Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We live in a community, a society, a country—not in an economy. This sounds simplistic but how we think about these things helps frame our world view as individuals, political parties and as governments. The truth is that there are only two real things in this world: people and nature. Economics should primarily be targeting social and environmental outcomes. The economy is not a physical thing. It is not something that exists in its own right. Rather, it is a tool we have invented for governing the relationships between people, between governments and people and between people and nature.

Our economic tools, such as money, national accounts, trade, financial markets and business investment make good servants but poor masters, because they have failed to deliver universal prosperity, and make even worse religions. This Tony Abbott budget sacrifices these profoundly important wisdoms and insights on the altar of the empty, dangerous and fickle religion of extreme ideology. Joe Hockey said in his budget speech that he wants to redefine the role of government in people's lives—those last words again: 'in people's lives'. To me this was the most critical, honest and revealing line in his speech.

I grew up in a generation when it was a government's primary role to look after its people. Mr Hockey wants to spend less on people—most the poor and needy. He wants to increase Australians' cost of living—all, ultimately, at the expense of giving big business and investments the opportunity to prosper. He is a reverse modern day Robin Hood—taking from the poor and giving to the rich. His message, the ideology, is simple: economy before people; focus on business profits, money and economic management and health, prosperity, happiness, an end to suffering, poverty, inequality and lower catastrophic risks of global warming are sure to follow—in other words, let the economy govern us all. Government has little role to play except to help business make more profits.

This is the biggest regression of public policy our nation has ever seen, by arguably the most ideological reactionary government our Federation has ever seen. In an attempt to put economic forces and principles first, such as their obsession with business investment and the elimination of budget deficits, the government has perpetuated a full-frontal assault on the most vulnerable people in our society. This is not a conservative government. A conservative government wants to maintain the status quo. This is a reactionary government. A reactionary government wants to send us all back to some distant bygone era—way back; back before Rudd and Gillard; back before Howard, many of whose reforms are proposed to be unwound; back before Hawke and Keating's social contract; back before Whitlam, who gave us all our publicly funded healthcare safety net that Mr Hockey now wants to take away; and back before Chifley and Menzies. Remember Menzies' forgotten people.

It was Curtin who introduced universal unemployment benefits. They started in 1945. We have had universal unemployment benefits now for nearly 70 years. Before this, charities and state governments handed out blankets and food stamps. If you were lucky there was a make-work scheme that you could earn a pittance from. Mr Abbott, Mr Hockey and Mr Abetz are going to take our unemployment benefit scheme back to the pre-1945 days for people under 30—and who knows what in next year's budget? Now, if any young person has the misfortune of losing their job, they will be without any government support for the first time since 1945. This is the definition of a reactionary government.

Mr Abbott, Mr Abetz and Mr Hockey will widen the divide and entrench the poverty gap in Australia. Nowhere in Australia will this be more apparent than in my home state of Tasmania. Youth unemployment, as Senator Colbeck well knows, is currently at around 17 per cent. In the north and north-west of Tasmania the levels are now over 21 per cent.

The Liberals are asking parents with grown-up children across Tasmania to take the role of financially supporting the unemployed. What was once a government role—a role that I expected when I was unemployed and on unemployment benefits—is now a family role. If your 20-year-old son is laid off from the mechanic, it is now your job to feed, clothe and house him until he gets employment again. If your daughter struggles to get a job after her hairdressing apprenticeship, it is your role to feed, clothe and house her.

What about the young people whose parents cannot afford this? What about the young people from abusive families, or families or individuals who suffer from mental illnesses? How does a young person afford to buy clothes for an interview? How does a young person afford to travel to places to ask for work?

This is ideological. It is cruel. And it is unnecessary. We will see more destitution and more homelessness. We will see more crime. We will see more people with no money and no opportunities doing desperate things simply to survive. If you had no income and no opportunities, what would you do?

Economist Saul Eslake said that the No. 1 thing that needs to be done for Tasmania's economy is to lift the educational attainment levels of the state. This budget sends that goal backwards. There is no commitment to the full rollout of Gonski. They are putting up university fees, and putting up the interest on university loans. It becomes more expensive to enter university and more expensive to pay it back. The government has put up the price signal for education. Fewer people will study. People from poorer backgrounds will stop seeking a tertiary education. So not only is the government making it harder for the unemployed in Tasmania, it is making it harder for them to gain an education. The government is entrenching a two-class society.

And to top it all off for the young unemployed, this government has cut funding to the three youth employment programs in existence—a triple whammy for the youth of Tasmania: cutting unemployment support, making university more expensive, and cutting youth employment programs. And it's not just the unemployed that are going to suffer.

Tony Abbott is pushing the retirement age up to 70. Australians will have the oldest retirement age on the planet. In Tasmania, where blue-collar physical jobs like nursing and cleaning dominate, this will be devastating. Not only are Tasmanians less likely to physically cope with a later retirement age, they will also be less likely to have built up a large amount of retirement savings. My wife works with chronically injured patients in Tasmania, and I understand this to be a truth.

Single-parent pensioners, age pensioners and disability support pensioners are going to be made poorer by this government's change to indexation. I do not remember the self-proclaimed 'three amigos' elected into Bass, Braddon and Lyons campaigning on lifting the pension age and cutting the pension indexation, or charging fees to go to GPs and taking away free health care. I do not remember the Liberals telling the 65,364 pensioners and the 27,993 disability pensioners in Tasmania that the indexation would be cut.

Lyons and Braddon have the third and seventh highest proportion of disability pensioners in this country. What did their local MPs tell them about this at the election, and what have they told them since? What about the doctor's payment and the payment for going to emergency or the medical co-payment?

The Liberal Party were elected in 2013 on a cascade of lies. They were deceitful, because they never told Australians how they would make up the revenue shortfall after they 'axed the taxes'. On the day before the election, Tony Abbott promised that no matter how much the budget may blow out, he would still keep his election promises.

Tasmania and Tasmanians will reject these policies. They will reject any politicians that brought them—especially in light of the failure of the new government to deliver jobs and prosperity in the next three years. It is a big roll of the dice: the inevitable risk you take when you put your economic ideology—your religion—first, before caring for people and providing equal opportunity.

I will fight these policies from here until they are repealed, and the Greens will stand with Tasmanians shoulder to shoulder to help them get through these very difficult next few years to come.