Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister had two jobs this year: get quarantine right and get the vaccine rollout right, and this budget fails to do either. Our press-hungry Prime Minister is continuing to bumble his ways through a botched vaccine rollout, which is doing the country no favours. On 7 January this year, the Prime Minister said, 'We hope by the end of March to have reached some 4 million population.' He later revised that comment on 25 January, when he said, 'That four million position will be something that is going to be achieved in early April.' We are now in late May, almost June, and we still have not hit that four million milestone.

You just cannot trust this Prime Minister. It's all announcement, no delivery. It's all headline, no headway. And he is being found out. His bad calls are coming thick and fast and his poor decision-making as Prime Minister is out in the open. He was wrong to leave Australian citizens behind in India, which is ravaged by COVID. That's not who we are. We have each other's backs. That's our history and our culture as a nation. Australians look after their mates and look after each other. We did that in Gallipoli, in Kokoda, in Saigon and on the Korean Peninsula. That's who we are—that's who Australians are. But that's not the style of this Prime Minister.

This Prime Minister thinks Australians will simply forget. It is his government that has systematically gutted the aged-care and disability sectors and failed to ensure that workers are paid properly for the incredibly important work they do. Aged-care workers are being paid less than somebody stacking shelves at the local supermarket. He thinks that Australians will forget that a young woman was allegedly raped in this parliament and that, months later, nothing of substance has been done. And his hand-picked so-called investigator is, this very day in the Senate, frustrating inquiries to get to the bottom of the matter. This Prime Minister thinks Australian women will forget that there are members of his cabinet and his party under intense scrutiny for their alleged treatment of women, and he thinks Australian women will forget that those MPs involved were not publicly disciplined but, instead, given paid leave—something those opposite have for so long denied to victims of family violence. And he is so wrong to assume he can simply wash his hands of all this responsibility and of this complete failure of moral leadership. He is the Prime Minister; the buck stops with him. His incompetence is on display.

The Liberals say that they are better economic managers. They say they are the ones who can be trusted with money; it's hardwired into their DNA. How, then, do we explain more than $1 billion—$1,000 million—being given over four years to a company to guard a few hundred asylum seekers on Nauru? How do we explain, if the Liberals are the better economic managers, that, in January 2021 alone, the Morrison government paid this company $37 million in one month to provide services for fewer than 150 asylum seekers on Nauru? That's more than $250,000 per person. We all know that those asylum seekers didn't get that money. How is that an efficient use of taxpayer money? What about this government's disastrous deal with Applus Wokman, the company handed a $121 million contract to support asylum seekers in PNG? They were boosting their profits by billing the Department of Home Affairs $75 an hour for local workers who they paid just $8 an hour. Imagine that! They tell the department it's $75 an hour for the workers, and they give the workers $8. What an outrage! It's embarrassing. It's making the Sydney airport fiasco, where they paid $30 million to a Liberal Party donor for a $3 million block of land, look like small beer. Our trillion-dollar Treasurer shouldn't even be allowed near a piggy bank, let alone a budget.

We all know that the Prime Minister is big on announcements but small on delivery. He boasted about strong unemployment figures released last week. What on earth is he talking about? New ABS figures show that Tasmania now has the highest unemployment rate in the nation: 6.2 per cent for the month of April. These figures also reveal that there are 2½ thousand fewer Tasmanians employed since the Morrison government cut JobKeeper at the end of the March. We warned them not to do it. We warned them that unemployment would rise in Tasmania, and it has. Tasmania's underemployment remains the highest in the nation at 9.1 per cent. We in the Labor Party know the awful toll that unemployment can take on workers and their families. It's why we advocated for a wage subsidy in the first place when the coronavirus reared its head—a wage subsidy this Prime Minister argued against as a dangerous idea and a wage subsidy this Prime Minister had to be talked into enacting. It was Labor and the unions and big business that brought this Prime Minister to the table on a wage subsidy to evade high unemployment, and he has cut it too early. As a result, my state now has the highest unemployment in the country. To this government and to this Prime Minister, workers are just business unit costs, to be kept as low as possible. In fact, the Treasurer went so far as to talk up the numbers to the Hobart press during his 'building better margins' tour last week in Tasmania. Just when we thought the Morrison government could not be more out of touch, it finds a way to sink even further. What breathtaking arrogance! What unfettered entitlement and self-congratulatory rot!

May I remind the House that last week's disability royal commission report revealed that just eight Tasmanians in disability residential care have received their COVID-19 vaccine—eight in the whole state. To that I say: shame! Shame on this government for letting down our community's most vulnerable citizens. It becomes clearer and clearer every day that the Prime Minister cannot be trusted to look after the best interests of Tasmanians. He always leaves Tasmania behind. It was five months between visits when the Prime Minister flew down to Tasmania last week, and what did he do and where did he go? He snapped a few pics—a photo opportunity at the Hillwood Berries farm—before hopping aboard the government jet to fly to Burnie and back. Any guesses as to the nature of the electorate listed? Marginal Liberal seats—Bass and Braddon. It's all about him and his government. We're facing 6.2 per cent unemployment in Tasmania, and the only jobs he cares about in Tasmania are those of the member for Bass and the member for Braddon. He did not come to Tasmania with a plan for jobs, infrastructure or a vision for a better future. It's all smirk and mirrors with this Prime Minister. The only rollout he's interested is a red carpet for himself. Let's get a photo at the footy. Let's get a photo in fancy dress. He hasn't worked a day on site in his entire life but somehow he is always in high-vis. Let's get a photo building a chicken coop. Let's get a close-up of me hammering in that imaginary nail. Let's get a photo pushing trolleys at the berry farm. Tasmanians will like that one. They will be fooled by that. The ultimate fake tradie. He can pose and posture all he likes, but Tasmania is always left behind by the Liberal government.

Last week this Liberal government announced a $600 million taxpayer funded, ill-conceived gas-fired power plant in New South Wales. Industry experts are scratching their heads. No private investors will touch it. The International Energy Agency is calling time on the construction of fossil fuel projects. What's worse is this government intervention now threatens the viability of Tasmania's Battery of the Nation project. According to John Devereaux from goanna energy, 'The power plant at Kurri Kurri'—I should say the announced power plant, as we're yet to see it happen—'makes the case for a second Marinus Link less compelling'. There he is giving $600 million of taxpayer funds for a gas-fired plant in New South Wales and it directly threatens a Battery of the Nation power generation and storage project in Tasmania. Well done. What an economic mastermind.

Just a few short months ago this Prime Minister was spruiking the benefits of Battery of the Nation in the Tasmania. I quote:

Tasmania has the potential to be Australia's battery to keep the lights on and running costs down and we'll be there backing them to get there.

That's what he announced. But he certainly has not delivered. And now he's put the whole project at risk by this ridiculous intervention in the New South Wales market.

The government says the new plant will: 'Maintain reliable power across the network', which is exactly what the Marinus Link interconnector is designed to do. Tasmania has a renewable, dispatchable generation storage project ready to go. Let me ask the question: what is in this budget for Tasmanians? We've had two weeks now to sift through the spin and the slush funds. Infrastructure is a massive con job. There's nothing for housing, nothing for health. There's money for aged-care providers but not for workers. We know this Liberal government is focused solely on building bigger margins, not better roads. Where is the support for people with disabilities just trying to get their vaccines? Where's the support for increasing wages? The Liberal government says it supports workers but the budget flags a real wages cut and no plan to raise them. ABS data last week confirmed growth of just 1.5 per cent over the year to March 2021. With the cost of living set to grow quicker than wages working families are being left behind. If the Morrison government cared about workers why did the Minister for Industrial Relations vote down a proposal to introduce model industrial manslaughter laws? The Labor states voted in favour; the Liberal states voted against. This government hasn't even bothered to respond to the 34 recommendations of the Boland review to improve workplace safety. This government, this Prime Minister, are uncaring, and worse they are incompetent. They can't be trusted with the budget, they can't be trusted with the national finances and they certainly can't be trusted workers' wages into the future.

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

It's a privilege to follow the member for Lyons, because some people regard when you're being criticised by the opposition as ineffectual. It's like being hit with a wet lettuce. I prefer to compare it more to being hit with soggy Glad Wrap. It's kind just of annoying, it has no real purpose and it ends up backfiring as you get splattered along the way. The member for Lyons will understand that he is heading to the next election where I've no doubt his incompetence and incapability to be able to deliver for the good people of that state, and of course his electorate, will backfire to the point that he will be defeated but that is his cross to bear.

I'm incredibly proud to support the budget and the passage of this legislation. It's incredibly important because at the heart of it is what we need to do to build and harden the resilience of Australia to get through the ongoing nature of the COVID-19 pandemic.

If you go back to a little over 12 months ago, we all looked at the global circumstances that Australia faced. There were factors that were outside of our control; a virus that had its origins in Wuhan, China, was spreading across the globe. This government, at every point, have taken strong, effective decisions to make sure we can secure our borders, which is the biggest public health measure this country has taken. By doing so, and by introducing a system of quarantine, we have largely been able to keep the virus out. There have been—what should we call them?—burps or situations where there have been blowouts, particularly in the great state of Victoria, which took on an enormous burden because of our state government's mismanagement of hotel quarantine and its incompetence in keeping the virus contained within Victoria so that the rest of the nation was not infected. We have now contained that. Of course, other states have had to take prudent and responsible measures at different times as well.

We have seen further cases, yesterday and today, in Victoria, which is a reminder to every Australian that this pandemic is not over. I say that in the context that this pandemic continues to pose a very serious health risk. If you are eligible to get vaccinated, please do. Luxuries or risks associated with not being vaccinated are far outweighed by the risk of being infected with COVID-19, particularly for the elderly and immunosuppressed. We cannot lose sight of that in the comfort that we have secured just because we have kept the virus out. Victoria has shown that can end in an instant, and you'll be back in exactly the same risk profile that the rest of the world experiences.

That's the health side. There's also the economic flowthrough as a consequence of COVID-19 should we have a significant outbreak. That is why the focus of this budget is looking at what we need to do to harden and secure families, individuals, communities and businesses to continue to survive this pandemic, but also to be the foundation of our prosperity as we come out of it. The success of our country is not driven from Canberra down. It is not driven by corporates down. It is not driven by unions down. And it most certainly is not driven by the three of those collaborating to impose situations on the Australian people. Prosperity doesn't come from the few; it comes from the many. It comes through innovation. It comes through drive. It comes through work. It comes through prosperity. It is driven by people taking risks, because you cannot have reward without risk and responsibility. The success of this country comes from the citizen, the family, the community and the enterprise up, and we should never lose sight of that—and that is who the Morrison government are backing every step of the way.

In so many of the programs we have implemented throughout this COVID-19 pandemic, our focus has been on how to back you, the people, not you, the corporates, the big businesses, the unions or this city of Canberra. And we've done so through measures like the JobKeeper plan, which has delivered 8,700 businesses and 30,300 employees in the Goldstein electorate support throughout the period of COVID-19. Now, when JobKeeper was coming up to its deadline in March, Labor went on this long tirade about how the wage subsidy had to continue to operate into the future. The hard data shows that we now have a lower unemployment level than we had before the pandemic. So to embrace the continued support of JobKeeper, firstly, is economic delinquency, negligence and irresponsibility and, secondly, the adjustment would only have been greater had we continued to go on. But that does not mean Labor have changed their talking points, because leopards cannot change their spots.

We, as a government, have made sure we have provided tax relief of up to $2,745 this year through the low- and middle-income tax offset for 56,300 taxpayers in the wonderful Goldstein electorate. We provided tax incentives that allowed 24,600 local businesses to fully write-off the value of eligible assets they purchased against their tax liabilities, and 8,300 local businesses will be able to use the extended loss carry-back measure to support cashflow and confidence. We know that, at this critical time, cash flow is the basis upon which businesses succeed. More to the point, it is their lifeblood and, if it is cut off, they will fail.

Everywhere I go I hear of a consistent trend, which is: we need skills and we need labour because we have plenty of jobs; if only there were people to fill them. The very clear focus from this government is to make sure that those who are unemployed have pathways back to secure employment and to a position where they are able to stand on their own two feet, support their families, own their homes and be the foundation of this country's success. But in many cases there is a need to bridge the divide that occurs. That's why we've extended and expanded the JobTrainer fund, which will support 450,000 new places that will upskill jobseekers and young Australians seeking to achieve work.

This budget invests in major roads and rail projects and in road safety and community infrastructure programs that are supporting additional jobs. There's $3.4 billion committed in the great state of Victoria alone. If you drive around the Goldstein electorate at the moment, in many places you'll see signs of major investments, from upgrades to roads to lighting projects, making sure that our community is in as strong a position as it can be to support people.

But we know that people face different barriers and challenges throughout their working lives. Many families, particularly when they have young children, balance the tension between raising children in a family and, in some cases, needing a dual income to pay for things like their mortgage and their lifestyle. That's why there has been significant investment in this budget to improve access to affordable child care, particularly for families with multiple children. There are 960 families in the Goldstein electorate that will take advantage of that.

This budget delivers a record investment in aged care. Goldstein is proud—and I say that very specifically—to be the home of many of the private aged-care providers in this country, because, unlike the ideological madness that's put out by the Victorian state government, we understand that, if you want capital on the table which can grow the places for aged care so people can get the support and assistance they need, the government cannot do it alone. Our role is to work with private enterprise, free enterprise, to create the environment where you get investment so that you get quality homes, quality services and quality access to support and if you need help you can get it.

We're proud to be the home of many private aged-care providers from across Australia. There are 26,317 senior Australians living in the Goldstein electorate who will get additional assistance from the providers of aged care through additional supplements in the ACFI funding. That's important, but, to be frank, I think we need to do more to free up funding for aged care, particularly in terms of individual responsibility. I have given speeches in the House about this in the past. If you look at aged care from the perspective of responsibility, you have the responsibility of contributing to capital because it's displacing people from their homes. We need to acknowledge that. There's a responsibility around management and providing services, which is a mixture of responsibility between individuals and the taxpayer. When it comes to access to health services, pharmaceuticals and the like, that traditionally falls back on taxpayers. We should be looking at that as a system of responsibility. That is the only basis upon which we can provide sustainable aged care to support the number of people who will need places at the standard and with the quality and dignity that we expect, not just as a government but as a country. What older Australians want for themselves is to be in a situation where they can go into aged care and live out their days with dignity. If we don't make sure there's responsibility on everybody, all we end up doing is underwriting inheritances and advantaging those who are well off at the expense of taxpayers overall.

Those aren't the only areas, in terms of service delivery, where this government is providing to make sure we get the assistance that people need at every stage of their life, from child care all the way through to aged care. The federal government has been giving significant funding to investment in local infrastructure. This is an election promise that we have delivered on, and we'll continue to deliver on it as we work with the state government and councils regarding commuter car park upgrades. In the City of Glen Eira we have increased the funding for the development of the Bentleigh commuter car parking from $4 million to $9 million. Bentleigh residents, this means that, with the approval of the council, you're going to have access to more commuter car parks. Council have agreed to use their land to develop the site so that you can catch a train more easily and earlier, without having to run around and find a car park. The streets surrounding the Bentleigh railway station will be in a better position, being freed up for people who want to use them both for residential purposes and also for accessing the Centre Road shopping strip.

The same has occurred in Elsternwick, where, working with the council, there's been an additional $2.5 million to take total funding for an upgrade for community car parking to $9 million—again, aiding Glen Eira residents and those in surrounding communities to access parking. In Bayside, the Hampton station parking upgrade on council land is progressing, with a feasibility study to be completed before the end of the year. We want to see that project go ahead, every step of the way. When I go and stand at Hampton railway station in the mornings and speak to commuters, they consistently say, 'We need more access to car parking.' The state government has been a challenge, but the councillors are working with the federal government to deliver.

Unfortunately, after assessment, the soil at Brighton Beach station has been deemed too sandy to take additional weight. But, at the North Brighton station, the parking upgrade is awaiting approval by the Victorian state government to use their land. Federal funding has been increased by $4.3 million, to a total of nearly $7 million. Once the state government gives the tick-off, we will progress with developing that site so more people can have access in and around North Brighton and of course to the Bay Street shopping strip.

The same is also true in Sandringham. We are awaiting approval from the state government to use their land. We have ensured that there is access to additional car parking at Sandringham station, but I have to say that I am very worried and very concerned that there have been allegations that the state government aren't planning to support the upgrade of additional parking at Sandy station but are seeking to take away the existing car park and that is why they have been blocking the upgrade of additional parking at Sandy station. What that will mean, if the state government get their way and take away those additional community car parks, is fewer people catching the trains, fewer people relying on them, and those people who need to access or park at Sandy station will be moving around surrounding streets and there will be no additional car parking.

We, the Morrison government and of course myself as a local federal member, are 300 per cent committed to delivering on this project if only the state government would let us. But, more critically, I will fight with the state member, Brad Rowswell, every step of the way, if the state government chooses to take away the existing car parking at Sandy railway station because they want to put additional rolling stock there. They would be selling out the Sandy community at the expense of capital improvements so that they can indulge votes in other parts of the state. It's wrong. We know it's wrong. We have to stand up against them if they go down that path.

Other critical investment in our community includes $1 million in Bayside City Council's Elsternwick Park Nature Reserve project, which is the gateway for many people from Melbourne, along the Nepean Highway, down to the city of Bayside. This reclaimed land from the old Elsternwick Golf Course is going to be a significant nature reserve which is going to facilitate water cleansing, which is going to improve the outflow that goes to Port Phillip, while also making sure that it provides a beautiful nature reserve for local residents in and around the adjoining point of the city of Port Phillip, the city of Glen Eira and the city of Bayside.

Another significant funding opportunity includes the $400,000 that has been given to the Black Rock Yacht Club to rebuild the roof on their clubhouse, a project that Bayside has wanted to see delivered for a very long time but has not been able to secure the funding for. The Morrison government has come along and backed that. At every stage, we have a budget that delivers for communities and builds the strength, resilience and security of communities as the foundation not just for today but for the nation's continued success.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2021-2022 and wish to take the opportunity to speak to a range of community priorities and concerns across my electorate of Mayo. I was pleased to see the government allocate funding to a number of projects I have strongly advocated for, including $5 million to finish upgrading the emergency department and renal dialysis unit at Victor Harbour hospital and the $5.4 million for the Southern Materials Recovery Facility recycling plant at McLaren Vale.

Victor Harbour hospital serves a growing population of more than 37,000 people. We have a significantly higher proportion of older people living on the south coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula when compared to South Australia's average. More than a third of our residents aged over 65 years. The south coast is growing rapidly, with a projected population increase of 18 per cent over the next 15 years. This funding will allow the expansion of the renal dialysis unit to meet the projected renal dialysis demand by 2030.

The southern materials recovery facility, when completed, will process 31,000 tonnes of recycling a year. The additional federal funding will enable the facility to escalate recovery to 62,000 tonnes a year to service more regional councils and nearby commercial businesses. This is really exciting news. This facility is so much more than a recycling depot. It's an engine for an exciting new circular economy in our community and will create over 80 full-time jobs during construction and approximately 20 ongoing full-time jobs. It's those ongoing jobs that are just so critical for our community, and I commend the government for providing national leadership on this important issue.

I would like to talk about child care. I welcome the budget announcement of childcare fee relief for larger families, making child care more affordable for second and subsequent children attending child care at the same time. I recently spoke in this place on the high cost of child care in my community and in particular highlighted the need to remove the cap, which families in my electorate reaching well before the end of the financial year, resulting in families having to pay unsubsidised, full-cost child care for a significant proportion of the year. I asked for this serious issue to be addressed and I'm grateful the government has listened to many people in this chamber and removed the cap altogether.

Often what happens with the second or perhaps even third child is that one of the parents says, 'It's just not affordable for me to keep working at all,' and we are taking away choice from a person simply because of cost. I do, however, have concerns about the estimated rollout date of July 2022 with the announcement that's in the budget. I stress to the government that we need to implement these changes sooner. 2022 is well over a year away, and I can't see why, with the powers of government and with the Public Service, we can't get this happening by the end of the year, if not sooner.

I'm pleased to see that the budget has allocated $40 million for supplementary road funding over two years for South Australia. I've continually advocated for this since it was cut in 2014. When I was first elected with Nick Xenophon and our whole Nick Xenophon Team, now known as Centre Alliance, we lobbied hard for this money to be reinstated for South Australia. This funding would provide more than $4 million to councils for local roads across Mayo and addresses the inequity that we experience in South Australia, where we receive only five per cent of the nation's share of road funding despite our state having more than 11 per cent of the nation's local road network. While this funding is welcome, I call on the government to permanently fix this anomaly by addressing the inherent inequity in this funding. South Australia should receive a share that is commensurate with our share of the local road network.

There was some really exciting news in the budget for our planning study for the Greater Adelaide freight bypass. It's an important first step in addressing the increased congestion and dangerous freight and commuter interaction that happens on the South Eastern Freeway. We have too many accidents on our freeway, and heavy vehicle breakdowns cause significant and prolonged traffic delays, prompting serious safety concerns. This is in a high-risk bushfire area where this is really our only corridor out. Diverting heavy freight off the freeway is critical in the future for South Australia. It will improve safety, reduce congestion and ease local concerns. This $5 million is very welcome. We need to make sure that we get the planning right. I look forward to the opportunity of a briefing on this initiative to better comprehend the finer details of the planning study.

I urge the government, in undertaking the study, to commit to preserving the existing rail infrastructure. I think disposing of land corridors, whether it be federal or state governments doing so, is a very short-sighted decision. We need to make sure that we keep these corridors open so that future governments can use these important transport corridors. We are a growing region. We have a great need for public transport today and will have in the future.

Another exciting part of the budget was the funding for craft distillers. I have a number of craft distillers in my electorate, and I think this is really important. It is all about supporting small business. The lifting of the threshold for receiving full remission of excise from $100,000 to $350,000 is a real boon. It will return $225 million to distillers, and I know that the distillers in my community are going to be reinvesting that money in their businesses and expanding their businesses. It's incredibly exciting news and a really good first step, but there's more that needs to be done. We need a freeze on the CPI indexing and no excise applied to tastings, just like we have in the wine sector. For me, this is all about the same set of rules applying to all related industries.

Disappointingly, the budget failed to deliver on some of the most important and immediate concerns of everyday Australians. We need to end the climate policy deadlock that we have in this nation, and particularly in this place. I was particularly disappointed that there was no funding set aside for the member for Indi's proposal for a new Commonwealth corporate entity, the Australian Local Power Agency. Regional communities are not always seeing the full benefit of the community energy projects being built in regional Australia. The establishment of the Australian Local Power Agency would address this by providing a dedicated focus on developing community energy projects and ensuring that regional communities share in the benefits of renewable energy. It would sit alongside ARENA and the CEFC to administer direct financial, technical and investment support. I think this is an opportunity lost and I would urge the government to look at it again. I wrote a letter to the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction supporting the budget request for $54 million, in underlying cash balance terms, to establish the Australian Local Power Agency. Unfortunately, that money was not in the budget, but I will continue my lobbying, as, I am sure, the member for Indi will, for this to be considered in the future.

Another omission from the budget was electric vehicles. There was nothing in the budget to accelerate the rollout of charging infrastructure and there were no incentives for consumers to adopt more environmentally friendly transport options. At present, we have a mismatch of state and territory arrangements for electric vehicles and infrastructure. The federal government, I believe, has a pivotal role in setting a national approach and facilitating electric vehicle ownership. One simple measure would be to remove the luxury car tax from electric vehicles. We should also be investigating how we can create an electric vehicle parts and manufacturing sector. Until recently, Australia had a strong and proud tradition of automotive manufacturing, especially in my home state of South Australia—we made Holden cars; we made Mitsubishi cars—and we have the opportunity to do this again with electric vehicles. They could be the renaissance of car manufacturing. We should not accept that car manufacturing in Australia must end. As I said, we could build electric vehicles in this nation. We have most of the base metals that go into electric cars, so why are we not building them? What an opportunity lost!

My electorate is home to the Amy Gillett Bikeway in the Adelaide Hills. I have previously secured government funding for sections of this wonderful trail, and I recently wrote to the Treasurer seeking funding to connect the trail to the proposed Adelaide wine capital cycle trail, which seeks to deliver an iconic cycling pilgrimage of 250 kilometres, spanning four distinct wine regions: Clare Valley, Barossa Valley, Adelaide Hills and McLaren Vale. The trail would provide much needed support to communities looking to rebuild and diversify their local economies after the Black Summer bushfires. It will assist our wine region, particularly with respect to tourism. We are having a number of challenges in respect of tariffs and China, and we need to support our wine regions to encourage more visitors and more people purchasing home-grown stock. Speaking of the Australian wine industry, it is currently experiencing considerable financial pain, and I encourage the government to work more closely with the industry and fund future initiatives to grow exports and diversify our international markets.

Another fight we have on our agricultural battlefront is in our fruit growing regions in the Adelaide Hills and Riverland, which are currently under siege from serious Mediterranean fruit fly outbreaks. I urge the federal government to work with states to develop a national eradication strategy and to fund a food irradiation plant in Adelaide. We need this in South Australia. This will control our insects and invasive pests. Ultimately it would be an opportunity—an insurance policy, if you like—for us to be able to continue to export, to diversify our exports and to ensure that our produce is seen as safe, particularly in new countries. I am really encouraged by the great work that so many of my producers do, off their own back, out of their own pocket, to build their export networks. We need to ensure that the federal government and the state government are behind them. I'm really keen to continue lobbying for an irradiation plant in South Australia. We need to be able to export directly out of South Australia, and we can't do that without it.

I'm very pleased to see the six-month extension of the Small Business Financial Counselling service for small regional businesses experiencing or at risk of financial hardship due to the impacts of drought, bushfire and COVID-19. The program has assisted so many businesses in my community through a very difficult period, and many of them are now once again thriving. It's very exciting news. I'm pleased to see the extension, but I like to think we can continue further. I think that six months is a little bit short-sighted and I would urge government to continue that program because it really is helping regional businesses so much.

I think overall I give the budget a B-plus. There were parts missing, but there are many, many good parts to the budget, particularly for my electorate. I'm pleased to commend this bill to the Chamber.

Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We went into the coronavirus pandemic from a position of strength, swiftly implementing policies to save lives and save livelihoods. Now we're building a more resilient and secure Australia. The federal budget outlined by the Treasurer guarantees the essential services Australians rely on and is creating the jobs of the future to lead our economic recovery. We are making record investments in mental health, fully funding the NDIS, enhancing women's safety and economic security, reforming aged care and making child care more affordable and accessible for families in our communities.

For people in Lindsay, this is a budget that delivers from a government that delivers. We are putting more of people's hard-earned money back into their pockets by delivering tax relief to families and businesses to spend across our economy and to support local jobs. The government's tax plan has already benefited over 82,000 people in my electorate of Lindsay, and now around 76,000 taxpayers in Lindsay will benefit from tax relief of up to $2745 this year. The Morrison government will always help hardworking, aspirational Australians like those in my electorate of Lindsay keep more of what they earn, and it will support them as they create and work in our local employment industries.

It's Australian Made Week this week. What a great time to be talking about the support the Morrison government is delivering for Aussie manufacturers in Western Sydney—something I am very passionate about driving. I recently brought the minister for employment to visit Baker & Provan in St Marys, founded by two diggers who said that, if they survived the Second World War, they would return home and start their own business. Well, they did, and in 1946 Baker & Provan was born. Seventy-five years later, this is still a family business, which is in some ways quite extraordinary in these times. It is an Aussie-made business, contributing to some of our nation's most important sovereign capability projects, particularly for our Navy. This budget means we're supporting two new apprentices at Baker & Provan—two young female apprentices breaking into the manufacturing industry and learning the trade from the best in the business. Chris has been at Baker & Provan for 30 years, and I know that he, Mal and the whole team are welcoming their new apprentices into their business, because they know it's the future of our economy.

An extended and expanded JobTrainer Fund will support 500,000 new places to upskill jobseekers and young people. We already have 2,285 apprentices in Lindsay, and these new measures will lead to more opportunities for apprentices and trainees, with expanded wage subsidies. The $2.7 billion investment is supporting the employment of newly commencing apprentices and trainees, assisting school leavers and jobseekers during the peak hiring period for key industries. To date, over 141,000 apprentices have been supported through this program.

We're also extending the instant asset write-off, enabling businesses to buy the equipment they need to grow and expand, become more efficient, scale up and ultimately support more local jobs. Around 15,000 businesses in Lindsay will be able to write off the full value of any eligible asset. This is because we believe in enabling local businesses to do what they do best. We want them to succeed and to drive our jobs-led recovery. The tax-free cash flow boost has helped more than 5,000 small and medium-sized businesses in Lindsay and provided much-needed financial support to keep them going through the coronavirus pandemic.

The minister for employment and I also met with a number of local small business owners to talk about what the budget means for them. It is a priority of mine to make sure our national policies are delivering for local families and local businesses on the ground, and it was great to hear how our policies are unlocking new opportunities for businesses in Western Sydney. It is a pillar of the Morrison government's plan to unlock the potential of Australian businesses, not to hold them back.

I said earlier that we entered the pandemic from a position of strength, and that has allowed us to deliver unprecedented support to families and businesses throughout the pandemic and has now put us back on track to emerge with a stronger, more secure and more resilient economy. The recent labour force figures show our plan is working. With over 13 million Australians in work in April this year, the level of employment is now above its pre-COVID level in March 2020, and we added over 33,000 full-time jobs in April, taking full-time employment to a record high. This is a promising sign, but there is still more work to be done. We have seen around the world the continued risk and impact the coronavirus can have. Our budget continues the Morrison government's plan to secure Australia's economic recovery and guarantee the essential services that all Australians rely on.

Since the start of the pandemic, in Lindsay there have been over 360,000 telehealth consultations. That incredible figure shows just how important this service has been for our community, and that's why we are investing to continue this service until the end of 2021. In this budget, we're providing record funding for hospitals, Medicare, mental health, aged care and disability support. We have committed $2.3 billion for mental health care and suicide prevention, including more headspace centres, a National Suicide Prevention Office and a new Head to Health national network of 40 centres. We're making life-changing treatments accessible for our community by funding new medicines to treat breast cancer, lung cancer, severe osteoporosis, severe asthma and chronic migraines. We have also announced new funding for endometriosis, research into preterm birth, and genetic testing for pregnant women. In the last year, there have been over two million free or subsidised medicines delivered in Lindsay through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

From supporting our local jobs and our local manufacturing industry and getting new apprentices into work to our sovereign capability, backing Australian made and providing the important health and mental health services that our country relies on, all of these things make a tremendous difference in the lives of people in my electorate of Lindsay, in Western Sydney and across Australia.

Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2021-2022. Never has Australia seen a less impressive budget. Never has an Australian government spent so much to achieve so little. Never have the Australian people been left behind by a government as they have been left behind by the Morrison government. Labor has been saying for a long time now that the Morrison government doesn't care about you, and this budget absolutely proves that. The Prime Minister is all talk and no action. During the bushfires, he said, 'I don't hold a hose, mate.' And that is his approach to everything. He blames the states, he blames other people and he takes no responsibility. He hates to be questioned and he hates accountability.

Through this pandemic, Labor have been a constructive opposition. If it were not for Labor calling for a wage subsidy, we would never have seen the JobKeeper payment. We have supported the government in the things that needed to happen, and we have acknowledged successes where there have been successes, like the JobKeeper payment, albeit that there were many people left out of that. It is a stark contrast to the Liberal-National coalition when we were getting Australia through the global financial crisis. Essentially, the Morrison government have had two jobs through this pandemic. Two things are strictly a federal government responsibility: quarantine and vaccinations. We have seen those bungled completely. We have seen the Prime Minister still scrambling and avoiding giving any kind of commitment as to when Australians can expect to have access to a vaccination. And we have seen the devastating situation in India, where we have had to tell Australian citizens that they can't come home because we don't have the quarantine facilities to manage them, which is absolutely disgusting and unacceptable. But the federal government, led by Scott Morrison, just puts this on the states. He's doing nothing to address it, and there was nothing in his budget about that.

This budget did nothing to combat poverty in Australia. It did nothing for social housing in Australia. It has not done anything to solve the catastrophic issues with aged care. Rather, as it so often does, this government is hiding behind a headline figure. It hides behind the announcement. There's no follow-up; there's no plan. And I want to talk more about that. The budget confirmed the worst fears of the disability community, with the government continuing to talk about hard conversations and sustainability. As a hard-working local member, I listen to people with disability and NDIS participants, and every person in this place must hear the stories of people on the NDIS fighting desperately for the most basic of supports, while the minister talks about it not being sustainable and talks about relying too much on the empathy of public servants. People are rightfully disgusted by that. But I'm also on the NDIS joint parliamentary committee. We had two hearings last week. It was incredibly harrowing to hear people's experiences and to be confronted with that brick wall this government puts up, with the minister not listening at all, showing no empathy herself and talking about too much empathy.

Coming back to the budget, it has confirmed that this coalition government has no plan on climate change—again, doubling down on the fact that we're not even quite committed as a nation to zero emissions by 2050. This is a real opportunity to invest in renewable energy and become the renewable energy superpower that Australia could be.

This is a budget that has continued the ideological crusade against our public universities, cutting funding by 9.3 per cent. We've already seen 17,000 jobs lost. We've seen people walking away from research projects at a time when the world is relying on this research to address issues like the pandemic, like climate change. We're abandoning it. When young people need to know they have jobs into the future, that they can access the university education or the vocational education that they need to get the jobs of the future, this government is doing nothing for them and it's cutting it.

Labor is the party of vision in this country. As our shadow treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said in his Press Club address: 'No Labor budget would ever be so devoid of vision as what we have seen from this government'. Labor is the party that, under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, set-up the foundations for the economic growth that we saw then squandered under the Howard government. Labor is the party that got us through the global financial crisis. It did that by investing in low-income households, in building our nation—things like that. We're the party that did Medicare and continue to defend it against coalition attacks. We are party that has done more than this government could ever dream of to protect our natural environment. We are the only party that has ever taken any serious action on climate change, introducing our first carbon price. When we talk about vision I want to quote Paul Keating, because he is one of our most visionary leaders that we've seen in Australian history. He said:

We will not adopt the fantastic hypocrisy of modern conservatism which preaches the values of families and communities, while conducting a direct assault on them through reduced wages and conditions and job security.

There is no more relevant example of that than this budget, because what we have seen in this budget—after eight years of wage stagnation under this government—is not only do they have no plan for wages, but that they have acknowledged, in their own budget papers, that wages will grow slower than inflation over the next four years. That is a real wage cut for Australians over the next four years. That is the thanks that workers get for getting us through this pandemic. We have fared so well because Australians care for one another and are dedicated to doing the right thing, and because of the hard work of our aged-care workers, frontline health workers—people who are still not being vaccinated.

This should be the top priority of this government at the moment, ensuring that people are getting vaccinated. First of all, frontline health workers and the most vulnerable—older people, people in disability. It's just shameful that we have seen that people with disability are barely having access to vaccines yet. We're going to continue to call on the Prime Minister to answer these questions. What are you doing about the vaccine rollout? This is a government that has spent $1 billion on advertising and we have not seen a public advertising campaign around getting vaccinated. We are seeing mixed messages, even from their health minister, about waiting for particular vaccines—wink-wink, nudge-nudge. This is serious. This is incredibly serious. They talk a lot about the economy and the economy is not going to get back on its feet until we are not at risk of lockdown, which we will be until we get a significant proportion of the Australian community vaccinated.

We can see a situation looming where countries that have not fared anywhere near as well as Australia, countries that are really suffering around the world, are going to be opening up their borders before we are, because under this government we cannot get a vaccination rollout right.

I want to come to aged care, because I think this is a perfect example of how this government is all about the announcement and not about the follow through. The centrepiece of their budget has been $17 billion of funding for aged care. Sure, that sounds like a big figure; it does. But don't be fooled. It falls so far short of what the royal commission into aged care recommended be done to fix this system, which is in absolute crisis.

Anyone who, like me or the people whom I talk to in my electorate, has had a personal experience with aged care knows that it is in crisis. They know that it is in crisis from the experiences they have with their loved ones each and every day. When you talk to people about aged care, they all know the problem is around staffing. It's around people not receiving good enough pay. It's around there not being enough staff. That is where a lot of this money needs to go to fix this problem. None of it has been directed that way through this government's announcement. This announcement gives all the money to providers, with no guarantee that any of it be put into decent wages for aged-care workers.

These people must be saints to work for the money that they work for and to do the things that they do, and I can tell you that they are, because in the last sitting, when I was speaking to people who are aged-care workers, it was just so clear that their deep dedication to the people whom they care for is the reason they get up and do this job every day. Those people are being let down by this government. The residents are being let down and the workers are being let down.

This package does nothing about the fact that so many people in aged care are malnourished. In a country like Australia they are actually starving. These are our older Australians, who have worked their entire lives. At a time when they're vulnerable and they need care, this government is directing the money to the people whom we've seen in the media reportedly buying Maseratis and those sorts of things. This is while our parents, grandparents and loved ones aren't getting three decent meals a day. It's not good enough, and Australians are not fooled.

They've fobbed this off and delayed or outright rejected key recommendations of the royal commission into aged care. They've failed to clear the home-care package waiting list. This is another thing: we all know that most older people want to stay in their homes as long as they can, but we are seeing the tragic situation where people on waiting lists are dying while they wait to have someone come and help them with their meals or manage their house so they can stay in their house as long as they can. There is a waiting list of 100,000 people. If you think about that money, it's not going far enough. It sounds like a big figure, but it's not.

They've also ignored the recommendation to require a nurse to be on duty 24/7 in aged-care facilities. This has been something that unions and aged-care groups have been campaigning on for many, many years. It's obvious. Just do it. Just get it right. Again, there is the issue of staff ratios in aged care. They have shirked the main increase to mandatory care minutes in residential aged care. As I've said, staffing levels are central to many of the quality care problems in aged care. This announcement does nothing to ensure that they are fixed.

There is the issue of housing. This budget has done next to nothing for social housing, whereas in our budget reply we announced that an Albanese Labor government will create a $10 billion off-budget Housing Australia Future Fund to build social and affordable housing and create thousands of jobs now and in the longer term. Over the first five years, this investment will build around 20,000 social housing properties. Four thousand of the 20,000 social housing properties will be allocated to women and children fleeing domestic and family violence and to older women on low incomes who are at risk of homelessness, which is the fastest-growing group of homeless people at the moment in this country. Ten thousand affordable housing properties will be provided for frontline workers. A total of $1.7 billion will be allocated to women, $1.6 billion for long-term housing and an additional $100 million for crisis and transitional housing options for women and children fleeing domestic and family violence.

This is the sort of vision this country needs at the moment. The pandemic has been an incredibly challenging time for Australia and the world, and it will continue to be. But we should look for the positives in it. The positive that I am so proud that our leader, Anthony Albanese, has continued to talk about through all of this is that it is a chance to reset and rebuild better. It is a chance to build an economy that is more sustainable by investing in renewables, because good climate policy is good jobs policy. We need to be honest with people whose jobs aren't going to survive. They know that. We need to show that we're going to work with them to let them partake in the jobs of the future.

We have such an opportunity here, and it is very frustrating to be in opposition and see it absolutely squandered by this government in this budget. Labor is the party that is going to ensure no-one is held back and no-one is left behind. We just heard from the member for Goldstein about how it's all about community and risk taking et cetera. Well, no. It's about giving people the opportunities. Labor is the party of aspiration. Labor is the party that wants people to get ahead, because we want everyone to have the opportunity, not just those who are born with it.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is an opportunity to talk about Australia's world-class health system, which, like all health systems, is facing a significant struggle. It's the product, obviously, of a Commonwealth-state arrangement, with Commonwealth-state health-financing agreements. In our good state of Queensland, 39 public hospitals are now funded under activity based funding on a national efficient price and another 83 public hospitals on a national efficient cost, where those smaller services and smaller public hospitals still get block funding. The movement to activity based funding is absolutely critical, and the Commonwealth, at arm's length from the operation of hospitals, is reliant on activity based funding to put a value on everything that happens inside the walls of a hospital.

Of course, there's been additional finesse and detail added to how we calculate this. There was a degree of back-casting going on, which meant that, as soon as we gave additional criteria whereby we would fund certain patients with more money, in many cases states were simply signing every patient up to every category to maximise the amount of activity based funding they got. What that led to was a need for the Commonwealth to back-cast and identify whether we should have absolutely every patient in the system suffering every single symptom in order to get more money. Clearly that was preposterous and had to stop, and that's one of the reasons why there was some disagreement between states and the Commonwealth on funding in 2018. That was the essence of that issue.

Apart from that, these very laborious Commonwealth-state health state agreements are interesting beasts, because they have allowed certain states to try different models. I well remember that from 2007 to 2010, under the Rudd administration, for the first time we allowed public hospital patients to access Medicare inside public hospitals, which up until then we had thought was anathema but which is now commonplace. This interface between what Medicare funds and what is a public hospital responsibility continues to shift, and I'm putting down here today that ultimately a patient who spends the night in a facility remains the responsibility of the state, while a patient who doesn't spend the night in a facility will one day become fundamentally part of the public health responsibility of the Commonwealth. That's where I think things will go over the next decade.

Because my time is limited now—but I'm going to continue later—I want to make some very brief observations about the challenges of using an ABF system in financing hospitals and how difficult it is to get clear information from states about how they spend the money. The Commonwealth is continuing to increase its contributions, but let's be honest: it's still a minor funder of the system. But it's moving up, and it's important that states don't fiddle with the data to unfairly obtain more ABF than they're entitled to. It's the job of large numbers of Canberra public servants to monitor that, but it's also for the community to be completely frank about whether state governments are being honest.

I want to note what the member for Capalaba, in my area, said on behalf of the state Labor government, in relation to the problems at the hospital in my area, where you are more likely than not to be ambulance ramped. Fifty-one per cent of people arriving at Redland Hospital are likely to be ambulance ramped, and the excuse given is that that is predominantly because of long-term dementia patients being unable to return to an aged-care facility—which, yes, is the responsibility of the Commonwealth. So let's be clear here: we’re all on the sticky paper together. But we do need solutions, and we need to make sure we're not simply blaming dementia patients for the ills of the hospital. We can't use dementia patients as an excuse for why, because the ambulances are all stacked up outside the hospital, there can't be an ambulance on the sideline of a football field where kids are getting broken jaws and broken legs. This is the point I'm making. We're building a multistorey car park at Redland Hospital, but what's the point if it's filled with ambulances with patients sitting in them and high-quality ambulance staff sitting there looking at patients for up to 12 hours because there's nowhere to put them in the hospital?

This is not about bigger A&E centres. This is not about more passionate staff. This is not about having more ambulance workers, because fundamentally, no matter how good they are, there's nowhere to put those patients. There is no bed available. We have to find a way to provide an incentive for states to operate efficiently and to return dementia patients when they can. That is an important contribution that I will detail in subsequent debate.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 1.30, in accordance with the resolution of 13 May the debate is adjourned. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for a later hour. The member for Bowman will leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed. The chair will be resumed at 4 pm.

Sitting suspended from 13:30 to 16:00