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

Sadly, this budget confirms that there is no change in direction in industry and innovation policy. In addition to yet delivering more of the same that so-called 'modern Labor' delivers, there is: total gross debt to breach the $300 billion debt ceiling within the forward estimates; Labor's fifth record deficit in five years, and at least two more deficits to come—whatever happened to that promise of a surplus made hundreds and hundreds of times?; a record net debt of $192 billion, no credible path back to surplus; a laughing stock of even the most basic of predictions within the budget; more broken promises as scrapped tax cuts and family payments hit those in need; and more than $25 billion in higher taxes over the next four years.

There is one thing that this government does do exceptionally well, and that is the use of spin and the unashamed use of Orwellian language. Remember that this was supposed to be a budget about jobs growth! Jobs and growth—and what do we see? That it delivers higher unemployment—up to 5.75 per cent—and lower growth—down to 2.75 per cent. In fact, this is a budget for higher unemployment and lower growth.

It is no surprise: this is what we have come to expect from this sort of government. They blame everyone else! One of the most frustrating and infuriating things about this government—and I share this with so many Australians—is the inability and the stubbornness to accept responsibility for their gross errors of policy and judgement. Why can they not just be upfront and honest and say, 'We've stuffed it up'? Why do they keep trying to blame everything and everyone else?

They say that there is a revenue problem, but revenues are up. It is not a revenue problem that this government have, it is a spending problem. Everyone knows that. Everyone knows that and so does the government, but they stubbornly refuse to accept that.

I do want to focus, as I said at the beginning, on my portfolio of industry and innovation. At a time when Australia's innovators, scientists, start-up firms and manufacturing companies, in particular, are crying out for a new policy direction and for some serious vision, all the budget provided was confirmation that Labor regards making another wholesale cut to incentives for investments by Australian companies in R&D as a headline priority. It wants to speed up shovelling money out the door on its carbon tax compensation programs before the election, not to mention indecently rushing to send out up to another $800 million through the utterly unnecessary Clean Energy Finance Corporation—yet another legacy of that failed experiment of the Labor-Green's alliance.

At the eleventh hour, as part of the carbon tax negotiations, what did we get? A green bank, a slush fund of $10 billion of taxpayers money, borrowed at a time when we have a budget crisis, to pay for what? To pay for projects that are unviable and would not be funded in the private sector. How utterly irresponsible. At a time when we are having a discussion about appropriate funding models for industry assistance and how we need to ensure that there are adequate guidelines and checks for the use of taxpayers' money, here we have this absolutely indecent haste to shovel out almost $1 billion before the next election, at a time when the coalition have made it very clear, from the very beginning, that as part of our abolition of the carbon tax we would get rid of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. It is in writing and any attempt by this government to shovel out more money, particularly in the caretaker period, would show an absolute disregard not only for good government but also for the will of the Australian people, should there be a change of government on 14 September.

Let us look at what they have tried to deliver in the industry portfolio. They actually still have no idea how they are going to deliver on their 2011 industry precincts announcement or their 2012 spin that they would establish a manufacturing technology innovation centre. In fact, their agenda is so decrepit and so devoid of any new ideas that they think the best thing to do is to try to re-badge a number of failed announcements from the past and pass them off as new. Otherwise, all the budget really did for this portfolio was affirm that the government intends to plough ahead with their limp industry statement from February.

The government has said that it is funding its various changes in that industry statement, guess how? By making yet another deep cut to R&D tax incentives. It made it comically clear that its last round of changes was revenue neutral but now it asserts the cut this time amounts to around $1 billion. Not only is there absolutely no evidence anywhere on the public record to verify that figure but it represents quite a difference from the figures calculated by the government in its own business tax working group when it was modelling the same numbers last year. It is also at odds with the nature of those previous changes made by the government to the R&D tax break system from 2011. Those sorts of changes were specifically designed to reduce the claims on the system by the largest investors in innovative R&D activity in Australia. Pointers to that fact can be found numerous times in Labor's legislation and in its own words, not to mention the words of the Greens—albeit that the words of the Greens proved that they have plainly never had a clue about the sort of damage they were agreeing to inflict on the system when they foolishly passed Labor's 2011 changes. At least in that regard there is consistency.

Yesterday in the House, even though they were directly challenged to do so, no-one on the Labor benches could provide an explanation as to how on earth the $1 billion has been calculated. The reality is that they either do not know or they do not want to explain something they know is wrong. In so far as a serious calculation has been done, one would have to assume that figures for the old R&D tax concession have been used to underpin it, in which case the saving will almost certainly have been over estimated.

I would also add that the government first cited the $1 billion figure in February, long before most claimants had concluded all of their R&D spending for the first year of the new system and at which time the government still could not have been anywhere near sure of the full impact their changes have inflicted on large R&D spending businesses. In other words, there is absolutely no reason to be anything other than deeply suspicious and cynical about the claim that the savings they are supposedly making by decimating R&D tax incentives for the second time in this government's history have been accurately calculated. This government is consistent at least in that regard—being utterly incapable of providing any incredible assessments or calculations to do with spending or budget forecasts.

The government has also publicly tried to create the pretence that its industry statement somehow represents an injection of $1 billion in new funding in the industry portfolio, but anyone who has more than a cursory look at their summary figures knows that that cannot be true. Instead, it seems to incorporate about $600 million worth of cuts. Before the 2010 election Labor made billions of dollars of promises to the car industry only to break, after the election of course, $1.4 billion worth of promises to them and add a carbon tax on top of that. The Green Car Innovation Fund was abolished with the stroke of a pen, with around $850 million promised to the industry suddenly gone. The axing of their signature policy for the car industry at the 2010 election, the absolutely discredited and absurd cash-for-clunkers scheme, accounted for a trashing of another $429 million.

What did that do? That just added, as Mike Devereux from Holden has said, to the sovereign risk of investing in Australia. At a time when we are competing particularly for investments from multinationals, what did this government do? Before the election they said to the industry: 'Open up your books. Tell us what you are prepared to do if we commit to these promises.' So in good faith, on the past track record of the Australian government, these multinationals took the Australian government at their word. After all we are not some tin-pot country that cannot be believed, or so they thought. They were wrong. The word of this government cannot be believed whether it is by taxpayers or by business which seeks to invest in this country. No wonder it has raised the issue of sovereign risk. You cannot tell industry, 'Do this because the government is going to invest this much money. Believe us, take us on our word. Do the right thing,' and then, without even as much as a phone call, trash all of your promises you made to that industry.

The budget papers also confirm the government remains utterly bereft on car industry policy. There still no change to a funding system that has failed both the sector and the Australian taxpayer in a monumental and catastrophic fashion. Under Labor let us have a look at some of the key indicators. Vehicle production has declined in Australia by as much as one-third, exports have dropped by 27 per cent and turnover in the industry has fallen by 18 per cent. Around 20,000 car industry jobs have been lost, or around 80,000 direct and indirect jobs that are car industry related if you apply the multiplier that the government regularly uses. They are now in such a state they are even consumed by illogical internal debates about re-regulating the Australian dollar and raising tariffs, which is no surprise when you examine some of the members on the other side. They thought they had a safe Labor seat for life, a great ticket, and then all of a sudden they find a Prime Minister—arguably the worst one in history—

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

Member for Shortland.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the member.

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

Is the member willing to give way?

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

No.

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

No questions?

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

No. So we find that these Labor members are prepared to say anything and do anything to get them through the election because they know that this Prime Minister has trashed the Labor brand. They are desperate to hold onto a seat they thought they would have for life. They should have considered the jobs of people in their own electorates. Those people will pass judgement on them for the policies that have destroyed confidence and pushed up the cost of making things in Australia and of employing people.

Ministers like the minister for trade and the minister for transport are out there, suddenly blaming Ford for not having a sustainable business model or an export strategy. The question is asked: 'When did the Labor Party know? Did they know that when they made a secret deal behind closed doors to grant Ford $34 million?' But we will not get any of those answers, because this government is about making secret deals behind closed doors to save its own— (Time expired)

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014 and cognate bills—what I think is a very responsible budget. Unlike the previous speaker, I will refer to facts and highlight my contribution to this debate based on sound data. I will not be making ad hoc statements that cannot be confirmed. I will not be accusing members on the other side of things that are totally irrelevant to the debate. Rather, I will be concentrating on what this budget delivers to Australia.

When I say it is a responsible budget, I mean it is a budget for our time. It is a budget that offsets all spending with savings. It is a budget that is not about throwing money at any particular group within the community. It is not a pre-election budget where there is a war chest and every person in Australia is being given some sort of bonus. Rather, it is a responsible budget that is designed to maintain our economy.

When we look at the performance of the Australian economy the one thing that is a standout is the fact that we have a gold-plated AAA rating, where every rating agency had given Australia a AAA rating. This is virtually unheard of. When we talk about the handling of the economy by the current government, it cannot be questioned in any way. Look at the way Australia performed during the global financial crisis; we performed better than any other developed country. The facts are on the table. Prior to the global financial crisis Australia had the 15th largest economy in the world; it now has the 12th largest economy in the world. This shows constant growth and that Australia is performing exceptionally well. Real GDP growth of 2¾ per cent has been predicted for 2014 and 2015, which will continue this strong performance of our economy. By mid-2015 our economy will be 22 per cent bigger than it was before the global financial crisis. These are great figures, great predictions, and every bit of data is backed up by the Treasury. This is not just ad hoc; the Treasury is not shooting off at the mouth as other people have. Rather, it is talking about delivering to Australia one of the strongest economies in the world.

The expenditure in the budget that I find particularly important is the spending on the NDIS. I have been a long-time supporter of the NDIS. My motivation for becoming a member of parliament was to see that people with disabilities could have greater opportunities—they could access employment and many of the things that other people in our society can access. I worked in disability for many years and I could see the barriers that existed for people to be able to just enjoy the basics of life—the things that every other person can enjoy. What the NDIS will do is deliver opportunities to people with disabilities in Australia. I have worked with people over the years who have been unable to get a wheelchair, to access employment and to even get a driver's licence. The NDIS will improve their opportunities to achieve these goals. Maybe not everyone can get a driver's licence but there are people with a disability who could get their driver's licence but have been denied the opportunity because they need extra assistance, and now that will be provided to them through the NDIS.

I am particularly pleased about the fact that the NDIS has been funded in this budget, because one of the trials is in the Hunter. This will mean that people with a disability whom I represent will be able to access the special assistance that will be delivered through the NDIS. In addition, it will be great for parents and carers. I am sure that every member of this House has been approached by a parent of a child with a disability who has expressed their great fear about what was going to happen when they were no longer here. With the NDIS, that will disappear. Funding will be there. The person with a disability can have the expectation that they will be cared for, that they will have opportunities and that they will have a life which is a full life. The NDIS, I believe, is watershed, groundbreaking legislation that really shows Australia as an inclusive society, a caring society. The increase in the Medicare levy has been well received within my electorate. Other funding measures have been detailed in the budget papers that were presented.

Another issue which I would like to touch on is how education and the investment it also has the ability to change the face of Australia. Currently, we have slipped in ranking as far as the education we provide to our young people. Without education and good educational achievement there will be impacts on every aspect of our global economic performance. If you do not have the basics, if you do not get a good education when you are young, you will not have the basics to get the skills and the training that are needed for the jobs that will be available in this 21st century. Education is the key to success in life and, without education and without our being an educated country, we will not achieve our potential.

This budget is investing $9.8 billion in new school funding.

Whilst I have been critical of the O'Farrell government, I would like to congratulate Barry O'Farrell on signing the agreement with the Commonwealth. You have heard it! I am congratulating Barry O'Farrell. He has put the benefit of the people of New South Wales ahead of playing party politics. He knows that this will deliver to the students of New South Wales, it will deliver jobs to New South Wales and it will deliver to the New South Wales economy long into the future. He knows that the investment in school funding is imperative, and he knows that the New South Wales schools have been starved of funding under the current model and therefore he has signed and embraced the funding and investment in school education. So, yes, I congratulate Barry O'Farrell.

I would like to quickly touch on the NBN. There has been agreement to roll that out into the majority of Shortland electorate, and that is something that I know my constituents really value. They want to have fibre to the home; they do not want to have fibre to the node and then copper to the home. They do not want to be in a situation where they are relying on obsolete technology to connect their homes. We all know that there are a lot of problems with copper: we all know that it will deliver a second-class NBN, or second-class broadband connection. The people of Shortland electorate do not want that. They want the NBN. The only complaint that I get is, 'Why can't we have today?' People want it, and they want it as soon as possible. The majority of Shortland electorate stands to benefit from the NBN.

What is this budget about? What is the government about? It is about supporting jobs and growth; it is about investing in schools and classrooms, to make us a smarter country; and it is about being fairer. As I mentioned, fairness is about making sure that each and every child can benefit from a quality education, and fairness is about ensuring that people with disability do not continue to be treated as second-class citizens.

Shortland electorate is an older electorate, and by 'older electorate' I mean it is an electorate that is probably the 10th oldest in the country when 'oldest' is calculated according to people over the age of 65. People in the electorate will stand to benefit enormously from the aged-care reforms. Those mean more packages; more help in their homes—being able to stay in their homes longer; they will not have to sell their homes; and it means there will be quality aged-care available for them, and the certainty of knowing that as they continue to age.

There is more money to the councils; more has been delivered to Black Spot funding; the Paid Parental Leave scheme has been accessed by a number of families within the electorate; and the 'dads and partner pay'. That is in stark contrast to the very elitist paid parental leave that is being floated by the opposition. That is a scheme that will benefit those who are already in a very strong position at the expense of those who struggle and really look to the government for support.

That is the way with superannuation and that is the way with so many things. When it comes to looking after the whole of society there is only one choice, and that is this government: the Labor Party. We can deliver to the people of Australia a fair society, a society where there is a high degree of equality and were each and every person is valued.

I will quickly touch on the fact that, if the opposition are in government after September, the schoolkids bonus will go. The schoolkids bonus benefits so many people within the Shortland electorate, and families contact me regularly asking about when the next instalment is going to be—and, yes, there will be another instalment on 1 July, and families in Shortland will benefit once again.

This budget is about fairness. It is a responsible budget that will continue to deliver to the people of Australia and to the people of Shortland.

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

I welcome the opportunity to address members today on the appropriation bills 2013-14. This budget confirms to the Australian people what they have suspected for some time—that is, the government is in chaos, the budget is out of control and Australians are paying a high price for the waste and mismanagement by our Prime Minister and her government. If government backbenchers and the cross-benchers want to understand why they have lost the trust of the Australian people, they should look at this budget and do two things: firstly, members opposite should be honest with themselves by sitting down and objectively seeking the detail of their own budget papers; and, secondly, they should take the time to read the ministerial media releases which were distributed on budget night. If members opposite do those two things, they will get a sense of why the bond of trust between the government and the Australian people is broken—because, if they are honest with themselves, they will find there is a complete disconnect between the messages their ministers are peddling and the reality of this budget.

Over the past five years, federal Labor have delivered government through spin. They have become accustomed and conditioned to believing they can fool the Australian people through media releases. They believe they can spin a line to the Australian people, and the issue is resolved. They believe that, if they can grab a headline, the problem is addressed. We have seen it time and again: an education revolution, the East Timor solution to stopping the boats, the government's commitment to return to surplus and a carbon tax to address climate change. I could go on and on, but the reality is still the same when it comes to this budget—policy by press release without any thought as to how it is going to be implemented and at what cost; policy by press release without any regard to the nation's finances and its impact on taxpayers; policy by press release which relies on government deception. So it is that we have arrived at this point for the 2013-14 budget, a document which essentially epitomises everything that is wrong with this government.

I would like to take time today to highlight to members opposite how this budget is just more government spin and deception. I would like to draw to members' attention to the budget's failure to deliver a roadmap for our nation, instead saddling the next government of the day with a legacy of debt, unfunded promises and budgetary disarray.

There is no better example of this spin than what we have seen in relation to infrastructure. As someone who represents an electorate in which the Pacific Highway is a very important issue, I know every budget has a direct connection to the schedule of works. On budget night this year, the member for Grayndler and the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport issued media releases lauding this budget for its infrastructure spend. In media releases distributed throughout my electorate, the minister claimed that five Pacific Highway projects totalling more than $3.3 billion would commence construction between now and mid-2014. Great news—if only we could believe this government. The clear intent of these media releases was to grab a headline for the government; and, with some media outlets, I will admit it worked. But most north coast residents have learned over the past five years to ignore media releases. They want to know the funding has been included in the budget. They want to witness the contracts being awarded and they want to see construction underway. They want the road fixed and they want their elected leaders to be honest with them with regard to the schedule of works. So, in that context, what does this budget deliver for the Pacific Highway, especially given the minister's claim that more than $3 billion of work will commence in the next 15 months?

The first and most crucial fact in this budget is that there is no new money for the Pacific Highway. Not one extra dollar is detailed in the budget papers. In fact, in Budget Paper No. 2, under expense measures, there is a long list of new road projects which the government says will be funded through to 2019. The Pacific Highway is not mentioned. The Bruce Highway is mentioned, the New England Highway is mentioned, but there is no mention of the Pacific Highway. However, the budget papers do note that the government will continue Commonwealth contributions to major infrastructure projects from 2014-15 to 2017-18.

An optimist might hope that this will include the Pacific Highway. A realist is more likely to have a closer look at the total infrastructure spend and question how it will impact on the completion date of the Pacific Highway. When we have a closer look at the government's total infrastructure spend, guess what? It has gone down. That is right, it has gone down. Despite all the press releases from Minister Albanese, and all the spin from people such as the member for Lyne, what we do know is that this budget has confirmed that total infrastructure spending on road and rail has been cut from $36 billion over six years to $24 billion over five years. Effectively this is a cut of $1.2 billion a year.

How does this impact on the Pacific Highway? In Senate estimates yesterday, we heard the Department of Infrastructure and Transport's Mike Mrdak confirm that the Gillard government had deferred expenditure on the Pacific Highway. In last year's budget, it was announced that $1.025 billion would be spent by the Commonwealth in 2014-15. The department has now confirmed that has been cut to $625 million. Last year the government set aside $1.4 billion in 2015-16. That has now been cut almost in half to $770 million. After 2015-16, Labor's funding commitment to the highway slows to a trickle. As Mr Mrdak told Senate estimates yesterday, just $145 million from the Commonwealth will be spent on the highway in 2016-17 and this will drop to just $75 million in both 2017-18 and 2018-19.

This clearly shows that under Labor north coast residents are going to be waiting years and years and years before the duplication will be completed. The 2016 completion date is dead and buried. Labor is now telling north coast residents that if Julia Gillard is re-elected they will be waiting until way beyond 2020 before the highway will be completed. Labor has walked away from the 80-20 funding model with New South Wales and now insist on 50-50 funding, despite signing an 80-20 arrangement with the Queensland government for the upgrade of the Bruce Highway. That is despite the government agreeing to an 80-20 split for the Bolivia Hill project on the New England Highway. Why is it good enough for the Bruce Highway in Queensland and for the New England Highway at Bolivia Hill to be on 80-20, yet for the Pacific Highway, for some unknown reason, the Labor government is demanding 50-50? North coast residents are sick of the needless delays. They just want the road fixed.

The coalition will restore the 80-20 funding model for the completion of the Pacific Highway and commit $5.6 billion towards the upgrade. Combining that with the New South Wales commitment of $1.5 billion, this will deliver the $7 billion required to complete the duplication of the road. On 14 September, voters will have a clear choice: a federal coalition with a rock-solid commitment to the Pacific Highway, or Labor's ongoing fudging of figures and endless deceit.

It is not just the Pacific Highway where there are serious questions about this budget. In relation to education funding, we have also seen Labor's sleight of hand. Once again, on budget night, we had the government hailing its funding for what is known as the Gonski reforms. The joint press release from the Prime Minister and the Minister for School Education said:

The Gillard Government has made a $9.8 billion commitment to increase school funding over six years, along with better indexation and reforms to lift student achievement, under the National Plan for School Improvement.

All very welcome, except for the fact that it is wrong. Once again, we have policy by press release. Gonski is the headline and $9.8 billion is the government's magical figure required to fund these reforms. But, when you look at the cold, hard reality of the budget papers, they tell a very different story. The truth is that education will actually be cut as a result of this budget. According to the budget papers, $2.8 billion of so-called Gonski reforms will be paid over the next four years, but the additional $2.8 billion over four years will be offset by $3.126 billion in cuts to school education and redirections of national partnerships funding over the same period. The government are discontinuing the national partnerships funding for low socioeconomic schools, ending reward payments to teachers, axing cash bonus payments for schools and cutting literacy and numeracy funding, all of which will save $2.1 billion. On top of the discontinued programs, there is a further $1 billion reduction in ongoing funding set aside for non-government schools when compared to last year's budget. When you compare last year's budget to this year's figures, the overall budget reveals that education will lose $325 million over four years. Labor is relying entirely on extra funding from the state governments to prop up its floundering school-funding model. Labor has also cut funding to universities, student income support, apprenticeships and training and tax deductions for self-education expenses. Southern Cross University, which has a substantial presence in my electorate, has now started offering voluntary redundancies as a result of the Gillard government cuts.

After six years of promises and declining student outcomes, Labor is creating more uncertainty within the education sector. That uncertainty was laid bare for all to see when the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, the member for Kingsford Smith, was unable to explain, on a weekend political program, how much funding the states could expect in the next financial year. It is just another example of how the Gillard government has mismanaged the issue. To date, only one state has signed up, and the reforms are approaching the deadline the Prime Minister set, of 30 June. That is not the way to deliver national school funding reform for the next generation of students, but we have a government that is addicted to spin rather than good policy.

The final area I would like to focus on is the issue of budget debt and deficit and economic management. I have already touched on how Labor cannot be trusted. We only have to look at the Pacific Highway and school funding to know that. But of course there has also been the Prime Minister's promise that there would be no carbon tax under the government she led. And then there was the promise that we were going to have a surplus. Having inherited a $20 billion surplus and $70 billion in the bank from the coalition, in just six years the government have now saddled the nation with a mountain of debt. According to the budget papers, we are set to breach our $300 billion debt ceiling.

Last year, the Treasurer announced that in 2012-13 the budget would return to surplus, albeit a small one of $1.5 billion. We all knew the government were fudging the figures. The shadow Treasurer, the member for North Sydney, spoke for all of us on this side of the House when he said that Labor would never deliver a surplus. But that did not stop the Prime Minister or the Treasurer. Between them, they promised a surplus on no less than 500 occasions. The Prime Minister guaranteed it. It was almost as if the PM and the Treasurer believed that, if they said it often enough, it would materialise. Meanwhile, the rest of us on this side of the chamber knew the truth. And it was so. Just before Christmas, the Treasurer broke his surplus promise. On the back of the deficits of $27 billion in 2008-09, $54 billion in 2009-10, $47.5 billion in 2010-11 and $43.4 billion in 2011-12, the Treasurer revealed that he will have a small deficit. Just as Pinocchio's nose got longer and longer every time he lied, the Treasurer's deficit got larger and larger every time he mentioned it, to the point that, on budget night, the Treasurer confirmed that the $1.5 billion surplus had not turned into a small deficit; it had now turned into a $19.4 billion deficit, a staggering $21 billion turnaround.

It is incredible that we have a government who continue to believe that they can deceive the Australian people with endless spin and can continue to peddle the same sorts of promises.

We are now told, 'Trust me: in just a few years time I'm going to deliver an $800 million surplus.' We have heard it all before. 'It was going to be a $1½ million surplus this year; now wait a few years and eventually we will get there.' I would hope in September that the coalition has the opportunity to form a government, to restore responsible financial management and to deny the current Treasurer the opportunity to deliver more and more deficits as far as the eye can see. He has form on deficits and he has form on financial mismanagement. The Australian people know they cannot trust this government and I would hope that on 14 September we are able to deliver, with the support of the Australian people, a coalition government to restore the strong economic management that this country so much needs.

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

In speaking on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014, I would like to remind us what the Leader of the Opposition said in his address in reply to the budget on 16 May:

We are a great country and a great people let down by a bad government.

I think that very succinctly sums up the situation. Almost every day I am reminded how disappointed people living in Forde are with the present government. Many small businesses in my electorate have been struggling under this government's policies. They tell me there is absolutely no confidence in the business community. There are seniors on pensions in Forde who struggle to have three square meals a day, who cannot afford to leave the lights on at night and who struggle daily with the high cost of living. I have retirees who have planned their whole lives to support their own retirement, only now to be burdened by this government's new or increased taxes and punitive changes to legislation and superannuation. We have families dealing with cost-of-living pressures who have little or no savings left. Mum and dad both have to work to keep up with these costs and we are seeing an increase in the number of so-called middle-income families turning to local welfare groups for support.

Even young adults are starting to feel disappointed with this government because they are figuring out that Labor's plan for their futures will include an inheritance of debt and deficit. They are comparing their lives to those of their parents and are feeling envious, as many young people now are resigned to the fact that they may never be able to afford their own home. On a community level, we have a number of welfare organisations, clubs, support groups and charities that are also doing it tough because the majority of these organisations rely on volunteers. They have been wrapped up in the burden of red tape and regulation coming from this government.

Mr Mitchell interjecting—

I always appreciate contributions from my learned colleague the member for McEwen! So many of us feel uncertain about where we are headed under this government. We all feeling disappointed because this government under Kevin Rudd initially promised so much but delivered so little that it cost him his job. The new Prime Minister said that they had lost their way. I would respectfully suggest that they are yet to find it. Much of this unnecessary pressure on households and businesses is coming from a government which cannot be trusted and a government which has a huge spending and forecasting problem.

It is worth considering that the revenue in 2013-14 is some $80 billion higher than the last year of the coalition government, but spending is some $120 billion higher. The last budget will potentially deliver total gross debt which will breach the $300 billion debt ceiling in forward estimates; Labor's fifth record deficit in five years, with at least two more deficits to come; with no credible plan back to surplus; more broken promises, such as scrapped tax cuts and family payments; more than $25 billion in higher taxes over the next four years; and, an extra $100 million spending on government advertising.

This is a budget that does nothing to help individuals, families and business owners with the rising cost-of-living pressures, economic uncertainty and poor services. To illustrate this, I would like to quote the chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Peter Anderson, when he stated:

The federal budget does little to take cost pressure off the private sector, especially small business …

This is right around the country. In his statement he said that there were around two million small businesses employing some seven million people and yet the government continues to turn its back on this sector.

On his analysis of the budget, Mr Anderson found that there was:

He also said:

Business is once again asked to bear the brunt of fiscal ill-discipline. A $200 million increased tax burden next year will add to business costs and erode Australia's productive capacity. These are measures that collectively make the country less competitive.

To quote Mr Anderson once again:

Budget deficits indicate that fiscal policy needs overhaul. This should begin with a "root-and-branch review" of government spending, a detailed plan to restore the budget to balance and reform to regulatory, tax and workplace policy so that the burden of adjustment does not fall so strongly on monetary policy.

The Institute of Public Accountants shares the same sentiments, saying:

Small businesses across Australia can expect further pain this year thanks to tonight's Federal Budget …

The IPA chief executive officer, Andrew Conway, states:

Instead of a reduction in the regulatory burden and provision of long sought after tax breaks to support the vital small business sector, we find ourselves with yet another Budget that will do nothing to promote the small business sector.

But there is hope. The coalition has a plan for small business that will ease this burden and cut red tape. We have a plan, and our plan is aimed to deliver a strong and prosperous economy, and a safe and secure future for Australia.

The old adage is that 'if you fail to plan, you plan to fail', and as we see here the Prime Minister and the Treasurer failed to set out a credible economic plan for the next 12 months, let alone for the longer term. So how can we feel secure about what comes after that? What about the following year, or the next decade? What happens then? We do not even know how the Treasurer plans to pay for the big-ticket announcements. It seems fitting here to quote Henry Ford:

You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do

Or as my late friend Brian Klemmer once said:

There is no fairer way to gauge something than by results; often harsh, always fair.

After six years of Labor we now have organisations like the Salvation Army coming forward with National Economic and Social Impact Survey statistics showing that the majority of respondents are unable to pay their bills on time and that most have little or no savings in case of an emergency.

We see this with local organisations in Forde, such as Lighthouse Care, Twin Rivers and CentroCARE, which tell me similar stories. They tell me that they are increasingly seeing middle-income families coming through their doors for assistance and support. The Australian Medical Association president, Dr Steve Hambleton, also came out slamming the government. He made the comment that the government were getting sick people to help fix the budget black hole after a decision to delay indexation of the medical benefits scheme from 1 November to 1 July 2014.

As I have said many times in this place—and I will say it again—this is a government that put on an act as if they are looking after the best interests of struggling Australians, but they are actually making life harder and more difficult for the most vulnerable people in our society, the people who have the least capacity to adjust their lifestyles because of the adverse changes this government has brought in over the past five or six years. People are literally parked on struggle street, staring down a dark, foggy road and wondering what detours and obstacles lie ahead.

I want the people of Forde to know that the coalition have a plan to ease this discontent. We will take the budget pressure off Australian households and we will seek to strengthen our economy. This will clear the fog from our paths and give Australians more options and more paths and more opportunities for prosperity. In order to do this though, we have to change the perception that governments have an endless supply of money to spend on whatever they like. After all it is not the government's money, it is taxpayers' money and their way of life will be compromised if that money is wasted. The nation's piggy bank has well and truly been raided by this government, and now the poor old piggy bank has this rather empty feeling inside, and it will have for a few years to come. There are no surpluses on the way for this government.

Even if they promised there would be one, how could we believe it anyway? After all we were promised there would be no carbon tax, but there is. Originally we were all told that the deficit would be a temporary thorn in the side, but it is still here causing more and more pain every day. I could stand here and list a whole raft of this government's broken promises. We have all heard them; we all know what they are. Australians all over this country have lost faith in this government. But there is an alternative. On 14 September Australians will have the opportunity to exercise their democratic right to restore hope, reward and opportunity to this great country by hopefully electing a coalition government.

An incoming coalition government will abolish the carbon tax and we will retain income tax cuts from the fortnightly pension benefit increases that were associated with the introduction of the carbon tax. This way households will be able to plan for their futures with confidence. Our commitments are fully funded and will be offset by the equivalent reductions in government spending because we will not be carrying on the reckless and wasteful spending habits of this Labor government. We will seek to keep interest rates low through paying bank debt, which, in interest alone, is costing us some $35 million per day. We will seek to create more accessible and more affordable and flexible child care for families. As I mentioned earlier, businesses will also benefit from our plan for the reduction in red tape and regulation. We believe that governments, like families and businesses, have to live within their means. In just under four months, Australians will finally be given the opportunity to make a choice. They will have the choice to elect a coalition government to get this great nation back on track.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do apologise for the state of my voice. It may mean that I will not speak for the full time allocated. I am pleased to be able to speak to the appropriation bills, and there are a number of comments that I would like to make particularly in relation to the electorate of New England. There are a number of projects that are funded in the current budget that I am very proud of and the community should be very proud of as well. I particularly recognise the $80 million that is in the budget to go towards the reconstruction and realignment of Bolivia Hill on the New England Highway. As you would recognise, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, the New England Highway is a major thoroughfare that goes up into Queensland. Over the years governments of both persuasions have put money into rectifying some of the major problem areas—the Liverpool Range was one that was fixed some years ago now, the Moonbi Range was another, and there was a place called Devils Pinch—and I pay credit to the former member for New England, Stuart St Clair, and the Howard government, of which you were an eminent member, Mr Deputy Speaker, for being involved in that funding. The money for Devils Pinch was obtained during that period of time, and there is no doubt it has saved many lives.

The last remaining very dangerous section of the New England Highway in terms of traversing the hills is Bolivia Hill. Quite a number of deaths have occurred there. I am absolutely delighted that Minister Albanese took the time to come up with the then Mayor of Tenterfield, Toby Smith, to inspect that deathtrap, as he described it. It is very expensive to fix. This will now be done with the grant of $80 million. This has been in the pipeline for a long time. I think it occurs to most of us in parliament that, if the issue is a real one, eventually it does get taken care of. I particularly recognise Minister Albanese, his staff, the government generally and the Treasurer for being able to fund that project.

There are a number of other projects that various interest groups in the electorate would be very pleased about, including the Acacia Park industrial estate National Broadband Network fibre rollout. If the National Broadband Network is maintained—and I sincerely hope it is—a lot of country towns are going to face the issue of where you draw the boundary between the major centre that gets fibre and the exterior area that receives fixed wireless. I congratulate Minister Conroy and the government once again because the fixed wireless reception has been excellent. Parts of surrounding Tamworth and other communities are either getting fixed wireless or have fixed wireless. With the additional upload and download speeds that are coming with the newer technology for fixed wireless the response has been excellent from a lot of people who were essentially sceptical and fell into the political rhetoric that was going on at the time.

This is going to be an issue in a number of communities, irrespective of where they are in Australia, where there is an industrial area on the outskirts of a major community and the boundary determining the rollout of the fibre does not include the industrial area. That is something I think they have to have a very close look at. We need those industrial areas to expand and to take advantage of the National Broadband Network and make where you actually live in Australia irrelevant in terms of doing business and accessing global markets, global information sources et cetera. These industrial estates are a very important part of the productivity of those economies and should be included where possible in the fibre rollout rather than get the fixed wireless. Acacia Park in Armidale will in fact be catered for.

There was some funding in the budget for the Gunnedah Shire Band that has represented Australia. Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, knowing your background, I know you have been to these areas. Whilst representing Australia they spent some time in France with various French bands over on the battlefields. It was a very moving occasion for those young people from Gunnedah. The government has seen fit to give them some degree of assistance. They have had to pay most of their way, but the government has given a relatively small gesture of support, and I think that is appropriate.

The Inverell RSL museum have been here on a number of occasions lobbying. Inverell has an incredible history in terms of particularly the First World War but also other wars like the Boer War, the Second World War and obviously more modern-day theatres of war. Inverell was the source of the group called the Kurrajongs. An enormous percentage of people came out of the Inverell community. Inverell is the town where they have maintained a whole range of artefacts over many years, although in not very good sheltering conditions. This money will make a contribution towards what the Inverell RSL and the community are doing to establish an appropriate museum to recognise the various groups and the artefacts that have come out of that area and returned from various theatres of war. That restoration is very important. I thank Minister Snowdon for coming to the electorate and talking to the people about this project. The presentation took place just recently.

Inverell is the home of the descendants of the tree on the Lone Pine ridge. Recently, a plaque was made out of one of the descendant pine trees. It was carved to recognise those sons who had fallen at Lone Pine. One of the brothers of a fellow who was killed at Lone Pine sent his mother back a pine cone, and from that pine cone she grew three trees. Those trees obviously aged and are not with us anymore, but other trees have been grown and are descendants of that tree. From one of the trees a massive plaque was carved as a memorial, not only to those families but also to many others.

One of the things that I am very proud of, too, is that the Ashford Medical Centre is to receive some funding. Ashford is a small community and, as always, it is trying to do most of it on its own, as you would recognise in your country electorate, Mr Deputy Speaker. The little communities really get in there and have a go. The Ashford community have had difficulty over the years. They have doctors, specialists and allied health professionals coming to see them, but the accommodation has not been good. They have now been able to obtain some funding from both Inverell council and the government to go ahead and relocate the medical centre adjacent to the Sunhaven aged care facility, and this will make it unique in a sense. These people have been discussing this issue and wanting it for many, many years, and it is good to see that happening. The Liverpool Plains Shire Council received $400,000. They have a vision to provide water to three communities. This will not deliver the vision but it will deliver the feasibility study that will look very closely at it.

The New England Regional Art Museum has received money. New England has the Hinton and Coventry collections. They are probably worth $50 million. Air-conditioning for the art itself is very important, and funding will go towards the storage of those magnificent paintings. The Inverell Linking Together Centre has received some funding as well. This is an outstanding project for troubled youth in Inverell. It has got the runs on the board, and this funding will allow it to extend those runs. There is also a small grant for the Werris Creek Community Shed. This is not a men's shed, because there are ladies involved; but it is a good example of one. Governments have assisted in various men's sheds and there are various grants which they can apply for. There is no doubt that the men's shed concept saves lives. I have seen it. I talk to people in various communities about how they have been able to re-establish contact after the death of their wife or a family member and the depression has set in. It is extraordinary to see the camaraderie that occurs, particularly in country towns; but I guess it does in suburbs and some of the major centres as well. A number of those things will see the light of day because of money in the budget.

My time is nearly running out. There has been some criticism of the budget, particularly in relation to the forecasting of the Treasury and the Treasurer. A rare event has occurred, and I would urge people who might be interested in the technicalities of this to google what Ross Gittins has said on a number of occasions in terms of the relationship between the nominal GDP and real GDP and how that relates to the terms of trade and exchange rate. It is well worth looking at, as it particularly applies to the capacity of the forecasters to forecast the destination to surplus or deficit.

The rare event is that this is the fourth occasion in our economic history where the nominal GDP is less than the real GDP. I will not get into all the definitional stuff there, but it is the fourth occasion. The first occasion was the 1961 Menzies credit crunch, which I think some people are old enough to remember. I was only 11, but it hurt my pocket money, I know that; I remember it bitterly! The second time was the Asian financial collapse in the nineties; the third time was the global financial crisis a few years ago now, when the stimulus arrangements were put in place; and, as I said, the fourth time is now. I know we will all play our political games with this, and I am not defending the Treasurer, because I do not think it was correct to say, 'We will achieve a surplus at all costs.' Even the business community is saying this is not the time to have a surplus anyway. The politics of 'he said, they said' will be played out. But that is not my reason for raising this particular issue.

On this occasion, we are in uncharted waters, because there have been three financial quarters where nominal GDP has been less than real GDP, and that is a response to changes in the terms of trade. Normally, when that happens, you get a drop-off in the currency, a correction in the currency. That was not happening. In fact, it has just started to happen in the few weeks since the budget. But, in the lead-up to the budget, it was not happening. The dollar was staying high—and there were a whole range of external influences there. Nonetheless, it was having an impact on the capacity to achieve a surplus. There are those who have said that Treasury just cannot forecast anymore, but no-one would forecast three successive quarters of nominal GDP. No-one would put that in the forecast; if they did, they would be laughed at. But there is no doubt—and, as I said, I am not defending the Treasurer—that it has had an impact, particularly in the last six months, in terms of the statistics in the budgetary process.

What we are seeing now is the currency starting to drift back. It is still not responding to the old influences, as it did under the Asian financial crisis or even the credit crunch; it is responding more to the American economy improving rather than other factors. But I think people have to recognise that Australia is in a global economy now, and we need the Chinese, we need the Indians, we need others more than they need us, and there are influences in terms of the flow of currency and capital that have significant impacts on our economy and will into the future. Thank you.

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

Another budget has come and gone, and once again what we saw was another exercise in what I can only describe as pure fiscal fantasy. Each time the Treasurer gets to the dispatch box and presents his budget, it is simply just another fairytale. He should have got to his feet on that day, a week or so ago, and begun his speech with 'once upon a time', because that has been the nature of every single one of his budgets. They have been works of fiction in their projections, particularly of revenue, and the bullish forecasts they have made.

The great difficulty with the Treasurer's approach is that he is always spending money that does not come. The great difficulty that will be faced by a coalition government, if we are elected later this year, is that we cannot get back the money that this government has already spent. They have spent thin air on so many occasions, and the budget has fallen into a state of disrepair. It will be an enormous challenge and task to fix that mess. Having promised surplus after surplus, year after year, the government has now delivered deficit after deficit. If we look into a future under this government, all that we can see are deficits, all that we can see is more debt, all that we can see is more expenditure from a government that thinks it is the answer to every single problem. The answer to our country's problems is not more Labor; it is not more government. It is more faith in the businesspeople of this country to generate wealth, to grow our economy, to get government out of their faces and out of their way to allow them to build the wealth in this country that they have done so successfully on so many occasions previously.

One of the most disturbing things I have witnessed in this place was the statement by the previous prime minister, Prime Minister Rudd, who said, 'We need to put government back at the centre of the economy.' That was a chilling statement. What we see in these budgets that this government has brought down is that that philosophy lived. The Australian taxpayers are paying for it not just today but through a generation, as taxpayers had to do under the Whitlam government when it was finally dispensed with by the Australian people. We are going into that same phase again.

The good news is that coalition governments, whether they are elected, are known for many things but one thing in particular; they are how to clean up a Labor mess. They know how to do that because we have done it as a coalition on so many occasions—not just at a federal level but also at a state level. In the Deputy Speaker's own state of Queensland, he knows that presently. I know it in my state of New South Wales. We know it in Western Australia, we know it in Victoria and we know it in the Northern Territory. We are looking forward to that opportunity in South Australia and we are looking forward to that opportunity in Tasmania because there are messes to clean up. But the father or mother of all messes is the fiscal disrepair that this government has left this country in.

At the debt continues to rise, there is a big job to do and a big mess to clean up if we are elected later this year. My support will be strongly for an incoming Treasurer in the member for North Sydney, if elected. Certainly, the shadow Treasurer will have big shoes to fill from a coalition perspective, in the form of the greatest Treasurer this country has ever known in Peter Costello. Similarly, the shadow ministers on right across the front bench on our side will have big shoes to fill, as do I in my own portfolio responsibilities, if I have that opportunity, in following the father of the House and the minister for Immigration in the Howard government, the member for Berowra. That is our challenge. It is a challenge and a task that we ask the Australian people to give us the responsibility to do; to go and fix Labor's mess. That opportunity will present on 14 September.

More specifically in the area of my portfolio responsibilities, once again the fantasy of what is presented in these budget papers, in the portfolio estimates for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, is absolutely breathtaking. These estimates show that in 2013-14 the costs particularly in relation to the management of illegal boat arrivals to Australia will rise to $3 billion. That includes the increased expenditure which has been allocated to expand the refugee humanitarian program—all of that increase will be taken up by those who have come on illegal boats. It was $85 million per year when the coalition government left office.

There is a reason for this rise. We all know the tragic record of this government on our borders. But what is driving those costs is the unprecedented rate of arrivals. Those arrivals have gone from an average of two per month to this financial year's average of over 2,000 per month. In these last two months we have been running at over 3,000 per month. They are astonishing figures. They have astonished me, because this government always manages to beat my worst expectations of it when it comes to this issue. When I think it can only do so badly it always exceeds those expectations and does even worse. That has been the story. Twenty-three thousand people or thereabouts are in the system currently; 23,000 who have arrived illegally on boats are in the system, with some in detention or in community detention on bridging visas, and 19,000 have not even had their processing commenced yet. When we left office in November 2007 there were four people in the system—not 400, not 4,000, not 40,000, there were four. That is what is driving these costs.

In this budget, the forecast is, after $3 billion expenditure in 2013-14 and the government continuing with their failed policies, a 40 per cent cut of $1.2 billion for the following year. This figure is going to miraculously fall by $1.2 billion. In the out years, there is a cut of 50 per cent. What is that based on? That is based on a forecast for next year that the level of arrivals, which at the current rate of over 2,000 per month, is going to fall to 1,100 per month. What is going to produce that? Who knows; the government cannot articulate that. Their policies are the same, their failed resolve is the same, their incompetence is the same, but somehow these arrivals are going to stop. Maybe the government are assuming that the people smugglers have grown tired of making so much money and they will self-impose early retirement. But that is clearly not going to happen. They will make as much money out of human misery for as long as they can and as long as this government allows them to, which is, frankly, as long as this government serves. If this government is re-elected then this will continue and the cost will continue in all its forms.

The government are projecting that the number of arrivals in 2013-14 will be 13,200. It is anticipated this year the number will be 25,000. At the end of the projection of the forward estimates, they are assuming the number, based on a 10-year rolling average which includes five years of the Howard government, will be 2,325. This is a 90 per cent decline, and that is what they are budgeting for. It is not surprising that the head of the Department of Finance indicated in estimates this week that if arrivals continue at the current rate, which is over 3,000, or even at an average rate for this year of over 2,000 per month, then they will be revising these estimates for PEFO. That would give a truer reflection of the real cost of another three years of Labor and their mismanagement of our borders.

The blowouts over time are staggering. Since 2009-10, the total amount of blowout, the capital and recurrent expenditure over the full forward estimates period, has been $10.3 billion. For the assistance of those who question that figure, I will go through what it comprises. In additional estimates of 2009-10, looking at the budget handed down for 2009-10, the blowout was $207,535,000. The following budget estimates, for the 2010-11 budget, there was a further blowout of $793.5 million. At the subsequent additional estimates following the 2010-11 budget, there was a further $472.2 million blowout. At the following budget for 2011-12, there was a further blowout over the forward estimates of $1.528 billion. Then in the additional estimates that followed that, in 2011-12, there was a further $866.2 million blowout. In the budget that followed that, for 2012-13, there was an $840 million blowout. We then come to the additional estimates for this year, including the supplementary estimates in November, where there was a blowout of $1.144 billion.

You would think that was enough. The cumulative total of those blowouts at that time was $5.8 billion. But in this budget they again exceeded all of my worst expectations of them. There is a blowout of $4.1 billion in this budget alone, since the additional estimates earlier this year. When you add to that the additional funding in the budget provided for the increasing refugee and humanitarian program, which will only be taken up by those who come illegally on boats, that is another $358 million, which takes us to $10.3 billion. And as at the end of this financial year, $5.2 billion of that well already have been done—they will have spent the money—and the remaining blow-out will occur over the forward estimates if Labor are elected.

That is an appalling record. Had we stood in this place three years ago and said that we were going to get to 3,000-plus people turning up each month, that there would be 19,000 people locked in an asylum freeze, that there would be 23,000 people in the system and by the next election probably around 30,000 people, those opposite would have accused the coalition of being hysterical. They would have said that that is just inflating what could happen. They would have said we were taking the low road, I suspect, but that is what has happened. Those are the facts. That is what has occurred by this government being re-elected three years ago. We said, 'If you re-elect this mob, it will get worse and it will cost more.' That is exactly what has happened. That cost has been reflected not just on the balance sheet of this country but in human lives.

I do not think these figures represent what it will cost. We are already seeing chaos emerging with the bridging visa program, which is dumping people in the community, out of sight, out of mind, with no care and no responsibility. We are seeing that played out in our community and the government is looking the other way. Even state police forces asking for support and assistance through the provision of information about where people are being released into the community are being denied that information by this government. State police forces are denied access to critical information which would help them do their job, to protect the community and to protect those being put into the community because that is also their job.

People do not have work rights in the community and the coalition would not change that but we would give people something to do. We would put in place a mutual obligation program which would put people on work for the dole. We would appeal to people to work, not to pay people smugglers but effectively to earn the welfare they are being provided by Australian taxpayers and to allow them to work with community organisations and with local councils all around the country. This would give them something constructive to do, which will achieve two things. It will be good for their peace of mind and it will be good for their mental health and well-being, rather than just sitting around all day with nothing to do. While their processing remains stalled and frozen, every single day they will be out in the community doing positive things. We will also know where they are and what they were doing, and we will receive a daily update on their status. That is well thought through policy, not the community dumping policy of this government, which frankly they should be ashamed of as the burden is not just on taxpayers but on those supporting welfare organisations out of their own pockets. This budget is a fantasy and Australia cannot afford three more years of it.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014. Having been here 20 years you would think I would have seen it all and that it cannot get much worse, that surely the government will pull its socks up coming into an election year. You hope that this will be a good budget, but it just does not happen. Not only does it not happen but also it is an appalling budget. The words of the Treasurer last year predicting four years of surpluses are still ringing in our ears. At the time he said the 2011-12 budget was:

… a powerful endorsement of the strength of our economy, resilience of our people, and success of our policies.

The Treasurer was going to deliver:

… this coming year, on time, as promised …

In the light of the subsequent result, what a cruel betrayal that was. What a cruel betrayal of the Australian public.

My prediction was there would be no surplus that year or likely in the subsequent three years, and that has virtually come to pass. Even the government itself has conceded—or certainly not in the subsequent two years, so you can pretty much say that if this government continues it will not happen, and even a new government is going to have the devil's own job to get it back into surplus in that time.

But worse than that, we know from this budget speech that it is the fifth record budget in five years and sets a new Labor benchmark. That benchmark is 12 deficits for their last 12 budgets—right through this government and right back into the Hawke-Keating governments. Twelve in a row. I remember last year the Treasurer was predicting sweetness and light—they are my words—as he took us into the Elysian Fields of surpluses. Some fields. It is more like a parched, depressed desert. And what we are seeing now is the downside of the fudges that went on in the previous budget. Can you remember roads funding last year? We were going to have in its previous year $6.2 billion of allocations, dropping down to $2.6 billion this year—6.2 down to 2.6. Now that, as we know, was a fiddle in the hope of this elusive surplus that they were hoping to get. It was simply playing games with the figures. But how difficult that must be for the RTAs and the Main Roads departments across Australia to do any planning when they have those sorts of wild variations in funding estimates.

If you look at the coal industry, going back to last year, it went from 220 million down to 10 million and then up to 250 million. Again, that is a fiddle and makes good government and good governance totally unpredictable. Then we have seen the disappearance of the mining tax. It was predicted in 2010 to be $22.5 billion, and now it has come down to $3.3 billion over its first four years—from a predicted 22.5 billion down to 3.3 billion. That is a hell of a drop. The carbon tax; well we all know the carbon tax is a disaster. What that has done to families is just appalling. People come into my office crying that they cannot pay their electricity bills. Clubs going to the wall because they can no longer afford the electricity to run their clubs properly.

One of the worst in my area is irrigation. When we think of irrigation, we generally think of water. I have had long association with irrigation schemes, right back to Black Jack McEwen. I actually stood for the seat of Wide Bay back in 1969. I was very young and probably foolish, but I did have a very good rapport with Black Jack McEwen. I did get him to come to Bundaberg and promise what was then called the Burnett-Kolan scheme and is now called the Bundaberg irrigation scheme. He honoured his promise, despite the fact I did not win the seat at the time. He honoured his promise and what has resulted from that has been the whole Bundaberg-Childers-Gin Gin area has been totally irrigated. It is not the biggest scheme in Australia, but it is certainly the most intensive. There are two dams in that scheme, the Moondarra dam and the Paradise dam, and a weir at Walla.

It is a very comprehensive scheme. It has channels, pipes and all sorts of methods of delivery. You would say: 'God, what a lucky district. You've got over 1,000 small crop and cane farms all connected to this marvellous scheme.' But the ingredient for the delivery of this water is electricity, and the farmers tell me now that they are coming to the point where, because of the new tariffs and the carbon tax on top of the new tariffs, they cannot afford to irrigate. They cannot afford to turn on the pumps that deliver the water. That is an appalling circumstance, and it comes from this carbon tax.

This carbon tax itself is flawed. Far from getting to the $38 a tonne that the government talked about in the early part of their deliberations, they have now forecast for 2015-16 that it will drop to $12 a tonne—and that will cost revenue $5 billion, by the way. But then, if you look at the European market's forward price, it is only $6 a tonne—not $12 but $6. In other words, the government have deliberately built in something that is set for failure.

When you look across other fields—and we had the shadow minister for immigration here as the previous speaker—at the accumulated blow-outs caused by the boat people, $5.8 billion was the figure he quoted, with another $4.1 billion predicted in the forward estimates. That is $10 billion. It makes you wonder how much better off this country would be if we could have maintained the level at which it was left by the Howard government, not only in terms of orderly migration but in terms of the amount of money available for other projects.

Ten billion dollars is a lot of money on top of the net debt of the Commonwealth of about $190 million and the interest that is payable on that. So take the interest on the $190 million, plus things like the $10 billion we have blown or will have blown on this illegal immigration. You can see that things like Gonski and the NDIS would have been easily encompassed in the capacity of the government and subsequent governments if it had not been so profligate with some of these schemes, so profligate with spending. The government is earning $80 billion more than it did in the Howard years, but it is spending $120 billion. That is just a formula for going approximately $40 billion behind each year. This has to stop.

I was in the chamber the other night for the budget. I always welcome the budget, whether it is from our side of politics or from the other side. I am not a political bigot. I think we all go in with a sense of anticipation, perhaps even elation. But this one was just the most depressing thing I have ever seen. On budget nights, over the 20 years I have been here, the government has its supporters in; you have dinners through this building, lectures and guest speakers; and even the opposition of the day turns on dinners and things to listen to the budget. And then you come into the House and there is a buzz in there. There is an excitement that the Treasurer is going to bring down his budget.

There was no excitement. It was as flat as a pancake. I looked around the galleries. They were 40 per cent empty. The cheer squad from the unions was not there—or, if it was there, it was surprisingly quiet. I looked across at my colleagues in the government and I thought that there was not a happy face there. And I also thought, 'Gee, what an appalling thing that the budget has come to this.' It is as if the government had sucked the enthusiasm out of its backbench and left it there to try and defend this almost indefensible budget. The one thing we used to do in the Howard years was to fiercely defend our budgets. But there was no fierce defence from the government backbench this time. It is as if they have almost thrown in the towel on the budget. I found that very depressing.

In the remaining time I want to say a few words about the floods, because they had a huge impact on my area. When we have a flood, and I am not being unduly cynical, people rush to your electorate from both sides of politics—everyone from the Governor-General down comes—and we thump our breasts and say, 'This must never happen again and we'll be out there to help you.' At the time of the flood itself, the agencies are simply superb—the people who cook the barbecues, who arrange the accommodation in the civic centre or the Agro-Trend Grounds where displaced people are given temporary accommodation. All that stuff works like a clock—it is resilient and it is good. But when the emergency workers vacate the field and the army goes back home, you get down to the hard yacker of cleaning up the houses that could not be cleaned immediately after the flood—getting the plaster board off the interior walls, getting people to focus on their homes again.

This time the help was not there, because, as you know, Bundaberg was flooded twice in two years. It was flooded around Christmas-New Year 2010-11 and then again on Australia Day eve 2013—barely two years apart. The second time it is so much harder for people to pick up their bundle. I am noticing and I am getting reports—I have not been able to delve into all of them and so I am being a little bit careful—that bodies like QRAA, the Queensland agency which administers money from the Commonwealth, have to be more generous. People cannot be knocked twice in two years and be subjected to the same rules about loans and so on. I think there has to be an element of trust and risk if we want to get farmers and businesses back on their feet. I do not think we can run this as a pure banking operation. There has to be an element of compassion in it.

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in this Appropriation Bill debate once again to make a contribution to the parliament in this Federation Chamber. I refer to a speech in February 2013 in this chamber, where I described the wind turbine industry as the biggest government sponsored fraud in the history of this country. Fraud is just the tip of the iceberg: the modus operandi of wind turbines is also centred around intimidation, manipulation of fact, character assassination, lies and cover up. This multi-headed industrial Hydra is aided and abetted in its plundering of the public purse by incompetent governments, friendly pro-wind bureaucrats and a variety of individual parasites living off the taxpayer pot-of-gold renewable-energy-certificate process. I might add that the Clean Energy Regulator's office agrees that if any company participating in the REC scheme intentionally offers false or misleading information to the regulator that this should be recognised as having defrauded the Commonwealth. Yet, because of the lack of due diligence by the Clean Energy Regulator itself, it has been complicit in distributing RECs to the value of $80.6 million to the non-compliant Waubra wind farm in Victoria, in contravention of subsections 30E(3) and (4) of the Commonwealth Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000, which it is required to abide by.

It does not stop there. Public safety is being compromised at a state and federal government level by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, which to date have ignored the warning signs of serious potential accidents caused by wind turbines during bushfires and normal aerial agricultural activities on farms. This refusal to act on serious safety issues raised by agricultural aircraft pilots is putting the lives of rural firefighters and aerial agricultural pilots at serious risk.

I now refer to an email to Premier O'Farrell, dated Tuesday, 30 April 2013, from Mr Jim Hutson of Crookwell, who has 55 years of aviation experience. The email refers to problems associated with the Gullen industrial wind turbine complex. It says:

I now call on 55 years of Aviation experience and I tell you that my considered opinion, if you allow the building and operation of those turbines, then this message along with my previous correspondence will be an exhibit at a coronial inquest.

CASA's inability to come to terms with the safety aspects of wind turbines, not for the want of trying. Pilots are not warned of the danger and I believe no one has ever been so complicit as to install them so close to an aerodrome. The wind direction on the day, with the turbulence and velocity deficit blowing across the landing approach and the take-off path.

The first thing a pilot will experience will be a sudden wing drop due to the rotating nature of the plume followed by an instant decrease in airspeed as he enters the plume resulting in an instant stall spin at minimum altitude.

The above extract speaks for itself.

Let me now acquaint the House with a number of comments from emails in my possession, which I will read and seek to table at the finish of this contribution. This disturbing refusal at a senior level of government and departmental level to even acknowledge the warnings from well-credentialed organisations and individuals is a damning indictment of the lack of due care for public safety. A Civil Aviation Safety Authority, or CASA, report submitted by experienced agricultural pilot Ted McIntosh reads as follows:

Date: 18-03-2013

Local time: 0730

State: NSW

Location: 9kms WNW of Gunning Wind Farm, Gunning NSW. Damage to aircraft: nil Most serious injury: nil

Summary:

Whilst on descent to my operating airstrip near Biala NSW, I suddenly experienced severe turbulence at about 500-600ft AGL. The wind at this time had been approx. 5-8 knots from the SE. After landing I ascertained that there was only a slight breeze at ground level. I suspected that the turbulence was caused by the wind turbines at the Gunning Wind Farm but was amazed that the effect could be felt 9kms away.

After the next take-off I confirmed that the turbulence was indeed caused by the turbines.

There are many fixed wing & helicopter aircraft which operate at or below 500 ft AGL legitimately from hundreds of airfields around Australia.

CASA & the Dept. of Infrastructure & Transport have released a study, the National Airports Safeguarding Framework Guidelines D (Wind Turbines) to protect major airports, but it should be apparent that the greater threat to air safety from wind turbine turbulence lies around country airports, both public & private, which threat CASA & the Dept of Infrastructure & Transport have glossed over or ignored.

Could the ATSB please investigate this report & the future ramifications of authorities ignoring it.

Let me now read the reply:

… we have no jurisdiction over strictures of this nature. The only advice I can offer is that as pilot in command you need to take any environmental conditions, including mechanical turbulence, into account when planning your flights. As the wind turbine may be causing turbulence you will need to plan your flight path carefully taking into account the turbulence that may be experienced downwind of these turbines.

CASA do not care about aerial agricultural safety, nor understand that crops need to be attended to where they lie and that turbines will render vast areas of the countryside as commercially unviable.

I now refer to the emails that I mentioned before. I will commence by reading from an email which was forwarded to the General Manager, Aviation Environment, Department of Infrastructure and Transport in Canberra. Mr Phil Hurst, the CEO of the Aerial Agriculture Association of Australia, wrote:

Hi Scott

Further to our previous discussions regarding windfarms and the likelihood of turbulence from them that may affect the safe operations of aerial application aircraft, I write to formally request that the Commonwealth commission or otherwise facilitate further research into the issue and the likely safety impact of wind turbines on legitimate low-level aircraft operations.

My renewed concern has been prompted by anecdotal evidence from pilots that they have experienced moderate to severe turbulence significant distances downwind from turbines (eg several kilometres). Obviously, if there are safety concerns from pilots due to their own experiences, it would make sense to at least conduct some research to see if these anecdotal reports are indicative of a more widespread threat to aviation safety. In addition, these experiences raise concerns as to lack of appropriate guidance for pilots in regards to advisory buffer distances that might be applied to operations around wind farms.

I also understand at least one windfarm developer is now selectively quoting from the meeting that you chaired regarding wind farm safety issues to try and claim that AAAA had no safety issues with wind turbines. I think you would certainly be aware that AAAA has consistently stated the safety case for better regulation of wind farm development as they pertain to aviation safety because of the clear safety impacts more hazards in aerial application treatment areas will create.

I note that the NASAG Guidelines (Guideline D.43) refer to the issue of turbulence from turbines and the lack of certainty regarding the size of the problem.

Of particular concern to AAAA is the potential impact longer distance turbulence from wind farms may have on existing and future agricultural / firefighting airstrips as well as operations that may require buffers to avoid turbulence. This is potentially a significant safety, operational and economic issue that warrants further investigation, independent research and perhaps monitoring.

Also of concern is the difficult situation this lack of research creates for existing land users and aviation companies in considering their responses to wind farm development proposals that could potentially have significant impacts on their businesses.

I would be happy to meet to discuss further our concerns, but have included links to a number of papers and websites as a starting point for further research and preferably real world monitoring to inform the development of an improved safety policy dealing with wind turbine turbulence and low-level aviation safety. I have included a CASA safety feature article on wake turbulence which I think is a legitimate concern for windfarms given the turbine blades act like aerofoils (which they are) and consequently will have tip vortices and significant displacement that could be considered commensurate with a heavy jet impact – which require specific safety responses from pilots and others.

There has been a response to that email, but time does not allow me to read it. However, I will table it. In fact, it is basically a fob off by the General Manager, Aviation Environment, Department of Infrastructure and Transport. It is a serious indication of the way in which people in CASA and other government agencies are ignoring the potential for pilots, ground crews and rural firefighters to be placed in serious danger. I will read one small extract from the information sent to me—and, incidentally, I have permission to table this:

I have similar concerns about wind monitoring towers at Adjungbilly and Gundagai—they are nearly impossible to see—it's just a matter of time before some agricultural aircraft hits one—there have been fatalities in the USA.

It is widely accepted that aerial firefighting is not available in the immediate vicinity of turbine clusters, therefore placing at risk many rural residents and townships, not to mention the lives of volunteer firefighters. Whilst New South Wales turbine developers enjoy exemptions from compliance with existing EPA legislation, including exemption from bushfire-prone-zone mitigation strategies and buffer zones, in the interests of public safety all exemptions should be removed and an immediate moratorium enacted until appropriate bushfire studies are commissioned and completed. Where is the New South Wales minister responsible for police and emergency services on this issue?

When I commenced this contribution to the debate today, I referred to the multi-headed Hydra and its sympathisers living off the taxpayers' pot of gold. I note with some interest that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation has confirmed that it is in active discussion regarding 50 projects, with a further 119 projects on the table. No names have yet been mentioned, but it does not take much imagination to work out who they might include. The great fear is that the CEFC will be used by Labor as a giant slush fund to mete out money on favourable terms to both its and the Greens' fellow travellers. None of this money should be deployed this side of the election. Pacific Hydro, which is wholly owned by the IFM Australian Infrastructure Fund, which is in turn wholly owned by Industry Super Holdings, under the strong influence of the unions. In the interests of transparency, it is incumbent on the CEFC and the government to confirm at the earliest possible opportunity whether Pacific Hydro is in the running to benefit from substantial concessional loans from the $10 billion CEFC, which is to be funded by future generations of Australians with borrowed money.

I make the final point that we in this country are going through some very, very difficult times. We have created, through bad governance, a very significant pressure on the ability of future generations of Australians, let alone the older generation now, to cope with the day-to-day expenses that they are experiencing. I cannot for the life of me understand why any government or, indeed, any opposition could not yet have grasped the very, very serious issues centred around the wind turbine industry, what it is doing, unprofessionally, and, more importantly, how is wasting valuable taxpayer resources—in this case, about $52 billion under the renewable energy target process.

Earlier, I mentioned the intimidation going on. I can assure you, Madam Deputy Speaker Vamvakinou, that different groups of people have tried to intimidate me. They got the usual response from me, and they have moved back. But I do not think that sort of behaviour is conducive to what we are trying to do in the environment today. I seek leave to table the document. (Time expired)

Leave granted.

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014. Unfortunately, my speech to this chamber is quite similar to the comments I have made about previous appropriation bills—that is, this year, just as in years past, the government's rhetoric has not been matched by the reality. We heard a promise from the Treasurer last year that he would deliver surpluses—that this budget would be a $1.5 billion surplus. He made the grand statement that the deficit years were behind us and the surplus years were ahead. How wrong could he be. He again delivered yet another deficit. This deficit was a deficit of upwards of $19 billion—almost $20 billion; hardly the $1.5 billion surplus that was promised.

What we also discovered in the budget papers was that the gross debt ceiling that the Treasurer has raised throughout his time from $75 billion to $200 billion to $250 billion to now $300 billion will in fact exceed the gross debt ceiling over the current forward estimates period. Why is this so? It is because this current government has not been able to manage the budget—has not been able to, as Wayne Swan as Treasurer puts it so well himself, 'get the big economic calls right'. And the implications are very severe for the Australian people as a result.

Let us not forget where we came from. We came from a very different period before this government took over in 2007. We had paid off $96 billion of Labor's debt. We had created a Future Fund, with more than $60 billion of assets. Surplus after surplus—record surplus after surplus—was delivered, with a $20 billion surplus in the bank. We have now gone to a position where there are deficits that add up to more than $192 billion as a result of this Treasurer, and we have a gross debt ceiling approaching, at its peak, more than $370 billion.

Why are the debts and deficits so concerning? This government is borrowing to pay for its fiscal incompetence, and that has a direct cost for every Australian taxpayer. They are paying more. They are actually having to now pay an interest bill based on the government's borrowing. And they are paying more than $35 million a day to pay for the $8 billion worth of interest payments that are accumulating each and every year.

But why is this important? It is important because it means that we cannot focus on the things that we should be focused on as a country: paying for those services and the vital infrastructure that we require.

Many of you would know that in this place I have spoken a lot about the need to get rid of railway crossings in Victoria. We have more than 172 railway crossings in Victoria, compared to only eight in Sydney. This has a significant impact on our ability to get things done, in terms of the time that people spend in cars waiting at these railway crossings whether on their way to work or on their way home from work. This is time that could be better spent doing something else. It is, in fact, a productivity issue. Despite the repeated requests from the Victorian government to make provision for railway crossings in their Infrastructure Australia bid, not one new dollar of funding has been provided to Victoria to abolish these railway crossings.

I myself speak from some experience having followed this question very closely, because I have, in my electorate of Higgins, some of the worst examples of railway crossings in the state. The Murrumbeena Road-Neerim Road Murrumbeena railway crossing is constantly rated as the worst level crossing in the state according to the RACV Redspot Survey. Not one federal dollar has been allocated for its improvement. I am happy to say, though, that the state government, despite the lack of support from the federal government in this area, has made significant commitments to abolish more than five railway crossings in the state, which stands in stark contrast to Labor's record when it was in government at a state level: during its 11 years in government, it abolished only two. I am pleased to see that the coalition state government is abolishing five within its first term of government. It is a government of action, not of talk.

Another issue that concerns me in the current budget relates to the cost of living. We have seen repeated claims from this government that they are going to decrease the cost of living for every Australian. But since 2007 we all know that the cost of electricity has increased by 93.8 per cent and other important costs have gone up, such as gas by more than 61.8 per cent and medical and health services by more than 40.9 per cent. This has a direct impact on the family budget. We all know that one of the factors in increasing these costs is the carbon tax, which the coalition have promised to abolish. This will be our first priority, our first order of business.

It is not just in these areas that we are seeing increased costs. It is harder for families now to access affordable and flexible child care. It is harder for a number of reasons. The first is that the government has increased red tape and regulation on childcare centres. In doing so it has increased the cost of running and providing childcare services. Childcare costs have increased by more than 22 per cent in a matter of only two years. In addition to that, in this current budget we have seen the government make it even harder for families. The childcare rebate has been frozen. No indexation will be paid. It will cost every family with children who wish to access child care hundreds of dollars a year. So, in addition to raising the cost of child care, they have frozen the childcare rebate, putting more pressure on families in our communities.

Another issue I wish to raise in relation to the appropriation bills is education funding. The government thinks it is being very clever promising to deliver the Gonski reforms. The Gonski recommendations were quite different from what we see in the budget. Gonski recommended that there be more than $6.5 billion of new funding provided for schools each and every year over the forward estimates period, which is $26 billion. What the government has promised though over the forward estimates period and provided for in the budget papers is $2.8 billion—a very significant reduction. When you actually look at what the government has done with the figures and look at the tables and the charts and examine them line by line, you realise that the situation is even worse than simply not delivering on their promise to deliver Gonski. It has actually cut schools funding by more than $325 million. It has done this by reallocating existing funding and changing funding arrangements. The cut over the next four years is $325 million.

So far from an education revolution, it has been a con, a cruel hoax on so many Australians who expected so much given what the government had said. We want to see better educational outcomes for all Australian students. We want to make sure that the money is allocated efficiently and effectively. Cutting education funding in the way that this government has done will hurt our ability to ensure that our students receive the best education—the education that they deserve.

They have not just cut schools funding; they have also cut funding to our higher educational institutions—$2.3 billion to our universities and support for students at universities. This comes off the back of their quite extraordinary cuts to the medical health and research sector as well. We all know that Australia punches above its weight when it comes to medical health and research, but we should not jeopardise that in any way. That is why the coalition have stated very emphatically that we will quarantine funding for medical health and research. We certainly will not cut it, and we will not do the sorts of tricky things that we have seen this current government do. We have seen them, in trying to make their figures add up in this budget, play around with NHMRC funding arrangements and payments and ARC funding arrangements and payments, making a change to the way that they pay it in advance rather than in arrears so that there is a significant cash flow problem for anybody who is receiving those payments.

The other issue that I wish to raise in the time available to me is that the government have most certainly failed in their commitment to provide foreign aid funding as promised. The promise they make every election is that they will increase foreign aid funding, and in every budget we see them deferring out each and every year that increased funding. When we examine the budget figures closely, it is very clear that the government are spending a substantial portion of our foreign aid budget on trying to fix a black hole—the budget blow-out for border protection. Australia is actually the third largest recipient of Australia's foreign aid, because about $375 million of the foreign aid budget is being spent on funding the onshore processing of asylum seekers. This is clearly not something that the government have made much mention of for fairly obvious reasons.

In the final time remaining to me, I would like to point out what the government has had to do in order to try and plug their significant black hole. We saw an FOI released only this week from the Reserve Bank and from the Treasury. The Treasurer, against the advice of the Reserve Bank governor—the very emphatic advice of the Reserve Bank governor—has raided the Reserve Bank Reserve Fund of more than half a billion dollars to try and plug the black hole that the Treasurer has created in this budget, creating his own budget emergency. The RBA's capital fund is now well below the acceptable level.

So, in a nutshell, this government has made the wrong calls in a number of areas. It has put Australia on the wrong path. We need to get the priorities right again so that we can restore hope, reward and opportunity to every Australian.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise to speak on this appropriations bill. I want to speak on a matter of particular concern, which is the standards of governance in superannuation funds, particularly industry and public sector superannuation funds. I firstly want to make the point that there are numerous troubling instances of governance issues. I secondly want to make the point that a major factor behind this, I would argue, is the very substantial prevalence of union appointed directors in industry and public sector superannuation funds. I thirdly want to highlight the fact that the Cooper review recommended wholesale reform of governance of superannuation funds to remove the so-called equal representation model—a recommendation which has been conspicuously and repeatedly ignored by the minister, the member for Maribyrnong. That policy on his part is, I venture to suggest, not unrelated to his background as a secretary of the Australian Workers' Union and a director of an industry superannuation fund.

Let me turn to the issue of governance problems. The purpose of superannuation is to fund the retirement incomes of Australians. In section 62 of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act, we see the 'sole purpose' test, which requires the trustee of a regulated superannuation fund to ensure that the fund is maintained solely for the benefit of each member of the fund. It is hard to avoid the conclusion, however, that in all too many instances directors of funds tend to honour this in the breach.

I want to talk firstly about the troubling example we have recently seen with the Victorian branch of the construction and general division of the CFMEU pressuring the building industry superannuation fund Cbus. This follows a dispute between the CFMEU and the construction company Grocon. Earlier this year, Victorian secretary of the CFMEU, Mr John Setka, said his members were angry that Cbus had awarded Grocon a $430 million project in Sydney. 'I reckon it's a slap in the face for the union, what Cbus has done,' Mr Setka is quoted as saying.

The CFMEU has subsequently sought expressions of interest from other superannuation funds to become the default fund for Cbus members. This would appear to be an attempt by a union to use the economic resources of a large superannuation fund over which it has substantial influence, including the right to appoint three directors, to secure industrial or political outcomes, in this case to advance its industrial dispute with Grocon.

What would such action mean for the interests of the 655,000 members of Cbus? We should consider that the property development being pursued by Cbus is being done presumably with a view to maximising the retirement incomes of members. We should also remember that many of the 655,000 members of Cbus are not members of the union. It is their interests as members of the fund which must be paramount in the minds of directors, not the industrial agenda of the CFMEU.

Let me give another example, which is the Transport Workers Union. The Transport Workers Union is closely affiliated with TWUSUPER, a superannuation fund which has $2.6 billion under management and 130,000 members. Those numbers are about a year old. Four of its directors are appointed by the Transport Workers Union. As at roughly a year ago, the four directors appointed were the federal secretary of the TWU, Mr Tony Sheldon, and three state secretaries of the TWU, Mr Wayne Forno, Mr Wayne Mader and Mr Jim McGiveron.

In 2011 the TWU vigorously attacked changes proposed by the management of Qantas to the operation of that company, changes which management said would improve the company's financial performance. Members of TWUSUPER have a right to expect that the sole consideration exercising the minds of directors of the fund is how to maximise the financial returns generated by the fund. This raises an obvious question: how is it that directors of TWUSUPER who are also union officials think about equity investments in Qantas or in other companies in the transport sector?

Another fund I would like to mention is the Meat Industry Employees' Superannuation Fund. The Meat Industry Employees' Superannuation Fund, it was reported in The Australian, made a $30 million investment in a building company, Austcorp. Almost all of that money was lost when Austcorp collapsed in 2009. The Australian has reported that Mr Wally Curran, a long-term secretary of the meat workers union and a long-serving director on the board of the fund, was paid significant consultancy fees by Austcorp. Further, according to ASIC searches, Mr Jon Addison, who is a director of the Meat Industry Employees' Superannuation Fund, has been at various times a director of several Austcorp group companies, including Austcorp Group Ltd.

At the very least, these facts raise questions about whether there was a conflict of interest facing Mr Curran and Mr Addison. They were in a position of considerable trust, managing a superannuation fund charged with the custody of the retirement savings of low-paid blue-collar workers. The question arises: how did it advance the interests of those workers for Mr Curran to receive consultancy fees from Austcorp? So I would suggest to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that there are troubling instances of governance problems in superannuation funds.

I want to mention another one as well which does not involve union appointed directors but raises many of the same issues. There is a company called Local Government Financial Services, which for many years was owned in New South Wales by the local government and shires association. In 2004 LG Financial Services was sold to the superannuation fund LG Super. LG Super is the fund which has custody of the retirement savings of employees of local government instrumentalities in New South Wales. At the time that the local government and shires association sold the company LG Financial Services to LG Super, there were several directors in common between the local government and shires association and LG Super. This transaction may well have looked very attractive to the local government and shires association as a means of raising funds from the sale of an asset, but the question arises: was this transaction also in the interests of members of LG Super? Did it comply with the sole purpose test in section 62 of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act?

I have argued that there are governance problems in the superannuation sector arising from the so-called equal representation model under which directors are appointed to superannuation funds, and the largest class of directors are union officials who are appointed to be directors of industry and public sector superannuation funds. Let me turn next to discuss how extensively this occurs. According to data issued by APRA, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, there are 71 funds which APRA classifies as public sector or as industry funds. If you review, as I have, the annual reports of these 71 funds, you discover that the total funds under management exceed $380 billion. So, by any measure, the governance of these funds is a matter of great concern to many, many Australians whose superannuation savings are governed, are held within the custody of these funds and are directed and managed according to the decisions made by these directors of these funds. Of these 71 public sector funds, there were 551 directors in total and, of those directors, 171 were appointed by unions and the majority were union officials.

A very wide range of funds have a large number of union officials on their boards or have a large number of union appointed directors. I could mention the Australia Post Superannuation Scheme, which has three union appointed directors; AustralianSuper, with $47 billion under management, so an enormous fund, with six union appointed directors; Construction and Building Unions Superannuation, Cbus, with eight union appointed directors; HESTA, Health Employees Superannuation Trust Australia, with seven union appointed directors; Local Authorities Superannuation Fund in Victoria, with four union appointed directors; the Local Government Superannuation Scheme in New South Wales, with four union directors; the State Public Sector Superannuation Scheme—and I am not totally sure which state this is; I think it might be South Australia, but I would need to double-check that—with six union appointed directors; and Sunsuper, with three union appointed directors. And all of these make up a total of 171 union appointed directors on industry and public sector superannuation funds.

If you turn around and look at this from the other angle and you look at the unions which are involved in appointing directors, that is also extremely instructive, because what you find is that a number of major unions have their tentacles extending into a lot of superannuation funds. I want to look, for example, at Unions NSW, which appoints nine directors to several different funds. The CFMEU appoints 15 directors across four funds, and those funds have under management, in total, $29 million. The alternative government of this country, the Australian Workers' Union, has nine directors across seven funds. The ACTU, the Australian Council for Trade Unions, appoints 20 directors across seven different industry and public sector superannuation funds, which have under management in total over $100 billion. United Voice appoints nine directors across four separate funds. The Electrical Trades Union appoints 13 directors across six funds and other unions which appoint directors include the CEPU, the CPSU, the ASU or the Australian Services Union, the SDA or the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Union—of which I was once a member on the basis that when I was a university student working as a shop assistant it was no-ticket-no-start and membership was compulsory. The USU or the United Services Union, the HSU or the Health Services Union, the Maritime Union of Australia and the Transport Workers Union are other unions which appoint directors to industry and public sector superannuation funds.

I think it is clear from these statistics that the major unions in this country exercise very substantial economic power through their capacity to appoint directors to industry and public sector superannuation funds which have funds under management totalling hundreds of billions of dollars. As I have indicated in the first part of my remarks, this raises significant issues not just because it is, I argue, evidence of a clear strategy pursued by the Labor Party since days of the Hawke-Keating government to extend the economic influence of the union movement, but also because of the clear governance issues which arise when you have union officials appointed to the boards of industry and public sector superannuation funds who may be tempted to exercise their economic power in the interests of the union rather than in the interests of the members of the superannuation fund.

I want to turn finally to the question of the recommendations of the Cooper review, which looked into this question. The Cooper review looked at the governance of superannuation funds and it recommended major changes to the existing equal representation system of unions and employer organisations appointing directors to the boards of superannuation funds. In the chapter discussing this issue, the Cooper review made a number of obvious points about the flaws in the current system, including the fact that many members of superannuation funds will not be members of the union and therefore the fact that the union is appointing directors does nothing to give representation to those members. It pointed out that as more and more people are in the pension phase of their superannuation they are no longer active employees and therefore no longer union members. The Cooper review recommended that the so-called equal representation model—which was the Hawke-Keating government arrangement put in place to entrench the economic power of the unions and extended into superannuation—be fundamentally changed. Surprisingly, that recommendation has been completely ignored by former AWU secretary and the current responsible minister, but, should the coalition come to power, we will be dealing with this.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The appropriation speeches allow members to relate details of the budget to their electorates and see the work individual members have put into particular issues. But the debate also allows us to speak of the future and to relate the budget to the building blocks and the ongoing vision for our regions and areas of representation.

From my point of view, in relation to the broader picture this budget has been very fair to the electorate of Lyons in Tasmania. It has taken up many of the areas in my electorate which have been needing attention for many years and perhaps the biggest one is the road and rail infrastructure. I thank the government for their ongoing commitment to providing safe and up-to-date transit systems which take into consideration the size and population of our state and the need we have to shift freight and people.

In the 2013-14 budget, not only does it continue the roll out of the federal Labor government's capital works program but also it identifies future funding priorities within the nation's regional highways and urban public transport infrastructure put to the front of our funding priorities. In the global world of the 21st century good infrastructure matters very much indeed. Through the establishment of Infrastructure Australia we have overhauled the way our nation plans, prioritises, finances, builds and uses its infrastructure. When you think about it—and Deputy Speaker, you have been in the parliament a long time now—with Australia having a body focussing on infrastructure we are trying to bring together a port strategy for our nation. We are an export nation and for the first time in history we are looking at how our ports operate and at our future infrastructure needs. It is well overdue. I note during the Howard years all those ships in Queensland which were laid off, queued up waiting to get into ports, and the bottlenecks caused because we were not dealing with infrastructure.

The total public and private investment in the nation's roads, in rail, in electricity generation and in water storage facilities is now 42 per cent higher in real terms than during the last full year of the former government, 2006-07. In part that has been driven by much greater investment at the national level. In fact, we have already committed $60 billion as part of our national building program to modernise the nation's road, rail and public transport infrastructure. Delivering the new road and rail infrastructure our cities need will require a partnership not only between governments but also with the private sector. That is why we are taking the next step with new innovative ways of attracting greater private investment in public infrastructure. Importantly, Federal Labor's approach involves investing in both urban road and rail infrastructure. If not tackled in such a balanced way, any growth in the Tasmanian economy will be brought to an abrupt halt by lack of basic infrastructure to service the private sector.

Federal Labor's investment in Australia's vital infrastructure extends well beyond the limits of our cities to the highways which connect our regions carrying much of the nation's wealth. Two-thirds of our infrastructure budget is earmarked for projects in rural and regional Australia. The 2013-14 builds on that, adding to what is already the largest road construction program since the creation of the national highway network nearly 40 years ago. Tasmania has benefited to the tune of $500 million, which will continue the upgrade of the Midlands Highway which connects all parts of my electorate to the south and to the northern ports, and carries the freight load through rail and road—important linkages for Tasmania.

Rail infrastructure includes replacing sleepers, rail and ballast along key sections of the main north-south line, including through the Rhyndaston area of the Lyons electorate, with the federal contribution being $75.9 million. This is the rail was put in place, I think, in the 1880s and 1890s when rail was built in Tasmania—so, a long time ago—and this will help straighten out some areas and help build those big trains at the hub in Brighton, also in the electorate of Lyons, just on the outskirts of Hobart, so that we can build rather large trains which can then carry cargo into the northern ports area.

Other infrastructure funding includes assistance towards the development of our irrigation schemes and to deal with some of the issues of country roads through black spot programs, which are working very well, or through the national building program—and I am pleased to see that the straightening and widening of the Port Sorell main road has been included for $1 million. There are also numerous local road additions, which I know communities will welcome, including those bridges in the Mathinna area and through that region. I know there is more to be done. But this government is making the right infrastructure funding decisions for the nation's future, and building infrastructure across the length and breadth of Tasmania that will stand the test of time.

As people are aware, I have been representing the electorate of Lyons for some time and it means that I am aware of the needs and aspirations of the people who live there. We have had many battles, but the biggest battle of all is to keep jobs in local communities. Providing services in those small towns and rural areas around my electorate ensures that people remain in those areas.

The Building the Education Revolution and its ancillary programs have been one of the greatest assets to small towns and have been highly appreciated. Because Tasmania was set up a little differently from the mainland of Australia, I believe we gained the most out of these programs. Comments from all over Lyons include: 'We haven't had any work done on our school for over 50 years and this will set us up for the next 50. Thank you very much and thanks to the federal government,' or, 'I went to school in this building and I am so happy that the school is still here and being appreciated in this centenary.' It means that the town can retain a few professionals. It means that the community can have a centre in which to gather—and often these schools become the centre of those communities. Just look at the school hall in Dunalley, built under the BER. The hall is on a slightly lower level than the school and so, when the school was burnt to the ground, the hall survived and it delivered a lot of essentials to the community in the first few days after the fire. It became the centre in which the community gathered for emergency assistance, along with the local pub.

So the BER delivered the bricks and mortar. Now Gonski can deliver the improved quality of education to go with it, through a new funding model. This is not just about keeping students in school beyond year 10; this is about monitoring and delivering a system in which our kids can gain a good, meaningful primary school education and can then move from secondary to tertiary education with the relevant skills to follow a career path. And the key is primary education: if you do not have the skill base of primary education, it is very hard for you to go on to higher education. Education has changed so much, even over my lifetime, that we need to keep improving and making relevant our education to the workplace. I have been able to share the joy of these communities in improving such an important building block for our nation. I know the trades training centres have helped so many young people get a focus on their future working situation in my electorate. These have been a great success. This is a wonderful piece of policy coming into being, and we should enhance that process into the future.

Health facilities have been another vital aspect in keeping our dispersed communities safe and well. My Lyons jewel in the crown of health facilities has been the Kentish medical centre. It was developed with the help of a building provided by the state government—an old infants school which had become surplus to need once the BER money built a new infants school on the primary site—and a dedicated doctor in this area who had a vision for his community, to get out of the old, broken-down wooden cottage which had served primary health-care delivery in the Kentish municipality for a long time, but with a vision to improve much more than that. With this, there has been the further upgrading of the Tandara Lodge on an adjacent site as an aged-care home. If I had to go into a home anywhere in Lyons, this would be the one. As well as Sheffield, we have renewals of the Longford Medical Centre and the vision for a new centre at Brighton, now under construction; and Sorell and Bridgewater have also benefited.

Then we have the Living Longer Living Better aged-care program, which has come about after extensive discussions in the community. The Living Longer Living Better aged-care reform package provides $3.7 billion over five years. It represents the commencement of a ten-year reform program to create a flexible and seamless system that provides older Australians with more choice and control, and easier access to a fuller range of services where they want them and when they need them. It also positions us to meet the social and economic challenges of the nation's ageing population. These reforms give priority to providing more support and care in the home, better access to residential care and more support for those with dementia, and to strengthening the aged-care workforce. They are being progressively implemented from 1 July 2012 to give earlier benefits to consumers and providers but also to ensure that there is a smooth transition by consumers and providers with sufficient time to adapt and plan ahead for future reform. These are all important and valuable reforms.

My biggest challenge, though, has been jobs. Since the monumental changes to the forest industries and the loss of so many jobs, communities have been ripped apart. Then came the bushfires, and the tragic aftermath of those left many timber communities reeling. The forest agreement has taken three years to come to some resolution, and there are still issues now with change taking place, and that is coming into being, with smarter methods and new systems. We need to find new markets and reskill our workers, and this is happening but it cannot happen overnight.

I commend the budget and look forward to the implementation of many of the programs throughout the budget.

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014 and cognate bills. On Tuesday, 14 May the Treasurer introduced the Labor government's sixth budget, and I, along with my coalition colleagues, have serious concerns about that budget.

Let me start with the surplus promise. Over 500 times the government promised that there would be a surplus, but there is no surplus this year, there will be no surplus next year and there will be no surplus the year after that. According to the budget papers, there will not be a surplus until 2016, and it will be a modest balance at that.

The Prime Minister herself said, on 165 separate occasions, that the government would deliver a surplus this year. The original promise was for a surplus of $1.5 billion, but, in the weeks leading up to the budget being introduced, the Treasurer foreshadowed that this would not be achieved. He said that this was because of a drop in revenue of $7.5 billion. I will talk more about that shortly. As it got closer to the budget being handed down, the shortfall became $12 billion and then $17 billion. On 14 May, the deficit that we had was $19.4 billion. This is the fifth-biggest deficit in our history. What we are looking at here is the promise of a $1.5 billion surplus and the delivery of a $19.4 billion deficit. That is a difference of $20.9 billion. This is not a small amount of money. It is not an insignificant amount of money. To put it into a local context for my electorate of McPherson, it is more than 20 times the money that was allocated in 2007 to upgrade the M1, an upgrade that the Labor government has failed to complete in its almost six years of government.

As I said just before, the Treasurer claimed that the deficit was a result of revenue shortfalls of anywhere in the order of $7.5 billion to $17 billion, depending on which day you choose to consider. Arguably, the Labor government used optimistic forecasts of revenue and spent the money accordingly. As an engineer, I always worked with factors of safety, so I ask: where was the factor of safety in the budget forecasts? We all understand that spending money before you have it is a high-risk strategy. Relying on optimistic forecasts to budget is also a high-risk strategy. This government has demonstrated time and time again that it has a forecasting problem. It is not a revenue problem; it is a forecasting problem.

The government also has a spending problem. It is clear when you compare the revenue that the Treasurer now has to balance the budget and the revenue that Peter Costello had to balance the budget six years ago. The Treasurer now has an extra $80 billion of revenue. Peter Costello delivered a $20 billion surplus with $80 billion less revenue than the Treasurer has. It is not because the revenue is down that we have a deficit; it is because spending is up, and it is up by $120 billion. It has been said by many of my coalition colleagues that the Labor government has a spending problem, and it does. It also has a waste problem. Let us have a look at some of the waste and budget blow-outs over the years of this government. Let us start with home insulation. A headline from The Age on 11 March 2010 says '$100m to fix botched insulation program'. An article in the Adelaide Advertiser on 17 May 2013, headlined 'Ad spree to cost $100m', says:

LABOR is splurging more than $100 million on government advertising this financial year and next around the election …

On immigration, a headline from The Daily Telegraph of 23 July 2012 says, 'Greens' asylum seeker demand set to blow the budget surplus'. On the NBN, a headline from The Australian of 10 August 2012 says, 'NBN costs soar as Labor rolls out extravagance'. A headline in The Australian on 13 August 2012 says, 'PM's $150m spin doctor brigade'. A headline in The Courier-Mail on 17 June 2009 says, 'School rip-offs exposed'. On set-top boxes, a headline from The Daily Telegraph of 18 July 2011 says, '$67m worth of set-top box red tape'. On 'gold-plated' coffee machines, The Courier-Mail of 14 August 2012 says, 'We pay to perk up officials' daily grind':

LABOR'S bureaucrats are splashing taxpayer money to deck their offices out with $15,000 coffee machines.

News Limited can reveal the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science Research and Tertiary Education has dropped $75,000 on buying and installing just five high end coffee machines for its Canberra office.

That is a truly staggering amount of money.

Summing up this year's budget can be done in one word, and that word is 'disappointing'. Even that, quite frankly, is being somewhat generous. It was disappointing for Australians and it was disappointing for the future of our country. Why was it disappointing? There are many reasons, but let me start with this: total gross debt, which is set to breach the $300 billion debt ceiling within the forward estimates, is expected to approach $400 billion over the forward estimates.

But the government has not increased the debt limit in these bills. The government has raised the debt ceiling several times in the past, so to do it now would not be a new concept. They increased it from $75 billion to $200 billion, then to $250 billion and then to $300 billion. Each time the government has said that it will not break the limit. Well, gross debt is expected to approach $400 billion over the forward estimates, and if that is the case then the current $300 billion-ceiling will be breached. That is an unprecedented level. It brings with it interest payments of $35 million a day, $245 million a week and close to $13 billion a year.

But when we are talking about a disappointing budget, that is not all there is. This is the fifth consecutive deficit that this government has delivered, with at least two more to follow. This raises a very serious issue of credibility in relation to the government. After maintaining up to a few weeks before the budget was delivered that there would be a surplus this year of $1.5 billion, only to reveal a $19.4 billion-deficit and the promise of a surplus next year of $2.2 billion, which is now a deficit of $18 billion, the obvious question, and the question that many Australians are asking is: will there really be a promised surplus in 2016? Can you believe what the government is actually telling you? I would say that if past behaviour is a predictor of future behaviour then the answer is that the prospect of Labor delivering a surplus is highly unlikely.

What else do we have? We have net debt at a record level of $192 billion, and there is no credible path back to surplus. The government has failed to demonstrate with any credibility the path that will deliver the promised surplus. Many Australians just simply do not believe that it will happen.

In his budget speech, the Treasurer said that the budget was about jobs and growth, but growth decreases and unemployment rises. Unemployment, underemployment and workforce participation are all issues that are being faced around this country, and my electorate of McPherson on the Gold Coast is no exception. Last week there was a hearing held in Melbourne in relation to the inquiry by the Standing Committee on Education and Employment into the Fair Work Amendment Bill 2013, which is a significant piece of legislation with regard to employment, and I asked the following question:

Last week in the Treasurer's budget speech he spoke about supporting jobs and growth. Do you believe that the amendments that are proposed in this bill support jobs and growth, or do they potentially create a negative impact on jobs and growth?

We had a response from Mr Stephen Smith, who is the Director, National Workplace Relations, at the Australian Industry Group. He said:

The problem with the legislation, and particularly this bill, is that it imposes a lot of impediments on businesses when they are making decisions about employing people and making decisions about what they can do about problems within their business. There is nothing in this legislation at all that is going to promote one job, and there are a lot of things in this legislation that will impose more barriers on business …

Mr Daniel Mammone, the Director of Workplace Policy and Director of Legal Affairs, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, responded:

It is a really good question and point, given that confidence is so important for the SME sector. Our small business survey which was released this week unfortunately indicated that confidence was still tracking in negative territory.

He went on to say:

In summary, this does not really provide any further confidence to the business community, unfortunately. It is something that the business community have told us they are disappointed with. Small business in particular feel that they are not being heard—and they are too big to ignore, in our view.

It is important to instil confidence in the business sector and also instil confidence in everyday Australians, many of whom struggle on a daily basis. It is time that the government takes note of the millions of families and businesses across the country who are struggling to ensure that they have a balanced budget, even in the face of a 90 per cent rise in electricity and a 64 per cent rise in gas prices under the Rudd and Gillard governments. If they spent more than they earnt and let their debt spiral out of control, where would they be? Businesses would be forced to close and families would not be able to put food on the table.

Australians deserve a better government. The coalition has a plan to build a strong and prosperous economy for a safe and secure Australia.

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

I rise today to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2013-14. I would like to note that in the 5½ years that I have been in this place as the member for Parkes never have the state of the finances of the country been more in focus and never has a budget been so little regarded. There is irony there.

Cast your mind back to 2007 when I first came here. The country had no net debt and had money in the bank, had money put away for future requirements. The Australian people were confident and the economy was humming along. People's minds were cast to wanting to fix the environment and a whole range of other things. I think there was a belief that the country ran itself. Indeed, the state of the finances and the state of the economy in 2007 were purely a happy coincidence. It did not really matter what the government did. There was no credit really given to the previous Howard government and the country looked after itself.

How wrong we have been. I am not going to go over the litany of mistakes that have been made but it started with the reaction to the global financial crisis and the panic spending of money on the pink batts scheme and the school halls program. Putting money into education is a noble cause but not managing the program and spending billions of dollars more than was necessary is indeed a problem.

So, at the moment, we have a budget with about a $19 billion deficit. Admittedly, it was predicted last year that it was going to be a surplus. Indeed, in 2012, the opening sentence in the Treasurer's budget speech was: 'This is the first of four surplus budgets that will be delivered for Australia.' He was so wrong. That is the problem. The Australian people, business and the Australian citizens, have lost faith in this government. How that manifests itself is that people are just closing down. They are just not spending, and that is having an effect right through the whole economy. My personal belief is that, if you want the economy to be prospering and doing well, the Australian people have to have confidence. Putting in a government program that puts money into every community or having a factory come to the edge of town that is going to employ a lot of people is not the answer, compared to when every individual has confidence.

What we are seeing now is that people are not putting on apprentices. They are shedding staff. They will make the work vehicle last another year. Farmers are not game to purchase the neighbouring farm if it comes up for sale. Indeed, they are finding it very hard to find the finance. In the five or six years that I have been out of agriculture, the financial difficulties that farmers are facing in being able to obtain finance have tightened up a lot. That is trickling down, right down to the fact that one of the most disadvantaged groups in the entire economy at the moment—and they have been for some time—are the self-funded retirees. They are the sort of people who would have some discretionary spending, and they are not taking the trip around Australia that they may have done. They are not getting the house painted or updating the car to pull the caravan or whatever. That whole effect is trickling right through the economy. In the last couple of weeks I have been visiting the chambers of commerce in my electorate, and the statements they make are all the same: they are doing it incredibly tough. It is not only where the dollar is that is having an effect but this lack of spending by the Australian people, and they are also battling—I might say as an aside—internet trading. That is another thing that I think this place will need to look at in the future to try and level the playing field for our local businesses compared to online trading.

Regarding regional Australia and my electorate in particular, we really have seen a lack of regard and a lack of interest over the last few years. You might remember, back in 2007, that fateful day when the Greens and the Independents all signed up with the Prime Minister on the deal to do government, and one of the things that were spoken about was the $10 billion fund for regional Australia. It turns out that it was predicated on the mining tax, and we have not seen a fraction of that money come through. Much was made of the RDAs and Regional Development Australia. I sat through countless speeches in 2008 denigrating the old Regional Partnerships Program of the previous government, but I have to say that the people in regional Australia would like to see that back.

We saw once again, with a city-centric minister, that the type of funding that was out there in the first round of the RDAs was really only available to large communities. I got three in my electorate, and I am sure that those towns were grateful to get them, but they were the three largest towns. There was the Glen Willow Regional Sporting Complex in Mudgee, the artesian baths upgrade in Moree and an athletics field in Dubbo. They were the three biggest towns in my electorate. But we have communities like Coonamble, who for years have been trying to get financial support for their covered arena for the rodeo ground so that they can make Coonamble a centre for equestrian pursuits. A covered arena would enable that to happen year round with camp drafting, rodeo events and all sorts of pony club and equestrian events, as well as trade shows and cattle shows. It would boost the economy of Coonamble. Indeed the Moorambilla Festival, which is a music festival that attracts thousands of people from all over the state, would use the facility. They were precluded because they did not have the resources to put in the necessary application. Other programs in smaller towns have been in a similar situation. The reality is that it is the smaller communities that really need the assistance of federal funding.

That leads onto my next point and that is the poor handling of the issue of constitutional recognition of local government. I firmly believe that this something that needs to happen. I was on the committee set up by Minister Crean to look at the possible success of this. We are not talking about major reform and we are not talking about altering the basic relationship between the Commonwealth, the states and local government. We are looking at a bit of housekeeping to tidy up a loophole in the Constitution to enable things like direct funding to local communities through regional programs. Roads to Recovery and other projects are perhaps not important in a larger metropolitan area, but to the 17 councils in the Parked electorate they are a big deal. We are going to have that referendum, and I am certainly hoping the Australian people will get behind and support that. Unfortunately, in January when we were having a hearing into this, the Electoral Commission witness at our hearing said, 'You need at least six months to properly organise and run a referendum.' With the sacking of Minister Crean and Minister Albanese taking over, the announcement was made with less than four months to go. It is going to be all stops out. This is an example of what to me is a no-brainer, but it is going to be a struggle to have it accepted because there has not been the time to build the case.

The other thing that I think we need to be focusing on is rural roads. One of the things the constitutional recognition of local government would protect would be the Roads to Recovery program—a program that has been very successful. I would like to see that extended; I would like to us to look at rural roads. Nearly everything we buy on supermarket shelves starts its life on a rural road. I think it is hard for people who do not live in the bush to comprehend the fact that after as little as 10 millimetres of rain you cannot get your kids to school. In most farm families one member now works off farm and if they are a nurse or a teacher or whatever in town they cannot get to work. You cannot access health services, either, but, more than that, there are many millions of dollars of produce that can be stranded for weeks at a time because of the impasse of the roads—roads that were built in the days of Cobb & Co that are now expected to deliver tons of freight on road trains and B-doubles. That is why I support the Australian Rural Roads Group in their effort to highlight the issue of high production agricultural areas battling with the poor infrastructure of local roads.

Another thing that there has been a lot of discussion about in this place has been the inland rail, and I am certainly hopeful that in the next term of government we will get some positive action on that line. This is a steel Mississippi that would link Melbourne to Brisbane and would go through the middle of the Parkes electorate. Not only would it get a lot of trucks off the road and be better for the environment, but it also would provide a backbone to build the economy of western New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland.

A couple of things in closing. I proudly represent the second largest Aboriginal population, after the Northern Territory, of any electorate in this country. There are some positive things happening in my electorate for young people. The Clontarf Foundation has four academies in the Parkes electorate. I have been privileged to go to football training with the boys at the Moree Academy. While they completely humiliated me on the football field, it was great to see the respect and the order that are returned to these young men's lives. That is another thing that I will be pursuing. We could do with academies in many of the other towns, notably Dubbo—there have been 240 boys in Dubbo identified as being acceptable to Clontarf—but even smaller communities, like Boggabilla and Toomalah, would benefit from that.

Also for the Aboriginal community, I am very keen, under the coalition's green army project, to get a work program going—a couple, I think: one in Dubbo but, more importantly, one up at Boggabilla—and get them involved in resource management. Boggabilla is the home of Boobera Lagoon. For those of you who do not know, Boobera Lagoon it is the resting place of the Rainbow Serpent in Aboriginal lore. There is a lot of work that can be done in that area to restore the natural landscape in conjunction with Moree Plains Shire and the local land services to do work on weed control and get these people who are struggling to find a job back into employment. I firmly believe the most stabilising influence that you can give a family is a job. Put a job into that home and not only does it affect the life of the person with the job but it also affects the entire family, particularly the children. I will continue to work for the Aboriginal people of the Parkes electorate; 20,000 of my constituents are Aboriginal people. I believe that we need to have sensible, practical measures for them.

I will close by saying: if you want to disrespect someone, you have a lower expectation of them than you do everyone else. I am sick of seeing programs that are rolled out from here—this is not a political statement; it comes from all sides—that have a lower expectation of success for these people, for our Aboriginal brothers and sisters, than they do for everyone else. I would like to see that stop.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014 and Appropriation Bill (No. 2). The standard supply bills will see money allocated from the consolidated revenue fund for the services and programs of government. Appropriation Bill (No. 1) covers $78.1 billion; Appropriation Bill (No. 2) covers $4.77 billion. There is also the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014, which will seek to appropriate $184.7 million.

This is an opportunity for me to critique the government's failed economic management, to look at its rising debt and its deficit and the burden that it is creating for future generations. Let us remember when Kevin Rudd became the Prime Minister in 2007. He promised the Australian people he would be an economic conservative, that he would continue the proud tradition that existed under the government of John Howard and Peter Costello, which saw 10 budget surpluses, saw more than two million new jobs created, saw inflation and unemployment at three-decade lows, saw a 22 per cent increase in real wages, saw a AAA credit rating, and saw all government debt—$96 billion of government debt that we inherited—paid back and that in its place $70 billion was left in the bank, including a $20 billion surplus.

But the Australian people should have known, because the last time the Labor Party delivered a surplus was way back in 1989. And since the time of the Rudd and Gillard governments, we have seen the five biggest budget deficits in the history of the Commonwealth. This is despite this government—the Prime Minister, the finance minister, the Treasurer—promising more than 500 times that we would see a surplus this coming year. Instead, we have a $19.4 billion deficit, with an $18 billion deficit the year after. This country is soon to break through the $300 billion debt ceiling for the very first time. On the forward estimates we are going to a $400 billion debt. As a result of that bill, we will be spending more than $8 billion just meeting the interest payments. That is the price of eight new teaching hospitals right around Australia. That would pay for the Gonski reforms plus half the NDIS, or that would build the East West Link or West Connect. That is what the interest bill alone is costing the Australian people.

We have seen falling productivity and higher unemployment. We have seen more than 20,000 new public servants and, I am afraid to say, there are now 1,600 staff employed in federal departments as spin doctors, managing communications, media, marketing and public affairs. We have seen nearly 30 new or increased taxes, the daddy of them all being the carbon tax and of course there is the mining tax. We have seen more than 20,000 new regulations—red tape and green tape hurting big and small businesses alike. We have broken promises—not only the carbon tax. What about the government's commitment not to affect the rebate on private health insurance? What about the government's promises to deliver family tax benefits, increases in family tax benefit A in particular?

We have seen more than 100,000 jobs across Australia go in manufacturing, the most painful being the recent announcement by Ford that it will be closing down its operations in Geelong and Broadmeadows. We have seen more than 250,000 jobs go in small business. We have seen emboldened unions. In the Fair Work Act there are 120 areas where unions have more control than ever before. We have seen days lost from industrial disputes dramatically increasing and as well the number of unfair dismissal claims going up.

We have seen the tragedy of 42,000 unauthorised arrivals making a mockery of the government's border protection policies. This has led to a $10 billion blow-out in this government's budget. Let us not forget that in the years between 2002 and 2010 just 10 boats came to Australia with less than 250 people on board. And since this government has unwound the successful policies of the Howard era, more than 42,000 unauthorised arrivals have come. The Australian people could never have imagined that it would be this bad. Indeed, even Gough Whitlam, a hero to those on the other side, produced a budget surplus. This government will never do that.

You simply cannot take this government at face value with anything it says. Not only did it promise recently that we would have a budget surplus, which has not eventuated, but now it is promising that we will have a budget surplus in 2016—that is, after the Treasurer said in 2008 that the deficit was 'just temporary'. As Joe Hockey has said, by that standard World War II was temporary. Just six years of temporary deficit: I do not believe it. It is going to be many more years than that. In fact, the Treasurer began announcing last year's budget with the line:

The four years of surplus I announce tonight …

That is extremely laughable. Can you believe that the Treasurer said on 22 May this year:

No other government in our history— in the history of the world, ever, throughout time—has done what we have done in this recent Budget, which is bring the Budget back to surplus over time …

Is Wayne Swan a comedian? If he is, he is a very bad one at that. Again in this budget the government is cooking the books. The mining tax currently brings in $200 million of revenue. This government wants us to believe that by 2016-2017 the mining tax will produce $2 billion of revenue. That is a 1,000 per cent increase on current numbers. What about the changes in the dollar? What about the changes in the terms of trade? In fact, the terms of trade today are 15 per cent higher than in any year of the Howard government.

In terms of the carbon tax, this government has us believe that when it moves to a floating price the carbon price will be $12 a tonne, when it is currently around $4 equivalent a tonne in Europe and just 85 cents in New Zealand. Then in Senate estimates, when officials were asked how they came to that number of $12 a tonne, moving up to $38 a tonne over time, they said, 'We have taken the straight-line method'. What is the straight-line method? Why would you not be looking at market trends?

The point here is that this government does not have a revenue problem. In fact, revenue is up $80 billion from the last year of the Howard government. This government has a spending problem. More than $192 billion has been spent more than it has raised over the last five years. Expenditure as a percentage of GDP is higher every year under Labor than under the last two years of the Howard government. In fact, spending today is $120 billion higher than in the last year of the Howard government.

Again, it was laughable to see the Treasurer of Australia say on 21 April that they had a revenue black hole, that revenue was down by $7½ billion, because—do you know what, Mr Deputy Speaker?—the Prime Minister came out a week later and said that revenue was down $12 billion. And then you had the finance minister come out a week later and say that revenue was down $17 billion. This was not revenue; this was their forecasts! Revenue is not their problem; it is $80 billion higher than in the last year of the Howard government.

We know that this government is creating a high-cost, low-productivity environment. We have just had the head of Ford say that if he were to produce a car in Europe—that highly regulated environment of Europe—it would cost twice as much as to produce it in Australia. If he were to produce a car—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 13:27 to 13:34

As I was saying, this government has created a low-productivity, high-cost environment. We have seen that with the closure of Ford and the statements by the head of Ford about the costs of manufacturing a motor vehicle in Australia compared to making a comparative vehicle in Asia or in Europe, which are both much more cost-effective than Australia.

We have also had the announcement by BHP that they would not proceed with the $30 billion-development at Olympic Dam, and also the Port Hedland extension, which did not proceed. These are just some of more than $100 billion of national projects which have been either cancelled or postponed because of the high-cost environment.

It is no wonder that costs have gone up, when the unions have taken control of the workplaces around Australia. In fact, this government has abandoned and abolished the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which came out of the Cole royal commission and was designed to deal with lawlessness in the building and construction sector. I know in my own state of Victoria, where nearly 10 per cent of people are employed in this sector, that the abolishment of the ABCC has had a dramatic impact. We have seen some of the stand-offs with unions with the Grocon-Myer Emporium and also at other places around the state.

Jac Nasser, the head of BHP, said that in the Queensland coal business alone in 2011-12 there were more than 3,000 examples of industrial disputation. There were 301,800 days lost to industrial disputes in 2012. This compares to just 49,700 in the last year of the Howard government.

Because of this government's woeful economic performance there is little money for the things that are really important to our community—for example, universities. This government has ripped billions of dollars out of universities, devastating what should be an important sector in lifting our productivity as well as being an export earner for attracting the best students to our country. Fred Hilmer, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of New South Wales, said:

With these cuts coming we will have to slow down hiring and slow down our investment in technology. How you reconcile that with the Asian Century ambition is just a joke.

What Fred Hilmer, a non-partisan figure, is saying is that the government's words about the Asian century were purely that: just words, not backed up by deeds.

In terms of infrastructure, important projects like the East-West Link in my state of Victoria, which received a $1.5 billion funding commitment from the coalition, does not receive anything from the government. Public hospitals have seen money taken away retrospectively by this government, which has led to bed closures and the cancellation of elective surgery. Cuts to private health insurance will drive up the costs for all people with private health insurance, including 5 million Australians who have a household income under $50,000—and that is their annual household income, but they have taken the decision to take out private health insurance.

Non-government schools have also seen their funding cut. We have seen cuts to superannuation, we have seen $375 million ripped out of the aid budget in order to fund border protection. And of great concern to me, we have seen cuts to national security: the AFP has seen $200 million taken away in the last two years, the Australian Crime Commission has seen up to 200 staff lose their jobs and the ASIO budget has been slashed by over $16 million in 2011-12. Customs has seen 130 staff cut and Defence spending is at its lowest level since 1938 at 1.56 per cent of GDP. In fact, in GDP terms, we are the 65th country in spending on defence—the 65th country!—when we are the 12th or 13th biggest economy in the world. That is a disgraceful record on behalf of this government.

This government has no answer to the demographic challenges facing this country. It has no answer to the structural deficits; it has no answer to how we can end the age of entitlement. We, on the other hand, have a blueprint for reform in manufacturing, advanced services, education, health, agriculture and, of course, resources. This will be based on our commitment to smaller government, personal responsibility and individual freedom. Forget the chance on 14 September. We will not only produce a budget surplus once again but ensure that all Australians are better off.

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

Mr Deputy Speaker, just on an administrative matter, I gather there is five more minutes before you will have to call stumps.

Robert McClelland (Barton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is right.

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

Despite the advice that I just gave to the clerk, when we come back at 3.30 I will continue my remarks on the full budget reply for around 17 minutes on matters that my community and my country feel are important.

I have listened closely to the member for Kooyong, and I have listened closely to the debate that rages in Australia about our economy and about where we are going as a nation. There is no question that there is plenty more work to do. There is tax and spend reform that is desperately needed in our country. While there is an increasing focus on the spending side, I would hope that we do not give up on the work done by a very good former Taree local who made it to be Treasury secretary, Ken Henry, and the work done by his expert panel around 2009 on a blueprint for sensible tax reform. Much more work can be done in nation building to deliver on that.

On the spending side, I think the Parliamentary Budget Office—the very good, new Parliamentary Budget Office—released a paper last month which identified that the difference between tax and spend. It is not that great when, on the spending side, one of our main structural problems is this wont to give tax cuts whenever elections come around. If everyone could relive the last decade, which I consider for Australia were very fat and unsustainable times, the idea of delivering up to eight tax cuts—I think five were actually delivered—would be viewed differently. It has now placed us in a position which we do not want to be in. So, yes, at the time, they were tax cuts; but, really, it was unsustainable spending from a government point of view and, on reflection, it would now be viewed, I hope, differently.

Also when we look back on that period, our tax to GDP ratio was peaking. Again, if we are serious about the future, a 24 per cent tax to GDP ratio is the window which I hope all in this place would want to work under, regardless of our politics. The room to move in tax negotiation is around that 24 per cent tax to GDP. I hope in an arrangement that can be made some time soon amongst adults, the Commonwealth and the states—and I would also include local government—can sit around the table and, in the many ways that I tried to do through the tax summit where we got a bit but we did not get as much as we were chasing, negotiate a modern tax system. We need a tax system that works the efficient taxes a bit harder—those four or five that are doing 90 per cent of the heavy lifting—and that provides a bounty in trade-offs in compliance, productivity, red tape by getting rid of the more than 820 inefficient taxes in this country. What a bounty that would be under a broad umbrella of the 24 per cent tax to GDP.

That sensible conversation is still waiting to happen on a number of fronts. I pick the mining resource rent tax as one example of the failure to have that conversation between the Commonwealth and the states. The opportunity for the future is to get the resource rent tax working harder and to lessen the impact of inefficient royalties in the market. That is the point of the exercise. That was the point of the recommendation from Henry, and that is the unfinished business for whoever has government into the future. It is just one of numerous examples of the need for sustainability in the budget on both the taxing and the spending sides, and there needs to be a more mature conversation about that than the one we seem to have had to date.

Sitting suspended from 13:45 to 15:30

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I would like to apologise. If I had known I was on duty, I would have been here. I have been on duty in the other chamber. So sorry you have all been waiting. I call the member for Lyne in continuation.

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

I will just recap. I was talking about the opportunities in compliance productivity and red tape that still exist for government some time soon under roughly a 23 or 24 per cent tax-to-GDP umbrella of a grown-up conversation across Commonwealth, state and local governments on tax reform. It goes back to the Henry report. There are over 125 taxes in Australia and four or five of them are doing 90 per cent of the work. If we could get everyone together to talk sensibly and put in place a strategy for a modern economy, oh what a bounty on productivity compliance and red tape that would be. The concept of efficient taxes versus inefficient taxes is still not in my view well understood in Australia. You can get a better rate of return on some taxes coming in as compared to others. We should chase the efficient ones and minimise or remove the inefficient ones. That is an exercise that is still waiting to happen.

As far as the budget and the budget-in-reply speeches go, I think there were two great initiatives locked and loaded over the last fortnight. The first is the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the 10-year funding strategy behind it. Both sides of parliament now endorse that process. That is a major reform for Australia. For many families who have people with disability in their household, for carers and for workers in the field the National Disability Insurance Scheme will make an enormous difference. I thank the major parties for their bipartisanship on that initiative.

Likewise what was a welcome surprise in the budget-in-reply was the locking down now of the lift in the tax-free threshold from $6,000 to $18,200. That goes back to a Ken Henry tax reform recommendation, which was through to $25,000 as a tax-free threshold, but the leap when we introduced carbon pricing from $6,000 to $18,200 was a significant tax reform for Australia on its own. It will do a lot for tax administration in this country. In the electorate of Lyne it will remove about 4,000 people from the tax system altogether; it will end the silly game of putting in tax forms to get a nil receipt return and all the burden and compliance that goes with that. Roughly around 4,000 people in my electorate alone, and I imagine other electorates would be similar, are now completely removed from the tax system and everyone earning under $80,000 will also receive a tax benefit of sorts. This is a progressive model where those who are earning the least obviously at the same time are gaining the most benefits from this sensible reform. That this was locked in as well, in that process of the budget and budget-in-reply speeches, I think is a very welcome reform. It moves it up the ranks of reform in this 43rd parliament to one of the standout items for the future.

A couple of things remain challenged and in dispute. These are two very important ones for the electorate of Lyne, and I imagine they are for other electorates, in particular regional electorates. I went around eight community forums last week and very strong messages came back on the principle of equity in two key policy areas. One is the National Broadband Network, the other is the school-based education funding changes. Those two areas combined for regional areas deliver equity at a level that is wanted and needed. I can report, certainly from my community, there is frustration that there seems to be political divide over both of these topics. I would hope, through whatever means available—whether it is letters of exchange to head offices, as we have seen exposed today, or through any other means—that there can be some sort of coming together on the policy framework around the National Broadband Network, particularly for regional communities, and all the benefits that go with that. I would also hope that there can be a coming together, just as there has been between the Commonwealth and New South Wales, over the importance of school-based funding reform.

I used to work with Adrian Piccoli, who is now the New South Wales education minister, and I can vouch that he is a good man.

Honourable members interjecting—

He is a good man—not only because of the politics of the moment, he also has a fantastic salami day in Griffith. He makes salami with all of his friends. He has delivered a good sausage for education in recognising that regional loadings, loadings for Aboriginality, loadings for poorer families and trying to get a new funding model and breaking what is currently an intolerable link between education outcomes and performance and the funding model itself—he is trying to break that link and make it a tolerable rather than an intolerable one, which I think is a noble effort. It should be protected as an arrangement between the Commonwealth and the states. If we are serious about the language that was in the budget-in-reply about state sovereignty, then that agreement should be protected and respected. I would encourage other states to get on board with that principle of equity as well.

I did want to pick up on the topic of the day around political donations, as was predicted in jest before I resumed speaking. I think we have just today found a $60 million saving at least in the federal budget. Anyone in the room: we can reach our own agreement with an exchange of letters, maybe, but there is an opportunity there. It would be interesting to hear in reply tonight from the parliamentary secretary or the Treasurer what will happen now—in light of what was obviously a cosy arrangement for the outsourcing of political donation reform between two head offices—from a budget point of view, to what is potentially a saving of between $50 million and $100 million. Clarity around the budget implications of the politics of today is important. Alongside that, there is the question about genuine, real, substantial political donation reform in the interests of every single member in this place: is there is any desire to actually pursue what was agreed to be pursued three years ago? That includes things like $1,000 thresholds and a whole range of other issues contained in the agreement reached on political donation reform.

Today sent me back to look at election disclosures, and it really is treated as a joke by many candidates. I know there is a lot of debate around about the size of donations and whether or not they are true. I just hope the focus in this place does not drift onto political donation scandals, because I went and looked at a whole lot of election disclosures, including that of the candidate for the Nats whom I am up against and whom I ran against last time, and there was just 'nil, nil, nil' all away down the page. It is a farce. He is not alone; he is just the example I am using of the disclosure form itself being abused. Every voter in my electorate has no idea of what money came in, what money went out and where it went, despite the fact that everybody knows—they got plenty of newsletters in their mailboxes and they were bombarded on their TVs. There is no accountability trail at all for any voter who wants to see in detail what came in and what went out.

There are ghost employees on the books of private companies in local hospitals who are big donors to the Libs but really working as officials in campaign offices. Is that a donation or not? Should it be declared or not? In my view, it should be. It has implications for the private company and the local area. Land dealings between private donors and candidates: should they be declared? Yes, there is lots of money involved, and there are potential conflicts of interest, whether real or perceived, involved. But, at the moment, voters are not invited to any consideration of that whatsoever, and it is in all our interests to find a way to start to remove the question marks and have everything on the table in a transparent way. If there is $60 million in the budget that is looking for a home, it may find one in substantial and real political donation reform—as I said, in the interests of all. (Time expired)

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to bring the debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014 and the cognate bills to a close and I thank those members who made a contribution. These appropriation bills seek authority from the parliament for the expenditure of money from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. The appropriation being sought through these appropriation bills is just over $83 billion.

I would like to highlight some of the proposed appropriations relating to the delivery of the government's commitments. First, there is over $5.5 billion for AusAID, which includes approximately $604 million to provide for Australia's contribution to the International Development Association, which is part of the World Bank. Second, there is over $898 million for the Department of Finance and Deregulation, including approximately $318 million to relocate defence facilities from the Moorebank Intermodal Terminal Project site in Western Sydney to a purpose-built facility at Holsworthy Barracks, and to construct a new facility for the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service. Third, there is over $871 million for the Department of Infrastructure and Transport, including approximately $383 million for the Roads to Recovery program. Fourth, there is over $722 million for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, including $210 million to provide concessional loans under the Farm Finance initiative.

Lastly, I point out that Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014 includes a facility for the Presiding Officers of the parliamentary departments to provide up to $300,000 in urgent appropriation for the Parliamentary Budget Office. This is equivalent to the amount that is available in relation to the urgent requirements of the Department of the Senate and the Department of the House of Representatives. A similar facility for urgent appropriation is provided in Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2013-2014 and Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014 which is available to other government entities at the discretion of the finance minister, and known as the 'Advance to the Finance Minister' or AFM. This provision is unchanged, and I commend the bills to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.