House debates

Wednesday, 22 October 2014

Constituency Statements

Budget

9:35 am

Photo of Kate EllisKate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | | Hansard source

Recently, the Australian Workplace Innovation and Social Research Centre at the very good University of Adelaide undertook research on the impacts of the Abbott government's 2014 budget on my fine state of South Australia. Unsurprisingly, the results were not positive. This report highlights a $1.6 billion hit to the South Australian economy just from the federal budget cuts alone, with up to 7,000 fewer jobs created by 2017-18 in our state. It also identifies that the top 10 areas to be hit hardest by the Abbott government budget are all in the northern suburbs, an area which, of course, is already facing significant challenges in the coming years with the closure of Holden. What is worse, these impacts will of course be felt the most by those on low incomes. Of the top areas impacted by this budget, two are in the electorate of Adelaide, which I am so proud to represent. One is the Adelaide CBD and the other is in the north of the Adelaide electorate, in the suburbs of Enfield and Blair Athol.

Spending much time, as I do, in these areas in the north of the electorate, I know that there are many, many low- and middle-income Australian families that will now be finding it even harder to make ends meet. Many send their children to local schools and many were excited and looking forward to a better and fairer school funding system. Now, not only has that needs based funding model been dashed but South Australian schools are set to face the biggest funding cut in our history. Many residents in this area are also pensioners. They were pensioners who were ensured that their pensions would not be cut, but, of course, we see that that too is yet another broken promise. Many are high school students who were looking forward to attending university. I know from direct discussions with them that many would be the first in their families to attend university and now question whether or not they can afford to take on that bigger burden. All of these people are going to be bearing the brunt of this budget and all of these people were promised the exact opposite just over a year ago by those who sit opposite.

I attend regular Saturday morning street-corner meetings where I go out and talk directly to the community that I represent. In the last two weekends, I have been in the suburbs of Kilburn, Prospect and Blair Athol. The Abbott government may like to think that community outrage, betrayal and anxiety about their budget has subsided; they like to think that everyone will just give up and move on; but, on the weekend—even almost half a year after the budget was handed down—these harsh measures were still the No. 1 issue that was raised, because the damage that they are doing is real and because it is having a significant impact on average Australians. I stand here today to say that we will keep fighting these unfair budget measures, which hurt those who can least afford it, because they should not have to pay the price for the Prime Minister's dishonesty.