Julia Banks (Chisholm, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises the positive effect of the Government's measures for a stronger economy mean that essential services are guaranteed including the Government's:

(a) support for education and childcare; and

(b) measures to support more choices for Australians to live longer, healthier lives; and

(2) notes with deep concern that the Opposition has no plan for a stronger economy that will deliver essential services to Australians.

As a very proud member of the Turnbull government I am delighted to move this motion this morning. We in the coalition recognise that the ability of our local communities to thrive and prosper relies on a federal government's capacity to balance the books. We appreciate how a stronger economy ensures that essential services are guaranteed and note that the alternative approach is to have no plan. I and many on this side of the House who have worked in and run businesses know—unlike those on the other side—the well-known adage from the business world: if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. That is the case for those in opposition. They have no plan.

Unlike the Labor Party, we on this side understand that guaranteeing essential services like health care, education and child care does not come from big promises and reckless spending. Instead it comes from the fiscal responsibility and sound economic management that the Turnbull government is proud to champion. Guaranteeing the essential services that Australians rely on means that we can make critical medicines available to patients, support mental health initiatives, support our hospitals and provide resources into areas for medical research.

Having a strong, well-managed economy means that parents can be comforted that the Turnbull government has ensured childcare and preschool support, including access to 15 hours of quality early learning and more accessible and affordable child care. For schools and education, having a strong economy means that over 20,000 students in our community will enjoy an average increase of 50 per cent per student for fair, real, needs based school funding over the next decade as part of the Turnbull government's education reforms. It means older Australians have more secure choices to lead longer and healthier lives, including more home-care packages and aged-care funding, including with better health care, demonstrating our government's respect to those who have built modern Australia.

This care for education, for senior Australians, for health and for other essential services can only be supported by targeted, measurable funding that only a responsible government like ours and a strong economic outlook, such as the Turnbull government's plan for a stronger new economy, can provide. Where Labor and Bill Shorten had 27 special secret school-funding deals—

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

I remind the member for Chisholm to refer to members by their correct title, please.

Julia Banks (Chisholm, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw. My apologies. Where Labor and the Leader of the Opposition had 27 special secret school-funding deals and focused only on providing for union mates or their proposed tax grab from pensioners and older Australians on low incomes, the Turnbull government knows that Labor's typical uncontrollable spending spree is not a substitute for delivering real outcomes for all Australians. Labor forgets that the essential purpose of government is to create the foundation of our society that ensures equality of opportunity.

The Turnbull government's impressive economic growth is also harnessed by having just passed our Personal Income Tax Plan through the parliament. We have ensured all Australians paying tax will be better off. Mums and dads, retirees and hardworking students doing part-time work will be paying less tax and will be rewarded for their hard work both now and into the future.

After years of working in business, I know firsthand the pride and sense of dignity that comes from work and reward for effort, a sentiment I know is shared by all hardworking and aspirational Australians. Seeing money earned through work going down the drain through the reckless spending of the Labor Party and offensive tax grabs is an insult to Australian taxpayers, Australians who have worked hard their whole lives only to have their hard-earned money stolen to prop up Labor's habit of always focusing on higher taxes to satisfy their relentless spending. We on this side of the House are about lower taxes. Those in opposition are about higher taxes with lower returns. When Labor run out of money, they simply tax more. They come after the money of hardworking Australians. They don't realise it's the money of the hardworking Australians.

We on this side, the Turnbull government, are proud of our track record in delivering for Australians, and I'm personally very proud to be delivering so many tangible and measurable initiatives locally in Chisholm thanks to our strong economy. Australians can rest assured that the Turnbull government has a plan—a plan for growth, a plan for job creation and a plan that grows our economy and provides and guarantees the essential services Australians rely on. The Turnbull government is building our economy and the future of Australians. Our health and our schooling are secure. I commend this motion to the House.

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

Is the motion seconded?

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The motion is seconded. I reserve my right to speak.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can only assume from the speech that the member for Chisholm just made that she hasn't spent much time in her office lately, because I can tell you that any member of parliament who has actually been in their office lately will have noticed the extraordinary increase in the number of people who are coming into our offices for assistance with basic essential services like Centrelink, aged care, child care and the NDIS. They're coming in in far greater numbers because this government, in spite of its plan to give $80 billion handouts to big business and multinationals, or perhaps because of it, has been cutting essential services across the board. Any member of parliament who actually takes notice of the people who are coming into their office will know that.

People are coming into my office in greater numbers over issues that we haven't had to deal with before, every single day. It's because, I think, families are more vulnerable at the moment than they've been for a long time. They're struggling with flat wages growth, massive hikes in their electricity bills and increasing costs for education and health bills, and stable housing, of course, is out of reach for many. So, when something goes wrong, they're more vulnerable than we've seen them ever before.

We on this side are deeply concerned about the extremely long periods that many are waiting for even simple claims like the age pension to be processed. I have two couples in my electorate who have worked all their lives who are facing homelessness at the moment because of delays in processing their claims for the pension. Disability support pension is particularly bad. On youth allowance, a person in my electorate has been phoning my office every day. They lodged their Newstart application and waited two months and, while there was no response, their application was put on hold and closed automatically. For two months they've been waiting for Newstart without any response. Centrelink is in crisis, and the Turnbull coalition government are doing nothing about it. In fact they're making it worse.

The number of people who are calling my office about the NDIS has skyrocketed. We're handling five or six a day. There are parents who are caring for a child suffering with ASD. The situation is time critical because he requires an intensive ASD-specific early intervention before age five. He turns four in August. The paediatrician recommended two years of 15 to 25 hours per week before age five. NDIS funded 1½ hours per week, even though level 5 was recommended.

I've had representatives of people who are amputees telling me of a two-year-old who'd been waiting six months for a prosthetic limb—at the age of two! It is incredibly important that a two-year-old moves. That's what two-year-olds do.

I've had a sole parent, a mum, of a profoundly disabled teenager. His father was the carer. His father died. They reviewed the assistance and cut it. They cut it after his carer died.

Another family in my electorate whose child has an intellectual disability applied for an NDIS plan including services for speech therapy, occupational therapy and speech assistance software. The letter said that they had been approved for $22,000, but the digital copy stated a different amount altogether. We had to sort that out. My office had to sort that out. Calls like this come in every single day.

The government has cut funding from TAFE and universities, which are also essential services. The government cut $2.2 billion from universities and $98 million from Western Sydney University alone. Believe me: it's an essential service.

Labor will uncap university places and will ensure that 200,000 more Australians get a university education. We'll also ensure proper funding for TAFE, also an essential service. The last budget saw another $270 million in cuts to TAFE. The government has cut 120,000 apprenticeships out of the system. Since September 2013, Parramatta's lost 1,123. That's 46 per cent. Then there's the investment in making sure our kids have a better future. Labor will invest $100 million in a rebuilding TAFE fund to renovate campuses and workshops and will waive up-front fees for 100,000 TAFE courses.

Child care is an essential service. Under this government's childcare package, 279,000 families will be worse off, and families who stand to be worse off are families in the lowest income cohort. That is families who have an income of less than $65,000. In Parramatta, that means that 2,698 families will be worse off—and child care is an essential service.

NBN is an essential service. I won't even go into the people who've been waiting for that in my electorate. Health is an essential service, yet we've seen a $12 million cut from Westmead. Essential services? You've got to be kidding. You've got to be kidding! If only this motion were legitimate, I might have something better to say.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to rise and speak on this motion. I want to commend the member for Chisholm for bringing this motion forward to the parliament. She is a wonderful local member. I take note of the member for Parramatta's comment that the member for Chisholm hasn't been spending much time in her office. That says everything about Labor you need to know—they are members that sit behind their desks. I tell you where the member for Chisholm has been—not only has she been working hard in her office but, more importantly, she's been out in the community. She's been out in the electorate. She's been talking to her constituents in shopping centres, schools, aged-care homes and every other corner of the electorate, and the message is loud and strong, as it is in the electorate of Corangamite, which I proudly represent: people do not trust Labor. Australians know that they cannot trust Labor. We've seen that this party opposite is a party which does not have a plan, a party which intends to hike up taxes by more than $200 billion over 10 years and a party which has now said that it's going to take $70 billion out of the pockets of ordinary Australians because it's going to oppose stages 2 and 3 of our income tax cuts.

These are tax cuts that will mean that 94 per cent of Australians will never face a top marginal tax rate of more than 32½ per cent. Labor wants to rip that away. Labor has no plan. What we know from Labor's opposition to our company tax cuts that we are proposing to bring company tax down to 25 per cent is that Labor wants to send jobs offshore and wants to prop up multinational companies working overseas. It does not want to make us internationally competitive. The regressive, economically destroying policies of Labor will send this nation backwards.

We are incredibly proud that we are delivering tax relief to every working Australian, starting with low- and middle-income earners, where from 1 July we will be providing immediate tax relief of $530 a year. For low- or middle-income parents where both the father and mother are working in a family, that will be over $1,000 of instantaneous tax relief. We've also seen the opposition leader has declared war on business, which employs 90 per cent of Australians. We've now seen the member for Grayndler call out the opposition leader. He's embarrassed. We're now seeing cracks starting to appear in that little leadership tussle, where the member for Grayndler is implicitly condemning the opposition leader's war on business and his strategy to divide Australia and isolate hardworking Australians.

In not supporting our company tax cuts for all companies and focusing on those with a turnover of more than $50 million, this is not just a war on business that Labor is declaring. It is declaring a war on all Australians who work in all of these businesses. Who are we talking about? We're talking about shop assistants. We're talking about those who work in supermarkets. We're talking about coalmine workers, construction workers, truck drivers, aged-care workers, researchers, scientists, people who work for food processors and the many thousands of people who work in manufacturing. All of these Australians work for companies with more than $50 million in turnover. They are a very important part of the Australian economy and, in attacking those companies, Labor is attacking those workers. It is an absolute disgrace. We've seen the member for Grayndler call out the opposition leader on his terrible strategy which not only intends to destroy the economy but, frankly, is soul destroying for all those workers who know how important their jobs are in providing security to their families and children.

So, again, I congratulate the member for Chisholm on this very important motion. Our plan is very strong. We're bringing the budget back to balance by 2019-20, our net debt will fall by $30 billion over the next four years and our stronger economy and record jobs growth are ensuring that we will be able to deliver the important services that we need, like the NDIS and, of course, our guarantee for Medicare. (Time expired)

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to speak today on how the Turnbull government is starving essential services and abrogating fundamental responsibilities in order to fund their deeply flawed, neo-conservative, trickle-down economic agenda. In fact, I'll take any opportunity to highlight the brazen heist on our national budget that is being undertaken in broad daylight by this government. It was not so long ago that Liberal ministers and backbenchers couldn't make it through five minutes without screeching about the debt and deficit disaster. They are very quiet on that front now, and I'll tell you why. It is because their shameful mismanagement of the economy has resulted in our national debt crashing through half a trillion dollars. That's an unimaginable figure for most Australians. A more sensible group of leaders would see reason for caution and for constraint, but not this government. No, this hasn't stopped them at all. In fact, if anything, they have renewed their zeal to hand over as much wealth as possible to the top end of town as quickly as they possibly can.

The 2018 budget gives billions of dollars in tax cuts to big business, multinationals, the banks and high-income earners. It makes Australians pay for that with savage cuts into health, education and vital public services. Meanwhile, it launches a radical overhaul of Australia's income tax system, which would see a carer on $40,000 pay the same rate of tax as a lawyer on $200,000. On every single measure, everyday Australians miss out. On every single metric, the government utterly fails the test of fairness. It fails the test of fairness on pensioners. Mr Turnbull is cutting the energy supplement, which is costing pensioners—

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

The member for Parramatta will refer to members by their correct titles.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister and his government is cutting the energy supplement, which is costing pensioners $14 a fortnight. At the same time, they are forcing people to stay in the workforce until they're 70 years of age. The budget fails the fairness test on education. The government is still cutting $17 billion from our schools. In my electorate of Newcastle, public schools are losing an average of $350,000 both this year and next year alone. The budget locks in $2.2 billion worth of cuts to universities and levies $270 million in new cuts to TAFE. We haven't forgotten the previous cuts to TAFE, but these are additional cuts.

The budget also fails the fairness test on hospitals, cutting $2.8 billion out. This means surgeries get delayed, nurse and doctor numbers will decline and emergency wait times will increase. In Newcastle, we're losing close to $10 million from our public hospitals in 2017-20. The budget fails the fairness test on child care, with 279,000 families set to be worse off under the government's new childcare policy. The budget fails the fairness test on Medicare. The Prime Minister's freeze on the rebate for specialists means Australians will pay even more when they visit a doctor. The budget fails the fairness test on vital public services, with 1,200 jobs set to go from Centrelink. Yes, that is the same organisation that has outlandish wait times and unanswered calls because of previous cuts to staff and resources.

The budget also tragically fails our national broadcaster, with the ABC set to lose a further $127 million as a result of the Liberal government's war on public broadcasting. This is on top of the $254 million in cuts that were imposed since 2014. That was a cut acutely felt in my region with our ABC radio, 1233 AM, losing 12 members of staff and lots of local content in the last round of cuts.

Even the Turnbull government's budget centrepiece is nothing but a cruel hoax designed to hide the fact that they are doing absolutely nothing for older Australians. The 14,000 in-home care packages for four years are funded by cuts into residential aged care, and they won't go anywhere near fixing the atrocious wait list of 105,000 older Australians who currently cannot access the care they need and deserve. There is an alternative, and Labor has made that vision very clear for Australians. You can have a Labor government that puts people and the services they need first or you can have more of the same from the Turnbull Liberal government. That government is about cuts, cuts and cuts and favours to the big end of town. (Time expired)

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today it's a privilege to be able to talk about the important impact that this government is having on the Goldstein electorate and, by extension, the great nation of Australia. When you think about the challenges that confront our great nation, no matter what the challenge, none is overcome without an economy that is healthy and strong. A strong economy is at the heart of everything that we need, as a country, to be able to deliver—the human dividend, the social dividend, the economic dividend and the environmental dividend—so that the next generation of Australians can grow up with the opportunities that their forebears have had before them. This allows them to get good childcare support in their early years and a good education throughout their youth and into their adulthood, particularly as part of tertiary education, but, more critically, to then be able to go on and get a job to support themselves and, hopefully, in time, a family, and then support their community as part of our great nation.

As people live through different stages of life, yes, they need support and opportunity to be able to realise their maximum ambition as citizens, but, as they move towards their later years, what they need is security—security in being able to be sure and confident that what modest investments they may have will deliver them a return to provide for them for as long as they live so that they can fund the health care and support services they need at a vulnerable stage of life and, more critically, at a stage of life where they are not able to change their circumstances. But none of that can be provided without a strong economy. None of that can be provided unless we have an economy that creates jobs and opportunities so that people can pay taxes to support those people who are less able than themselves or who need those critical supports in that time of life when they're vulnerable and need assistance and can't change their circumstances. This is at the heart of what this government is about. This is a government that is focused on how we deliver that sense of opportunity and security for every Australian at every stage of life. I see that day after day in the Goldstein electorate.

Last Friday night I was down at The Village Early Learning Centre opening in Sandringham in the Goldstein electorate, where people have seen an opportunity for investment and taken a risk to set up a second childcare centre, in addition to the one they established in Tulip Street, Sandringham. That community facility, that business, provides the opportunity for young Australians to be given the childcare support under this government's childcare support package and reform so that they can have the best chance at life. But only down the road, if you go to local aged-care facilities—and I was privileged to be able to go to Abberfield in Sandringham as well recently with the Minister for Aged Care—people at a different stage of life are seeking to retire with dignity and security and with the healthcare services that they need to live a life that they see as acceptable and comfortable.

The only way to achieve that is through a strong economy, and that is what this government is delivering day after day. You may be tired of it, as other people may be as well, but the simple reality, and an often repeated statistic, is that a million jobs have been created during the life of this government. That means that we have not only, off the back of significant welfare reforms, taken people from consuming the benefits of the tax system to being able to sustain themselves; we have enabled an opportunity, an environment and an economy where people have gone from consuming the benefits of the tax system to being contributors themselves.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, facts!

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know someone on the other side of the House just shouted, 'Oh, facts!' Yes, they're very uncomfortable and difficult if you disagree with the approach of this government, but the reality is it is hitting the ground and improving people's lives all across this great continent and land. Australians are very proud of the potential they have to stand on their own two feet. When we think about the type of future that this country should enjoy, the one where children born today seek to realise the opportunity they want for their future, it is through a strong economy delivered by the Turnbull coalition government that we will realise that.

Cathy O'Toole (Herbert, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How out of touch can the member for Chisholm possibly be? Does the member for Chisholm honestly think that cutting funding to schools, hospitals, universities, aged-care facilities, early learning and pensioners, and not funding vital infrastructure is good for the economy? How does one guarantee essential services in schools when the Turnbull government is cutting $14.8 million from schools in Townsville? How does one guarantee essential services in higher education in Townsville when the Turnbull government is cutting $36 million from James Cook University and $38 million from Central Queensland University? How does one guarantee essential services in early childhood education when the Turnbull government is making such savage cuts to this sector, where one early learning centre in my electorate has already closed and another is on the verge of closing? How does one guarantee essential services in Townsville, where more than 2,484 families will be worse off under the Turnbull government's changes to childcare packages? How does one guarantee essential services in Townsville when the Turnbull government is cutting $9 million from the Townsville Health and Hospital Service? How does one guarantee essential services and measures to support more choices for Australians to live longer in their homes when every single LNP budget has made cuts to aged care, and in North Queensland right now 323 people are waiting to access a home care package? How does one guarantee essential service and measures to support healthier lives for veterans when the Turnbull government is cutting $40.7 million from allied health and dental care?

I'm wondering if the member for Chisholm can explain any of that for me. Sadly, she can't. The simple fact is: you can't access essential services if the Turnbull government is hell-bent on making such savage cuts to vital services. The Australian Council of Social Services has been incredibly scathing of the Turnbull government's priorities to give millionaires a big tax handout and an $80 billion tax handout to big business and the banks but not properly consider funding for essential services. Last week the CEO of the Australian Council of Social Services said:

The tax cut package is gambling the future of our medical services, aged care services, disability services, and social security payments most of us rely upon at some stage in our lives.

The member for Chisholm says Labor doesn't have a plan. The member for Chisholm doesn't have a clue. Labor has a plan for a fairer Australia. Labor has a plan to ensure that hardworking Australians, middle-income earners and their families get a bigger, fairer tax cut. We will fund hospitals, schools, universities, TAFE and early learning. Our plan is clear and simple: we will fund vital services by not giving a tax cut to millionaires, big businesses and the banks. Labor doesn't believe that we should lump a nurse in the same tax bracket as a doctor, a cleaner in the same tax bracket as a CEO. Labor believes in supporting Australian workers, and that is why people in my electorate of Herbert will be far better off under Labor's tax plan. Simply put: under Labor, Herbert gets more. The median weekly income for an individual in Herbert is $672. Under Labor that person will be $350 better off—that is, $150 more than under the Turnbull government's plan. Families will be better off as well. The median weekly income for a family in Herbert is $1,640. Under Labor, families in Herbert will be $928 better off. That's more than $398 better off than under the Turnbull government's plan.

Not only does Townsville get a bigger, better and fairer tax plan under Labor but it will also get its hospitals, schools, universities and TAFE funded, as well as funding for water, energy and port expansion infrastructure. Herbert benefits from a Labor budget, but we will suffer and are suffering under the LNP. The Turnbull government haven't delivered a stronger economy; they have in fact quadrupled the deficit. Under the LNP the unemployment rate in Townsville has doubled, and Townsville has the highest insolvency rate in the nation. That's what a Turnbull economy looks like in the electorate of Herbert. It is not the fairer economy that Labor is committed to delivering. Townsville has never been worse off than it is now under this Turnbull government.

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

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next day of sitting.