Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is not the horror budget we saw last year, but it is still a bag of sugar and poison. For instance, the government's determination to cut family payments will hurt low-income families. A better approach would have been to actually enhance such payments, which would give families greater options in how they manage the care of their children. Nor is the tougher assets test fair to people on a part age pension, because many of these people have conservative investments with modest returns, meaning they will now need to draw down their capital much faster. A better approach would have been to address the shortfalls in the superannuation system.

The prohibition of employees receiving both government and employer paid parental leave is also unfair, and it is entirely at odds with the government's prior encouragement of workers to negotiate additional benefits and the fact that these additional benefits are normally enshrined in workplace agreements. For the government to now brand such workers are fraudsters and double dippers is appalling behaviour.

Moreover, the unfairness of the budget is as much in what is missing as in what is included. For instance, before the budget, ACOSS identified about $6 billion in critical additional expenditure which was urgently needed, yet virtually none of it has been picked up by the government. For example, there is a pressing need for government pensions and payments to be increased, especially for youth, the unemployed and the aged; for the supply of affordable housing to be increased; and for last year's cuts to social services to all be restored.

Also missing from the budget was any attempt to restore overseas aid to a reasonable level and eventually achieve Prime Minister John Howard's pledge to increase it to 0.7 per cent of gross national income. This is a moral imperative for Australia, in addition to all the ways a stable and prosperous region is in our security and economic best interests.

The budget needs more revenue rather than cuts to spending, but it almost completely fails to address this. Yes, it raises some money from reforms to foreign investment; but it ignores any big potential revenue measures like removing superannuation tax concessions for wealthy people and introducing a super profits tax—for instance, on the banks. The Australia Institute has done some good work on how revenue might be bolstered significantly in a fair way, but it was completely ignored by the government.

Tasmanians are inevitably hit hard by unfair budgets because of our isolation, our soft economy and our relatively large number of disadvantaged people. This is not a good budget for them, despite what it might mean for the government's political fortunes.