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

Something has been playing on my mind since this government announced its budget. I have been wondering if the Prime Minister or Treasurer would ever pass their year 3 Australian geography test. The reason I ask this is that in the recent budget they have delivered next to nothing for Victoria. When they were asked to name the states of Australia that they have been able to deliver projects in, Victoria was out. In fact, the only one that the Treasurer could remember was New South Wales. So my question is: does the Liberal government actually know that Victoria exists? The budget says it does not.

Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister for Sydney!

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

The Prime Minister for Sydney, as my friend the member for Gellibrand reminds me. This government has yet again failed my home state of Victoria, not promising one extra dollar for investment in infrastructure. In the budget there was the big announcement: $1 billion for regional rail infrastructure investment in Victoria. Mate, it sounds great, doesn't it? But it is not a win. Why isn't it a win? Because when we put it in front of the Senate budget estimates we found out the truth: it is not new funding. Instead of actually investing in infrastructure and instead of actually creating new jobs, the government has turned a blind eye to Victoria.

Victoria is home to a quarter of all Australians. We have one of the strongest infrastructure pipelines in the country but somehow, instead of providing fair funding for 25 per cent of the nation's population, this government ignored us. It has shovelled 46 per cent of infrastructure funding to New South Wales and 26 per cent to Queensland, but Victoria struggles on eight per cent. Why? Because the Turnbull government is punishing Victorians for getting rid of the failed Baillieu-Napthine experiment. Since its election in November 2014, the Labor government have created around 216,000 jobs. In fact, the Victorian government is set to spend an annual average of $9.6 billion on infrastructure over the next four years. That is close to what the Turnbull government is spending right across the country. But the Prime Minister and his government have had their heads stuck in their Point Piper sinkholes rather than realising there is more to Australia than the Sydney bubble, leaving the Victorian state government to pick up the slack.

When will the government stop playing politics and give communities like Wallan, Doreen, Mernda and Sunbury the infrastructure funding they deserve? When will the government invest in projects across McEwen, like the much needed Bridge Inn Road and Craigieburn Road duplications and the Wallan diamond interchange? Imagine what it would mean for locals in my electorate if the government gave us even a fair share of funding. Imagine the 'jobs and growth'. That is what the government motto is, isn't it? But they clearly do not care enough to act on it.

While this government is not providing the investment to create the jobs it promised, it is also now asking people to work longer for the same amount of money. Whatever kind of test you put it through—the pub test or the sniff test—it all fails. The Liberal government has confirmed that it wants to raise the age pension age to 70. It wants hardworking Australians to work harder for longer, but where are the jobs? Only a government made up of people who have had never had dirt under their nails or worked outside an office would even think of this. This policy means that every person born after 1 July 1966 will be waiting until they are 70 before they are eligible for an age pension. This government will leave Australia with the oldest pension age in the developed world. Take that in: we would have the oldest pension age in the developed world, and the Prime Minister just expects you to cop that. It is all well and good for Mr Harbourside Mansion to tell us all to work until we are 70. After all, someone needs to be farming his organic quail, building his multimillion-dollar investment properties and filling his cupboards with only the finest of Canberra's truffles. And all this while he kicks back to Netflix and Chill, as he says, and gets through his monthly supply of black caviar.

The Prime Minister has no idea what it is like for an everyday Australian. It is completely out of touch to expect real people, real Australians, working Australians—our nurses, our builders, our farmers, our emergency services personnel—to work until they are 70. On this side of the House we understand that when you have worked hard all your life you deserve to be able to retire in peace. Labor understands that nurses who work day in, day out to provide for their families cannot be running and moving patients at 70. It is not fair, and it is time this government actually pulled its head out of Point Piper and looked after all Australians.