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

I do not think I can add to the marvellous addresses I have heard in the last few minutes in this chamber. Firstly I would like to identify with the member for Sydney in her identification with the young girls stolen by Boko Haram and the worldwide program to bring the girls home. I would like to identify with that and I know this parliament identifies with it.

Secondly, I was saddened to hear in the member for Shortland's address about the difficulties and illness that her sister is facing, and then to hear that the GP charge will directly affect her sister, as a pensioner. I say to her that after 10 consultations she will not pay another cent under that program. It is sad to hear that people around us or close to us are ill and we always identify with our colleagues and their concerns. But we must as a community pull together on all the difficult issues that we face as a nation, and some of them are economic.

I heard the member for Moreton in the main parliamentary chamber today say he does not represent economic communities; he represents communities. I think we all do that. That is why we needed to take harsh measures, difficult measures, in our budgetary process so we are able to deliver services and benefits to the generations—not just this generation but the generation coming and their children as well.

How can I go to the Prime Minister or the cabinet as the member for McMillan and say, 'I want a new hospital for Warragul'? The Leongatha bypass was just approved. 'I want money for the Long Jetty restoration at Port Welshpool. I want the West Gippsland round ball football stadium regional hub at Pakenham.' We have just okayed today the revitalisation precinct at Moe. The Korumburra early childhood community centre is crying out for money.

Prom Country Aged Care opened up a magnificent facility with money supplied by Labor government into my electorate—I think to get rid of me at the time, but it was supplied—and I recognise that. On the very opening-day, they said to me, 'We have a waiting list. We have a three tiered waiting list of people that want to use this amazing, fantastic facility.' It is a beautiful new aged-care facility supplied by the government of this nation. How can we do it? How can we address the issues the member for Sydney raised in regard to our aid—supporting women across the world and bringing them up out of poverty? How can we do that if we do not get our own finances in order?

No-one is to blame and I am not here to blame. But I am here to say if, as a nation, we can pull together at this time and put our finances in order with a view to being able to deliver better services and greater opportunities in education, we not only put ourselves in a position where we can increase our international aid but we can increase the money we put towards education, we can help our single parent families and can make some real changes to the way the nation sees itself. That is where I see myself today.

There will always be issues within our community that are going to be hard for politicians such as ourselves to address. Politicians, if you do not know it today, are not exactly in the public favour—and that is a nice way to put it. I have seen the emails that came to us. I say to them, 'I cannot go to my leadership and ask for these very valuable projects right across my electorate that will change the life and opportunity in my electorate for people if we cannot get our house in order.' So I ask you all to bear with us while we put our financial house in order so I can have a new West Gippsland hospital. Every member of parliament would love to leave some legacy for the generations to follow, and this hospital is very important to me and to the future of our broader community.

Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the time of year where we recognise the issue of schizophrenia in our society. This year, carers are the focus. Whilst it is noted that people as diverse as Vincent van Gogh, Virginia Woolf, Sir Winston Churchill, Tolstoy and Beethoven all suffered from mental illness, the reality is that 60 per cent of carers and sufferers in our society have experienced a negative or offensive attitude from others because of mental illness. It is worth noting that as many as 30 per cent of Australian carers do not tell people outside their immediate circle because of a sense of guilt and stigma that they feel is there in society.

In most OECD nations—and they are what we should compare ourselves to—12 to 16 per cent of the health budget is spent on mental health services. In Australia, it is currently less than eight per cent, which is an indictment of both sides of politics. It is historic; it is not created by either political party. The Mental Illness Fellowship notes:

Australia is spending less than 50 per cent of what it should be on a common illness that is largely treatable, with recovery of a good quality of life possible for most people.

Whilst it is not a positive for either side of politics, I do not think that the decision this week to cut $54 million from the Partners in Recovery program, which provides support to people living with severe and persistent mental illness with complex support needs, was a helpful measure. Quite frankly, in a society where as many as 230,000 Australians have schizophrenia affecting four people in their immediate circle, we have some kind of sense about how large an issue this is in our society. Whether it was a principal of a school last week, whether it is a leading Australian journalist, whether it is people who come into my office trying to come overcome issues of Centrelink payments and disability pensions, I get the impression that they are very real figures. We often do not see it but when it affects our families it is a very pressing issue.

I turn to Beautiful Minds, an association in my electorate, and that is appropriate in this week when we are looking at what people are doing around schizophrenia and carers. Established in 2004, Beautiful Minds recently gained the New South Wales Mental Health Matters Award. It is a group in which four of its 10 members are in their 80s, with the oldest being 87. Despite their age, they have paid for excursions, renovated backyards, made submissions to government inquiries, refurbished the local health community centre and helped renovate gardens at Campbelltown Hospital’s Waratah unit. They are capable of very competent fundraising each year, which attracts very significant local support. In this week of schizophrenia awareness I want to recognise the work of carers, the struggles they have, the degree of discrimination they feel they suffer in society and the very dramatic problems they face.

I turn now to the question of youth unemployment, not assisted in my electorate on the far edge of Sydney by the drastic and extreme cuts in rail expenditure by the current government. In Western Sydney, youth unemployment is significantly higher than the state average of 11.8 per cent. It is 15.4 per cent in south-west Sydney. Youth Connections is an organisation which helps at-risk young people in Western Sydney engage with education and employment. Despite the fact that 39 per cent of the people involved with Youth Connections are in the most disadvantaged quintile in the Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas, compared to 13 per cent of the total population, it has been indicated that 68 per cent of participants in Youth Connections, which deals with people presenting with complex and often multiple barriers to education, have achieved a positive or progressive outcome. Approximately 6,300, or 62 per cent, of Indigenous participants recorded progressive outcomes.

The internationally recognised SROI evaluation of the Partnership Brokers scheme has indicated that, for every dollar invested by the Australian government, Partnership Brokers have been the catalyst for up to $5.50 of created social value. They have the Schools Business Community Partnership Brokers program, which focuses on building partnerships to help young people achieve year 12 or equivalent qualifications. Yet I am sad to note that support for this very significant and necessary assistance to young people facing unemployment has gone by the board in this budget. They are not going to be assisted by being forced onto the dole for six months. They are not going to be helped by not getting welfare payments for a longer period. They are going to be assisted by brokerage operations like this working between schools and organisations to help them get skills and abilities. That is the way forward, and I recognise the very worthwhile measures that up until now have been undertaken.

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I was re-elected to parliament in September last year, the voters of Solomon understood exactly what I stood for. I promised to be part of a government that stopped the tragic deaths in our northern waters as boat after boat sank in turbulent seas, with tragic loss of life. I promised that the government in which I served would repeal the carbon tax and the mining tax and, despite the best efforts of the Labor opposition and the Greens, that is exactly what we intend to do. I promised to secure funding for the duplication of Tiger Brennan Drive. I promised that the Abbott government would provide funding for a new hospital in Palmerston—another box that has been ticked by my good friend, health minister Peter Dutton—and I promised to be part of the government that reigned in the debt and ended Labor's waste. This long journey began on Tuesday night, and we will continue until the economic settings are right for the times in which we live.

As with all journeys, the going will be easier for some than for others. Along the way, I know there will be people in my electorate of Solomon, and indeed in the Northern Territory more broadly, who will face additional challenges and more pressures as a result of the measures we have had to introduce. To those who are concerned about the future, I say: 'Stay with us; the decisions we take today will future-proof the national economy for you, your children and your grandchildren.' For the genuinely disadvantaged there are safety nets that will continue to provide necessary support. What has changed, though, is the value of the tax dollar, which has increased substantially. Every dollar that is collected from hardworking people, every dollar that is collected from business and every dollar that is collected from the families that are the backbone of the Territory, and indeed of Australia, now has a higher premium than it has ever had before. Gone are the days of the Rudd-Gillard Labor government, where $900 cheques were handed out. Gone, too, are the days of investing billions of dollars into a pink batts scheme, the terrible legacy of which continues today. This and the other Labor disasters left us with interest payments of up to $1 billion every single month. I can only imagine what that $1 billion could do in the Territory—for health services, for education services and for roads.

On the subject of roads, budget night saw some terrific outcomes for the Territory that show the benefits of having a focused government determined to drive economic growth and create jobs. The Abbott government's Economic Action Strategy has seen a record $593.7 million invested in building the infrastructure of the 21st century for the Northern Territory. As well as the $70 million spend on Tiger Brennan Drive, which I mentioned earlier, the budget includes $90 million for a Regional Roads Productivity Package and $77 million for the Northern Territory roads package. The productivity package will see upgrades to the Roper and Buntine highways, Port Keats Road, Arnhem Link Road, Central Arnhem Road and Santa Teresa Road; while the roads package will see the Stuart, Barkly and Victoria highways, three of the Territory's most widely used roads, strengthened and widened.

The $20 billion health research future fund will provide enormous opportunities for the locally based Menzies School of Health Research going forward, for the nation and for the world. There is also, for the first time, funding for sub-degree courses and a huge boost for training for kids in Darwin and Palmerston. At a micro level, budget 2014 contained funding for the Northern Territory Table Tennis Association, shades at the Robbie Robbins Reserve, an upgrade to the Palmerston Football Club and almost $100,000 for South Darwin Rugby League Football Club upgrade.

In clear contrast to Labor in government, the coalition has delivered an honest budget—a contribute and build budget. We are keeping the faith with our commitments to Australians. We are getting the budget back on track and we are doing it as quickly as possible. I would like to reiterate to those people in Darwin and Palmerston and, indeed, around the Territory: please stay with us. We need to do this together.

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

Tuesday night's budget of broken promises did not share the pain evenly as the Treasurer and Prime Minister promised it would. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. It is the poor, the sick, single parents, working families, women and the young who will pay for the coalition's budget of broken promises. Today, I would like to talk about how the young in particular will be affected by this budget.

Yesterday, I received an email from a concerned constituent, who wrote:

My son, who has worked from the age of fifteen, before school after school during holidays and every weekend, has just graduated from a double degree with honours.

He has been looking for a non-existent job in his field, or another job in any other field. While he is looking for full time work, he has been working in a casual, temporary job, being paid no superannuation entitlements.

Now he has been sacked from that job because of the downturn in business in Canberra.

My husband and I are retired and will now have to cover his expenses so that he is not homeless on the street.

He is desperate and depressed—and I am worried for his personal safety and his mental state.

Why is the Government trying to kill this young person with its harsh and unrealistic measures? It's not their children being put at risk, is it? It is not in their 'backyards'.

The repercussions of denying young people access to Newstart will be enormous. My constituent's son is actually one of the lucky ones. He has parents who can manage to take him in, although it will put further strain on their cost of living. But what of those young Australians who do not have family members or a support network who can take them in? How will they survive for six months without any income? Young people are unlikely to have substantial savings they can rely on during the six-month period. My great fear is that this policy will result in increased homelessness, mental illness and crime. And how is a young person on no income supposed to find a job anyway? We know that poverty is a real barrier to work. How can you apply for a job if you cannot pay your phone bill? How can you go to a job interview if you cannot afford to put petrol in your car or even pay a bus fare?

It is not just the young unemployed who have been targeted by this budget. Another constituent of mine wrote:

I am writing to you for support and as our elected Federal Representative at the request of my son who is an apprentice carpenter, in his third year to date. For him to become an apprentice he has had to commit to a number of financial burdens.

These are just the expenses that are the big ticket ones, there are many more.

His wage is the paltry sum of about $14.50 per hour—a pretty standard award for apprentices.

He and all apprentices are HIGHLY dependent on the apprentice tool allowance to assist in the purchase of tools. How the scrapping of this allowance and its replacement with the disgraceful proposal of loans up to $20,000 for them to buy tools can even be considered defies belief.

I ask you to consider all apprentices and understand that there is absolutely no way that my son can afford this outrageous impost of more loans if the tool allowance is lost.

If apprentices take out this ridiculous loan they are committed to a huge period of debt. We know there will be very little work for them when they finish their apprenticeships as a result of the Liberals' Canberra bashing and the inevitable downturn in the building industry and the local economy.

I urge you to fight this proposal tooth and nail in support of vulnerable low income working Australians.

I doubt there are many apprentices who graduate with the ability to pay off a $20,000 debt. I know there are many who cannot. Many apprentices like chefs and hairdressers are training in fields where wages are low, not much higher than minimum wage, and scrapping the tools for trade allowance may deter them from taking on an apprenticeship altogether.

These are just some of the ways this budget of broken promises will hurt the young. They will also be paying more for university, more for health care, more for petrol. When the Prime Minister and Treasurer say this budget shares the pain, they are kidding themselves.