Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When my remarks on these appropriation bills were interrupted last night, I was addressing the importance of truth and honesty when it comes to public policy in the area of broadband. Against that backdrop I was assessing the conrovian track record. I was coming to the point that there is a troubling disparity, a yawning gap, a chasm in fact between what was promised by the then shadow minister in March 2007 and what, as Minister for Broadband and Communications Senator Conroy delivered during the years of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. There was a promise that the new network would be substantially private-sector funded with public funding capped at $4.7 billion. In fact once in government what the minister began building, after a new announcement in 2009, was a 100 per cent taxpayer-funded and government-owned network. The total cost, far from being a public contribution of $4.7 billion, was on track to be, based upon the strategic review prepared and issued by the board and management of NBN Co in December 2013, well in excess of $70 billion.

The shadow minister, as he then was in March 2007, promised a competitive selection process. He hopelessly mismanaged that selection process before abandoning it in disarray in early 2009. He promised a fixed network to 98 per cent of the Australian population but that, of course, changed to a plan in which the fixed network was going to reach a smaller percentage of the population. In 2007 Labor's broadband policy document promised that the party would 'turn around Australia's broadband performance and put Australia back into the fast lane of the information superhighway'. It was a promise that was dismally unfulfilled at the point when Labor government left office in 2013.

I want to turn next to another conrovian promise—that regarding broadband penetration. We heard when Senator Conroy was shadow minister that the policy problem that this new network was going to solve was that of Australia having poor broadband penetration. In 2005 he claimed that Australia's ranking of 21st on the OECD broadband penetration statistics was 'an appalling result'. In 2006 he was fiercely critical of Australia's ranking of 17th in the OECD broadband rankings, stating in a media release:

The latest OECD broadband statistics show Australia's ranking in the use of broadband remains mired at 17th out of 30 surveyed countries.

He claimed this was due to the Howard government's complete lack of broadband infrastructure leadership.

Oddly, once in government his tune changed. We had a press release on 7 December 2010, titled 'Latest OECD statistics reinforce the need for the NBN', after Australia dropped to 18th out of 31 countries on his watch. There was a similar line in 2012 when the latest OECD broadband rankings reinforced the need for the NBN. So this minister, as he then was, was like a medieval doctor applying leeches to a patient and, even as the patient failed to get any better, he claimed more leeches would solve the problem. When we look at the historical record as at 30 June 2013, after almost six years, Australia was ranked 18th in broadband penetration. I make the point that broadband penetration, and indeed the OECD rankings, are frankly a deeply simplistic measure, but it was the measure that then Minister Senator Conroy repeatedly said was the one by which his policy performance should be judged.

I want to turn to another area where there is a yawning gap between the conrovian promise and the reality. That was the dissembling about whether the expert panel, which was established to assess bids in the competitive selection process in 2008, had recommended that the reason the selection process should be ended was that fibre to the node was not the way to go and fibre to the premises was the future. This was the claim we heard from the then Labor government. What did the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, say in a press conference in April 2009? He said:

The recommendation from the panel is that we move to the next generation, not fibre optic to the node, but fibre optic to the home, fibre optic to the business, fibre optic to the premise.

It was a very clear claim from the then Prime Minister that the reason Labor abandoned its fibre-to-the-node policy and moved to a fibre-to-the-premises policy was a recommendation from the expert panel.

It is interesting that what emerged a little later on—as was highlighted by the then shadow minister for communications, Senator Nick Minchin, in a media release was that Professor Rod Tucker, who was a member of that expert panel, told an Alcatel-Lucent forum in 2009:

I just want to make one thing clear: the panel of experts was never asked to and didn't make any judgement call on the issue of investment for a fibre to the home network.

In fairness, I must note that Professor Tucker subsequently claimed these particular comments of his were taken out of context, which of course is the usual thing you say when you have been reported accurately but what you have said is politically inconvenient. The reality is that the claim from the previous government that the abandonment of fibre to the node and its replacement with fibre to the premises was based on the advice of the panel is a heroic claim not supported by the evidence.

Let's also look at another conrovian promise, where there was a yawning gap between what was claimed and what actually happened. This was the repeated promise that there was going to be substantial private sector investment in this national broadband network. Indeed, the original plan—the fibre-to-the-node plan—collapsed in ignominy and so we had the announcement in April 2009 when Senator Conroy had this to say:

We are inviting all companies in the Telco sector to join us and partner in this … And in terms of our initial contribution it is the $4.7billion which we have talked about at length over the last few years. So we believe that we are able to deliver this project very responsibly and we believe that there is genuine interest in being a partner in this proposal.

That is to say, genuine interest in private sector investment! Sadly, it very quickly emerged after KPMG and McKinsey prepared the $25 million implementation plan at the then government's request, that there was no interest at all from the private sector in investing in such a hopelessly uneconomic venture.

Let me turn to another yawning gap between the reality and the conrovian claims. We had one of the former minister's less glorious moments—from quite a rich menu I might add—in February last year when as the Australian Financial Review reported:

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has unleashed a tirade against Vodafone … accusing its chief executive of acting like Sol Trujillo, the divisive former Telstra boss.

The AFR quotes the then minister as saying:

'I find it extraordinary that the world's largest mobile operator wants to close down a regional network for people they don't service. They lost 750,000 customers due to poor service

In other words, it was a direct attack on the integrity of the company and an individual and, unfortunately, as we saw last week with Senator Conroy's behaviour, that sort of attack is consistent with his form when he wants to direct attention. His record on the question of policy and mobile communications is absolutely not one to be proud of. It is not surprising that he wanted to direct attention from questions that were being asked and policy suggestions that were being put about how to restore the vigour in competition in the mobile sector. That sector, which had previously had a proud track record of competition, saw that record, frankly, weakened materially under Senator Conroy's stewardship.

All of us who have watched Senator Conroy over many years certainly saw a rich irony in him observing last week in the Senate, 'Can't we handle the truth?' The question of truth is always an important one and there are some important questions here to be answered. (Time expired)

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

There are eight minutes of my life that I will never get back, listening to the member for Bradfield. It was a tremendous performance. I think the eighth level of Dante's Inferno just has the member for Bradfield giving his 'best of' speeches. I saw the member for Reid nodding off! No, not nodding off, but he did look like he was nodding off, I might say.

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2013-2014 and related bills. Given that this was a government that was elected on a wave of nostalgia and wishful thinking, it takes something for those opposite to get up and talk about promises. All around the world a debate has been going on between growth and austerity. That is the debate around the world. Growth is about having a growing labour market, good incomes and wages growth. That is what we had in the middle of the global financial crisis—an expanding middle class, confidence in the economy and confidence in demand.

Austerity is all about cutting government expenditure, cutting wages and social security payments, cutting people's overall levels of security—and cutting taxes, but just for the rich, just for the top end. The whole idea of austerity—and it is a very simplistic notion that does find some appeal around the place—and the whole net result of it is to create insecurity and to demolish demand. It leads to a glut in savings at the top end, which tend to be parked in unproductive safe havens. The rich sit on their money, whereas the middle class tend to spend it.

That is a debate that has been going on since 1930s. Of course, whenever you discuss the 1930s you have to think about Keynes, of course, that famed economist, who said:

Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.

Of course, we know that those opposite are the slaves to the types of views that were propagated by Andrew Mellon, who was secretary of the US Treasury from 1921 to 1932. He was impeached—impeachment proceedings were begun by the Congress because his attitude was to liquidate labour, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers and liquidate real estate. He wanted to purge the rottenness out of the system. He thought that the high cost of living and high living would come down. He said that people would work harder and live a more moral life; values would be adjusted and enterprising people would pick up the wrecks from less competent people. That is what Andrew Mellon said.

We know that those opposite, and particularly the Prime Minister, are slaves to this view. That is the critical thinking of it. Today, of course, Malcolm Farr wrote a very good article, I think on News.com, which was about how Mr Abbott would have handled the global financial crisis. How would our Prime Minister, the member for Warringah, have handled the financial crisis? Farr said that we can see that through his attitudes to Holden and to Qantas. We can see that there would have been, if you like, a:

… ‘benign neglect’ or ‘caring indifference’.

That is what we would have had.

But the reality is that we would have had 200,000 more people on the dole queues. We would have had more young people not having apprenticeships and not getting a start. We would have had a deeper hole in our economy, small business taxes would be higher, workers would be more insecure and the economy—particularly small business in the economy—would have suffered from lower demand, because the minute you hit—

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Talk about a house of straw! This is ridiculous!

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

Well, this is the reality of it. You cannot escape from it.

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are making it up as you go along! You should have started with 'once upon a time'!

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

The parliamentary secretary wants us to pretend that none of this happens! We can see what has happened in the rest of the world. They tried austerity—Spain tried austerity, Ireland and Greece all tried austerity. Europe has tried austerity. We can see the experiment over there. We tried growth. And now the Liberal Party, bizarrely, will try it through an act of 'liberation'. We know that Mr Abbott said that there was a $100-million plan to help 'liberated workers' find jobs. There are workers in my electorate who have been 'liberated' from their work. That is the reality of what the Prime Minister said—such callous indifference!

We know that when Mr Hockey was, famously, on the front page of the Financial Review on 11 December that the headline was, 'Hockey dares GM to leave'. There were no mistakes about what the government was trying there: it was trying to tip the car industry over. And it is not like they were not warned, because we had the very next day, on 12 December, the Financial Review saying, 'Holden's dramatic exit puts Toyota at risk'. So we saw Toyota fall over and now we see thousands of component jobs not just under threat but going. They will go, because the heart and the lungs of that particular economy have been ripped out. So now thousands of component workers will be at risk of losing their jobs.

You would think there would be a bit of reticence by those opposite. They would not want to claim it, not after The Age had on the front page of its paper on 11 February, 'Road to recession'. You never saw that while the Labor government was in; there was no talk of recession then. You would think that those opposite would be a little circumspect about what they were doing. But, of course, instead we have in Mr Coorey's column of 8 and 9 February this year with one minister, unnamed—he did not have the courage to put his name to it—quoted as saying:

It was Abbott who put the torpedo in the water over Holden.

So not only are they chasing these companies out of Australia; they are then rushing to lay claim to it. We saw that with SPC; a mere $25 million would have not just secured our last fruit processor but secured the livelihoods of hundreds of farmers stretching all the way to Queensland. You would have thought that, if anything would have motivated a Liberal-National government, it would have been that. But of course that was not enough to soften the hearts of those opposite. It was only the actions of the Victorian government that stopped the sort of economic cataclysm that is hitting my electorate, Altona, Geelong and places like that from hitting the good people of Shepparton.

You would have thought that, after playing rope-a-dope with Holden and sending the whole car industry over the cliff, the government would not do that with Qantas. But look at what we have had with Qantas. It has been four months. These problems are not new. They did not come up yesterday. They came up in December last year. So we had the Treasurer go out some time after, dilly-dally and think about it a bit. And then the Treasurer came out and basically gave a public indication that he was prepared to entertain the notion of a debt guarantee for Qantas, that somehow Qantas was different to the automotive industry and a different set of rules would be applied to it because of so many state owned enterprises, including the New Zealand government, being involved in the aviation industry. The Treasurer told Qantas in pretty explicit terms that if it got its act together then the government would give it a debt guarantee. That was what was intimated to Qantas publicly, and probably privately, and the share market price of that corporation went up with that expectation.

You cannot do that to a company. You cannot put all those indicators out there and then, in some sort of schizophrenic cabinet move, pull up stumps and say: 'Oh no, sorry about that. Sure the Treasurer laid down these four principles but we will just ignore them; now it is a free market, and we are not going to get involved other than to make some pretty minor alterations to the sale act, which will not fix the problem—that is, we will apply a solution that does not actually fix the current problem.'

So now we do not just have a problem with Qantas but the government's actions in dilly-dallying, setting up a straw man and then knocking it down has left the company in a worse position. If the company had rolled up in December and said it wanted a debt guarantee and the Prime Minister had said, 'That is not happening,' then the company would have known where it stood. But that is not what happened.

We had the same level of indecision and the same level of expectations put out there publicly by the Treasurer regarding GrainCorp, only to have a decision that completely went against the grain of everything that was said before that—that is, GrainCorp expected the takeover bid to be approved and then it was not. Cabinet said, 'Surprise!' We had the same thing with Holden. We know what was intimated to Holden: if the workers cut their wages and the company played ball then it would have a shot at getting assistance. The minister came down and toured the plant, and there was all this talk about twisting the Treasurer's arm to get a few shekels—and, surprise, the Treasurer dared GM to leave.

Now we have Qantas. We have the four principles set out there for everyone to see—a whole lot of dilly-dallying. Watching those opposite is a bit like watching Kabuki theatre. You have them all appearing on the pages of the Financial Review trying to out-tough each other. I look forward to the member for Reid getting in there: get something nice and dry, cut penalty rates, muscle up, Mate. That is the way to get on the front bench with this crew.

We have this internal debate going on behind the foggy glass of this government. There is lots of movement. You cannot quite tell what is going on. It must be very bewildering for corporations that are seeking support. The ethanol industry must be pretty worried at the moment. But we then have Qantas: surprise! Cabinet has made a different decision; the Prime Minister has made a different decision. That is very bewildering, I think, for corporations in this country. They do not know what to expect. We have mixed messages and a divided cabinet. It is divided in the sense that those opposite are willing to play out their divisions in public, not clearly but unclearly, through the pages of the Financial Review and through the Australian. And just when you think there might be a predictable decision, you get unpredictability. One minute the Prime Minister is dry and the Treasurer is wet; the next minute the Treasurer is wet and the Prime Minister is dry. You cannot predict what they will do. They say they are for small business but they are upping small business taxes.

The question will be a very clear one at the next election. It will be jobs versus unemployment. Make no mistake about it, particularly in the southern states. That will be the choice, I think, in the election. It will be security versus insecurity. It will be wages growth versus cuts to penalty rates, because we all know that is where they are going to go. That is a part of the austerity package that this government will bring to us. It will be a choice between growth and austerity, and it will be a choice between Shorten and Abbott, and a very different set of priorities.

Labor will always be for a growing economy, security at work and security for an expanding middle class. I know small business gets talked about a lot in this building. We did a lot of practical things to help small business—particularly in taxation—versus those opposite, who will peddle insecurity, who will peddle cuts to penalty rates, who will peddle a cut in demand, and who will peddle a terrible experiment in austerity that has been tried in the rest of the world and has been found to fail.

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the original bill but not the amendments. Sorry to the member for Chifley, but, before I commence I would like to take the eight minutes that the member for Wakefield will never get back in his life and raise him seven, because that was 15 minutes I will never get back, although it is always good to follow him in the chamber—I should not say 'always', because this is the first time it has happened.

I would like to follow on from a couple of points. Coming to the chamber from a different background to the member for Wakefield, I would like to say that he is correct that small and family business will be what drives us forward in this. It always has been and always will be. I note that he made mention of the 'magnificent work' that the previous government had done. One thing he failed to mention was that in the six years of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government we unfortunately lost 413,000 people out of this sector through employment. It is great to be a part of a government that will do its utmost to turn this around because, as the Prime Minister said, we have it in our DNA. But it is also great for me personally, having come from that background.

I cannot help but think that the amendments that have been proposed here, by the member for Fraser, are the latest in an attempt to rewrite the last six years of our history. We came into government on 7 September, and the driving force to get here was the mismanagement we saw over the last six years. If you look at the three years prior, there was a forecast budget deficit in 2011-12 of $22.6 billion and an actual deficit of $43.4 billion—only 100 per cent out! That was actually pretty good. There was a forecast surplus in 2012-13 of $1.5 billion and an actual surplus of negative $18.8 billion. In 2013-14, it was a forecast of 18.8 billion, and, as we sit today, it is $47 billion. I cannot blame them for wanting to rewrite history. I cannot blame them for wanting to run away from their legacy, because if I were them I would be doing exactly the same. However, we do not have the choice to run away from the legacy. We are on the government side of the Treasury benches and we are now responsible.

Through that six-year period there were pink batts—putting them in, taking them out—and school halls. The best school hall story, I believe, was in the electorate of Reid, at Abbotsford Public School—Building the Education Revolution—because it was not actually a hall. I have become close to the parents in that school. They had a four-classroom building and it was proposed that it would be knocked down and we would have another four-classroom building built. They asked, because they were short of classroom space, whether they could keep that four-classroom building and build an additional four-classroom building. But, unfortunately, that did not pass muster, and the money spent at that school replaced, like for like, identically, what was there before. But we all know about the cost blow-outs associated with that.

I do not think there is a better illustration of how this side of government differs from the opposition when they were in government than the NBN. It starts from the top and works its way down. Prior to me speaking, we had the parliamentary secretary for communications. He had an outstanding career, prior to moving into parliament, in communications. The minister that he reports to had an outstanding business career—amongst it, communications. If you are going to put something on the back of an envelope with no cost-benefit analysis and have it blow wildly out of control, I cannot think of two better people than these two to steward it out.

I noted with interest at Senate estimates last week that Ziggy Switkowski mentioned that three per cent of homes in Australia have been passed at a cost of $6.2 billion. If left unattended, it is heading towards $200 billion. That is obviously something we cannot afford, given the parlous answers—which the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer mentioned earlier—$123 billion of gross debt and $667 billion.

The ex-government were so in favour of small business, as we heard from the member for Wakefield, that they destroyed the live cattle industry. The FBT on cars in my electorate threatened to destroy the car dealerships along Parramatta Road. Then you come to the greatest electoral fraud ever perpetrated on the people of not only Reid but Australia: the carbon tax. That has permeated its way into the expense side of every P and L of every business, irrespective of size, in this economy. How that plays out in the real world is that you get small and family businesses where those 413,000 people have lost employment in the last six years; you get the mother, the father, and the kids working additional hours.

The member for Wakefield mentioned penalty rates. They are irrelevant to small and family businesses, because we operate in an environment of the law of the day. And I will tell you how this plays out. They either augment the trading hours—they open later and close earlier—or they work additional hours themselves and do not pay themselves. That is how this works out.

He mentioned casual employment. We saw the workforce casualised through the last six years at a rate never seen in our history. We talk about how that plays out in the youth unemployment space. It is all connected. This is microeconomics at its finest. The first job you get out of university—and I am sure the member for Chifley can remember back to his university days—is a casual job. The problem is that what has played out over the last six years—through the carbon tax directly and then every spin-off in every line of every P and L—is that employment and those casual positions have dried up, and youth unemployment in my electorate is running at 20 per cent.

That is a tragedy, a living tragedy, because this is how kids transition themselves and prepare themselves to move into full-time employment and have their own families.

It is even better reading when you actually go and look at the budgets. We often hear about 23,000 more people in the Public Service from the Howard-Costello years to the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. But when you go inside these numbers you truly see how it has got out of control. The Attorney-General's Department in 2006-07 had 15,940 people and today it has 18,385. The Department of Health and Ageing had 4,752 and today it has 6,245. These are 20 and 30 per cent increases in departments. Treasury had 27,800 and now it has 29,400 people. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had 5,000 people in the last year of the Howard government and now it has 7,000. But when you actually go inside the line items of the departments you see the difference between the former government and the government of today—and there is no better example, in my humble opinion, than Austrade. Bilateral trade is how we prosper. In 2006-07 Austrade had 1,150 people and today it has 930. It has gone backwards. Then you have AusAID—scary, I know; Austrade and AusAID. AusAID had 518 people in 2006-07, the last year of the Howard government, and today it has 1,982. So the department that works on bilateral trade, growing our economy, went backwards by 10 per cent in employment in the six years of the former government, and the department that spends our money overseas in aid has increased by 400 per cent. I would argue that the 'age of entitlement' that the Treasurer mentioned is relevant not only in Australia; the former government made it relevant worldwide.

Then you come to my favourite, because it affects Western Sydney—Customs. In the last year of the Howard government we had 5,297 people working in Customs. Seven years later we have 5,000—and this hurts. It hurts because we are now screening eight per cent of our air cargo, our mail, versus 62 per cent in the last year of the Howard government. And what do we have in Western Sydney as a result? We have got guns and drugs—to the point where the New South Wales Minister for Police, Andrew Scipioni, who is in the building here tonight, is on record as saying that guns, in particular, are an issue of national significance in Western Sydney. I do not know what we are going to do for Underbelly in the future, because if you want to get a gun or drugs into the country, you mail it to yourself. That just will not sell on TV. As the member for Cook has said, 230 Glock pistols turned up within one month of production in Germany. Here is a newsflash—and I hope the member for Chifley is with me on it: we do not make guns here; we import them. If you want to get away with it at the moment, the best way to do that is to mail it to yourself, because you have a 92 per cent chance of getting away with it. With drugs it is even worse. We do not make them here, either; we import them. And this plays out on our streets. If you look at Western Sydney, my electorate, we have had seven drive-by shootings in the last 12 months. This is real. This is the biggest disgrace that I can find in these figures as a local member. At a time when staffing numbers grew some 23,000 over seven years, something that made real sense to us on the streets of Western Sydney has gone backwards and we have paid the price as a result.

I also love the way the former government, in an attempt to rewrite their legacy, refer to our performance versus other countries in the world. I stumbled across these figures. Earlier the member for Wakefield mentioned Greece and Italy, and he used them offhandedly—the EU countries. Would it surprise you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to know that, in the last six years, we have had in this country GDP growth of 16.7 per cent, terms of trade growth of 18 per cent and a debt deterioration of GDP of 20 per cent? At the same time, the EU has had GDP growth of 1.4 per cent, a negative 1.9 per cent terms of trade increase, and deterioration in their GDP growth has been 22 per cent. So we are line by line, unfortunately, in the one that hurts most—debt deterioration.

This is the issue that I see in the amendments that are attached to this appropriation bill. It is one thing to stand here day after day—be it through amendments to bills, MPIs or whatever other tool the opposition want to use—and have a trip down memory lane about the six years that we had under their guidance. I do not know if you ever watched Happy Days, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I did. I loved that show when I was growing up. What I wish, and what the people of my electorate wish, is that the member for Chifley and all of those opposite were not like the Fonz—because, if you will remember, the Fonz could never say he was wrong. He could not say it. Although the member for Chifley actually said it the other night, and I commend him for it, in reference to Senator Conroy. But, in terms of financial management, they keep getting to the word and stumbling: 'Rrrrrr.' I do not know if you remember, Mr Deputy Speaker. But they were wrong. They were wrong to put this country into debt, they were wrong to attack mercilessly every business, irrespective of size or their P and L, through the carbon tax. They were wrong because of the 413,000 jobs that were lost as a result, and we must not only vote against the amendments in this bill but also carry out the plan that we have to make things right.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in relation to Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2013-2014, Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2013-2014 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014 which are before the House. Once again, this is legislation that contains what we have become used to with this coalition government—cuts to education and cuts to health. Notwithstanding that the Prime Minister when he was the opposition leader made it clear that there would be no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts to SBS and no cuts to the ABC, we see cuts to health and cuts to education. Here in front of the parliament we see $4.8 million in cuts to education, $13.2 million in cuts to health and $4.6 million in cuts to legal policy reform and advocacy funding. Coalition governments, whether state or federal, do not like organisations that advocate on behalf of their members or constituents. That is why the Howard government put gag provisions in there. That is why, when the Campbell Newman government came to office in Queensland, one of the first things that Lawrence Springborg, the health minister in Queensland, did was put gag provisions in place in relation to funding contractual arrangements.

One of the most egregious things in this legislation is the cuts to the Building Multicultural Communities Program—$11.5 million. Once again, it is hard for those opposite to justify the cuts they are making, and certainly across the portfolio areas that I am responsible for—for example, snatching $1.1 billion away at the end of last year from the workforce supplement to assist lowly paid aged-care workers, nurses, administrative workers and carers. There is no evidence at all that that money will ever go into the aged-care sector to assist in the much-needed increases in salaries and improved conditions. A worker in that sector, such as a registered nurse, can earn $300 or $400 a week less than someone working in a public hospital. That is hard for those opposite to justify.

The Commission of Audit report of 900 pages has been in the possession of the Treasurer for more than a couple of weeks. Parts of the Commission of Audit report that have been revealed and leaked to the media only pertain to what Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister, calls his signature policy—that is, his paid parental leave scheme. He called it his signature policy at a doorstop in Adelaide on 26 April 2013 and described it as 'settled policy' on 29 May 2013. That Commission of Audit slammed the paid parental leave scheme—an unfair scheme that will in fact cost an estimated $5.5 billion, paying full recipients their full wages for six months capped at $75,000 a year.

So a baby born to a cleaner at Ipswich State High School in my electorate is potentially worth much less than a baby born to a banker on the North Shore of Sydney. That is simply unfair and it is unwarranted. We have got a fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme in this country and we need to support it. Three hundred and forty thousand women in this country have applied for and received paid parental leave and 95 per cent of women in this country are now covered by a paid parental leave scheme—a 50 per cent increase in coverage since the paid parental leave scheme was brought in. What those opposite want to do is take away the schoolkids bonus from 1.3 million Australian families and, at the same time, give their friends massive increases in support.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Three times more than what pensioners in my electorate get.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Exactly. They get rid of the low-income superannuation contribution, which helps working families earning less than $37,000 a year, but support the wealthy in this country who have more than $2 million in superannuation assets—about 16,000 of them. Talk about class warfare! There is class warfare being perpetrated, perpetuated and prosecuted over there.

Mr Husic interjecting—

In the legislation before us it is quite clear. So let's see what they do on paid parental leave. What this really shows is that those opposite have an agenda against middle- and low-income earners in this country.

Ms Henderson interjecting—

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Corangamite, you can ask for an intervention; otherwise, I request that you be quiet, please.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They consistently said one thing before the election and now, through their actions, are doing something else in government. For example, they claim that there is a budget emergency. So what do we see in this legislation? We see $8.8 billion given to the Reserve Bank. Where is the documentation about that? So far we have seen nothing about that. Where is the budget emergency? We heard about that all the time. They prattled on about that all the time. They blew out MYEFO with massive increases and billions and billions of dollars extra in debt and then blamed us for it when it was by virtue of their decisions.

What we are seeing here is a government determined on an agenda, hidden before the election and prosecuted now through this legislation. We have seen nearly $17 billion in a budget deficit blowout in MYEFO for 2013-14, and 60 per cent of that $17 billion was due to the decisions of this government alone. It is an astonishing demonstration from this 'no surprise and no excuses' government. We heard, 'No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions, no changes to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS'. That is what the Prime Minister said but now of course it is totally different.

We have heard those opposite talk about history lessons; so let's talk history. We had a AAA credit rating, low unemployment, low inflation and a low debt-to-deficit ratio. When we left office, Australian taxes were at 22.2 per cent of GDP, compared to 24.2 per cent under the Howard coalition government. So the Howard coalition government were the big government. What they refuse to realise is that, when there were rivers of gold, they were taxing, taxing and taxing. That was when the mining boom was coming to its peak. But, when the global financial crisis hit this country, it was a Labor government that supported jobs. Those opposite again and again deny that the global financial crisis even existed.

When we left office the official interest rate was 2.75 per cent, down from 6.75 per cent when John Howard left office. So a family in my electorate living on Cascade Street who sent their kids to Raceview state primary school and had a mortgage of $300,000 were saving about $100 a week by virtue of the low interest rates when we were in office. But guess what? If they send their kids to Raceview state primary school they are going to lose their schoolkids bonus. In my electorate, many eligible families will lose that schoolkids bonus. And of course we have seen the delay in superannuation. As I said before, 46,300 people are losing superannuation by virtue of the actions of those opposite. So much for the support of households, jobs and infrastructure.

One of the things that really gets me is the allegation they make that we have somehow had a massive wages explosion in this country when we know for a fact—and Treasury confirmed this on 26 February this year—that annual wage growth has slowed to 6.2 per cent, the slowest growth since 1997. So it is contained, yet those opposite would have you believe that, apart from their allegations that it is all to do with the carbon tax, all the fault for all the jobs lost in this country lies with the workers because they are paid too much. We hear it again and again in speech after speech in this place.

One of the things that the coalition government did not do when they were in power last was cut funding for infrastructure, which is one of the things they have done since they got in this time. When we came to office, Australia was ranked 20 out of 25 in the OECD on infrastructure. Infrastructure was a way in which we kept people in employment during the global financial crisis. We had warning after warning from the Reserve Bank that there were bottlenecks on roads and rail and at ports. We heard it again and again. We saw it of course in South-East Queensland in places between Brisbane, Ipswich and Toowoomba and places like the Warrego Highway, the Brisbane Valley Highway and Ipswich Motorway, which those opposite refused to fix. So we set about funding these things. We funded the Bruce Highway. We spent four times the amount of money that John Howard's government ever did on the Bruce Highway.

The coalition failed to invest in infrastructure when they were last in government and have cut funding in infrastructure in this government. For example, they have completely abrogated the field when it comes to rail. So Cross River Rail project in Brisbane, which is important for all of South-East Queensland and supported by Graham Quirk, the Brisbane City Council Lord Mayor, and Campbell Newman and his LNP government in Queensland. Those opposite opposed it and withdrew the funding for it, and it is not proceeding. That is an important funding project for all of South-East Queensland—for jobs, growth, productivity and infrastructure—and it should be proceeded with.

The second one in South-East Queensland that those opposite are yet to sign up for, and cut the funding for on the eve of the election, is the final stage of the Ipswich Motorway in the electorate of Moreton. They cut the funding we provided from $276 million to $65 million. The project will now not proceed because Campbell Newman's government will not agree with it. That is what those opposite have done terms of infrastructure—that is, abandon major cities.

When coalition governments get in, that is what they do; they disband major city units. We saw that when Malcolm Fraser's government came into power. Gough Whitlam put people—Tom Uren and others—into the role of looking at infrastructure in our cities: to sewer the cities, to build bridges, to build roads and to look at the planning. When Labor won in 1972 after 23 years of sclerotic conservative government in this country, the Commonwealth government of this country took the initiative for the first time ever to set about doing this. We did it during the six years we were in government, and one of the first acts of the coalition government was to get rid of that sort of planning. That is exactly what they did, and they cut the funding.

Most Australians live in the major capital cities and the regional cities like Toowoomba, Ipswich, Logan, Moreton, Newcastle, Wollongong and Geelong. That is where people live, apart from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and the other capital cities. People live in these places. We need to look at how these cities are planned and the infrastructure needs of these cities, but those opposite fail to look at it. They do not think of themselves as nation builders. They do not think of themselves as people who will make an effort to support jobs and infrastructure and growth. For them it is all about the private sector, and they fail to understand that.

They fail to support jobs in Qantas, Holden, Toyota, Alcoa and Gove; they will not do it. The cutting of funding in these communities for things such as the Building Multicultural Communities Program is being played out across the whole of the country, in their electorates as well as our electorates. For example, my electorate was really badly damaged by flooding in 2011 and 2013. Sadly, people's lives were lost. Their homes and their farms were ruined. There was terrible infrastructure damage done to parks, roads and bridges across Queensland. It was devastating. Those opposite would not even vote for the funding that we needed to rebuild Queensland. They opposed the funding.

But in this legislation it comes to things such multicultural grants. One of the most important flood evacuation centres in my home town of Ipswich was at Riverview Neighbourhood House. Funding of $133,200 was provided for an upgrade project under a program, and this legislation has ripped it away as a result of MYEFO. This funding was to renovate and make sure that up to 300 people in that particular facility are actually being cared for. Funding for people from Samoan backgrounds and Aboriginal backgrounds, low-income earners, and flood-affected people was cut off. This funding was taken away from a centre that was available for them. They needed a commercial kitchen. It was in this funding and it has been ripped away. They needed to upgrade the hall with new fans and new lights. It is also the hub of that community and it is gone. The flood in the Ipswich community does not concern those opposite. They ripped away $2 million from the flood evacuation centre for 30,000 Ipswich residents at St Joseph's Catholic primary school. So those opposite do not care about the western corridor outside of Brisbane. They have never cared about Ipswich; they have never cared about it at all.

Even today, we saw a demonstration of that. I hope the minister for primary industries comes to my electorate because my vote will continue to go up. The Liberal vote was smashed in my electorate at the last election—it catapulted down. He can come to my electorate any time he likes. He can go to JBS, where I used to work as a kid, which we provided with $4.4 million to improve their energy efficiency. As a result of what we did in partnering with the company, they reduced their energy costs by $1 million a year and reduced their carbon emissions massively. When the then Leader of the Opposition came to that place, he failed to tell the workers that he did not support the grant, and neither did the primary industries minister today.

Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2013-2014, Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2013-2014 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014. As was highlighted in the December MYEFO, Mr Deputy Speaker, if we do nothing to correct the budget mess left to us by Labor we are condemning future generations—my children, your children—to repaying the debt generated by one of the most wasteful governments in our country's history. Do nothing and we face the burden of $123 billion in accumulated deficits and debt forecast to reach a staggering $667 billion. Quite simply, we have been living beyond our means. It has been proven that Labor cannot manage money. We know that they do not understand the fundamental premise that governments spend other people's money. Taxes paid by businesses and individuals are a quantum that without the insidious burden of interest repayments is more than adequate to fund the services we rightly expect government to provide.

Of Tasmania's $5 billion annual budget, 60 per cent of the funding comes from the Commonwealth. On 15 March Tasmanians go to the polls. Shamefully, after 16 years of Labor government, and most disastrously the past four years of the Labor-Green coalition, Tasmania is broke. The damage done to my state as a result of Labor's financial mismanagement, compounded by having Greens in cabinet, is plain for all to see. Tasmania was the birthplace of Green politics in our country, and conservation indeed has its place. I acknowledge those Tasmanians who, back then, saw in the Greens something noble. But sadly for many Tasmanians sympathetic to a notion of balance, the noble roots of the Greens have rotted in a mired socialist ideology. This is now a party of protest, not of government, preying on the hearts and wallets of idealistic mainland city dwellers in need of a cause to ease their environmental conscience.

I have spoken at more length in this place about the hypocrisy that surrounded the Tasmanian forestry agreement and do not propose to elaborate further on that today. Suffice to say that under Labor-Green governments a once productive industry, so important to regional Tasmania, has been summarily dismantled and brought to its knees. Only in their wildest dreams could the Greens have imagined wielding the influence they have had in Tasmania over the past four years. Courtesy of a Labor government desperate to hold on to power, the Greens' agenda to de-industrialise Tasmania was given wings to fly. I have just come from the Forestry Industries Association dinner in the Great Hall and, as the Prime Minister just said, no-one has ever helped the environment by destroying an economy.

Premier Lara Giddings, and all her accomplices, including recently sworn-in Minister Rebecca White, the state member for Lyons, are hoping Tasmanians are suffering from amnesia. Unfortunately for Ms Giddings, but fortunately for Tasmania, every Tasmanian I speak to knows that we simply cannot afford another four years of the same sort of government. Investment in Tasmania has dried up and business confidence is at record lows. As Australia has struggled with sovereign risk issues as a result of the carbon tax and the mining tax, sapping confidence and sending investors into other jurisdictions, similarly Tasmania has been unable to attract outside investment due to the difficulty of getting things done under the current Labor-Green alliance. The state needs stability and certainty, and this will only come from a majority government, able to make decisions in the best interests of all Tasmanians. Only the Liberals can deliver this for Tasmania.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force figures for January 2014 reveal that Tasmania's unemployment rate trend figure for December and January was 7.6 per cent compared to the national average of 5.8 per cent in December. Tragically, the story for young Tasmanians looking for work is disastrous and, according to the Brotherhood of St Laurence, the youth unemployment rate in some parts of the state is as high as 20 per cent. One in five young people in my state actively looking for work are unable to find it. It is simply unacceptable. Since 2010, the number of unemployed Tasmanians has risen by nearly 25 per cent and the state's participation in work rate is at its lowest level since 2005. Nearly 10,000 fewer Tasmanians are in full-time employment and Tasmania has the highest unemployment rate in the nation.

What these figures do not show is the rate of underemployment, the people that want to work more hours but are unable to find the opportunity. Deloitte Access Economics said in January that recent data on Tasmania's economic health showed that there had been a slight improvement but added in its summary that 'then again, it would have been difficult for them to be worse. This state is the biggest victim of Australia's 'two speed' economy.' Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chief Executive, Michael Bailey, recently described Tasmania's parlous state when commenting on the state's mid-year economic report. The report showed that Tasmania was budgeted to end the financial year with gross debt of almost $1.2 billion. This figure only reflects core government responsibilities. If the state government's commercial activities are included, the data is even more devastating. By 30 June this year, the state is budgeted to have total gross debt of just under $3.9 billion. The Tasmanian government's own mid-year report shows that the net operating balance has deteriorated by a total of $448.5 million since the preparation of the 2013-14 budget. However, just three years ago the estimate for the 2013-14 budget was an underlying surplus of $53.4 million. How have they got it so wrong?

Remember, all of this was on the back of a deal signing up to a fiscal strategy to reduce expenditure as GST revenues collapsed under the deteriorating economic performance of the national budget, courtesy of Mr Rudd, Ms Gillard and the member for Lilley. As we now know, and many understood at the time, the previous federal Labor government never had a problem with revenue, rather they had a problem with spending. And even Tasmania's Premier and Treasurer, Lara Giddings, in 2012 in the mid-year economic update said:

… there is now no more hay left in the barn.

She went on to say:

We are living beyond our means and spending must be cut in line with our reduced income so we do not go back into net debt.

So, having worked out that we were spending too much and living beyond our means, and rightly bringing down a budget showing a surplus of $53 million, what did we do? We delivered the biggest deficit in the state's history.

Since the Labor-Green government came into office in my home state, Tasmania has run the biggest deficits in the state's history, investment has dried up, Tasmania's credit rating has been downgraded, and hundreds of Tasmanians have been leaving the state to find work. Since the Labor-Green government came into office, front-line resources have been decimated, with fewer police on the beat; there has been an increase in serious crime, including armed robberies; there have been 70,000 fewer checks on speeders and drink-drivers annually; 14,000 fewer crimes have been pursued to prosecution; and fuel reduction on public land has been reduced by more than half.

Since the Labor-Green government came into office, we have become one of Australia's poorest performing states in terms of education, with over 100 teachers being sacked, a decrease in student attendance, and an increase in class sizes. Our year 10 to 12 retention rate has plummeted. There has been a drop of 78 per cent in adult education—a staggering figure. Tasmania has the lowest year 12 completion rate of any state in Australia, with only 43 per cent of young Tasmanians now completing year 12. Since the Labor-Green government came into office, education has been devastated.

Health and human services also have been slashed, with over 100 hospital beds closed. There are 1,500 fewer patients being admitted for elective surgery, and more Tasmanians are waiting over a year for surgery. Two hundred and eighty-seven nurses were sacked in a nine-month period in 2011-12. Waiting lists for people with disability have skyrocketed. The figures are due in part to additional expenditure of $57.7 million for the Tasmanian Forestry Agreement—I just can't get away from it—the irony of which is cruelly apparent to the majority of Tasmanians. Taxpayers' money is being used to shut down business and the livelihoods of good people in my electorate. It is nothing short of criminal.

Perhaps what best highlights the incompetence of this current government, though, is the unfunded superannuation liability the state has. The government has raided the kitty of previous administrations and failed to maintain the superannuation liability for the state's past and present employees. The unfunded liability now sits at $6.2 billion. Tasmanians are well over Labor and the Greens.

The task we now have is to reset the course of the state to one of growth, development and jobs. That will start with the election of a state Liberal government on 15 March, because the Tasmanian Liberals do have a plan: a plan for a strong, stable government that will get things done—a government that will make Tasmania an attractive place for economic investment and create jobs by delivering certainty and cutting the burden of red and green tape. It will get budget spending under control. We will live within our means. It will build a modern economy supported by our competitive strengths in agriculture and aquaculture, mining and forestry, tourism and the energy sector. We are blessed to have an enormous resource in hydro-electricity generation in our state and, increasingly, wind energy. We are blessed to have forests which can be exploited for energy as well. Rebuilding our essential health and police services is part of the state Liberals' plan, as is reinvesting in education again to create a job-ready generation. Extending high schools to year 11 and 12 is also part of the Liberals' plan. There is a better way, and I encourage Tasmanians to get behind the positive plan that Will Hodgman and his team have outlined over the past two years, and vote for change on Saturday, 15 March.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lyons. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to, and I call, for the third time today, the member for Forde.

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

Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker, and I know that you find immense pleasure in giving me the call!

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Undoubtedly!

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

I rise to speak on the suite of bills covered by Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2013-2014: Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2013-2014 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014. You might ask the question: why are these bills necessary? Well, as with much we are doing in this place at the moment, these are necessary because of the profligate spending ways of the previous Labor government. These appropriations are being sought for a total of nearly $15 billion, which includes some $8.8 billion to the Treasury for a one-off grant to the Reserve Bank to meet its request to strengthen its financial position. After being depleted by the former Labor government in recent years, the Reserve Bank's buffer sat at just 3.8 per cent of the bank's assets at risk in one year alone. In 2009-10, Labor took some $5.23 billion from the Reserve Bank and, as with many things in this House at present, it is now falling to the coalition to undo the damage. Some $2.5 billion is for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in re-appropriating amounts previously provided to the former agency AusAID that are required for this financial year for expenditures by DFAT. Some $1.1 million for the Department of Immigration and Border Protection is particularly for amounts including offshore asylum seeker processing—again a legacy of the previous Labor government. And just over $540 million is for the Department of Defence for overseas operations to supplement the foreign exchange movements and for the reappropriation of amounts between appropriation acts, aligning with Defence's current work programs.

These bills will ensure that we are able to continue to deliver government services generally, including re-appropriating the amounts to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for the activities formerly provided by AusAID before the machinery-of-government changes. These bills will allow us to continue the job of building a stronger economy so that everybody can get ahead.

I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some important issues in the electorate of Forde. Earlier this year, on 19 January, it was reported in The Courier Mail that the top four most disadvantaged streets in Queensland were in the electorate of Forde. According to an analysis by The Courier Mail, the most disadvantaged populations in Queensland identified by the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2011 census were in Melrose Place, Olympic Court, Parkland Court and Pearce Court, all in the suburb of Eagleby.

But it is heartening to share with the House that in this area of my electorate, despite the difficult circumstances of many of the families in that area, our local community groups work tirelessly to support the people who live there. These groups do such a tremendous job, and I would like to praise their efforts in this House. They are organisations such as the Eagleby Community Association Inc., the Twin Rivers Centre, the Twin Rivers co-op, the Eagleby Queensland Country Women's Association, St John Ambulance, the Salvation Army and Lighthouse Care—and these are but a few. I thank them for their continued and valuable support of those in our community who need it most.

I know a number of the constituents living in Eagleby who have tremendous pride in their local community. Eagleby is also home to the Australian Navy Cadets training ship TS Walrus, which had the distinction in 2012 of winning the award of the best naval cadet unit in Australia. Other community organisations include the Brigalow Country Music Club and the Eagleby Garden Club, to name a few. I had the opportunity on the weekend to attend the first ever charity shield match between the Eagleby Giants and the Beenleigh Bulls rugby league clubs. The Beenleigh Bulls won, but it was a tremendous testament to the Eagleby Giants in their third year of existence to have a senior team competing at that level. There is a great sense of community spirit in Eagleby, despite the reports of disadvantage.

I believe that we can all continue to work together to improve the outcomes for the people living in these communities. The unemployment rate of 12 per cent in Eagleby is much higher than the national unemployment rate. But, as many of us on this side of the House certainly know, the best solution to welfare is for people to have a job. On this side of the House, we are continually working to create those opportunities by fixing the legacy of the past Labor government. Our aim is still to assist business to create one million new jobs within five years and two million jobs within a decade. We have recently introduced legislation into this parliament to help deliver on this election commitment.

New financial initiatives will boost workforce participation and get more young job seekers off welfare as part of our job commitment bonus. The new scheme will encourage long-term unemployed job seekers aged 18 to 30 to get a job and hold it for at least 12 months. For their efforts, eligible job seekers will be entitled to claim $2½ thousand, and, if they remain in continuous work without income support for two years, they will be rewarded with an additional $4,000. There is also a package of relocation assistance to take up a job, which provides up to $6,000 for eligible job seekers who relocate to a regional area or $3,000 if they relocate within metropolitan areas, and families with dependent children can be provided with an extra $3,000 in recognition of any additional costs. We have the opportunity here to prevent young job seekers from sliding into long-term welfare dependency. We seek the support of those opposite in order to try to achieve this.

In Forde, I have been speaking with members of our local business community about how we can best support local job creation. Businesses know that governments do not create jobs, but they know that we can create the environment they need for business to flourish. The environment created by the former Labor government did little to support jobs. I think the best epitaph for the former government is to paraphrase the words of Ronald Reagan, in that the previous government's view of the economy could be best summed up this way: 'If it moves, tax it; if it keeps moving, regulate it; and, if it stops moving, subsidise it.'

The coalition's plan for a stronger economy, which was endorsed by the Australian people, starts with abolishing the former Labor government's carbon tax. In addition, the plan includes getting rid of the mining tax, cutting $1 billion worth of red tape from the economy and restoring the Australian Building and Construction Commission. Those opposite on the Labor benches should work alongside us to scrap these unnecessary burdens and support a growing, stronger economy for the benefit of all in this country.

During the election we outlined a number of initiatives to strengthen the small business sector in Australia. But, for business to thrive, customers also need to feel safe in their local shopping precinct. The coalition's $50 million Plan for Safer Streets will help reinvigorate precincts such as the Beenleigh Town Centre. During the last election, out of this initiative the coalition committed close to $1 million for additional CCTV in Forde. Around half of the funding will be allocated to the installation of additional CCTV cameras in Beenleigh. This will complement the additional $3 million in funding commitment from the coalition during the election to assist in the revitalisation of the Beenleigh Town Centre.

Beenleigh is a regional town conveniently located between the Gold Coast and Brisbane. Beenleigh, I believe, has the future to be a thriving regional hub supporting a number of new model cities. In the years ahead, there will be a new town square with first-class public spaces in addition to other developments to encourage more investment and opportunity in the region.

Debate interrupted.