Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today relating to the 2014-15 Budget.

Budgets are about choices. They are about priorities. A government's budget is a window on the priorities of that government, and this budget fails the fairness test and it fails the truth test.

Mr Abbott said in the election campaign last year that there would be no new taxes. Last night's budget saw the beginning of the dismantling of Medicare, where we are taxing people now to pay for the promises of this government. Last night saw the introduction of a $7 co-payment just to visit the GP. It saw the introduction of $5 for every prescription that that GP may prescribe. It provided for another co-payment of $7 for any X-ray, for any pathology, for any other ancillary services that that doctor may wish the patient to have. And we have heard from the other side that $7 is 'just a cup of coffee'. Well, that is not the case for people who are on a pension. It is not the case for people who are on low incomes, and it is not the case for families who may have many children who are unwell. But let me refer to Kasy Chambers, the Executive Director of Anglicare, who puts that in some context. She says:

… $7 is very different to different groups in the community. Seven dollars to someone on Newstart is the equivalent of $43.17 for those on the average male wage, or $63.26 for those on a salary of $120,000.

She says it is:

Certainly enough to make people think more than twice about that visit.

What will be the result of the imposition of these taxes on our health system—this dismantling of our Medicare? The result will be that people will visit the doctor less. They will be less compliant with their medication. That will lead to worse health outcomes in the future.

And who are the people who will reduce their access to health services? The research is clear: it is the poor, including our pensioners; it is the chronically ill; it is people with disability; it is people who are living with mental illness; it is people in remote areas and it is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The health of all Australians will suffer, but it will affect the poor and the sick more than everyone else in our society. It is hard to get people to attend the doctor for an annual check-up, but a GP tax will mean that fewer people will attend the doctor for those annual check-ups that are so beneficial to their health in the long run—check-ups that will identify diabetes early or identify cancers that can be cured. Those check-ups save the health budget in the long term and they save the health of people in our society and our community.

Preventive health measures save lives and they save money in future budgets. That is why it is, frankly, plain crazy to cut programs that will increase physical activity, particularly in our young children, that will tackle the obesity problem that is looming large. It is crazy to remove programs that will improve healthy eating, as we have already seen from this minister. We need to ensure that we do all we can to ensure that the health of our community is given the best advice, and that is why the Australian National Preventive Health Agency was so beneficial; it was doing such good work to ensure that the health of our society would continue to improve.

But the big killer in this budget, and the big killer in society, as we all know, is tobacco smoking. This budget reduces the programs to reduce smoking in our community. This is not the time to remove effort to stop people smoking. I commend ministers Roxon and Plibersek for the work that they did in government to ensure that the numbers of Australians smoking cigarettes were reduced. But now there is a reduction in the program to ensure that people know that they should not smoke, and I am afraid it will lead to poorer health outcomes.

This is a bad budget. It hits the sick and the poor the hardest. It will result in higher costs in the long term. It will result in worse health outcomes for all Australians. It has broken a solemn promise, of no new cuts and no cuts to health. (Time expired)

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, you and I are both students of history. In just six short years, Labor conjured up a projected debt of two-thirds of $1 trillion and just 6½ years ago the coalition had about $40 billion in the bank. If anyone had said 6½ years ago that even the Labor Party could conjure nearly $700,000 million in projected debt, no-one in this country would have believed that.

Yet that is what they have done. They have created the problem and, when we try to solve it and come up with some solutions, they complain. No-one believes this budget is comfortable. I accept that there is pain in the community. There are no easy choices in this budget. It is difficult. We are not doing this because we enjoy it, we are not doing it because it is easy; we are doing it because we have to do it.

Let us face it: this budget is electorally hazardous. Every political instinct, every political impulse, every opinion poll would tell you: don't do it. Every opinion poll would say: 'Take the easy option and do what the Labor Party and the Greens always do; just chuck it on the credit card, because the voters of today won't feel the pain, neither will the politicians.' That is the easy way out. It is typical of the Left here in Australia and throughout the developed world to throw the debt and the responsibility to the next generation, who cannot yet vote.

That is the easy way out, the cowardly way out. While of course we know and understand that the Labor Party and the Greens know nothing about economics, we always thought they had a social conscience—that they may have no idea about economics, but they have some sort of social conscience. Now we know this: that they are quite happy to throw the debt on to our children and grandchildren and those yet unborn for the sake of their own electoral hides. It is absolutely disgraceful. If the history of the Western world has said anything in the last 30 years it is that governments must say no, enough is enough and that generations must live within their means.

The history of Western Europe is littered with this lot, every single interest group—all the rent seekers, all the cronies—seeking money from the government. And they always give in. Do you know why? Because it is the easy thing to do: 'Put it on the credit card, we will get re-elected. Forget about tomorrow, forget about our children and our grandchildren.' That makes me sick.

I get this hypocrisy every day and I bet you I will get it for the next several months: 'You're cutting this, you're cutting that.' We are doing it for one very simple reason: so that our children and our grandchildren and those yet to be born will not have to face a mountain of debt. If you want proof of this, you have only to look across at Western Europe. Quite frankly, if I were a Greek teenager I would want to shoot every politician and half the electorate because the government have spent their inheritance.

You owe me an apology, Mr Deputy President. I look forward to the budget in reply on Thursday. Can you imagine Mr Shorten delivering a credible return to surplus? When they were in government Labor kept talking about a return to surplus. It was just a chimera, it was a fraud and it was a joke, just like all their Social Democratic partners in Western Europe. The problem with Social Democrats is that they have no credibility on this issue. Labor have always left Australia further in debt for the last 113 years and they have still not come up with a way to pay off debt. They sit here and whinge and carp about what we are doing. We are doing it for one simple reason: to ensure that our kids and grandchildren have a future.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How could I possibly disagree with that sort of proposition? What we were being told was that, suddenly, there was a budget emergency. Remember that line? There was going to be a budget emergency that had to be fixed. Where is the evidence? On the question of debt, look at what we have got in this country: a AAA rating. And what is our international performance on the question of debt and deficits? Australia has a remarkably good economic record. We are amongst the world's leaders when it comes to economic management and that is what governments around the world have looked to. But not this government.

What they needed was an alibi, an alibi for what was their pre-election mantra that there would be no cuts. Remember that? No cuts to education, no cuts to health and no cuts to the ABC. What do we see after the election? Of course, we see a return to the famous old coalition fantasy of core and non-core promises. That is what we heard today: a return to the John Howard schema of core and non-core promises.

We have a position whereby the government are adopting the ruthless Thatcherite policies. They are seeking to pursue an ideological agenda of hatred against people they believe to be their political opponents. They have measures particularly aimed at the most vulnerable in our community, people who are the poorest, less powerful and not able to defend themselves.

This is a government that always seeks to advance the interests of the wealthy and the powerful. Now we have the ultimate hypocrisy: this Faustian pact that we are presented with, the suggestion that this Senate should embrace the prospect of actually gutting Medicare, one of the great achievements of this nation, in return for a medical research fund.

As the German legend of Faust is maintained, the scholar who was unhappy with the world sought to make a pact with the devil to secure great knowledge, we see that that is exactly what we have here: a Faustian pact being presented by this government to try to blackmail the Senate into accepting the gutting of Medicare, a proposition that I contend this Senate will not accept. We have a fraud being presented to medical researchers across this country—a fraud because the government knows that this parliament will not accept the gutting of Medicare because of the importance of Medicare to the Australian people and the welfare of this nation.

When it comes to education more generally, we have a series of measures. Once again, the government said before the election, 'There will be no cuts.' After the election, we have over $5 billion worth of cuts to higher education. There is even their mention of privatising the provision of education. The additional 80,000 places that they spoke of today come at a price. There is $1.1 billion in savings to underwrite that measure. We see a government that are cutting back the CSIRO, cutting back maritime research, cutting back our nuclear agency and cutting back Geoscience Australia. The government are making it much more difficult to advance research in this country, they are undermining science and at the same time they are suggesting that they are doing something else. There is a perfidy about the way in which this government seek to present their case—a perfidy that the Australian people will see through. My colleague Senator Mason pointed out that the political damage that they are doing to themselves as a consequence of their lies, deceit and treacherous behaviour during the election will be exposed to all those with eyes to see.

In terms of Indigenous affairs—and my colleague will talk more on this issue in a moment—the lies that were told about the attitude towards Indigenous affairs are plain for all to see now as a consequence of what the government actually have done as distinct from what they said they would do prior to the election. The real question is: what is the trust deficit? The trust deficit as a result of the budget last night has grown dramatically. We all understand the consequences for political parties that embark upon that sort of deceit, that sort of dishonesty, that sort of lie. That is exactly what this government has brought upon itself. (Time expired)

Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There certainly has been a very large level of hypocrisy, deceit, perfidy and fraud perpetrated in this chamber and elsewhere about the budget in the last 24 hours, but it has all come from the opposition benches, not from the government. As Senator Cormann pointed out, this budget is tough and fair and it is designed to make us more prosperous and more resilient. It is designed to get the economy back on track. Yet from the opposition all we get is half-truths and outright deceit in terms of what the measures in this budget actually achieve.

I was bemused, I suppose, this morning listening to poor old Mr Bill Shorten trying to develop a mythical family on $100,000 a year, with two children aged 12 and five. He tried to say that this family would be worse off. My first reaction was: why did they wait seven years for the second kid? Nevertheless, Mr Shorten no doubt will have manufactured this family. He does not mention that, if the opposition were to support our carbon tax legislation, this family would be $550 a year better off than they currently are. No, the opposition does not want to let a fact get in the way of their discussion. We had Senator McLucas making the outrageous claim that we have cut $377 million out of preventative health. We have not cut $377 million out of preventative health. We have moved one of the useless bureaucratic agencies that the previous government established back to where it belongs: the Department of Health, which had previously done excellent work in the area of preventative health and will continue to do so.

In the area of Indigenous affairs, as Senator Scullion has pointed out, there has been a 4½ per cent cut across the board, but if anyone here wants to suggest that there was no waste within the way the Labor government went about attempting to deliver services to the Indigenous community in Australia, that is a complete joke. As Senator Scullion pointed out, they built the childcare centres but did not worry about where the childcare workers were going to come from. It is completely typical of the way this government carried on.

I looked at some of the comments in today's papers. One of the key focuses was how to address the huge explosion of spending that was due to hit the budget in 2017. As Senator Mason pointed out, who could have imagined what a Labor government could do to a surplus of $40 million in the bank, but, goodness, we sure know now what a Labor government can do. It seems to be in their DNA to overspend and have no idea about how to implement. We are even getting evidence of that from various court cases going on at the moment, some with tragic results.

Why was there going to be a huge explosion in 2017? It was former Treasurer Swan's pathetic attempt, time after time, to argue that one day he would produce a budget surplus. In his last budget, when it appeared that the Labor government knew the writing was on the wall—that they were going to lose government—they came up with apparently wonderful policy after apparently wonderful policy which they did not fund past the forward estimates. They were unfunded promises. Now they want to carry on about cuts to things that never existed as well as cuts that we have been forced to make due to their attitudes, their spending, their waste, their inability to implement and their inability to evaluate what they do and how they do it.

The Canberra Times today says:

… the measures are well crafted, the numbers internally consistent and coherent. This budget invests in future sustainability …

But it mentions that there will be short-term pain. We do not apologise for that. It is not our fault that there is short-term pain. It is the opposition— (Time expired)

Nova Peris (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers given by Senator Scullion to questions on Indigenous Affairs asked in question time today. I am sure we all remember the media coverage our Prime Minister received when he proclaimed that he aspired to be 'the Prime Minister for Aboriginal Australians'. This budget confirms that what this government says and what they do are two different things. Some of our most vulnerable people in this country will be hurt the hardest. This is a budget that well and truly widens the gap on Indigenous disadvantage. My electorate of the Northern Territory has the highest proportion of Aboriginal people in Australia and, make no mistake, they will be hurt more than people anywhere else by these savage cuts. Tony Abbott promised to be the Prime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Well, it is now clear that he was not telling us the truth. Indigenous Australians put their trust in Tony Abbott, and they are being repaid by having half a billion dollars slashed from Indigenous Affairs.

Senator Scullion stood in the Senate today and said there will not be any impact on front-line services. That shows just how delusion this government is, especially on the matter of Indigenous Australians. Essential front-line services will be critically affected, including in the areas of education, health, legal services, art programs, Indigenous radio stations, employment programs and more. This has been done under the sneaky cover of `streamlining' and leaves service providers out in the cold. Across this country, 38 child and family services for Indigenous families will be cut.

This budget also confirms cuts of $15million to the National Congress, which has over 7,500 individual and organisational members. Thanks to the efforts of the previous federal Labor government and the Northern Territory governments, the Northern Territory is the only jurisdiction currently meeting the Closing the Gap targets. This budget puts that achievement at serious risk.

Indigenous Australians make up 85 per cent of the prison population in the Northern Territory. This is a shocking statistic, yet this budget will only result in that percentage increasing. Providing legal service for Indigenous Australians is paramount. Access to legal aid is something most Australians rightly take for granted. It would appear that this government considers Indigenous Australians to be 'out of sight, out of mind'. So far, the self-professed Prime Minister for Indigenous Australians has given the green light to racism while slamming the brakes on Indigenous programs and, worse, takings us backwards. There are also cuts to local governments, which will mean more pain for those in the bush, where the regional councils already struggle to raise their own revenue in the face of so much need.

The year 2013 was the most violent in the history of the Northern Territory, with the majority of victims being women. Domestic violence in the Northern Territory increased by 22 per cent last year. An Aboriginal woman is 80 times more likely than other Territorians to be admitted to hospital as a result of assault. I have said it before and I will say it over and over and over again: this is a statistic that every Australian should be made aware of, and be embarrassed by. But it seems to fall on deaf ears on the other side of the House. Given that statistic, it is a national disgrace that this government has seen fit to cut family violence prevention programs. Ultimately, the government is tolerating the unacceptable violence that women in the Territory suffer. This is a message Senator Scullion will need to communicate to his constituents. This was his chance to influence a budget to help Indigenous Australians. No matter the spin coming from the other side, this promise has been broken—like so many other promises that this budget has broken.

But it doesn't stop there. The cuts to tertiary education will also impact on widening a gap that we are meant to be actively taking part in bipartisan efforts to close. One of the best achievements of the previous Labor government was the establishment of the Northern Territory Medical School at Charles Darwin University. We face a doctor shortage in the Northern Territory, and developing our own home-grown doctors is the best way to address it. This program encouraged local doctors and nurses to provide their much needed skills in the remote bush regions of the Territory. This facility should be expanded, not cut, but instead this government has announced a cut of $400,000 over four years.

The Prime Minister has broken the fundamental commitment he made to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples before the election. He said: 'Should the coalition win the election, Aboriginal people will be at the heart of a new government in word and in deed.' Closing the Gap requires more than words. Whether we succeed or fail will depend on a relationship of trust and support between the Commonwealth government and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia.

Question agreed to.