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

): It is an honour to have you here, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, for my contribution in the grievance debate. I have a lot to be aggrieved about. I want to cover off on some of those issues tonight. There are three issues in particular that I want to cover off on, not least of which being one of the most important ones relating to education.

When the controversial program Struggle Street aired, I was met with a variety of different reactions about the program. From the local area there were a lot of people who were uptight about what it did in terms of reinforcing stereotype, particularly young people in the area, who, as I have indicated previously to the House, would quite regularly not include their residential details on resumes and job applications for fear that the stigma associated with their area would prevent them from being able to take up work opportunities. This is quite wrong because Australia is a nation that values merit and skill, not the types of superficial things such as where you live. Merit and skill should see you through and open up opportunity for you. So there was a lot of anger on the ground from people as to how those stereotypes were reinforced. But outside the local area a lot of people would say, either through social media or other contact made with me, 'Isn't this a good thing to put a spotlight on these problems?' While on the surface it seems like it would be a good thing—and you could understand why logic would lead people to draw that conclusion—my concern was always that it would be a short-term focus, a short-term concentration, on issues of concern in our area that would disappear and leave nothing material behind. Nothing demonstrates that more than when you look at education.

If you want to liberate people from 'struggle street', you need to be able to do a variety of things, not least of which is to invest in people's capabilities and skills. One way, the most principled way, you would do that is through education. In our area, I am genuinely concerned for the longer term potential for people to improve themselves through education. The reason I say that was reinforced on Friday when I visited the Mount Druitt campus of Chifley College. Its principal, Cathy Anderson, welcomed me with other teachers and staff at a special morning tea that was held so that teachers and people who are at the coalface, dealing with some of the social issues in our area and who are also dedicated to providing a great pathway for people to improve themselves at that school could express their concerns. They are genuinely concerned about the future of school funding in this country.

Regardless of the type of verbal gymnastics that are undertaken by this government, principally through the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, we have seen a $30 billion cut to the amount of money that would be dedicated to education and would be particularly targeted to areas of need, like areas that I represent in this place. Those cuts in our area translate from that $30 billion to $270 million over 10 years. The Chifley electorate is amongst the worst that are affected, a lot of which are in Western Sydney.

This is an issue that should be a concern not only for locals but for a lot of people who feel that, if you are going to spend your education dollars, you would target those areas of need and you would provide the greatest support for literacy and teacher training. You would provide the greatest support particularly for children who have got learning difficulties as a result of things in their background, like difficult family circumstances or the other socioeconomic demographics that have been demonstrated to hold people back in education and put them at greater risk for unemployment, and not only just short-term unemployment. The concern that I have and that we confront in our area is long-term unemployment—that trap which sets people outside of the workplace and also inhibits their ability to fully participate in society—and that is a longer-term concern.

When I see the type of things that are being proposed by this government, particularly within the education space, after they specifically told people they were on a unity ticket and they gave every impression that they would be there supporting education, it is clearly evident that that is not the case and people have been let down. This is not a simple breach of an election promise; this is the denial of people fulfilling their potential. This is a denial and it is an absolute shame. It is an absolute shame that people in my area whom I know are capable, and I know with a little bit of support would be able to shine, are being denied that through a most cynical government that is draining trust. People already have low levels of trust in government, but they are draining that into the longer term. We have heavy, serious reform that will need to be taken into the longer term and we need to bring people along and convince them of that process—and these people in the Abbott government have denied it.

The other area that I wanted to touch on, flowing from that, is the combination of the federal level of cuts being undertaken by the federal coalition and then seeing what happens on a state level. This week, we will see a state government in New South Wales bring down a budget which is rumoured to have a hefty surplus. On the face of it, a lot of people welcome the surplus, but in our area we have paid for it hard. We have already seen or made reference to federal cuts in education.

Regarding the $50 billion federal cuts in health, we saw a report in the Sydney Morning Herald on Friday which demonstrated that the people who will bear that the most are the poorer people in this country. I represent a sizeable chunk of people in lower socioeconomic circumstances in my area. Through state government cuts, we have seen Mount Druitt Hospital denied a cardiac ward. It was shut down in an area where heart disease kills people; heart disease holds people back. The New South Wales coalition government have taken out the cardiac ward. We will see a concertina effect that will occur from federal cuts and state cuts combined. Yet we have the state government boasting of a surplus while they have managed to cut services in our area. They absolutely should be funding services targeted in our area for the things that concern people most, particularly in terms of heart disease and other things that inhibit people like obesity and diabetes, all of which are lifestyle related and require a lot of investment to get people out of.

The state government will apparently do a whole range of things, including light rail from Homebush to Strathfield, yet people in our area cannot get the simple things you would expect, like train stations that have things like lifts in them to help particularly the elderly and the disabled get access to public transport. In Doonside and Rooty Hill we are still waiting, and we will be interested to see whether or not in this state budget the government funds it. Funnily enough, it managed to find the funds to help support a candidate who was running for election in the state seat of Seven Hills and it funded the Toongabbie station upgrade, but was unable to find funds in seats that were non-held and which, based on need, should have had them ages ago. I wait to see it, but I doubt very much that this budget will have good news for Doonside and Rooty Hill. If they do, fantastic! But I doubt it.

Also in terms of transport there is nothing there for improving people's access to public transport like, for instance, more commuter parking around train stations. We have federal and state coalition governments working against people by combining cuts, but they will not actually work together to make a difference in our cities, for example, by making access to public transport easier. I constantly have people of Doonside and Rooty Hill saying, 'If there were more facilities to park cars, I would park here and catch trains instead of clogging the M7, M2, M4 and M5,' which happens across Western Sydney, and they all combine to restrict movement in that place. They simply do not get public transport or understand how it can actually free up movement. This is not an either/or proposition. It is not that you build public transport to the detriment of road, and it is not that you build road to the detriment of public transport. The important thing is to have an holistic approach to people movement in Sydney.

Sydney, as I have said previously, has become the Southern Hemisphere's LA. It is becoming exceedingly difficult to move around that city and it will require governments to stump up and make the investments necessary to get people moving. People will continue to move in Sydney; there is nothing you can do about that. You cannot dissuade them from it unless you make it so unliveable and so unbearable that people do not choose to live there. Frankly, that is not a proscription anyone should consider is worthwhile or worthy of pursuit. I have concerns about that combination from the federal and state level impacting on my area. It cannot be ignored. It is causing people to have a diminished quality of life, but as we have seen from this federal government they will say and do anything to retain power and office, regardless of what impact it has on the people who I care about.