Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to take note of answers to questions from Senators Bragg and Senator McKenzie that went to the issue of public spending in our economy. And I welcome the opportunity to do this, for two reasons, firstly because it presents an opportunity for a bit of context and a bit of clarity. The national accounts show that growth in our economy is now much stronger and broader, with a pace of annual growth in private demand picking up in 2025. That's what the national accounts showed us. Secondly, this presents an opportunity to reflect on the components that make up public spending and the values that underpin them. As in all matters of public policy and public expenditure, what we're talking about here is choices: values based choices about what you choose to fund and what you choose to invest in—things like the defence of our nation. Investment that underpins defence spending is, at its heart, a matter of our values regarding our own sovereignty. There are bad investments in my home state of South Australia. So when you're picking apart the quantum of public spending, you're picking apart questions like whether we invest in the defence of our nation and whether we invest in things like AUKUS.

But it's not just defence, and there's a question here for those opposite, who seek to deride and diminish public spending and investment in our economy. Which is it that you would choose to cut, if not spending the same? Would you cut the age pension? Would you abolish our cheaper childcare measure? Is it the 15 per cent pay rise for early childhood educators that our government has invested in? Would you see us not invest to make medicines cheaper, including a huge range of medicines supporting women's health issues? These are medicines that support women who are experiencing endometriosis, as well as contraceptive pills and menopause therapy treatments, which haven't been added to the PBS for decades. Would you cut those from public spending? Would you cut our record investment in public hospitals? Would you cut the other new medicines that we've put on the PBS, including life-saving treatments, which are now accessible and affordable to the Australians who need them? Would you cut our expansion of free GP visits by cutting our investment in urgent care clinics across Australia? Would you cut the work we did to triple the bulk-billing investment?

Would you remove paid parental leave? Would you remove super on paid parental leave? Would you oppose our investments in free TAFE? Would you unwind our investments in university reform? Would you unwind those free prac placements for nursing, teaching and social work students, which we know are keeping our best and brightest in the degrees that we need them in as the care economy grows as a part of our economy overall? Do you want to see us wind back our cuts to student debt, which are making a really significant difference to the cost of living of South Australians and indeed Australians across the country?

Is it our affordable housing programs that you would like to see removed from public spending in Australia? Investment in aged care, perhaps—the 15 per cent pay rise for aged-care workers? That's something you may well oppose too, or maybe it's our investments in women's safety, including the Leaving Violence Program for victims-survivors of domestic violence. If you're opposed to public spending then I suppose it's the NDIS and our investment in investment disability support pensions, or maybe it's veterans' compensation and rehabilitation claims. It might even be school funding, which the Liberals want to unwind—indeed, fairly funding public schools for the first time.

Maybe, as I said, it’s the additional investments in defence which you don't want to see the federal government making, or the proper resourcing we've put into Home Affairs and the Australian Border Force, because you don't want to see our borders secure and you don't want to see Australians kept safe. Perhaps it's our investment in biosecurity which you don't want the federal government to be making. Maybe it's the natural disaster relief and recovery budget that we have or our work to improve mobile and broadband connections across rural and regional Australia.

Ultimately, when government spends, government makes a values choice and a moral choice about what we invest in and what we prioritise, and our government is investing in defence. It is supporting aged care. It is funding an increase in wages for some of our lowest paid workers in feminised industries, and I stand by those choices. Not only have you been misleading about the economic reality facing our country; you also have to answer the questions about what you would fund and what you would spend. Public spending is a values decision. I know what our values are. I know what we're funding, and I'm proud of it.