Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Before the debate is resumed on this bill, I remind the House that it has been agreed that a general debate be allowed covering this bill, the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2013-2014 and the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014. The question is that the amendment be agreed. I call the member for Charlton in continuation.

Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I was speaking on this bill previously, I was going through the $11½ million cut to the Building Multicultural Communities Program grants—a cut that could have been avoided using just 10 days of the interest bill from the government's nakedly political injection of $8.8 billion into the Reserve Bank Reserve Fund. As part of this cut to this grants program, we were seeing the Ethnic Communities Council of Newcastle and Hunter Region lose a $150,000 grant to build the first ever multicultural men's shed and a community garden at their community centre. Members from all sides of this House will be aware of the wonderful contribution that men's sheds provide to our community, and to have a multicultural men's shed was a truly innovative idea from the ethnic communities council. Ninety men had already registered to join this shed, and they have lost their $150,000 grant which was awarded in the previous government and fully budgeted for.

Given that the funding agreements for the program stated that the projects had to be completed by 30 June 2014, most organisations had begun the planning process, and many are now well advanced in their project and are considerably out of pocket. Vedic Samiti are out of pocket for more than $14,000 after undergoing a lengthy building design and development approval process, and the ethnic communities council has invested around $49,000 on plans, DA approvals, electrical works and site preparation. I am advised that on Tuesday, 25 February, the department called the ethnic communities council to advise they will reimburse $4,500 for costs associated with the lodgement of a development application to Newcastle council. However, they refused to acknowledge the more than $44,000 invested by the council in utilities fees, design, EISs and electrical work required to get the approval for the DA.

So these groups made the decision to invest in these projects in good faith; they had had their grants awarded, in accordance with the grants process; and now they are considerably out of pocket because of the actions of the Abbott government. These are groups that have very low budgets. They operate on a shoestring, often through the operation of goodwill and donations from the community. To see them out of pocket to such a great extent demonstrates the contempt this new government has for community groups.

I am sure that, like members on this side of the House, coalition MPs would have enjoyed attending citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day and welcoming our newest citizens. These ceremonies are wonderful demonstrations of our modern, multicultural Australia. I would just highlight the hypocrisy of this government: although they pay lip service to multiculturalism, they have in fact cut funding to the very groups that are on the ground making multiculturalism work.

In the time remaining, I would like to discuss another part of the appropriations bill, and that is defence funding. At the moment, we have the naval shipbuilding industry in crisis. The entire industry is in a crisis where they are waiting for work. Most of the shipyards in this country that build naval ships—Forgacs in the Hunter, and BAE at Williamstown and Henderson—are looking at work running out in the next year. We are looking at between 4,000 and 5,000 job losses if nothing is done, including 900 jobs going in my region of the Hunter Valley. Once lost, these jobs will be very hard to rebuild—and we will need to rebuild them because, under the current white paper, the Royal Australian Navy will need to acquire 40 major naval vessels in the next couple of decades.

It is essential that we build most of these ships if not all of them here because there is a direct link between the ability to build a naval vessel and the ability to maintain them. As an island nation it is essential for our national sovereignty that we can maintain our own naval vessels so that we are not dependent on any other nation in the world.

Labor had a solution, and we took to the last election a proposal to bring forward the replacement of two supply ships and to guarantee a minimum amount of work being provided in Australia with a real opportunity for both ships to be built entirely within this country. This would have helped Forgacs and it would have helped BAE, who would have had to compete for the work but would have had a decent shot at overcoming the shipbuilding valley of death that they currently face.

There are other options, including building a fourth air warfare destroyer, advancing the replacement of the patrol boats that have seen some operational maintenance difficulties, or beginning early construction of our frigate replacements based on a hull modelled on the AWD. All of these options are worth exploring, but we need urgent work to resolve this issue.

If these shipyards, most particularly BAE in Melbourne and Forgacs up at Tomago, do not receive the opportunity to bid for new contracts shortly, they will have to start making workers redundant, and this will lead to 4,000 to 5,000 direct job losses and the impact on families and communities, not to mention the impact on other communities that depend on that work, whether those are steel suppliers or other specialty subcontractors.

This will be not only an economic and social impact; it will be an impact on our national defence. Once these jobs are lost, they will be very hard to rebuild and, as an island nation, this will be a great tragedy that will reduce our national sovereignty. So I urge the new government to find a solution quickly on this. They were briefed on this when they were in opposition. There should be a bipartisan approach. No-one wants to score political points on this. We need a solution; otherwise, we will see thousands of jobs going, devastating communities that have already seen significant job losses, whether it is in the Hunter Valley or in Melbourne, where they saw the loss of Toyota and other industries from that region.

I urge the new government to take action on this. I will be working very closely with the employers, the unions and the workforce in my area. I have already talked to Mr Lindsay Stratton, the CEO of Forgacs, a few times about this issue, and I have spoken to the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, which represents the workers on this site. This is an important issue. I urge the government to take action, not sit on their hands and wait for a new white-paper process. We need an urgent resolution now, or we will lose thousands of jobs and face a reduced national capability.

This appropriations bill contains a number of initiatives. Some of them are nakedly political, like the $8.8 billion injection into the Reserve Bank in one year, which will see dividends paid only six weeks later back to the government. It yet again demonstrates the skewed priorities of this government. It is all about superficial politics, not acting in our national interest.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2013-2014, Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2013-2014 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014 and against the opposition amendment. Can I just take the point that the member for Chifley just raised in relation to—

Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Charlton!

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry, Charlton. Sorry, Member for Charlton; apologies to the member for Chifley. On the point about the $8.8 billion for the one-off grant to the RBA: I have the privilege of being on the Standing Committee on Economics, and we had the Governor of the Reserve Bank come to a meeting in late December. There was much toing and froing about this from different members of the committee. It sounded to me as though there was almost a conspiracy feel about this according to members of the opposition. But I asked the governor a question. I said, 'Do you think it is a good thing or a bad thing, Governor, that this $8.8 billion grant be given to the RBA?' His exact words were, 'This is something that I welcome because it restores the capital position of the bank to where I would like it to be.' So, while we may make much toing and froing about who said what to whom, who made what phone call on what day or who said what to whom in the meeting, his response to that was that he welcomes it. He appreciates, probably more than anyone else, even anyone in this House, the importance of the Reserve Bank's capital position and that it be reinstated as quickly as possible due to the role that that reserve plays due to foreign currency fluctuations and everything else that the RBA needs it for.

Another part of this appropriation legislation obviously is for the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. This debate I think is sometimes lost in the debate that we have in the public and in the media about this. When we talk about people seeking asylum in Australia, sometimes it is forgotten and sometimes it is lost that there is bipartisan support for Australia—given that we are a relatively wealthy country—to take in asylum seekers every year, and in fact we do. We take in 13,750 asylum seekers each and every year. Not only do we take them in; we make sure that we look after them to help their settlement into Australia. We do that through a variety of programs. We do it through housing programs and education programs. We do it in many other ways to make sure that they are not just left by themselves but find their transition into life in Australia as easy as we can make it.

That is why we cap the program. We do not take in hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers every year. Some countries have many more asylum seekers arriving on their shores every year, but those countries tend not to do anything for them. They just leave them by themselves. They do not have any rights, and they are certainly not given government assistance. That is not the Australian way. When we take in our asylum seekers, we want to look after them, which is why we cap the program at the 13,000 to 14,000 that we do.

The approach that we have taken to this has been in the context of a very highly and emotionally charged debate. I appreciate the passions on either side of this because I think that behind both sides of this argument there are good intentions and there is goodwill, in the sense that we get this right. In my mind, I look back at the statistics. I look back at what was happening at the end of the Howard government era. At the end of the Howard government, I think there was a detention centre that had three or four people in it. And it is important to remember that, while we only had three or four people in a detention centre, we were still taking in 13,750 people each year—as we should—and we were housing them and giving them education programs and language programs to help them settle. So, while the detention centres had closed, we were still taking in asylum seekers.

What happened? I will give some credit to the Rudd government maybe that their intention was good. When the Rudd government came in, they thought that the policies—and we know what they were; they were temporary protection visas, offshore processing and turning back boats if and when it was safe to do so—were harsh. They felt that the image of that to the international community or even the Australian community was too harsh. Let us assume for a second that their intention behind changing that policy was admirable, but let us look at the results.

The results were that the people-smuggling business started up again. This is a tragedy. I certainly do not want to sound political about this, but I am just stating the fact. The tragedy was that obviously we saw many drownings and deaths at sea because the people-smuggling business started up again. And we certainly had a lot of cost blow-outs again when we had to start to reopen detention centres, and we had a whole process that the previous government had had to start to pre-empt. I stand here and I think that we all want the same result in some ways in this country about this issue, in the sense that we do not want detention centres. Obviously the whole purpose of having offshore processing is to deter so that there is no demand for that. Again we see the government's policies. It is part of this appropriation bill that the policy we are implementing in relation to immigration and border protection is a good one.

When I look at appropriation bills, I look more broadly and see that these bills are always about economic management. You look younger than I, Deputy Speaker, so you might not remember as far back as I do. My first memories of economic management were the Whitlam days. At that stage, the Labor Party had not been in power for a long time so I think you can excuse some of their mismanagement., but we had a bit of chaos with them. We had the Khemlani loans affair and things happening, as far as economic management goes, that did not suit our country well. With the next Labor government, we had Hawke and Keating. Let us give credit where credit is due: certainly, as Treasurer, Paul Keating implemented some policies that he and the country should be quite happy with. But we also had the recession that we had to have, according to him. We had 18 per cent interest rates. Very tellingly, we were again left with a $96 billion debt.

I want to come to debt in a minute, given we are talking appropriation bills. Let us assume we are looking at this from a distance. The Howard-Costello government came in and they paid back all of that debt. The $96 billion was completely repaid. They put $50 billion into the Future Fund, which was unfunded superannuation liabilities we had for public servants. To have given those public servants surety about their superannuation is a wonderful thing. It is well documented, as you know, that in that government's last year alone we were left a $20 billion surplus.

We then get the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. Everyone in that government would have observed the Whitlam experiment. They saw what Hawke and Keating did—that they did some good things but left us with a big debt. They saw the good economic management of the Howard-Costello years. What did they learn from that? What did the Rudd-Gillard government that learn from that? It would seem not much, because unfortunately we had the six biggest deficits in the history of our country. We had a global financial crisis during that period and there were certainly some elements where you could say that government needed to step in and do some things. I do not think anybody argued with that. But we would say again that some of those were mismanaged. I will not list them all, but some of the more obvious ones are the batts and the overpriced school halls. We have had some examples with the NBN rollout, where it looks like there has again been very wasteful spending.

But what does this mean? If you are the average punter, or the average mum and dad in the street, what does this mean? These deficits or debts, what do they mean for you? Is it an issue for you? It is—because the issue is that now, because of those six years, we have an interest bill. We all have mortgages or run a business and so we know what this means. We have an interest bill of $10 billion a year.

We stand in this House right now, and I have heard people from the opposition talk about this terrible stuff that is going on with things that the member was talking about previously—cuts, or being tough on multicultural programs. No-one wants to do that. No-one wants to be in government and say to a program, 'We are not going to give you as much money as we previously did.' But imagine if we had not had the six years of the Labor government and, now, the $10 billion a year we are paying in interest. Imagine how much better life would be for everyone in this country. This year we are paying $10 billion in interest, for which we will get nothing. We will get nothing: no service, no money to Gonski, no money for the NDIS, no money to the multicultural programs that the previous member was speaking about. This is $10 billion in interest which will just go to the people who we borrowed the money from. Then what happens? Next year, again, the same thing happens. Again we will have a huge interest bill. Again money will not go to infrastructure. We would love to have the money for infrastructure. Money will not be going to government programs or to very worthy causes.

Here we are in 2014, with the biggest debt in our history. We are overregulated and it is expensive to do business in this country. This is what the challenge is for the new coalition government: to get us back on track again and put our budget and our finances in a financially-sustainable position. Members on the other side are often very righteous about children and say that we need education and programs or services for our children, and rightly so. But the other thing that our children do not deserve is to be left a debt and an interest bill that will mean their standard of living and the services they get for themselves and their children is less than ours. That is the challenge for this new government. We know the budget repair work has already begun. We know that the reduction of red tape has already begun.

Interestingly enough, after the election I was talking to my community. They were coming to me about lowering red tape. I thought it would be predominantly small business. It is, but guess who else is in my office? Guess who else is talking to me as I walk around the community? It is not just a small business. It is non-government organisations and not-for-profit organisations; in fact, it is often members of the public sector themselves. I have had examples of schoolteachers stopping me at sporting events and saying, 'I have had to fill out eight pages in a risk assessment to walk my kids two blocks to get them here, or for this or for that.' That, too, is an example of wasted time and wasted resources. We all in this chamber come here with good intentions. We want the best for our children. We want the best for people in our community who are disadvantaged and we want the best for everyone now and in the future.

I want to recap on three important issues from these appropriation bills. One is the $8.8 billion grant. I reiterate: the Governor of the Reserve Bank said he welcomed it. I spoke about the border protection element of this appropriation bill too. I said that everyone in this country welcomes the 13,000 to 14,000 asylum seekers who come every year in an orderly way and who do not risk their lives. We look after them when they get here. We give them education, language and housing programs to make them assimilate. I know that this government—with the economic mismanagement that we have seen over the last six years, which has given us a $10 billion interest bill that does not go to any services or any infrastructure—will undergo a budget repair bill that puts our country's finances back in order so that our children and our children's children are not left with a Labor legacy of debt and a lower standard of living.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before the election, the coalition said: 'If debt is the problem, more debt is not the answer.' Obviously, we have seen a change of heart since the election. In fact, we have probably seen the truth of where the Abbott government really stands when it came to the question of debt. Before the election, we also saw the coalition in this place, time after time, criticise the previous government for negotiating with and talking to members of the minor parties, including the Greens. They were particularly critical of the previous government's 'wheeling and dealing', as they put it, with the Greens. But, again, since coming to office, we have seen the Abbott government, immediately they have a problem, jump into bed with the Greens and get their support to increase or do away with the debt ceiling—another clear example of the government having said one thing before the election and acting completely differently after they have been elected.

They needed to increase the debt ceiling for, I think, two key reasons. Firstly, on coming to government they found that it is about more than just giving the community three- or four-word slogans and simple political rhetoric; it is about managing the economy. They have proven that they are incompetent at managing the economy. So, one of the reasons they have to increase their debt ceiling is that they know that, under the Abbott government, debt is going to rise.

Secondly, it is clear that the Abbott government's policies are in fact destroying confidence in Australia's future. Earlier on, when I was speaking on another matter in this place, I talked about confidence in Australia's future being destroyed and quoted a headline from The Australian of last Friday: 'Worst slump in 20 years hits jobs'. This article talks about confidence over the coming period—not in the past or today, but in the coming period. It is clear that Australian industry and the Australian people are losing faith and confidence in this government.

Why wouldn’t you lose confidence in this government? After all, they come in here with one view one day and a different view the next. Let me give some examples of that. When it suits the Abbott government, they are all in favour of foreign investment. Yet, when it does not suit them, they are opposed to it. We saw that with the GrainCorp sale. On one hand, they did not support that; on the other hand, they come into this place and talk about selling off Qantas. One day they are in favour of foreign investment; the next day they are against it.

We saw the same with industry support. They were opposed to industry support when it came to SPC Ardmona and the motor vehicle building industry in this country, but they were happy to give out $16 million to Cadbury. They support industry one day; they are opposed to supporting it the next. One day they are critical of government debt and then, the next day, they unnecessarily add to government debt by providing an additional $8.8 billion to the Reserve Bank, without any justification and without any request from the bank, to my knowledge, for that $8.8 billion. They were happy to increase the debt when they did not have to. It was the same with education. Before the election, the coalition was at one with Labor over Gonski funding. After the election, we saw a backflip. Everything is now off the table and the government are renegotiating their education funding. They are doing a terrible job of that, and I can say that having spoken to people in the education system in my home state.

All of that undoubtedly leads to a lack of confidence. We have seen that lack of confidence across a whole range of sectors, in particular the mining sector and the manufacturing sector. The article I referred to from The Australian, 'Worst slump in 20 years hits jobs', specifically talks about the future of manufacturing and mining in this country and the downward trend that is expected in those two sectors—both sectors that have been, to date, critical in underpinning the economy of Australia. Manufacturing is expected to fall by another 20 per cent over the coming year, and mining by a further 25 per cent. In fact, I have seen reports that tens of thousands of jobs are expected to be lost in the mining sector over the coming years. Again, it does not say much for the Abbott government when industry are making decisions based on expectations that things are going to get worse—a clear lack of confidence in this government.

Because there is a lack of confidence in the government, it is not surprising that there is also a blowing-out of government debt. That is why the Abbott government needed to lift its debt ceiling—because of their policies and their incompetence. The Abbott government's policies are directly adding to the national debt. The argument of the Abbott government in constantly blaming the previous government is wearing thin with the Australian people. They are waking up to the inability and incompetence of this government.

When industries close, government tax revenue also falls. When unemployment rises, government expenditure also rises. When government program funding is severely cut, economic activity declines. The effects of severe austerity measures, as seen in some European countries and some parts of the USA, are now evident for us to learn from. Clearly, they do not work. What you get as a result of severe austerity measures are higher unemployment, worsening economies, worsening business confidence, more bankruptcies and, ultimately, less government revenue. Again, that all means higher government debt. Conservative governments then start the cycle all over again and it becomes a downward spiral for those economies where conservative governments have applied severe austerity measures.

This is a matter that was very well articulated only two weeks ago at a forum at Adelaide university held by three or four academics, who had spent their time studying the effects of austerity measures across Europe and the USA. I understand that the notes and discussion from that forum can be downloaded. For those who attended, and I was one of them, it is quite concerning to see the negative effects that severe austerity measures have on the people of those countries, and how they simply do not work. What they really do is make situations worse, add to the economic difficulties of the countries involved and make tough economic times even worse.

There is another motive behind the rhetoric used by the Abbott government when it comes to making what they call the tough decisions that they need to make. Making tough economic decisions, as they put it, is nothing more than a convenient excuse by the Abbott government to attack workers, their wages and their conditions. That is exactly what the Abbott government are doing. We saw an appalling example of that when they attacked the workers at SPC Ardmona in Victoria. When you look at the facts of what those workers were earning, at the attacks that were made and the blame that was sheeted home to the workers for the difficulties at SPC Ardmona, it is really quite appalling. Those workers were not being paid any more than basic wages. In fact, I would like to see government members in this place suggest that they would like to be earning the sort of money that those workers earn. I am sure that they would not, yet they are happy to come into this place and criticise those workers.

It does not stop with the workers at SPC Ardmona. We saw the same attacks on the workers of this country when it came to the difficulties that GMH have been facing, that Toyota have been facing, and that Qantas have been facing. The Abbott government always blame the workers. Making the so-called tough decisions is a convenient excuse to attack the workers of this country and, in so doing, to start to bring down their wages and their conditions. Under this government, we have seen a loss of some 63,000 jobs since it came to office. We have seen jobs lost at SPC Ardmona. We will see the motor manufacturing industry come to an end in 2017, if not before. I suspect that as a result of decisions that have already been taken many of those companies will start winding down before that. We have seen jobs lost in a swag of other industries like Electrolux, Simplot, Caterpillar, Peabody and so on. All those job losses will result in a worsening budget outlook.

I want to comment on one of the other excuses we often hear from the government for the state of the economy—that is, the carbon tax. Only today I heard a government member suggesting that the reason Qantas are in trouble is the carbon tax bill. If that is what the government truly believe, the government always has the option of returning the carbon tax bill back to Qantas by way of a direct grant, a loan, a loan guarantee or a combination of all three. It is within the power of the government to act if it really believes the carbon tax is the cause of the problems at Qantas. The truth is that it is not and the government knows it, and that is why it will not act. It hides behind the excuse that the Labor opposition are standing in the way of the repeal of the carbon tax.

The government talks a lot about sound economic management, but in truth it has no answers and no policies. It is the government's policies that are actually damaging the bottom line of the budget. I want to talk about one of those policies which has not been clearly articulated when it comes to the loss of car-making in this country. When that industry is lost, Australia will lose about $3 billion in exports. It will also import an additional 100,000-odd cars a year, based on today's figures. What do members opposite think that will do to the balance of trade for this country and the budget bottom line? It will have a negative impact on it. But, again, have members opposite and the government considered those outcomes when they talk about their refusal to support industry in this country? They are critical of government debt, critical of the balance of payments and critical of debt generally, but their policies are going to add to the debt figure.

I have talked about some of the jobs that have already been lost, but it goes further than that. This is about the government rhetoric that the budget is in a mess, that we have massive debt and that the government have to fix it. It is a narrative that has been deliberately exaggerated for blatant political purposes. It has been exaggerated to cover their incompetence; to justify the harsh cuts that they will not talk about but which their Commission of Audit will undoubtedly recommend for the May budget; to attack the workers of this country; to attack the unions and give themselves cover for doing that; and to justify turning their backs on the environment and the environmental measures that were put in place by the previous government in order to create a balance between economic productivity and development and sound environmental management.

They run that narrative, exaggerating the budget position so that they can cut social outlays in this country—cuts to health, cuts to housing, cuts to education, cuts to disability support and so on. The worst of all, might I say, is the imposition of a GP tax of $6 every time someone visits a doctor. That, to me, scrapes the bottom of the barrel in terms of the desperation of this government: hitting people who need the most support at the time when they are looking after the their health.

David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be speaking today in favour of Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2013-2014 and cognate bills and against the amendment moved by the opposition. These appropriation bills represent one of the first steps for the government in cleaning up the very substantial mess we have been left with by the previous Labor government, and what a mess it is. It is a mess which has quite a wide range of aspects to it. One of the most critical parts of that mess is the debt situation which, unfortunately, our nation is now burdened with.

The previous government came in with no net debt and, in fact, with money in the bank, but we are faced with very substantial net debt of circa $200 billion. We also have a situation where that debt is set to grow substantially unless the government acts. The extraordinary thing is that, over the next four years of forward estimates, MYEFO has estimated that $123 billion of additional deficits will be added to what is already a very sore and sorry budgetary position—a very substantial addition to the debt we would face should we follow the policies of the previous government. Even worse, MYEFO forecasts that, over the next decade, if the budgetary position is not addressed, the debt of the Commonwealth by the end of that period would be some $667 billion—that is, two-thirds of a trillion dollars, a completely unacceptable situation.

Labor governments over a long period have not been able to balance the books. The last time a Labor government had a surplus budget was 1989—a very long time ago. Labor had deficits in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 and then there were more deficits in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd period in 2008, 2009 , 2010, 2011 and 2012. Had it happened occasionally, in maybe one or two years during a particularly difficult economic period, it might be understandable. A reasonable person might say that they can understand why it was necessary to temporarily go into deficit for one or two years, but that is not the situation which occurred under the previous government. What occurred under the previous government and under the one before that was structural ongoing deficit, an addiction to spending and an inability to spend less than revenue taken in. That is the simple nub of the issue. If you consistently spend more than you take in, you are going to get into trouble. That is the case for families, for small businesses in my electorate and right around the nation, and it is certainly the case for governments. Cleaning up that debt position is certainly one of the key tasks for this government.

How did this situation arise? However could it get that bad? One of the key areas where we saw a huge blow-out in expenditure under the last government was border protection, or the lack thereof. When the previous government came in, the border security policies of the Howard government were working very effectively. As the previous member mentioned, a strong humanitarian program was in place and was being managed in an orderly fashion, and illegal boat arrivals had slowed to virtually none. The previous government said, 'Let's change what is working extremely well. Let's fundamentally dismantle a system which is serving the Australian people extremely well, and in the process let's spend billions and billions of dollars of borrowed money.' That is the sad reality of the previous government's border security policies, which saw a budget blow-out of more than $6 billion and spending of $11 billion or more.

There were many examples of this sort of policy on the run, lack of attention to detail and lack of understanding of how to manage programs in an operational sense. It is very easy to put out a press release. It does not take a long time. You type it up, you send it out and it is very simple. It is much harder to manage organisations effectively, especially organisations of the size and complexity of the federal government. Under the previous government we saw an addiction to the media cycle—to responding to the day's events—often in a way that was detrimental to the financial position of this country, feeding into the huge debt burden which we now face. A prime example of that was the decision in relation to live animal exports. The electorates of many members from your home state of Queensland, Deputy Speaker Vasta, and from other parts of the nation were affected very significantly by the former government's knee-jerk reaction, pretty much overnight, to abandon the live export industry. The extraordinary thing about that was the fact that it was such a harsh and ill-considered plan, taken so quickly, which had a huge negative impact on ordinary families right around the country, so much so that the previous government acknowledged their mistake and said, 'We'd better put together some sort of assistance package for these communities, which we've hit so hard with this poor policy.'

That assistance package cost about $100 million. If those opposite had not banned the industry overnight in such a superficial and shallow fashion, they would not then have had to spend $100 million trying to rescue it. It was a really relevant example of the lack of management expertise of the previous government. It was also a lack of financial acumen and a lack of respect for money, which was not only in evidence in the big programs such as the pink batts and the NBN—really a national joke under the Labor Party—but also in small programs that really give you an interesting and scary insight into the way the previous government used money.

One example of a lack of acumen was the spending on advertising of border protection policies prior to the last election. You might recall that there were very scary newspaper ads and gravely intoned radio advertisements supposedly targeting people smugglers and encouraging them to not ply their trade but which were, oddly, aired in rural, regional and metropolitan Australia where people smugglers are not typically based. There was about a $2 million spend on that program. In the scheme of an enormous budget it was a relatively small amount of money but it tells you something very important about the attitude towards spending of the previous government. What it tells you is there was a lack of respect for those funds and a lack of appreciation of the fact the government does not generate income.

The government does not create economic activity; the government is simply the beneficiary of it through taxation. So all of that money that the government takes in has in fact been created by the hard work of Australian families and Australian businesses whether through pay-as-you-go tax, company tax or capital gains tax. Whatever the source of revenue, the government did not do any of that work. The government did not work 40 or 50 hours a week having its tax taken out. The government did not take an entrepreneurial risk and employ people and really put its neck on the line to generate economic activity. The government did not do any of those things. The government was simply the beneficiary of that hard work. For the government to treat that money without respect was absolutely wrong.

It is a big task that we face. These appropriation bills represent one of the first steps in addressing it. There are some important steps that have already been taken by this government. So many projects were held up that the Minister for the Environment has given approvals for some $400-billion worth of environmental projects, infrastructure projects and the like. That means jobs in the creation of those projects and it also means ongoing economic benefit from the fact that those projects will exist.

Anyone who is in business, especially small business, does not like red tape. Frankly, if you are in business big or small, you have got better things to do than fill out forms for the government. You are worried about your business, you are worried about employing people and you are worried about paying the bills. The last thing you want to do at eight or nine o'clock at night when the day is done is get your HB pencil out and start filling in some forms for the government. Wherever we can minimise that regulatory burden, that is exactly what we should do.

The member for Kooyong has a tremendous initiative, 'repeal day', coming up soon when the government will be legislating to repeal more than 8,000 regulations—which is a particularly important initiative for the government. We have got to get rid of the carbon tax, of course. The carbon tax is causing such a drag on the economy at the moment. The comments of Mr Borghetti, the CEO of Virgin Australia, were well reported last week and demonstrated that the carbon tax has numerous impacts. One impact is the financial cost to the companies that have to pay it and to the households that have to pay higher electricity and other bills. The other impact is the contraction of economic activity which results from those additional costs. As in any business, if you have additional costs then that is a problem for you and you need to adjust your activities; perhaps cut back in a certain area or not do something you were planning on doing because you now have this additional cost. If that cost was not in place, it would not be necessary for such significant changes to have to occur. So getting rid of the carbon tax is absolutely fundamental and an important initiative for the government.

Free trade is a great driver of economic activity. The government has already got strong runs on the board with the South Korean free trade agreement, which will take tariffs off some 99.8 per cent of Australian products into South Korea. Importantly for my electorate of Banks, the government is working on a free trade agreement with the Republic of China. My electorate has the largest number of people of Chinese background of any electorate in Australia. There is a very warm and close relationship between my electorate and the people of China. We have many students here from China who are studying in our universities and colleges, and many businesses in my electorate work closely both in imports and exports with China and related markets. Free trade is an important part of the government's agenda and those discussions with China certainly will be of great benefit to my electorate.

These appropriation bills are an important first step in addressing the enormous mess that the Labor Party has left behind. It is incumbent on a new government to look honestly at the situation, to look the Australian people in the eye when things are not right and say they are not right, and say we are going to put them right. As the Prime Minister and Treasurer said, not all of those decisions are easy. Not all of those initiatives are simple to take but they need to be taken because we cannot just sleepwalk into the future as the previous government was doing. We cannot just keep spending and spending like money is going out of fashion. We need to take an orderly and sensible approach to financial management. We need to make sure that when we spend a dollar of the people's we are asking ourselves: 'Is this a good use of their hard-earned funds? Is this something that needs to be done?' And, if it is not something that needs to be done, then it cannot be done.

Managing the budget carefully is absolutely critical. The fact that we are on track for a debt position of some two-thirds of a trillion dollars in 10 years if we do not change course is a frightening statistic. It is something we cannot allow to happen. It is certainly not something that this government will allow, because we will be making a number of important changes to get this country back on track, and passing these appropriations bills is an important step in that.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2013-2014 and related bills and on Labor's worthy amendments.

I have listened to a number of my colleagues speak on these bills over the last week, and I must say it has left me with feelings of utter despair. It was despair I felt as my colleagues pointed out the gross hypocrisy and dishonesty of those opposite in their approach to spending—most evident in their blatantly political injection of $8.8 billion into the Reserve Bank. It was despair I felt as my colleagues detailed the cuts to health and education—a flagrant breach of the coalition's pre-election promises not to cut health or education. It was despair I felt when the Deputy Leader of the Opposition detailed the cuts this government is making within the foreign affairs and international development portfolio, cuts that are hurting those most in need in our very own region—in Asia and the Pacific—despite this government's promise to make our region the focus of its international development policy.

There are a number of aspects of these bills that I would like to speak about today. The first is the $13.2 million being ripped from the health portfolio in this financial year. I am not the only one who recalls that prior to the election those opposite promised no cuts to health. On the eve of the election—1 September 2013, to be exact—then opposition leader, now Prime Minister Tony Abbott, appearing on the ABC's Insiders program said:

And I want to give people this absolute assurance: no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions, and no changes to the GST.

But, since coming to power, the government's record in health has included: ripping $100 million from the Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital; abolishing the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council; backflipping on the promise not to close any Medicare Locals; abolishing the expert panel on the marketing of infant formula; and placing the jobs of departmental staff at risk and moving those awaiting redundancy to a permanent departure lounge. Based on its record so far, it would appear that the Abbott government has no vision for the health portfolio other than to make cuts.

I would like to talk today about one of the cuts that has already been inflicted. Last Friday, after 48 years of providing frank and fearless advice to policymakers, the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia closed its doors for good. This closure came after the Assistant Minister for Health—the minister responsible for the preventative health of Australia—Minister Nash, inexplicably cut ADCA's funding late last year.

ADCA was the non-government national peak body representing the interests of the alcohol and other drugs sector. Established in 1966, it has provided a voice for those who work to reduce the harm caused by alcohol and other drugs for nearly half a century. ADCA was based in my electorate of Canberra, just a couple of kilometres from where we are right now, but it worked for the betterment of all Australians, as well as for our neighbours in Asia and the Pacific who can learn from our experience in this space.

Some of the services that had been provided by ADCA, which will now no longer be provided, include: National Drug Sector Information Service; the Register of Australian Drug and Alcohol Research; the National Inhalants Information Service; the drug database; Drugfields—a professional development, policy and practice information service for the Australian alcohol and drug sector; 'Update', an alcohol and other drugs information bulletin board; Drug Action Week, which is incredibly popular; 'Drug talk', an alcohol and other drugs discussion list; and, of course, their one-of-a-kind, incredible library of resources.

The decision to axe ADCA truly came out of the blue. Earlier last year, under the Labor government, ADCA received an assurance of its ongoing funding. And, on 14 October last year, Prime Minister Abbott wrote to ADCA and said, 'I look forward to working with you in the years ahead.' Just six weeks after the Prime Minister had written these words, ADCA was axed. Understandably, many have been wondering why.

Why, after nearly fifty years of representing the Alcohol and Other Drugs Sector, is this the only government which has decided it does not need ADCA's advice? Is it because ADCA's support of the Australia 21 report on the prohibition of illicit drugs was too progressive for this conservative government? Is it an internal political decision we do not understand—given former Liberal MP the Hon. Dr Mal Washer is ADCA's president and former Liberal senator, Senator the Hon. Gary Humphries, was a director? Is it some form of payback, because ADCA have been critical of the NSW and QLD Liberal state governments' response to alcohol induced violence? Did it have anything to do with the reported links between Minister Nash's now former chief of staff and the alcohol industry? The fact is we will continue to wonder, because this government has not given a reason.

Minister Nash first said ADCA had a history of financial mismanagement—which was proved completely untrue. She then said the work of its incredible resource library was duplicated, only to retract that statement. This library is the only resource of its kind in the world and it would seem it is destined for the shredder.

With the many, many cuts being inflicted by this government, it is easy to lose perspective, so let me reintroduce some sorely needed perspective. The government has saved around $1.5 million in annual funding by cutting ADCA. The estimated cost of just one Australian living with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder over their lifetime can be up to $15 million. That is 10 times the annual budget of ADCA.

As the member for Canberra, I am concerned about the 14 ADCA staff who are my constituents and who have now lost their jobs. I am concerned about the landlord who has lost a tenant and the local businesses which will lose a client. But I am even more concerned about the implications for the future health of our country and the region as a result of the axing of ADCA.

Another cut outlined in these bills that I would like to talk about today is the $11.5 million that has been ripped from the Building Multicultural Communities Program. The program provided one-off grants to empower local multicultural communities to strengthen social cohesion and promote inclusion in diverse communities. Some of the community groups in Canberra that received grants under the former Labor government included the ACT Jewish Community, the Australian Chinese Culture Exchange and Promotion Association, the Bangladeshi Seniors Club, the Canberra Islamic Centre and the Spanish Speakers Association.

When the government announced that they were cutting funding from this program, these organisations were left in limbo. Would they receive the grants that they had applied for months before the election? We all know that grassroots community organisations like these run on the smell of an oily rag. These grants were a much needed injection of funds that would reinvigorate their work, and for months these organisations have been in the dark. To date, of the 29 community groups that were awarded grants in the ACT, only two have received their funding. Many have been told they will not be receiving their funding at all but might be eligible for compensation. Many more are still in the dark.

As recently as two weeks ago I received a phone call from a representative of one of these organisations who had been told she would receive her grant. Even though she keeps being reassured that it is going to be okay, will this actually occur? The stress this was causing her was evident. The decisions of this government are hurting those individuals and groups in our community who give up their time to ensure we live in a better, more inclusive society.

The 2013-14 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook papers clearly show that $11.5 million is being taken out of this program. I quote from the MYEFO papers:

The Government will achieve savings of $11.5 million by not proceeding with funding for the Building Multicultural Communities programme, announced in 2013-14 Budget …

I am taking the time to point this out because, in defending this cut, Liberal senator for the ACT, Senator Sesejla, has told the community groups who have lost their funding that the grants were never funded. He said:

They promised something they didn't have the money for. They didn't allocate the money for it.

He has repeated this claim again and again. He has accused Labor of handing out grants that there was no money for. I would like to say to Senator Seselja: if the money wasn't allocated, how are you able to make a $11.5 million saving by cutting the program? Senator Seselja has either been blatantly misleading the ACT community or he is too incompetent to read Labor's 2013-14 budget and the MYEFO document his own government prepared. Either way, he owes Canberrans an explanation.

So many of the cuts outlined in these bills have caused me concern, but perhaps what has caused me the most concern is the cuts to the Education portfolio. We all heard those opposite say before the election again and again that when it came to education they were on a unity ticket with Labor. Those are their words, not ours—a unity ticket. But following the election it is clear that nothing could be further from the truth.

Those opposite speak about the importance of vocational education in our schools. The Parliamentary Secretary for Education, Senator Ryan, has praised trade training centres for addressing skills shortages. He has also said that the government needs to consider 'innovative and practical approaches to deliver trade qualifications in schools'. The Assistant Minister for Education, the member for Farrer, has declared the importance of vocational education in schools, saying:

… there's not enough “try a trade” for those kids in school so they can see what it is they want to do.

She went on to say:

… what we need to do is make sure that from a pathway in say Year ten, they're directed into a career in the trade that suits them …

If those opposite really believe this, why have they cut an incredibly successful vocational education initiative in the trade training centres? In government, Labor funded 510 trades training centres in schools around Australia, with more than 60 per cent in regional areas.

I have visited the trade training centres in my electorate and I know what an incredibly valuable asset they are. I have visited the building and construction trade training centre at St Mary MacKillop College, where I spoke to students who have told me that they have stayed in school because of that trade training centre. I spoke to students who travel for over two hours every day from Cooma to Canberra so that they can go to school at MacKillop because of that trade training centre.

Just two weeks ago I visited Wanniassa High School, which had experienced severe flood damage as a result of the storms here in Canberra. While I was inspecting the damage, Principal Karen Nagorcka was most keen to show me their new trade training centre—still under construction—which had miraculously escaped the damage. I have visited the commercial kitchen trade training centre at St Clare's College, just down the road on Canberra Avenue, where students are able to commence their qualifications in hospitality without leaving school, so they can keep studying languages and English while gaining the qualifications they need for their chosen trade.

Now, more than ever, Australia needs to give every Australian student every opportunity to secure a high-skill, high-wage job of the future. The decision by the Abbott government to cut trade training centres is disgraceful and short-sighted. It shows that they have no understanding of the skills and qualifications that young Australians require for the future. It shows that they have no plan for jobs in Australia, because if they did they would understand the importance of trades. It shows that, despite the talk, those opposite do not care about vocational education.

Just days before the election, the now Prime Minister promised on national television that under an Abbott government there would be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS. But here in these bills—the very first opportunity the Abbott government have had to present bills concerning money supply—we see cuts to health, cuts to education. We see broken promises. We see that this is not the government they promised to be. Before the election, Prime Minister Abbott promised he would lead a government of 'no surprises and no excuses'. Here are the surprises, clearly set out for us. I would like to know what his excuse is.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In rising to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2013-2014 and cognate bills, I want to spend most of my time speaking about positive things and speaking about the future. To start with, I would like to centre my comments on the development of northern Australia. Truly one of the great moments in political life in Australia is when you have a Prime Minister who has the vision to stand up and say that, although there are 142 seats below the Tropic of Capricorn and there are only eight seats north of the Tropic of Capricorn, the country has to go to the north. What I want to see with the development of northern Australia is for us to get the development right—and, to get that right, we must work in partnership with science.

Cast your mind back to 2009 and the oil spill from the Montara oil rig in the Timor Sea. Green groups were up in arms afterwards about how they would ever find out what had gone on, the destruction of the environment and the damage that would go on for generations and generations. Before they commenced operations, the owners of the Montara oil rig had the foresight and vision to do a survey of the area in which they were going to drill. They grabbed the Institute of Marine Science, based in Townsville, to do a full survey of what was there. So when they did have the oil spill they were able to go through it afterwards and have a look at what damage was actually caused—and there was no damage.

We need to make sure that we have information to hand. If we are going to have development along our coastlines, if we are going to develop in places in the Timor Sea and the Torres Strait, and if we are going to expand our ports along the Queensland coastline, we must make sure that we engage with scientific organisations such as the Australian Institute of Marine Science and we get our baseline science and our mapping right so that we understand what is at stake, how it is going to be built, when it is going to be built and what the consequences of that will be. When talking about the environment I have always said that everything we do has an effect on the environment. The fact that we are in this place now speaking affects our environment. It is how we manage that effect which makes us the people we are. So we must handle that expansion and development of northern Australia in the right way.

If you ask anyone in Australia what the biggest river system is in this country, invariably people will say the Murray-Darling. That is the obvious answer, but it is in fact not correct. If we are truly to develop northern Australian, we must make sure that we do not repeat the mistakes of the Murray-Darling. We must make sure that we use the science correctly and speak to people like Dr Damien Burrows at JCU and the CSIRO in North Queensland. We have 25 river systems in the north of Queensland and we had the baseline science on about five of those river systems. The Murray-Darling starts in both the Snowy Mountains and in Queensland and it flows into the Great Australian Bight. In Queensland, we have river systems that not only flow into the Great Australian Bight but also flow into Lake Eyre, the Gulf of Carpentaria, the Great Barrier Reef and the Pacific Ocean. The Fitzroy and Burdekin river systems are two massive river systems, both carrying much more water than the Murray-Darling.

We must ensure that we understand what is going on. If we are to develop agriculture and the resources west of the Great Dividing Range, in places like the Gilbert River and all those places out west, we must ensure that we have our baseline science right. It would be pointless and sheer folly to replicate the mistakes that have been made over the last 200 years on the Murray-Darling. It would be sheer folly to plant a $20 million mung bean crop if it was to destroy the billion dollar prawn fisheries of the Gulf of Carpentaria. We must make sure that we understand what we are dealing with here. When we are talking about the development of agriculture in the north of Australia, we must make sure that we understand the consequences of what the water is doing, how we are to store it, where it is to be stored and for what it is to be used.

I see the development of northern Australia as that key turning point in the north's future. I also see it as a fair bit of pressure on northern Australia and a fair bit of pressure on the members of parliament in the north of Australia. We have a Prime Minister who had the vision to actually put this forward, we have a Treasurer who understands where the country must go, we have a Minister for Trade and Investment who is actively out there pushing our case for us and we have a Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party and Minister for Foreign Affairs saying that this is a great idea. There are four members of cabinet, at the very top, who are saying that this should happen. If we as the members of parliament for the north of Australia miss this opportunity, it will be gone forever. I see this as a huge opportunity for us, but it is also a huge risk. It is an opportunity that we must grab and we must be very aggressive with it.

In relation to the development of northern Australia, I feel that we must include our nearest neighbour, Port Moresby. The previous mayor of Townsville—the mayor of Townsville when I arrived in Townsville in 1994—Tony Mooney, would always say that the closest capital city to Townsville is not Brisbane but is in fact Port Moresby. Papua New Guinea and Port Moresby have been great friends of Australia for an awfully long time. It has been 72 years now since the battle of the Kokoda Trail and the fuzzy wuzzy angels. Papua New Guinea has been there for us for an awfully long time. Our relationship has ebbed and flowed. I truly believe that the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Peter O'Neill, wants the best for his country and wants our relationship to grow.

One of the issues that we have at the moment is the two-way visa issue between the two countries. Papua New Guinea is in the process of cancelling visas on arrival. What used to happen is that you would be able hop on a plane in Cairns and fly to Port Moresby and get your visa at Jackson Field airport on arrival. That does not happen for people from Papua New Guinea when they arrive in Australia. Mind you, it does not happen for any country. We do not have 'visa on arrival' for any country. But the perception is there that we are putting up roadblocks for people from Papua New Guinea—those who have business, education and cultural exchange work to do—to come to Australia. We must address that basic perception.

What we must do is make the process as simple as possible. If possible, we should create special categories of visa for people to do business, for people to do education and for people on cultural exchanges to make us an easier to get to country for them. The people you talk to in Papua New Guinea—from the Prime Minister to the previous Prime Minister, Sir Rabbie Namaliu, to people in business—will all sit there and say that they would do more in Australia but it was just too hard to get to. We must address the basic proposition that we are putting up roadblocks. I know that the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, is working very hard in relation to this process. What we must do is try to simplify the process, try to make it more online and try to make it more user friendly so that we can get to this country and exchange these things more easily.

I believe that Peter O'Neill is heading his country in the right direction. In a recent speech to the Institute of Company Directors on the Gold Coast, he spoke specifically about getting direct flights to Townsville. Whether we organise that as a direct flight or via Cairns is another thing. He also spoke about trying to get involved in the microeconomic form of business-to-business operations between the two countries, and specifically Townsville. I think that this is where we must go. If the relationship between the two countries is to grow, it must grow on a business-to-business basis. I think Prime Minister O'Neill has the bull by the horns here and has the right idea. We must be able to engage better between the two countries on a business-to-business basis, and I know that Townsville business and our Townsville Chamber of Commerce are working very hard to facilitate that.

Another pat on the back that you must give the Papua New Guinean government is for their attitude to corruption. Corruption is often spoken about as being a major issue between the two countries. Prime Minister O'Neill gave a recent speech to the governors of all provinces in Papua New Guinea and addressed the issue of corruption and how it must stop now that Papua New Guinea is on the cusp of a bright new age; that if they do not change the way they do their own business internally, they will never get the results that they should be getting internationally. If we can assist in any way, shape or form with the provision of the services that can assist with that, we should.

Townsville also stands on the cusp of being a major services hub. If you draw a right-angled triangle and have Townsville at the 90-degree axis, straight to the north of us is Papua New Guinea and straight to the east of us is Fiji. If you draw an arc from that 90-degree axis, you will basically get the entire Melanesian world within the circumference of that circle. You will get from Papua New Guinea to Bougainville to the Solomon Islands and around to Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Fiji. Townsville can be the hub for services because we have a great university, a major teaching hospital, the defence force, a police academy, TAFE and Australian technical colleges. We have all these services already there. What we must be doing is facilitating the growth of those other countries by inviting them to come and participate fully in the use our facilities. Whether we do that by using our aid money for these countries or by them getting the aid money and purchasing services off Australian companies, be that as it may, what I do think we will do is get better results by using Townsville as that hub. That will mean that we will have to have people there from Austrade, the department of immigration and people from Foreign Affairs to get these things done, because we are the natural hub for business in northern Australia and we will need to make Townsville a truly international city.

In the time I have left in this debate I would like to discuss the work between the two countries at a defence level. The PNG defence force needs a lot of work and assistance. In Townsville we have the largest Army base in the country. We extend services and do joint operations with services from Papua New Guinea, but we could be doing a lot more. We could be doing exchanges and providing assistance in relation to how the PNG defence force is actually operating, their chains of command and the way they can set up a truly operational facility. What we need to be doing is getting more active in this space, getting in there and assisting them with that. It would be on invitation only, of course, but what we must be doing is looking at the best result for the Australian taxpayer across the board. If you look at where the two countries come closest in the Torres Strait, what we have to do is look at the most effective use of taxpayer funded equipment by basing things such as the C27J or the MRH90 helicopter in Townsville and being able to use them for surveillance. That will also attract high-end engineering jobs, which will then attract the second-tier engineering jobs and those sorts of things to maximise the return for the taxpayer.

One of the criticisms I have of the previous government is that, in the rush to greater scale, they did not look at where the actual dollars were. They were neglecting saving the pennies and were just looking at the pounds. As my grandmother would always tell me, if you look after the pennies, the pounds will take care of themselves. We had situations where a contract had signed that everything would go down to Albury-Wodonga, to Bandiana, to be repaired and that they would get economies of scale and better results by sending stuff down there instead of getting the servicing done locally. How you get better economies of scale or better service by neglecting your local foundries and local engineering firms and instead putting a gearbox on a truck and sending it all the way to Albury-Wodonga to be repaired, or putting an engine on a pallet on a truck and taking it the 3,000 kilometres to Bandiana to have it rebored, then back on truck all the way back to Townsville, beggars belief. The Townsville business would produce better work at more affordable prices with a quicker turnaround and better use of the asset. This says so much about what was going wrong with the previous government.

What we must be doing is looking at how we maximise the benefit to the taxpayer and making sure that autonomy is given as close as possible to the relevant incident or occurrence. We can then get the best result for the Australian taxpayer. We must make sure we maximise those returns by shopping locally, by building the better relationships, by letting the bloke in the department who is heading up that section of the Army, Air Force or Navy go direct to his supplier and get it fixed locally, which means there will be a quicker turnaround for absolutely everyone. I thank the House.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. I welcome it not because I am enthusiastic about the content of this bill but because I think it perfectly epitomises the actions and approach of the Abbott government to date. The bill before us is yet another example of their willingness to break promise after promise, yet another ideological attack on the central tenets of our society and yet another kick in the guts for every vulnerable Australian. It is what this government is all about. In just a few short months they have wreaked havoc. Take, for example, the first parliamentary sitting week of the year: in just seven days they managed to finish off the Australian car industry, blame affected workers for wanting wages and conditions, and then backtrack on their promise to deliver new jobs. I am sure they see it as quite the achievement. Broken promises, ideological attacks and hurting working Australians is this Liberal government's bread and butter.

So let us see what further pain they can inflict with these new appropriation bills. How about cutting $13.2 million from the Health portfolio, $4.8 million from education, $4.6 million from legal policy reform and advocacy funding, or $11.5 million from the Building Multicultural Communities program. They certainly have stayed true to form, with broken promise after broken promise. After all, this is the very same Prime Minister who said on the eve of the election that there would be 'no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS'. Let us break that down. Mr Abbott said there would be no cuts to education, a unity ticket: that did not last long. No cuts to health: obviously abolishing one of our oldest peak public health organisations does not count. No changes to pensions: I am not sure what Mr Abbott thinks a welfare review is for, then. No GST changes: mobile home owners who fought against the government's tax hike might disagree. And no cuts to the ABC or SBS, just apparently an efficiency and expenses review. It is almost like a checklist of cuts to come, a checklist of broken promises, a checklist to mislead the Australian people. So much for a no surprises, no excuses government. The Abbott government has consistently said one thing before the election and then gone and done the complete opposite.

This is, after all, the party that said on multiple occasions that if debt is the problem then more debt is not the answer. What then did they do in government? They cut a deal with their avowed enemies, the Greens, to legislate for an unlimited debt ceiling—quite a backflip. And how many times did we see the current Prime Minister and Treasurer get to their feet in the lead-up to the election and claim Australia had a budget emergency? They claimed we were headed for disaster. I heard more of it today in this House. They claimed that only they could fix it. I guess they hoped that if they said it often enough it would become the truth, and when it did not they decided to change the rules. As the Secretary of the Department of Finance told Senate estimates recently, the Mid-Year Fiscal and Economic Outlook has discarded the former Labor government's fiscal rules which limited real spending growth. Mr David Tune confirmed that this change in assumptions had increased the outlook's projections of budget debt over the next 10 years. So the government changes the rules to suit its own purposes and then, lo and behold, uncovers a $667 billion debt figure in 2023-24. It is a disgraceful action by the Treasurer; it is deplorable. This willingness to fiddle with figures might also explain why the Treasurer decided to gift $9 billion to the Reserve Bank. It was an interesting choice, particularly given that there had been no indication that this was money they asked for or needed.

So why would the government do this? What reason could they possibly have to create and craft a bad result? It is because they are looking for excuses to cut health care, excuses to slash education and excuses to rip up important infrastructure and services around Australia. So obsessed are they with cutting, they are willing to distort the budget numbers in order to justify their ideological agenda. And we know from history that this is something those opposite do. They say, 'We can't afford it and it costs too much.' They attempt to dupe and deceive the Australian public in order to cut, cut, cut. But it flies in the face of logic that if we cannot afford vital health and education services we can somehow afford the coalition's exorbitant Paid Parental Leave scheme, or tax and superannuation breaks for some of our most wealthy. To put it simply, if we are broke, we should not be eating caviar. But the truth is we are not broke, it is just a question of priorities. So it seems that the health of our nation and the future of our kids, creating an equitable and welcoming society, none of this matters to the Abbott government; they simply do not care.

There is a fundamental disconnect between what Australian people want and what the Abbott government is delivering. After all, this is a government that relentlessly pursues inequity. It is a passion of theirs. It is in their bones. They govern for the big end of town while leaving the rest of us behind. We see it again and again. As my colleague the member for Throsby said last week, if you want a tax cut under this government then you had better own a mining company. At the same time as they reward big business they are cutting the schoolkids bonus. They are arguing that we cannot afford to help low-income earners with their lifetime superannuation savings. They are saying that Australian workers like those at Toyota and Holden earn too much.

And if you need any more proof that this is a government that embraces inequality, look no further than their Gonski backflip with triple pike. It was those opposite that promised they shared a unity ticket with us on better schools funding. The Minister for Education pledged to us that he understood the importance of better and more equal education, but of course with this government promises and pledges mean little—in fact, zip. Despite their promises to the contrary, fundamentally, and buried deep within, this is a party that does not believe in funding education. Overcoming disadvantage, a fair go, creating equality—that is not what the Liberal Party are about. And now they are in government they no longer have to fool the Australian people, they are showing their true colours. They are pursuing their dreams of inequality and inequity. They are robbing from the poor to give to the rich. Yet this is the very same party that said they would govern for every Australian. I cannot recall how many times I saw a member of the coalition during the campaign with their Real Solutions pamphlet in hand. It contained, they claimed, the cure for every problem. It promised hope, reward and opportunity for everyone. But, as you can see, Mr Deputy Speaker, nothing could be further from the truth. The bill before us is yet another example which proves that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer govern for a minority, a small few with vested interests, and certainly not for everyday Australians.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. The honourable member for Lalor will have leave to continue her remarks when the debate is resumed.