Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is often my good fortune to follow Senator Brandis in these contributions and he has not disappointed again today, starting off with a fairytale about a sooty man in a place called Balnibarbi and he talked to us about market gardening. That was the bulk of his speech. This really speaks volumes about this opposition: when presented with the opportunity to ask the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Senator Wong, a serious question about the budget announced only yesterday, instead they seek to indulge their disingenuous and cynical hysteria about desperate people who are seeking asylum in this country. This opposition is doing a disservice to the people of Australia, who deserve a serious analysis of this budget, not more xenophobic, stop-the-boats propaganda. The people in Victoria whom I represent deserve a lot better.

Before I move to more serious subjects, I pose this question to the opposition. In 2011, the UNHCR report estimated the cost of mandatory detention to be $339 per day per asylum seeker. The same report indicated the cost of community processing to be between $7 and $39 per day per asylum seeker. If the opposition's primary issue of concern with yesterday's budget is the amount spent federally on asylum seekers, as a question from their leader in the Senate would seem to indicate, will the coalition commit to abolishing mandatory detention and implementing a community processing model in the interests of financial responsibility? Is that what they are suggesting to us or was the question on spending on asylum seekers merely designed to leverage political advantage through the continued promotion of a callous attitude to human misery?

As I said earlier, the people of Victoria deserve a lot better than this. When we have had a $60-billion write-down in revenue since the last budget, when there are many issues that deserve serious consideration and analysis by this Senate, again we see the opposition resorting to this callous campaign, trying to exploit the human misery of people who seek asylum in this country. As I said, the Australian people deserve a lot better and people in the electorate of Melbourne deserve a lot better. I am taking a keen interest in the electorate of Melbourne at present. I want to talk about what this budget does for the people of Melbourne and where we as a government have provided an economy to benefit Australians, particularly those in the seat of Melbourne.

In the area of health, during this term of government we have contributed $426 million to VicHealth to create a leading national, comprehensive cancer centre. We have contributed $120 million to build a new principal site in Melbourne for the Australian Red Cross Blood Service. We have spent over $43 million to deliver 365 high-care and 607 low-care residential aged-care places. We have spent $39.8 million to complete the construction of the Melbourne neuroscience project, a world-class neuroscience research institute. We have spent over $10 million to provide emergency and elective surgery under the National Partnership Agreement on Improving Public Hospital Services. We have spent $7.5 million to establish a Prostate Cancer Research Centre at the Epworth Hospital and provided $7.3 million to the Royal Melbourne Hospital to expand the 23-hour unit to include an additional four overnight surgical beds and reduce waiting times for elective services. As we announced in yesterday's budget, there will be an additional $18.3 million provided over four years to build on the $15 million already provided to support the Youth Cancer Networks Program around Australia. The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne is leading this project for Victoria with assistance from Melbourne Health and the Royal Children's Hospital.

Let us look at tertiary education in the seat of Melbourne. Funding for the University of Melbourne has grown by 56 per cent from $503.4 million in 2007 to $784.6 million in 2012. The number of Commonwealth supported students at the University of Melbourne has increased from 22,301 in 2007 to 24,307 in 2011, and the number of postgraduate places has increased by 66 per cent. I could go on and on and on to talk about this government's achievements.