning capacity. So I think the turbocharged investment in skills, which will be industry led, which has industry involvement, which will open up training opportunities right around this country, should be supported by the member opposite. We are turbocharging when it comes to skills and postsecondary education. It is a pity that he did not acknowledge that huge investment that we have made in the budget, but I have to agree with him on that one point, that skills are important in this country, and I am so pleased that this budget is delivering it. It is a pity that he could not acknowledge that.

Anyway, I rise today to support the 2012-13 budget. This is an incredibly responsible budget and it is also a Labor budget, a budget that builds on our strong economic management. The Labor government have shown that, at the time when it is needed, during a GFC, we will act to support jobs and that when conditions get better and growth returns to trend we will return the budget to surplus to ensure the future prosperity of our nation. Not only are we returning the budget to surplus on time, as promised, but we are also acting to spread the benefits of our strong economy more fairly by delivering relief to families and businesses who are feeling the pinch.

Probably the members on the other side are a little bit embarrassed. Especially, I think, the members would be a little bit embarrassed that, despite the Leader of the Opposition talking a lot about the difficulties people are facing, when it comes down to it, when he has the opportunity to look at fairness and look at helping families, he squibs it. It took this Labor government to set in this budget the long-term foundations with which we can really make the most of the opportunity that will be presented by the Asian century and ensure our lasting prosperity.

The other part, as I said, is that this is also about delivering a fair and balanced budget that looks at those who are doing it tough. This is in direct contrast to the Leader of the Opposition's budget reply speech. Once again there was a lot of fanfare and a lot of theatrics; no detail. It added quite a lot to the bulging $70 billion black hole but, most importantly, was a real kick in the guts to Australian families who are struggling to make ends meet, by saying no to education payments for parents who are putting their children through school. Obviously it is very disappointing that the opposition oppose that, but we are not going to let the opposition stand in our way of delivering for Australian families.

This budget puts us on track for a $1.5 billion surplus in 2012-13. We are returning the budget to surplus, as I said, on time and as promised, despite global uncertainty ripping an estimated $150 billion from government revenue. We are doing it ahead of every single advanced major economy. I think this is very, very important, because we hear a lot from the opposition but they fail to recognise, when they compare us to the rest of the advanced economies in the world, that we are doing extremely well. This has not been by luck. This has been through having a government that is actually willing to act and willing to deliver. I am very, very pleased that we have been working very hard to return the budget to surplus. Returning the budget to surplus does a number of things. It gives us a buffer in times of continuing global uncertainty but it also provides maximum flexibility for the Reserve Bank to cut interest rates further if they deem it necessary. So I think that, while most of the rest of the world is still grappling with the fallout from the global financial crisis, we are seeing our economy continue to grow. Indeed, our economy is seven per cent larger than before the global financial crisis. Once again, we often see a lot of negativity from those opposite, which I think is a little bit of envy, because, at a time when countries around the world are struggling with huge unemployment and are facing recession, we on this side of the House, in government, are creating jobs. More importantly, the envy from the other side comes from the fact that, while they were in office, they could not get a AAA credit rating from all three major global rating agencies. They could not manage that. Even their great hero Peter Costello could not manage that.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Was that nine surpluses in a row, or 10?

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member opposite is talking about nine surpluses in a row. Of course, $100 billion of that was excess revenue from the mining boom. And what did they do? They squandered it. They would have had a lot bigger surpluses if they had actually used that money in a constructive way. They had rivers of gold which they squandered, and that is why, I have no doubt, all three international rating agencies at one time never, ever offered a AAA credit rating.

Our government's management of the economy is doing that well, and that is why we have seen Wayne Swan get the gong that Peter Costello could never get from Euromoney magazine. It is why we got the AAA credit rating from all three major global rating agencies, something, once again, that Peter Costello could not get. He is feeling a bit grumpy at the moment; I have seen the media reports and I have no doubt that, since he may be taking his anger out at a number of different Liberal Party people, he is a little frustrated because Wayne Swan is achieving what he could not do.

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

He wants to come back! He wants Kooyong's seat.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think it is a bit tough for the member for Kooyong to have to make way for Peter Costello. I think it is pretty rough. He probably wants to come back and see if he can get back.

We understand that in this country our economy is ticking over on a macro level. There is, as many have said, a patchwork economy and that is why this government is not just saying, 'Mining companies that are doing very well—you just keep your money and we'll just let everyone else suffer.' We have had a lot of criticism from the opposition about this. They have said, 'Don't bring in a mining tax; don't do this; don't do that,' and we have heard them talk about the patchwork economy as well and how we need to do more. Well, when you look through all the details, the opposition offer nothing to address fairness in this country. In fact, they plan to vote against the company tax cut to help companies across this country. I just cannot believe we are in a situation where, as the member has quite rightly put it, the Liberal Party vote with the Greens to oppose a tax cut. Once again, it has taken this side of the House to look at the patchwork economy and say, 'There are some areas that are doing very well but there are some areas that are struggling, so we're going to help out.' Of course, it is opposed by those opposite. They oppose helping businesses with a one per cent tax cut, and they are against helping families by opposing the schoolkids bonus.

I want to talk a little bit about the schoolkids bonus, because I believe that this is so important. I was at the Hallett Cove Shopping Centre on the weekend, and I actually had parents come up to me and say: 'Thank you to the Labor government that is delivering this; this is important money that we need to help our students. More importantly, we are insulted that the Liberal Party would say that we would just waste this money.' I had a number of parents come to up me to say that. I personally think it is insulting that the opposition thinks that parents will just waste this money and that they will not spend it on the kids.

When you ask the opposition why they think this and why the baby bonus is different, the answer that comes back from the Leader of the Opposition is, 'It just is'. That is not a good enough answer for Australian families. Australian families want to know why the Leader of the Opposition and all of those opposite do not trust them—do not trust them to spend the money on their kids. They are very disappointed, and I know that that message from the opposition was a disappointing message heard loud and clear by families in my electorate—

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

The Nationals don't believe it.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Around 11,200 local families are expected to receive this new cash payment just in my electorate, and that will assist them greatly. A number of other family payments have been announced in this budget, and I am very pleased that 15,000 families in my local community of southern Adelaide will receive assistance of at least $300 and up to $600. In addition there is the supplementary allowance that was announced to help young people, single parents and unemployed people who are currently receiving allowances to manage unexpected living expenses. Once again, we are helping those who are doing it tough.

While this has been a difficult budget because we are bringing it back to surplus and are doing the responsible thing, a couple of things we have done mean a great deal to people in my electorate. The first is the injection of funds into the dental health care scheme. After the Liberal government was elected in 1996, the first thing they did was cut the Commonwealth dental scheme. This made it difficult for many people on low incomes, on payments and on pensions, to access dental health care. I am proud of this budget because it provides a boost to funding to ensure that we can reduce the waiting list for people on low incomes.

In Noarlunga, in my electorate, as a result of federal government investment we have done a lot to improve dental services. As a result of having the GP superclinic at Noarlunga we have been able to triple the number of dentist chairs at the Noarlunga dental service. This injection of funds will affect the lives of so many people. When the opposition cut the Commonwealth dental scheme they failed to understand that dental health is really important to general health. They completely ignored that and said that the Commonwealth would cut its funding. I have seen some awful situations of people with significant dental problems who, because they did not have a chronic disease, were not considered worthy of adequate dental treatment under the coalition government's scheme. This is an issue that is raised with me on a very regular basis, and I am pleased that this measure is in the budget.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme is another budget initiative that is about fairness. Of course the Leader of the Opposition said he was in favour of it, but he then sent the shadow Treasurer out to backtrack significantly on their commitment. So on this issue the Leader of the Opposition says yes but the shadow Treasurer says, 'Well, we'll see'—and, of course, the shadow finance minister said it was just an aspiration. While they might deliberate on what they want to do, this side of the parliament is delivering. The National Disability Insurance Scheme is beginning with trials in four locations and will ensure that, no matter how you got your disability, you will be provided with adequate services to ensure that you can live a fulfilling life and achieve your potential. That is critically important, and it makes me proud to stand here as part of the Labor government.

This is a very important budget—it delivers to families, i t shares the wealth of the mining boom, i t deliver s not just to vested interests and it help s those who are doing it tough —and I commend it to the House .

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As we would all recognise, it is the time in the night for little children to be going to bed and we have just heard one of the great fairytales, told to us by the member for Kingston. It starts with this story that once upon a time there was this Treasurer who promised a surplus. No-one on this side of the chamber and certainly no-one from the broader Australian community actually believe a single word this Treasurer says when it comes to the word 'surplus'. Keep in mind, we are talking about a Treasurer who has delivered record deficits four years in a row. Even the Treasurer himself does not seem to believe he can deliver a surplus, because last year I remember speaking in the House and I challenged the Treasurer. I said: 'I'll bet you $1,000 that you will not deliver a surplus in the next financial year. I'll bet you $1,000 and I'll donate that to your favourite charity if you can actually deliver a surplus. Of course, if you can't deliver that surplus, you'll need to make a donation of $1,000 to my local surf lifesaving club.' I am afraid the Treasurer would not take the bet. He did not have the courage of his convictions, because this is a Treasurer who simply cannot be believed.

I want to raise several issues tonight in relation to the budget, particularly the impacts they will have on my community in Gippsland. My concern particularly relates to an aspect of the budget that the Treasurer cannot bear to name—that is, the carbon tax. Overall, I believe this is a disappointing budget for regional Australia, particularly for my electorate against the backdrop of the government's Contract for Closure scheme, part of its so-called clean energy future package. There is already a crisis of confidence in my electorate, particularly around the Latrobe Valley, and it is directly linked to the uncertainty that this government has created through its reckless decision to legislate for what is the world's biggest carbon tax. We have already seen job losses in the Latrobe Valley and there is a very real prospect of more to come. I know the government likes to use the high Australian dollar as a defence and the reason that these jobs are being lost. Of that assertion, I simply ask: why on earth would you make it harder? When we have a high Australian dollar, while there are difficult times facing many factories, some parts of the agricultural sector and certainly the power-generating sector, why make it tougher for Australian manufacturers to do business? Why make it harder for them to compete on world markets?

I believe that regional Australia already makes an amazing contribution to this nation. We heard the member for Maranoa speak previously about the great contribution that regional Australians make in their day-to-day lives. But they are desperate for a government to show real leadership on this particular issue. The carbon tax debate is followed very closely in regional communities, particularly in my community of Gippsland and the Latrobe Valley. As I have said to the House before, my community is at the absolutely pointy end of this debate. For them it is not some abstract argument. It is about their jobs. It is about the lives they lead today. It is their hope for the future, the opportunities that they can provide for their children in the future and the role that they can play in helping this great nation be even greater in the future. The fundamental problem that this government has relates to its carbon tax broken promise. This Prime Minister will simply not recover in the eyes of my community, because of that fundamental breach of trust. That is the simple fact of the matter.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They all voted on that, did they, Darren?

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, they didn't! That is the answer to the question.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, they did not vote because before the election the Prime Minister said there would no carbon tax. So you are right, Parliamentary Secretary, they did not vote on that because your Prime Minister promised no carbon tax. She ruled out a carbon tax and then she did a black flip.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, they did not vote on that either, Darren, and you know it.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is what you will not admit.

Mr Sidebottom interjecting—

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You will not admit that.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You have got to be joking.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The parliamentary secretary is defying the chair.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I sat in the chamber today and I listened to the Treasurer say, 'We'll support the Australian workers every day of the week.' I am almost physically sick when I hear those mealy-mouthed assertions from a Treasurer and a Prime Minister, who simply refuse to stand up for blue-collar workers in my electorate. Those opposite can roll their eyes as much as they like. This government say it is governing in the interests of working people. But this government wants to shut down power stations in my electorate and that will result directly in more than 500 job losses, with flow-on effects to thousands more. There can be no denying that. The Contract for Closure policy is directly aimed at shutting down 2,000 megawatts coal-fired power stations and the most obvious targets are in the Latrobe Valley. I do not think that any member can deny that. This government wants to kick out power station workers—kick them out of their jobs—particularly in the Latrobe Valley, if this contract for closure scheme progresses in the way that the government wants it to progress, and it will devastate the Latrobe Valley.

I say to members opposite: the Latrobe Valley power station workers do not want the household assistance package; they do not want transition plans; they do not want these so-called promises of new green jobs—they want the jobs they have got today. They want to keep the security of the job they have already. They do not want it taken away from them by the government and its carbon tax. I think that it was appalling that the Treasurer in his budget speech could not even bring himself to address the words 'carbon tax', so it is no surprise at all that when it comes to actual assistance for regions affected by this policy, he was silent on that issue as well.

The great hypocrisy of this position is that right now throughout Australia we are mining coal, loading it on ships, sending it to China, India, Korea and Japan. We are sending millions and millions of tonnes every year and as far as I know when it gets to those destinations it is burnt in coal-fired power stations. If one minister can come to my region and explain to me why it is okay for a Chinese, Indian, Korean, and Japanese power station worker to have a job burning Australian coal, but it is not okay for a bloke from Morwell to have a job burning Australian coal—if one minister can come to my electorate and explain that to me—then perhaps I will see the light when it comes to this carbon tax policy. I have had a lot of ministers come to the Latrobe Valley. There have been a lot of visits. But there is not one cent on the table. As things stand today, there is not one cent on the table from all those ministerial visits when it comes to this issue of transitioning to the so-called 'carbon constrained future' that this government is imposing on the Latrobe Valley.

The classic example relates to the budget in terms of Latrobe Regional Hospital. Latrobe Regional Hospital had a major bid before the government in the lead-up to this budget process, and I acknowledge that it was not significant. It was $65 million. I have had the opportunity to visit the hospital with the board chair, Kellie O'Callaghan, and the state member, Russell Northe, and there is no doubt that the staff at Latrobe Regional Hospital are doing a great job in difficult circumstances. The facilities are in need of a desperate overhaul and I think that the staff and the board are to be congratulated for the work they are doing in very difficult circumstances.

I have spoken about this issue many times before in the House, and I raise it again tonight in the context that there was no funding for Latrobe Regional Hospital in the most recent budget. To the government's credit—and I have given the government credit for this previously—there have been previous funding allocations for significant health initiatives in the Gippsland region, particularly in the Latrobe Valley with the Gippsland Cancer Care Centre and Gippsland Rotary Centenary House. They are significant upgrades and are most welcome. But the LRH upgrade is the most urgent health issue facing the people of Gippsland and Latrobe Valley and, as far as I can read the comments of the ministers who have visited my region, when they talk about helping my region in the wake of the carbon tax and they talk about holistic development and issues to do with the health and education of the region, the proposed upgrade of the Latrobe Regional Hospital ticks a lot of the boxes concerning those issues the ministers have raised when they have been in my region in relation to regional development and the future health and prosperity of the region. So I encourage the federal government and ministers who have come back to my region, to put some money on the table and support these initiatives that they have so far only spoken about when they have been in Gippsland.

On a changed tack, because the member for Kingston raised the issue and many others have spoken on it as well, there is another budget related initiative that I want to discuss this evening, the so-called schoolkids bonus. I have a clipping here from Monday's Latrobe Valley Express newspaper. It is where the minister for families is all fired up about the coalition's decision to oppose the payment of $410 per child for each child in primary school and $820 per year for each child in high school. In her comments the minister attempts to take me to task. She calls on me to explain to local families why I support ripping vital payments out of their hands. There is a small problem with the minister's rhetoric, in that the government guillotined the debate. I did not get a chance to speak on the issue. Minister, to be fair, it is probably a bit unreasonable to be putting out press releases in a local member's electorate telling him to explain himself when it was this government that stopped members opposite from having the chance to have their say. Nevertheless, the minister makes a claim:

Darren Chester said 'no' to the new Schoolkids Bonus that gives 9450 local families with kids in school extra support to pay for things like uniforms, text books and excursions.

If I had had the chance to speak on this issue, I would have said to the minister that I have no problem with a schoolkids bonus if it means that the money will be spent on the kids themselves and their education needs. We already had a system in place called the education tax refund, and I do not think it was unreasonable that under that system the parents had to provide receipts to indicate that they had spent the money on education-related expenses—on things such as uniforms, textbooks and excursions, which the minister referred to. This is an important issue because we have had experience in Victoria of what is called the education maintenance allowance. Despite the previous speaker's suggestion that parents are angry with the coalition, I had two principals in my electorate raise their concern directly with me last week that, unlike the education maintenance allowance where there is a capacity for the money to be paid to the schools and managed by the schools to ensure it is used on education-related expenses, this money will just go straight to families and no responsibility is placed on them to make sure it is spent on education expenses.

To me, this is not a question of trust or of getting all holier than thou or anything like that. We know from bitter experience that some families will waste this money and that some families will not use it on education expenses. You would have to be naive or a fool to think otherwise. Some families are in a situation where they do not have a lot of disposable income because some of them have quite simply not been good at managing money in the past. We need to accept that that is a reality. Allowing funds like the education maintenance allowance, which applies in Victoria, to be paid directly to the school enforces a savings system that benefits children and their community. So the government's claims in relation to this issue simply do not hold water in light of common practice right now within states where schools have the capacity to take a sum of money and manage it for those families who have some difficulty in doing so.

Any responsible government is charged with achieving value for money, but that is not an issue for this government. I was fascinated to watch the ABC interview last week by Chris Uhlmann of the former Treasury boss, Ken Henry, because Mr Henry gave an insight into the global financial crisis and how things were managed, but he indicated that value for money was not his highest priority. Those on this side of the House have been saying that for a very long time. Mr Henry said:

… whether the money is in some sense wasted because there's overcharging or whatever, of course it's an important point but from a macroeconomic perspective it's very much second order, maybe even third order.

I am not an economist, and I respect Mr Henry's position. But, to the Australian populace and the Australian taxpayers, value for money is the bottom line. Australian taxpayers expect us in this place to deliver value for money for every one of their hard-earned dollars they send here. For the government to produce this budget and expect it to be believed is simply fanciful. As I said earlier, it is simply an evening fairytale being put forward by the Treasurer.

I finish on a positive note about the situation we find ourselves in. My community has been extraordinarily resilient. It has survived through fires, floods, droughts, and—heaven help us!—we will not have to survive through another term of a Gillard government. But, if the government will not help us, I urge my community to work together amongst ourselves and to help ourselves. In the next month I am sending a message out to Gippslanders about a 'shop locally' campaign to try to help sustain local jobs and help local businesses prosper. I am writing to everyone in my electorate and providing them with information on the importance of shopping locally because we face some difficult economic times in our region. The 'putting locals first' campaign that I have run over the course of my time in parliament will be ramped up over the next four weeks. We will encourage families to understand that it is the local small businesses who are the engine room of the Gippsland economy and that they deserve our support.

Any member from a regional area understands that it is the local small businesses—the mum-and-dad enterprises with perhaps a handful of staff—who provide the backbone of regional economies. It is those small businesses who sponsor local sporting clubs, who put up the prizes for the school awards nights, who look after the community groups and who provide training, new skills and opportunities for young people in the community. So the message I will be taking out to the people of Gippsland over the next month is that every dollar we spend at a local business helps to make sure that our economy remains strong and that, if we take a holiday in Gippsland and enjoy some of the great experiences that are available there, we are helping to keep jobs in our region and make sure that young people have a strong future in the Gippsland district.

In closing, I say I do have concerns about the budget. Primarily they relate to the No. 1 fact and the No. 1 concern in the broader community—that is that when it comes to money Labor simply cannot manage the budget, and that means that Australian taxpayers are going to be required to pay back this debt for generations to come.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, and good evening colleagues. I have just been having a quick browse at the economic indicators in Australia. If I read those indicators correctly, Australia has an unemployment rate, an inflation rate and an interest rate below five per cent. If you believe those opposite and read News Ltd newspapers, you would swear this is the end of the world. Let me repeat it—unemployment, inflation and interest rates below five per cent. But it is the end of the world. I am not an economist but I have been doing a bit of reading and I can tell you that a percentile decrease in the value of the Australian dollar and the Howard government's introduction of the GST have had and will have more of an impact on the Australian economy than the clean energy future and a carbon price. But, boy oh boy, have a read of the News Ltd newspapers and listen to the opposition and it is the end of the world. Australia has an unemployment rate of below five per cent, an interest rate below five per cent and an inflation below five per cent.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The envy of the world.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would not say 'the envy of the world' but I tell you what, I would not want to be anywhere else. Of course, we must deal with the reality of Australia. I have been having a look at this budget and I have looked at my region, because I am biased, on the north-west coast and the west coast of Tassie including King Island, and I think this budget is a good budget for the nation. It is responsible and it is fair for my people and for small businesses. That mob on the other side say they are the claimers, the saviours and the supporters of small business but, when you look at the record, they are hopeless.

What do I care about in particular? I care about education, so I look at the budget and say to myself, 'What does it do for education?' Well, we have a proud record of investment in this area. We are implementing the school kids bonus scheme. That is the one that the opposition say, 'For heaven's sake, don't give it to parents, because they wouldn't know what to do with the bonus.' Those opposite could not even imagine that parents with children going to school would actually use the bonus for expenditures and costs of education—of course they will. The mob over the other side, the mob for choice and free enterprise, could not imagine the population having enough brain and willpower to use money wisely. The bonus is $410 for each child at primary school and $820 for each child at secondary school. It is needed, it will be used responsibly and there is choice. It is fantastic and, again, it is there to assist families when times are tough. This means the Labor government has backed up its massive investment, which the other mob are happy to turn up to but never recognise, in the Building the Education Revolution. We are putting more money in families' pockets to assist with school expenses and we know this will benefit education.

I just looked in my electorate again. There are 63 schools with over $100 million of investment in the BER, 95 projects and four trades training centres dealing with hairdressing, construction, horticulture, engineering and hospitality. But, those opposite say, 'What has Labor done for education? What has Labor invested in education?' I think the facts are clear. Every member in this House, including those on the opposite side, know exactly that you cannot invest in anything better than education and this government has put massive, record amounts of investment into education into all regions including those electorates on the other side.

Most businesses in my electorate are small businesses, as are most represented in this chamber tonight, as we come from rural and regional areas, and small businesses are the predominant businesses. This government does look after them in what are challenging circumstances. For the smallest businesses we have increased the instant asset write-off to $6,500. It might not sound much until you think about it. That is $6,500 for every item—an instant write-off. So small businesses will benefit massively from this. But, if you listen to the other side, small businesses are going to go down the tube. This will help with cash flow to 2.7 million small businesses around Australia, small businesses like Mount Gnomon Farm, which I visited a couple of weeks ago with the Minister for Small Business, Brendan O'Connor. They are suppliers of free-range saddleback pork products. They will be able to write off refrigeration equipment—which they specifically raised with us—which will assist them to expand their business. I know that Brendan listened very intently to their comments about freight and freight logistics charges in Tasmania and has taken that on board, and I thank him for that. They are one of around 9,600 small businesses in Braddon which will benefit.

The budget also includes significant incentives and assistance for small business. For example, the loss carry-back provision is a really interesting proposition that will allow companies to carry back up to $1 million worth of losses to offset past profits and to get a refund of tax previously paid on that profit. That was one of the recommendations, of course, that came out of the tax summit.

Then there are the tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners. In Braddon, approximately 35,000 taxpayers will receive a tax cut on 1 July—a tax cut, but of course you never hear that mentioned on the other side. With the increase in the tax-free threshold to $18,200, 3,000 residents in my electorate will not pay tax at all. But you do not hear that on the other side.

In this budget there is $1 billion to initiate the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Those on the other side originally professed interest in this and support, but now of course we cannot expect that support at all. I know that disability support advocates and the disabled themselves in Braddon are welcoming this initiative, and I, along with my colleagues from Tassie, have already met with the Minister for Health about selecting north and north-western Tassie as a launch site for one of the first NDIS sites in Australia. No doubt colleagues on my side of the House and opposite will also be putting propositions forward to the health minister, even when they pretend that they may not be interested in it.

When combined with the $3.7 billion commitment towards aged-care reform, this is a significant budget for the elderly, the disabled and the infirm. I am also really pleased that years of hard work in my electorate have finally paid off with the provision of $1.28 million to establish a centre at Mount St Vincent, in Ulverstone, to train healthcare professionals in aged care who will provide services in our region. Aged care is crucial in my region, particularly as we have a very high aged demographic compared to the Australian average and a rapidly ageing population structure. The new centre will not only greatly improve access to quality health care and necessary skills but will, like any other investment, stimulate the local economy and create new jobs.

In this budget, $650,000 has been allocated to boost security for passengers travelling through Devonport Airport, which is on the eastern end of my electorate. We also share another airport with Burnie; it is called 'Burnie airport at Wynyard', but it is the Burnie airport itself. More than 50,000 passengers fly out of Devonport every year, with this figure likely to keep growing in coming years. The safety and security of all Australian passengers is the government's highest priority, and that is why Devonport Airport will see the funding support the purchase of two explosive-trace detection machines—God help us that we never need it—one checked-baggage screening machine, one carry-on baggage screening machine, one walk-through metal detector machine and four hand-held metal detectors. I will continue to work hard to make sure that Burnie ends up getting security, because it is the only airport in Tasmania that does not have security. It seems strange to me that the chain of security in Tasmania is missing that important link.

In my role as Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries I have responsibility for dairying. It is a great industry to be associated with. In the budget, Dairy Australia will be allocated $1 million for energy assessments of dairy farms. In this way the government is helping dairy farmers to lower their energy costs and improve energy efficiency in dairy farms. I also note that the dairy industry is a major winner in the recently announced Australia-Malaysia Free Trade Agreement. The agreement will allow annual increases in Australian exports of liquid milk at zero tariff. After my recent trip to Western Australia and in the wake of a report from Wesfarmers, WA is, I believe, well placed possibly to take advantage of this opportunity to expand production and exports to Malaysia's rapidly growing middle class.

In Tassie, at the moment dairying is undergoing a rapid expansion. It is exponentially increasing, especially in my electorate, with major announcements from processors: an increase in capacity from Fonterra, a proposal by Kirin-Lion-Nathan to massively expand specialty cheese production in Burnie and on the iconic King Island and Murray Goulburn and Tasmanian Dairy Products are currently building a milk-drying facility in Smithton. The opportunities created by these expansions may be leveraged by the Commonwealth and state governments' $104 million investment in the Midlands Water Scheme. My recent visit to the Tasmanian dairy business of the year, the Rosemount dairy farm in Cressy, highlighted to me that opportunities may exist in Tassie in areas that have not been considered traditional dairying areas. I would also like to comment on the first major robotic rotary dairy near Deloraine which has been established by the Dornauf family. This is going to have exciting prospects for the dairying industry throughout Australia, particularly in Tassie.

As part of the $20 million IGA diversification funding associated with the Tasmanian Forests Intergovernmental Agreement, $4.25 million has been allocated to fund what we call a new Agritas Trade College at Smithton—that is at Circular Head in the far north-west of Tassie, in my electorate. This is an area that is going to explode with dairying. Funding for this new college is $4.25 million, and up to $1.5 million has been allocated to invest in a major upgrade to the Harcus River Road—particularly for road upgrade and energy provision. This is on top of the $45 million voluntary exit assistance package that we have managed to devise and implement for harvest-haulage and silvicultural contractors.

Freight is a significant issue for an island state like Tasmania. A combination of factors recently, such as the loss of direct international shipping—for those who do not know, we do not have any direct international shipping to Tassie now—and the higher Australian dollar, which is affecting all exports, have put pressure on Tasmania's exporters. That is why the Labor government, particularly through the member for Grayndler, the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, and my parliamentary colleagues from Tasmania have seen an allocation of $20 million to assist in the transportation issues facing exporters. We hope that we will be able to make some form of formal announcement of that distribution in the very near future.

This is a responsible government producing a responsible budget. Australia is returning to trend growth, so it is appropriate to return the budget to surplus. Interest rates are now lower than at any time under the previous Liberal government, and a family with a $300,000 mortgage is now paying around $3,000 a year less in repayments. In the Labor tradition we are managing tough economic times, as we did through the global financial crisis, in a responsible manner while providing assistance to those who need it most. I remind those in the chamber again: Australia has unemployment, inflation and interest rates below five per cent. But, if you listened to those opposite or read a News Ltd newspaper, you would never believe it.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2012-13 and related bills, and the recently-brought-down federal budget. I was quite interested to listen to my colleague from Braddon, in Tasmania—I am always fascinated to know what goes on across the other side of the ditch—but it is just a little strange that he did not mention the carbon tax. The member for Braddon mentioned a small business in refrigeration and dairy farms, but he did not mention how much the cost of that refrigeration would go up through electricity prices and he did not mention how much those dairy farms would have to pay for the electricity to pump the water to their pastures. Nor did he mention how much the carbon tax was going to affect the cost of their nitrogenous fertiliser or the cost of freighting their milk, let alone that, when they needed to re-gas their refrigeration systems—whether it be the refrigerated transport for the milk or on-farm coolroom storage—the carbon tax was going to exponentially increase the cost of the fluorocarbons that are involved in refrigeration to the extent that to re-gas a refrigerated semitrailer will cost tens of thousands of dollars.

From the outset I say that I am not going to stand here and criticise absolutely everything in the budget, because obviously there are things in there that I agree with. The budget is the tool that manages the economy of the country; the budget is what pays for our public servants, for education and for everything else. So I would be foolish to criticise everything in it, but I guess is the general tone of my contribution is critical. We have had members of the government up here speaking about individual items in the budget—the beads and blankets and other trinkets they have managed to get for their own electorates—but the real tragedy is that the Australian people have stopped listening to this government.

I have just had a week in my electorate, and the conversation was not about the payments to school students, the extra funding for Newstart or the payments to pensioners. The conversation was about frustration over this government's loss of direction, the frustration that the country has become rudderless and that we are losing direction. So, while people welcome the cash payments, they are concerned about the general welfare of the economy. The reality is that these payments are not going to make the recipients better off, because the payments will be a mere shadow of the costs of the carbon tax. It is interesting that, on the night that the Treasurer brought down his budget, the carbon tax was not mentioned. But, if you go out into the streets of Dubbo, Mudgee, Moree, Narrabri, Warialda or any other town in my electorate, it is on everyone's lips. It is on everyone's lips because it is seeping into every aspect of everything we do.

I represent an area that very much relies on exports. The two major industries in my electorate—agriculture and mining—contributed to Australia staying out of recession. These are the two major industries that are keeping Australia going, particularly in the last four or five years. But there was very little in this budget to encourage either of those industries. As a matter of fact, we are getting a minerals tax, which is going to impact on one of the major industries in my electorate, and agriculture has basically been ignored.

I would like to talk a little bit about agriculture. The frustration, unrest and unease of the people in my electorate did not start with this budget; it started with the general shift in policy in this country under the previous Labor government and this Labor government. The Green influence on every piece of policy that comes out of this place is making Australia uncompetitive with the rest of the world. The carbon tax is a grand gesture to the rest of the world to say, 'Look, we care about our environment.' Grand gestures are fine if they do not cost you anything, but this grand gesture is going to cost the Australian economy billions of dollars. I liken the carbon tax to fastening a shot-put to a chain on the leg of every one of our Olympians when they go to the London Olympic Games as a gesture to prove that we care for our environment, expecting our Olympians to compete on the world stage with those from the rest of the world, who do not have such an impediment. That is what this carbon tax has done.

Earlier we heard the member for Braddon in the chamber speaking about the great investments of the BER and about how important investment in education is. I could not agree more. Education is the one thing that can help society. Education is the one thing that transcends poverty, bigotry, unemployment and social disadvantage. That is why the billions of dollars that were spent on the BER were such a lost opportunity. As is often the case with this government, the problem lies not so much with their ideas to stimulate a certain sector of the economy, such as education, but with their ability to implement and manage programs.

I visited Windeyer Public School about five months ago, just before Christmas. They had a classroom for each child. Three months after their BER project—worth about $300,000—was completed, they closed the school. Louth Public School, a wonderful school on the Darling River, has a classroom for each child. The last thing that the four students at Louth Public School needed was an extra classroom, but that is what they got, whether they wanted it or not. Due to the lack of oversight and the mismanagement of the BER in the public school system in New South Wales, builders and contractors in my electorate are owed thousands of dollars. One builder in Moree is owed $642,000 for work done under the BER. If they had given the money to the Catholic education system, maybe there would have been a different outcome. I have seen the projects that were implemented by the Catholic education system and they were mostly very good. The ones that were implemented through the government have been an absolute disaster. The collapse of TCT Constructions in Dubbo has left businesses in Dubbo about $2.4 million in the red. That is the mismanagement that is being caused by this government. Local government is going to cop a real hit from this carbon tax, not only from the thousands of dollars that emissions from land fill are going to cost but also from the cost of road construction. There is a fuel cost in road construction. The bitumen base of roads is based on petroleum. Councils are going to have cost increases of hundreds of thousands and, in some cases, millions of dollars. There is the cost of street lighting and of swimming pools. All the infrastructure that councils are expected to run will be hit by this tax. In New South Wales, councils have rate-pegging, so they have no ability to pass on this tax. How they are going to cope with this added impost they do not know, and I certainly do not know either.

The role of the government is not just to hand out individual amounts of largesse; it also needs to fund programs. I acknowledge that in this budget some of that funding went to my electorate—not very much, I have to say, when I hear some of the speeches from those on the other side. But a little bit of money went to my electorate. That is what is expected of government.

The real tragedy of what is happening at the moment in this country is that its citizens have lost confidence. The citizens of my electorate are just holding back: they are saving more; they are not venturing out to put on extra staff in their businesses and, in some cases, they are shedding staff; they are not putting the renovation on at the back of the house that they have talked about for a while; they are not taking that trip. They are bunkering down because they have lost confidence in this government's ability to manage the economy and the country. That is the real tragedy. You only have to spend time speaking to people, as I did on the weekend at the Dubbo show. Sad as it may seem, the first question from 90 per cent of the people who came up to me was: 'When are we going to have an election?' That is happening right across the country. I find that a real tragedy.

There are a lot of other things happening in this place that I find incredibly frustrating. I am not going to comment on them. We all know what is taking up the time of this House at the moment. It is such a shame that this parliament and this government has sunk to such a low that people have stopped listening to it. In some cases, people are probably harder on the members on the government benches than they deserve—but that is what has happened. I have never seen a community so stressed about where we are going as a country.

This is a lost opportunity. The Treasurer made much of his surplus; we all know that it is a contrived surplus. We all know that the payments which went to compensating for the carbon tax were made this year, before the start of the next financial year, so that the expenditure will not be in that year. We all know that money is being moved forward to the states for road funding so that it will not be included in the next financial year. The last budget blew out by, I think, $12 billion more than was expected. The real proof of the pudding of this budget will be at the end of the next financial year. No-one seriously believes that we are going to end up at that time in surplus. What is the point of having a surplus if it is being generated only by paper being shuffled around?

Governments have a role to motivate and inspire the people that they govern. Australia has great resources. What has made Australia great is its ability to produce large amounts of food and fibre, its mineral wealth and the availability of its cheap energy. What this government has done through its green agenda over the last four years is put a handbrake on all the natural advantages we have as a country. All the advantages that we had over our trading partners now have had an artificial barrier placed upon them, and we are starting to see that manifesting itself. In Kandos, which was in my electorate until the last election but is now in the seat of Hunter, they had a cement plant with over 100 years of history that is now closed. The cement is coming in from Asia into Sydney Harbour as clinker while the plant at Kandos sits idle and the cement workers are ignored. (Time expired)

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tipping points are crucial in the climate debate. They can be the difference between success and failure and, if misjudged, can prove costly. While, thankfully, the global environment has not yet reached any tipping points, we have had a few political tipping points in the Australian climate debate. A lone voice that switched the opposition leadership from the member for Wentworth to the member for Warringah condemned the party of Menzies to be antimarket and to turn its back on economists and scientists.

Another tipping point, less well known, was just as costly. On 7 December 2009, five Greens party senators had the opportunity to act on climate change and ensure Australia had a price on carbon. They had the choice to join two brave Liberal senators and act in the interest of the future. Instead, the five Greens party senators chose political self-interest over the national interest. They chose to side with the sceptics and the antimarket forces. What was the result of their action? The clean energy future package enacted by this parliament has the same 2020 emissions reduction target as that of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme back in 2009. Both schemes aim to reduce our carbon emissions by five per cent compared with a year 2000 baseline. Both schemes are market mechanisms designed to find the least-cost method of reducing carbon pollution.

The economics of climate change is clear. A market based scheme is the cheapest, most efficient method of abating carbon in the economy. It is based on basic public economics; putting a price on the negative externality. The earlier you act the cheaper the cost of abatement to the economy and the greater the potential economic gain. So if you are aiming for a particular goal by 2020 then your total emissions will be higher if you start in 2012 than if you started in 2010. These principles underpin the work of Sir Nicholas Stern, Professor Ross Garnaut and numerous other economists both in Australia and overseas.

The CPRS was to have come into effect in July 2010. The clean energy future package will come into effect in July 2012—two years later. That delay—that inaction—has meant a lost opportunity, both social and economic. The failure of the Greens party to put the national interest ahead of their narrow political interest has cost Australia. A report from ClimateWorks in April 2011 showed that delaying action by one year increased the cost of abatement by $1 billion. Since the Greens party delayed a carbon price by two years, they have increased the cost of abatement by $2 billion. Over this two-year period, ClimateWorks also estimates, the delay has cost at least 10 million tonnes of abatement to be lost. We will still get to the same emissions reduction goal as the CPRS would have, but total emissions over the decade 2010-2020 will be higher than they would have been if we had put a price on carbon pollution back in July 2010. That extra 10 million tonnes of carbon pollution equates to the annual emissions of two million cars. The increased carbon emissions due to the actions of the Greens party is equivalent to two million more cars on the road for a year. Two million cars—remember that next time you hear a Greens party representative talking about their commitment to environmentally-sound transport.

Delaying a price on carbon by two years also cost Australian households and businesses $5 million a week from unrealised energy efficiency opportunities. We have lost investment opportunities and there has been an increased cost to business caused by lack of certainty regarding climate policy. For all their claims to be green, the Greens party has a brown tinge. Pricing carbon is not a Greens party reform; it is a Labor reform. It sits proudly amongst Labor's achievements economic, environmental and social. Like the market deregulations of Keating and Hawke, pricing carbon will keep our economy and industry competitive in the low-carbon-pollution world of tomorrow. On the way through we are reforming the tax system by trebling the tax free threshold, saving one million Australians from filing a return. It was Labor that fought for the age pension and, as we price carbon, it is Labor that is ensuring that pensioners and families are assisted.

Long before environmentalism became a fad it was Labor that not only talked green but also acted green. It acted to protect the environment. It was a Labor Premier of New South Wales who founded the Kosciusko National Park in 1944. It took a Labor government—the Hawke government—to protect the Franklin River, and it was Labor leadership on the world stage that preserved Antarctica. Labor heritage listed the wet tropics of Queensland: the Daintree. Labor created the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. It was Labor in 2007 that ratified the Kyoto protocol, following proudly in the footsteps of the previous Labor government, which had signed and ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992.

Labor has been protecting the environment for over a century. While the actions of others have cost the environment and the economy, Labor has had the courage to act to secure the environment and the economy for generations to come.

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science, Technology and Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to provide some comment on the various appropriation bills before the House. Whilst many have spoken in wider terms, I will restrict my comments purely to defence. It is instructive to look back at the history of Labor's defence policy. It came to the election promising a three per cent real increase in the defence budget and a white paper that would structure a force for the next 20 years. If we look at what has been delivered, to say it is appalling does not come close. The promised three per cent real growth was only 1.3 per cent as at the end of last year. Because of this budget, we now see growth at the lowest level since 1938. Our defence budget has now dropped to 1.6 percentage GDP; it was 1.55 per cent in that fateful year before the war. Close to $18 billion has been stripped from the defence budget over the last four years and projects have been pushed to the out years—to the never-never. Force 2030, which included a suite of capabilities, is now no more. The government has admitted failure by announcing a new white paper for 2013, citing a range of changes from the global financial crisis. Yet that crisis has not changed the strategic outlook in our region at all.

The current budget has stripped $5.5 billion, including $960 million next financial year, from the defence budget. The chiefs of all three services—Army, Navy and Air Force—put out a communique to their respective commanders and senior service staff to make the point, which I will read from what General Morrison said:

While some recommendations have been hard to make, I stand by the decisions upon which we have advised.

They certainly have been tough decisions to make. The Chief of Army said:

As Army commanders you have a key role in assisting me to explain the budget to our people, but I ask that you reiterate to them that I am Army's only public spokesman on all Budget related issues.

The Chief of Navy in his communication reinforces, on the last page, the same thing:

I remain the only Navy spokesman on budget related matters.

In the House of Representatives I am the coalition's spokesman on defence matters and, whilst the government is not allowing anyone outside of three-star generals to make any comment, let me comment on behalf of 50,000 uniformed men and women. Let me make a very sound comment regarding the disastrous budget that, in terms of its funding as a proportion of GDP, has put our Defence Force back more than 73 years.

Let me make a definitive statement that our capabilities have been substantially reduced and that that is being felt by the men and women in our Defence Force. In fact, the instruction by the Chief of Air Force makes this point:

I understand many of you who have spent a long time in the Air Force feel that entitlements have been eroded as a result of the Strategic Reform Program. I want to reassure you that changes will not impact entitlements underpinning Defence service …

The point is that men and women are feeling the pinch from what this government is doing. But it is instructive that we have a look at the actual result on the ground.

Every single bit of evidence leads me to the conclusion that up to two or three weeks before the budget was announced the Defence Force was none the wiser on the brutal cuts that would eat into our capability in the foreseeable years. Defence, to use an analogy, is like the Queen Mary II: if you wish to turn the ship it is going to take you four nautical miles to get that ship around. It starts slowly, it stops slowly, it turns slowly. You cannot turn on and off the most advanced weaponry the world has ever seen. Yet this government treats defence budgets and defence capability as some sort of plaything to meet whatever budget requirements it needs.

Let us look at what has happened to Army, and this is straight from General Morrison's defence budget brief for his commanders. Let us look at the impact these cuts have had, which is what General Morrison has briefed in relation to his entire force. There is the removal of recreational leave travel for single members over the age of 21. They were entitled to go back to their next of kin once or twice a year but that has now been cut. They cannot travel back to see their next of kin because these guys in Labor cannot stop spending. The gap year program for Army, Navy and Air Force, to give young people leaving year 12 the opportunity to go into the military for 12 months, has been scrapped. There is a 10 per cent reduction in Army Reserve training salaries, so 10 per cent of our Army Reserve is being cut. What will that do to our regional communities, to our men and women who have put together their lives to help serve their nation? That has now been cut.

There is a 20 per cent reduction in Army's minor capital equipment expenditure—that is, expenditure under $20 million which is being cut. A squadron of main battle tanks has been cut or, more importantly, put into temporary storage. A squadron of 113AS4 armoured personnel carriers is being put into storage. Our armoured reconnaissance helicopters, our Tigers and MRH90s, have had their work rate reduced. We are not able to fly our military helicopters as much because of what this budget has cut into. Explosive ordnance, deployable local area networks and clothing are being cut, and that is being achieved by drawing down on current inventory. That current inventory will have to be redrawn back up again but, heaven forbid, not in 2012-13, this hallowed year where there is a $1.5 billion surplus—except when you add in the clean energy fund and the NBN it is suddenly an $8½ billion deficit. This whole thing is complete smoke and mirrors. And it is the men and women in uniform who will feel the pinch because of this disgraceful and deplorable budget.

There is a delay in the procurement of field generators and combat load carriage equipment. This will be achieved by drawing down on current inventories. We are going to reduce our combat load carriage equipment inventories. We have a 10 per cent reduction in postings and relocations. Our self-propelled gun, an artillery piece that is fully armoured, fully protected and can move under its own steam, is being cut. The combat identification of ground forces, LAND 146 phase 2, is being rescoped. This is a project that was delivering a digital close air support capability for LAND forces. It has been rescoped back into another project. Twelve additional Army projects have been slipped by one year and some by two years. AIR 9000 CH CAP, the capability to align our CH47Fs to US built standards, is being deferred. Our REDFIN special operations capability, which is replacing our special operations vehicles and battle management systems, has been deferred, even though this Prime Minister stood at the Chicago summit yesterday and committed our special forces to at least another decade of kinetic activity in Afghanistan and, in the same breath, said, 'We are actually going to defer your main operating special force capabilities by a little while on the ground, but we still want you to spend a decade in theatre.'

The tactical unmanned aerial vehicle, Shadow replacement, JP 129 phase 3, is being delayed. Shadow has just been implemented into theatre. Our soldier enhancement version 2, which is enhancing our F88 Austeyr weapons, LAND 15 phase 3C, is being delayed. Like the infantry can do without their weapons! The integrated soldier system version 3, which is the next generation of our soldier combat system covering lethality, survivability, mobility and command and control, LAND 125 phase 4, is being delayed. We are at war and I cannot think of many things more important for our next generation of soldiers—those in special forces and other enabling areas who will be in Afghanistan for the next decade—than their combat system covering the lethality, survivability, mobility, command and control.

But what really annoys me, what really angers me about this bunch of lightweight Labor hacks in government—and I have chosen my words deliberately and carefully—is that JP 154 phase 2, the counter IED, improvised explosive device, the force protection ECM and weapon technical intelligence capability, has been delayed. Half of our deaths in combat have come from improvised explosive device blasts. Whilst General Morrison tells me that combat operations through to 2014 will not be impacted by the decisions of this government, we are in Afghanistan for the next 10 years. We will be fighting and deployed against an enemy that is learning quickly about IEDs and the capacity to command, control and detonate them. And the project that is looking into the future of countering those IEDs is having to be delayed because these clowns cannot sort their budget out. I cannot think of anything more disgraceful than Army being forced to defer projects like that.

JP 3011 phase 1, non-lethal weapons, enhancing the ADF's non-lethal capability, is being deferred. The next time these clowns on the government benches complain because kinetic force has been used on future operations, the next time the raving Left in this country and its supporters in the Labor Party and the Greens complain about the use of lethal force, let me remind them that the government they supported, voted for and, in the case of the Greens, formed coalition with, forced Army to defer JP 3011 phase 1, non-lethal weapons enhancing our non-lethal capability. There is a price you pay for this type of fiscal irresponsibility. The problem is that the Labor Party is not going to pay the price, except perhaps at the ballot box. Our men and women are the ones who will have to pay the price in capability. Twenty Army major capital facilities projects have been delayed by up to three years. The relocation of 17 Construction Squadron, the Holsworthy Barracks redevelopment, the Larrakeyah base redevelopment, the Enoggera redevelopment, the Randwick Barracks redevelopment, the Lavarack Barracks upgrade, the Edinburgh multi-user depot, the Enhanced Land Force stage 2C, the Oakey redevelopment and further projects at Watsonia, Bindoon, Anglesea, Singleton, Kapooka, Robertson Barracks, Puckapunyal, Victoria Barracks Sydney and the A Company 41 RNSWR new Tweed Heads depot have all been delayed by between two and three years. Why? Why is this happening? Why are these projects part of the $17 billion over four years that is to be ripped out of Defence?

It is not hard to work out why. This is the Labor government that came to power in 2007 promising to take defence and national security seriously. They promised they would have a national security statement every year—every year—to properly frame the national security debate, our position and our strategic environment, and how Defence operated within those boundaries. And how many national security statements have we had since 2007, since Labor came to power? One. What happened to having a statement every year? What happened to the foreign affairs white paper that was promised? What happened to our strategic positioning? What happened to our defence white paper in terms of Force 2030, a defence posture for the future? What happened to supporting our region in terms of the fundamental US defence pivot back towards the Asia-Pacific? What happened to all of that? What happened to the great rhetoric, the lofty tones and various prime ministers standing on board warships and submarines? What happened to that? What happened to the fundamental importance of national security?

If we look at the Navy, we see that a range of major capital facility investment programs have been 'rebalanced'—the Chief of Navy's nice way of saying they have been pushed out by two to three years. Navy has a significant reduction in fuel funding. I am not too sure what Navy vessels run on, but I would suggest fuel is fairly important! The Chief of Navy has asked the fleet commander to review his plans for the fleet over the financial year 2012-13 and to advise the Chief of Navy on activities which should be afforded the highest priority, given his stated focus. What the Chief of Navy is saying is that he does not have the fuel or the capability to move his ships as he wants to. His most pressing capacity is Exercise RIMPAC 2012, involving two ships and a submarine, and of course he has to support our operations in the Middle East and elsewhere. Other than that, the fleet commander has to justify every ship movement—this at a time when we desperately need more and more of our vessels in our Asia-Pacific region, especially since we have now had two of our military vessels engaging with our Chinese friends and furthering cooperation.

All of this tells me that the Labor Party are not serious about defence and national security; they cannot be, because you fund what you value. You fund what you value. You fund what is important to you. You find what you think the nation needs. They have shown that defence has zero importance to them in the grand scheme of things.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 21:58