I seek leave to move the following motion:
That the Prime Minister be invited to attend the House immediately to:
Leave not granted.
I move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition moving the following motion immediately—That the Prime Minister be invited to attend the House immediately to:
What we have seen—
Order! The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat.
I move:
That the member be no longer heard.
Question put.
Is the motion seconded?
I second the motion. Handing out cheques to dead people—
I move:
That the member be no longer heard.
Question put.
Original question put:
That the motion (Mr Turnbull’s) be agreed to.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Ms Gillard.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The government is launching a reform agenda for higher education that will transform the scale, potential and quality of the nation’s universities and open the doors of higher education to a new generation of Australians.
It is an integrated policy approach—an approach that provides for structural change and improves the financial sustainability of our universities, an approach that guarantees quality in a system that delivers funding for growth and participation by students from all walks of life and recognises the vital importance of research by our best and brightest.
The bill amends the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to implement the Australian government’s reform to the higher education system as announced in the 2009-10 budget.
It responds to the Review of Australian Higher Education, which affirmed that the reach, quality and performance of a nation’s higher education system will be the key determinants of its economic and social progress.
The bill also amends the act to give effect to measures to address key findings and recommendations of the Review of the National Innovation System and the recent House of Representatives inquiry into research training and workforce issues. It augments the existing Research Infrastructure Block Grants Scheme and introduces new measures to address the gap in funding for the indirect costs of research.
This is one of a number of measures designed to provide the sector with certainty, to provide funding for both growth and improved quality and to reform an indexation formula that effectively cut public investment in the sector over time.
With this bill a decade of underfunding will come to an end. The national scandal of declining public investment in higher education as a proportion of gross domestic product will come to an end. The era of political interference and micromanagement by ministers and officials will come to an end.
A new approach to higher education funding is needed, one that acknowledges the primary importance of students and their learning. The bill introduces the first stage of a new student centred funding system for higher education, which will have an estimated cost of $491 million over four years. For 2010 and 2011 the cap on overenrolment for Commonwealth supported places will be lifted from five per cent to 10 per cent in funding terms.
The limit on funding under the Commonwealth Grant Scheme for 2012 will be removed to reflect the fact that there will be no overall limit on the number of students that table A higher education providers will be able to enrol from 2012 onwards.
These are crucial steps towards a higher education system with students at the centre, where there is a Commonwealth supported place for every eligible undergraduate student accepted into a course at an eligible higher education provider. The student centred system will include a range of measures to ensure quality, address Australia’s skill needs and the broader public interest and support achievement of our higher education attainment ambition. This ambition is that, by 2025, 40 per cent of all 25- to 34-year-olds will hold a qualification at bachelor level or above.
The bill introduces landmark measures to improve the rate of participation in higher education by students from a disadvantaged background.
The bill amends the act to provide for an increase in funding to address Australia’s historically poor record in increasing participation by low SES students. The government has announced a commitment to ensure that, by 2020, 20 per cent of higher education enrolments at the undergraduate level will be of people from a low SES background.
This goal will be directly supported by the injection of additional funding for universities to support the low SES participation targets.
The major barriers to increased higher education participation by students from low socioeconomic backgrounds include previous educational attainment, low awareness of the long-term benefits of higher education resulting in little aspiration to participate and the need for financial assistance and academic and personal support once enrolled.
International experience shows that interventions or outreach in the early years of secondary schooling are highly effective in increasing the aspirations of students to attend university.
The government has therefore allocated $108 million over four years for a new partnerships program, to link universities with low SES schools and vocational education and training providers. The intention is to create leading practice and competitive pressures to increase the aspirations of low SES students to higher education. The government is putting in place systemic reasons for universities to be engaged with improving the quality of school education.
Funding will provide schools and vocational education and training providers with links to universities, exposing their students to people, places and opportunities beyond the scope of their own experiences, helping teachers raise the aspirations of their students. Programs might include scholarships, mentoring of teachers and students, curriculum and teaching support or hands-on activities run by university staff in schools.
Once students from disadvantaged backgrounds have entered university the likelihood of them completing their course of study is broadly similar to that of the general higher education population. Often, however, they require higher levels of support to succeed, including financial assistance and greater academic support, mentoring and counselling services.
The government has therefore allocated $325 million over four years to be provided to universities as a financial incentive to expand their enrolment of low SES students and to fund the intensive support needed to improve their completion and retention rates. The existing Higher Education Equity Support Program will be replaced and incorporated into these new funding arrangements.
Better measures of low socioeconomic status will be developed which are based on the circumstances of individual students and their families and performance funding will be based in part on how effective institutions are in attracting these students.
The steps to improve low SES student participation will impact on and benefit Indigenous students. They are significantly under-represented in our universities and face distinct challenges. The government will support a review of the effectiveness of measures to improve the participation of Indigenous students in higher education in consultation with the Indigenous Higher Education Advisory Council.
At the same time the government is also introducing major reforms to student income support to assist the access and retention of low-SES students.
The bill amends the act to provide funding for the continuing elements of the Commonwealth Scholarships Program. Existing Commonwealth Education Costs Scholarship (CECS) recipients will continue to receive the scholarships under current arrangements. Commonwealth Education Costs Scholarships will be replaced by the Student Start-up Scholarship of $2,254 in 2010 and indexed thereafter, which will be provided as an entitlement to all university students receiving income support and those under veterans schemes. The new scholarship will be funded under income support arrangements, so funding is not included in this act.
Existing Commonwealth Accommodation Scholarship (CAS) recipients will continue to receive the scholarships under the current arrangements. Commonwealth Accommodation Scholarships will be replaced by a new relocation scholarship in 2010. This scholarship will assist Youth Allowance and Abstudy students at university who are dependants who have to live away from the family home for study as well as independent students who are disadvantaged by personal and relationship circumstances. The Relocation Scholarship will provide $4,000 for students in their first year at university and $1,000 in each year thereafter and will be indexed.
Indigenous students will continue to receive scholarships under the Commonwealth Scholarship scheme in the future.
A central feature of the reform agenda will be an increased focus on quality. This will be especially important in a period of expansion, when institutions will need to attract students who have not traditionally considered going to university. The bill reflects the new arrangements for quality and standards which will be initiated during 2009-10, when work to establish a new standards based quality assurance framework will commence. Funding under the act for the Australian Universities Quality Agency will be replaced with new arrangements to support the development and establishment of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency by 2010.
Increased indexation will reap significant rewards in terms of participation and quality and will provide a valuable incentive to institutions to invest in their future development. It will also help to improve their financial sustainability. Revised indexation arrangements for all programs under the act will commence in 2012, including grants for teaching and learning and research, the OS-HELP maximum loan amount and the FEE-HELP borrowing limit. Maximum student contribution amounts will be subject to revised indexation arrangements from 2011, which will deliver increased revenue to universities.
The bill will amend the act to increase the maximum annual student contribution amount for students studying education and nursing units from the current national priority rate to the band 1 rate. The increase will apply to commencing students from 1 January 2010. Existing students will continue under existing arrangements.
The act already includes provision for the HECS-HELP benefit to reduce eligible graduates’ HELP repayments. The HECS-HELP guidelines made under the act will be amended to extend this benefit to graduates of initial teaching and nursing degrees who go on to work as teachers or nurses. This will apply to people who graduate from second semester 2009 onwards.
The bill will amend the act so that from 1 January 2010 students who receive an OS-HELP loan will no longer incur a 20 per cent loan fee. The 20 per cent loan fee has limited the effectiveness of the loan program. The removal of the loan fee will assist universities in encouraging students to undertake part of the studies for their Australian qualification at an overseas institution. This will improve the productivity benefits to Australia of students undertaking overseas study.
To ensure that Australia’s reputation for quality remains high, this bill introduces new performance funding under the Commonwealth Grant Scheme. In 2011 this will be through conditional funding as a transition to increased indexation and new performance funding in 2012. It will ensure that Australia’s reputation for quality teaching and learning remains high by providing universities with real incentive to ensure they are providing the best possible learning opportunities for students.
In 2010 the government will work with the higher education sector to develop a robust set of performance indicators. The indicators will include measures of success for equity groups as well as measures of the quality of teaching and learning.
Universities will be required to negotiate and agree on specific performance targets that are challenging but appropriate for their circumstances and that will contribute to the achievement of system-wide goals for participation and quality.
From 2012 universities will receive performance funding if they meet their targets and agree to new targets for the forthcoming funding period. The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency will provide an independent assessment of whether universities have met their targets.
The bill also includes a new structural adjustment fund to support continuing transformation in the sector. The Structural Adjustment Fund will be available to universities and will enable them to develop diverse missions. This funding will promote long-term sustainability in the sector by assisting individual universities in making strategic decisions about their future mission and ways to enhance their place in the new higher education environment. It will replace the existing Diversity and Structural Adjustment Fund.
In particular, the new fund will lay the groundwork for the provision of more sustainable higher education in regional areas ahead of decisions being taken on a better model of longer term funding for regional delivery.
The higher education sector will need time to adjust to the new post-Bradley environment. The government will undertake further work to better identify the issues facing regional provision, taking account of changes in the operating environment, including the impact of the move to a demand-driven system. The government will consult with the sector in undertaking this further work.
Universities play a pivotal role in the national research and innovation system through generation and dissemination of new knowledge and through the education, training and development of world class researchers.
The government will commit $512 million over four years for a new Sustainable Research Excellence in Universities initiative to address the gap in funding for the indirect costs of research. The new measure will augment the existing Research Infrastructure Block Grants (RIBG) Scheme, with the aim of raising the average support for the indirect costs of university research to 50c per dollar of direct competitive grant funding by 2014.
A second measure, joint research engagement, will complement the additional funding for the indirect costs of competitive grant-funded research by transforming the existing Institutional Grants Scheme into a funding stream more closely focused on collaboration between universities, industries and other end-users.
The bill also amends the act to increase funding for Australian postgraduate awards and other research grants. The government has acknowledged the importance of supporting our best and brightest postgraduate students through its commitment to double the number of Australian postgraduate awards (APAs) by 2012. Building on this commitment, the value of the Australian postgraduate awards stipend will be increased by more than 10 per cent from $20,427 in 2009 to $22,500 in 2010.
The bill moves funds currently delivered through the Improving the Practical Component of Teacher Education program to the Commonwealth Grant Scheme. This will increase the Commonwealth contribution amount for education units of study and remove unnecessary and time-consuming reporting requirements.
The bill also moves funds from the workplace reform program into the Commonwealth Grant Scheme base grant. This will increase the Commonwealth contribution amount for all funding clusters.
The bill amends the act to account for the cessation of the Learning and Teaching Performance Fund and the workplace productivity program, which are being replaced by new funding arrangements.
Measures in this bill are complemented by additional investments of $2.1 billion from the Education Investment Fund for education and research infrastructure and $1.1 billion for the Super Science initiative.
These reforms are designed to support high-quality teaching and learning, improve access and outcomes for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, reward institutions for meeting agreed quality and equity outcomes, improve resourcing for research and invest in world-class tertiary education infrastructure.
These investments are a strategy for future prosperity, educational excellence, and social inclusion for the nation.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Coulton) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Ms Gillard.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Australian Apprentices) Bill 2009 seeks to benefit Australian apprentices who are eligible to receive payments under two new Australian government programs; Skills for Sustainability for Australian Apprentices and Tools For Your Trade (under the Australian Apprenticeships Incentives Program). This bill ensures that eligible Australian apprentices receive the full benefit of the payments without deductions.
This bill makes minor adjustments to the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, the Social Security Act 1991 and the Veterans’ Entitlements Act 1986 to exempt from taxation and treatment as taxable income payments made to Australian apprentices under the two programs.
Tackling climate change and building a more environmentally sustainable base for Australian industry and the Australian economy are among the great challenges facing the nation.
The programs that are the subject of this legislation represent significant steps to meet the growing demand for skills in sustainability. In addition the bill provides essential support for the Australian apprenticeship market in preparation for economic recovery.
Skills for Sustainability for Australian Apprentices is an outcome of the Australia 2020 Summit and aims to accelerate industry’s and the tertiary education sector’s response to climate change by providing practical incentives for industry to focus on developing skills for sustainability.
The Rudd government is working to transition Australia into one of the world’s leading green and sustainable economies. This will not just mean developing new technology but will also require new ways of learning and applying skills—in the obvious fields like energy, building and construction, automotive and engineering but also in service areas like hospitality and tourism, where even greater effort is needed to minimise environmental costs.
The incentives contained in the Skills for Sustainability measure are designed to encourage employers and Australian apprentices in selected National Skills Needs List (NSNL) occupations to undertake a thre--s-hold level of sustainability related training. The goal is to develop an appropriately skilled workforce that can meet the rising demand for sustainable buildings, technologies and industries.
The program delivers a personal benefit payment of $1,000 to eligible Australian apprentices in selected occupations following completion of the required level of sustainability related training.
The program is an essential investment to develop a workforce ready to implement the energy efficiencies essential to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and to take advantage of the new business opportunities likely to open up as a result of Australia’s leadership in meeting the global carbon challenge.
The Rudd government is building an environmentally sustainable economy through the CPRS, the mandatory renewable energy target, the Clean Energy Initiative, solar flagships, investment in green buildings, insulation and solar hot water incentives. These and other measures being taken by governments, businesses and individual households are placing new demands on Australia’s vocational education system.
The nation’s apprentices will need to be skilled in new ways, with new and more integrated knowledge about the environment being required alongside traditional trade skills.
This program will add to work currently being undertaken by my department on research into the workplace impacts of climate change policies, the development of training resources in key industries likely to be affected by climate change, a voluntary certification program to recognise registered training organisations that provide vital training in skills for sustainability and the encouragement of excellence through green training awards.
The Tools For Your Trade payment (within the broader Australian Apprenticeships Incentives Program) combines into one new payment three administratively complex programs previously available to Australian apprentices (the Tools For Your Trade voucher program, the apprenticeship wage top-up and the Commonwealth trade learning scholarship). The new payment comprises five cash payments totalling $3,800 over the life of the Australian apprenticeship.
The new Tools For Your Trade payment represents a substantial improvement on previous arrangements for both Australian apprentices and their employers. Under the previous arrangements, Australian apprentices were required to claim the three payments from two different providers. As each of the programs had different eligibility criteria, Australian apprentices in the same occupation may have received different levels of financial support based on criteria outside their control, such as their age or the size of their employer. The new Tools For Your Trade payment addresses these inequities and inefficiencies. The streamlined delivery arrangements also remove unnecessary red tape.
The new payment replaces the previous Tools For Your Trade voucher initiative, which provided vouchers to purchase a tool kit worth up to $800 for eligible Australian apprentices. By replacing this program with the new Tools For Your Trade cash payment, Australian apprentices will still be able to acquire the tools needed during their training but without the limitations imposed by the previous program. They will receive critical financial support across the life of their Australian apprenticeship, assisting apprentices to sustain their livelihood and to remain in their trade.
For commencements from 13 May 2009, the Tools For Your Trade voucher will cease to exist. Transitional arrangements will be put in place to ensure that Australian apprentices who commenced on or before 12 May 2009 and who have not yet received their tool kit will still be eligible for a tool kit at their three-month point.
The new Tools For Your Trade payment program will include agricultural apprentices and trainees and, if in rural and regional Australia, horticultural apprentices and trainees.
The Tools For Your Trade payment is one of a range of measures for Australian Apprentices and their employers, representing an investment by the Australian government of $5 billion in apprenticeship and related programs over four years.
Ensuring the apprenticeship rates are maintained and that more apprentices complete their training during this time of global recession is a key goal of the Rudd government. We know that failing to invest in skills today will lead to shortages and lost opportunities tomorrow.
The measures in this bill will provide support and stability to the Australian apprenticeships market and ensure that we continue to build a strong national skills base as Australia recovers from the global recession.
It should be noted that the amendments proposed in this bill are consistent with taxation treatment of previous programs that deliver personal benefit payments to Australian apprentices.
This measure, combined with other initiatives that support development of Australia’s skills base, represent a significant step in preparation for the economic recovery. I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Coulton) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Ms Roxon.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This bill amends the Health Insurance Act 1973 (the HIA) to enable the Minister for Health and Ageing to determine, by legislative instrument, the maximum benefit payable under the extended Medicare safety net (EMSN) for each Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) item.
This bill will result in savings of more than $450 million over four years.
The Medicare safety net provides individuals and families with an additional rebate for their outside-of-hospital Medicare services once an annual threshold of out-of-pocket costs is reached.
Out-of-hospital services include GP and specialist attendances and services provided in private clinics and private emergency departments.
Once the relevant annual threshold has been met, Medicare will pay for 80 per cent of any future out-of-pocket costs for out-of-hospital services for the remainder of the calendar year.
In 2009, the annual threshold for concession cardholders and people who receive family tax benefit part A is $555.70. For all other singles and families the annual threshold is $1,111.60. These threshold amounts are indexed each year by the consumer price index on 1 January each year.
This bill makes an amendment to the safety net program that was introduced through the Health Legislation Amendment (Medicare) Act 2004.
At the time that legislation was introduced to parliament, the stated purpose of the safety net was to ‘protect all Australians from high out-of-pocket costs for medical services provided outside hospital’.
We now have evidence that the safety net is not meeting this purpose in particular cases.
As required under the Health Legislation Amendment (Medicare) Act 2004, I have tabled the Extended Medicare safety net review report 2009, a review of the operation, effectiveness and implication of the safety net conducted by the Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation at the University of Technology, Sydney.
The report noted that the safety net has helped patients that have very high costs and has reduced the out-of-pocket costs for some patients with cancer. Nonetheless, the review showed that there are some concerns in areas such as obstetrics, assisted reproductive technology (ART), including IVF, and other Medicare services.
The report noted that around 50 per cent of safety net benefits are paid for obstetrics and ART and that Medicare benefits have more than doubled for both of these groups since the safety net was introduced and a significant proportion of this increase in expenditure is because of increases in the fees charged.
The review noted that between 2003 and 2008 the fees charged by obstetricians for in-hospital services reduced by six per cent, whilst the fees charged out of hospital increased by 267 per cent.
Similarly, the fees charged for ART services fell by nine per cent for in-hospital services, whilst the fees charged for out-of-hospital services increased by 62 per cent.
This indicates that some doctors are taking advantage of the safety net as their fees for out-of-hospital services have increased far in excess of the fees they are charging in-hospital patients.
Before the introduction of the safety net in 2004 there was a limit on the amount of the government contribution for Medicare services—that is, the Medicare schedule fee.
The safety net fundamentally changed these arrangements by essentially removing this limit by covering 80 per cent of out-of-pocket costs for out-of-hospital services, regardless of the fee charged by the doctor.
The unlimited nature of the benefits available through the safety net has led to some doctors taking advantage of the safety net to increase their fees with the knowledge that the majority of the cost will be funded by the government.
This has had the effect of increasing the fees being charged to many people for some services, thus increasing the cost for those people who have not qualified for safety net benefits, as well as the cost to the government.
The safety net benefit is for the patient. It is not intended to subsidise the fee increases of doctors.
The review identified that, for some Medicare services with high out-of-pocket costs, the safety net benefit is not going to its intended purpose. For these services, the review found that, for every safety net dollar that is paid, 78c was spent on meeting doctors’ higher fees, rather than reducing patients’ out-of-pocket costs. Services in this category include one type of varicose vein treatment, one type of cataract surgery, injection of a therapeutic substance into an eye and some ART services.
This bill will enable the Minister for Health and Ageing to determine the maximum benefit that will be paid under the safety net.
The level of the safety net benefit cap for each selected item will be set out in a legislative instrument. It is necessary for the level of the safety net benefit cap to be set out in a legislative instrument to allow the government to be responsive to changes in circumstances that impact on the safety net. This instrument will be a disallowable instrument and therefore subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
For the benefit of the parliament, at the end of my speech I will table the draft legislative instrument and the draft explanatory statement, which I intend to introduce as soon as the bill is passed.
It is important to note that the safety net benefit caps for artificial reproductive technology are based on the current MBS item structure. These items, however, will be restructured to align the Medicare items with the phases of treatment in an ART cycle and spread the cost for ART across the treatment cycle. Once this restructure is finalised, the new caps will be introduced through a second instrument.
The items that will be ‘capped’ under the measures announced in the 2009-10 budget are obstetrics, ART services, hair transplantation, the injection of a therapeutic substance into an eye, one type of varicose vein treatment and one type of cataract surgery.
This measure also includes funding to increase the MBS rebates of 15 obstetrics services at a cost of $157.6 million over four years, which will assist patients with their out-of-pocket costs.
The government will also be investing $120.5 million over four years though a maternity services reform package to provide greater choice for women whilst maintaining Australia’s strong record of safe, high-quality maternity services. As part of this package, Medicare items will be introduced for midwifery services.
Safety net benefit caps will also apply to midwife services to ensure consistency in the treatment of Medicare funded maternity care.
The safety net benefit cap will apply to the individual MBS items and would be payable in addition to the standard Medicare rebate.
Each person will be eligible to receive up to the safety net benefit cap each time they receive that service. A different level of safety net benefit cap can apply to different MBS items. The safety net benefit cap would be a dollar value. For example, a safety net benefit cap of $100 may apply to one item and a safety net benefit cap of $500 may apply to a different item. The level of the safety net benefit cap will be publicly available. This will ensure that doctors and patients will have certainty in relation to their Medicare entitlements.
Every person is still eligible for a safety net benefit.
All services currently covered by the extended Medicare safety net will remain covered by the extended Medicare safety net.
The total out-of-pocket costs incurred by a person for these services will still count towards the extended Medicare safety net threshold amount.
Once a person has reached that safety net threshold, they will continue to be eligible to receive safety net benefits equal to 80 per cent of their out-of-pocket costs for all other safety net eligible services.
This maintains the government’s commitment to retaining the extended Medicare safety net for all out-of-hospital Medicare services.
In 2008, expenditure on the safety net was $414 million, 30 per cent more than in 2007. Unless we make these changes now, this expenditure will continue to grow rapidly.
This bill creates a mechanism by which the government can responsibly manage expenditure on the safety net. This is important for supporting the sustainability of the safety net so that singles and families can continue to receive this additional assistance with their out-of-pocket costs.
I present draft copies of the Health Insurance Extended Medicare Safety Net Determination 2009 and explanatory statement. As I noted during my speech, these are drafts that are being made available for the benefit of the parliament.
Debate (on motion by Mr Coulton) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Ms Roxon.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Private Health Insurance (National Joint Replacement Register Levy) Bill 2009 will impose a levy on joint replacement prostheses sponsors in order to fund the National Joint Replacement Registry.
The registry collects information about joint replacement surgeries, such as hip, knee, ankle, shoulder, wrist and spinal disc replacement procedures, and reports on the safety and quality of these procedures and devices used in the operations.
The work of the registry is critical to improving health outcomes for many Australians. Around 70,000 people had joint replacement surgery in the last 12 months.
The registry estimates that the information it has provided has improved surgical practice, reducing the number of unnecessary revision surgeries by 1,200 Australians per year.
In addition to improved patient outcomes, the registry estimates that it has saved the health sector and consumers around $44.6 million, based on reductions in the level of hip and knee revision procedures while the registry has been operating.
The average costs for revision procedures are much higher than for standard joint replacements, and the registry helps in minimising revisions by collecting data indicating which devices are linked to higher revision rates. This assists orthopaedic surgeons in selecting better performing prostheses.
Expenditure on hip and knee prostheses represents around 30 per cent of total expenditure by health insurers on prostheses. Insurers paid over $1 billion in benefits for prostheses in 2007-08, out of a total $7.4 billion spent on hospital benefits in that year. This means that prostheses expenditure represents around 15 per cent of privately insured hospital benefit outlays.
The registry assists in ensuring this funding, and public hospital expenditure, is directed to better performing products with lower revision rates.
Taxpayers have met the operating costs of the registry for over 10 years, which are now around $1.6 million a year.
It is appropriate that manufacturers and importers of medical devices used in joint replacement surgery now fund the costs of the registry. The new cost recovery arrangements will be similar to the funding arrangements for the United Kingdom’s National Joint Registry, which is funded through a levy on joint replacement products.
The Australian registry provides invaluable post-market surveillance of joint replacement prostheses, and this monitoring of the safety and quality of devices provides considerable benefit to the industry by improving consumer confidence in the safety and efficacy of joint replacement devices. Any devices showing high failure rates can be identified quickly and promptly removed from the market.
The data produced by the registry also assists the industry by informing the development of new prostheses, allowing manufacturers to draw on reliable performance information for existing products and designs.
The introduction of cost recovery arrangements will also produce $5 million in budget savings over four years.
Legislated cost recovery arrangements will ensure continuing and stable funding for the critical work of the registry and ensure that it can continue to provide data to improve patient outcomes.
The proposed arrangement will preserve the independence of the registry. As levies will be imposed under legislation, and collected by the government on behalf of the registry, there will be no possibility of funding being withdrawn from the registry by medical devices sponsors who are not happy with its findings.
Joint Replacement Prostheses Sponsors
The bill imposes a levy on sponsors of joint replacement prostheses. A joint replacement prosthesis is a prosthesis that is listed on the Commonwealth Prostheses List and which is used in joint replacement surgery. The person who made the application to have the joint replacement prosthesis listed on the Prostheses List will be the sponsor for the purposes of the new levy.
The levy
The bill requires the levy to be paid on days to be specified in the Private Health Insurance (National Joint Replacement Register Levy) Rules and on additional days, if any, determined by the minister.
The bill restricts the numbers of times a levy can be imposed to a maximum of six levies in any financial year.
Sponsors will be levied on each day specified in the rules, to be known as national joint replacement register levy days. A maximum of four levy days per financial year is permitted by this method.
Also, the minister can determine supplementary levy days. A maximum of two supplementary levy days per financial year is permitted.
Sponsors will be levied according to the number of joint replacement prostheses they sponsor, and the levies will only be used to fund the operating costs of the registry. The bill provides that there may be different rates of levy for one or more kinds of joint replacement prostheses, that the levy rate may be set at zero and that there will be a maximum levy rate of $5,000 per listing. This range of levies is appropriate, as there is a very wide range of products included in the registry, from screws and bolts that have prices of less than $50 each to specialised knee replacement systems, which can have prices of more than $67,000.
The government will determine the amount of levies through rules made under the legislation following consultation with the registry and the medical devices industry. I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Billson) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Ms Macklin.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This bill delivers on the government’s commitment to assist low- and middle-income households with the expected increases in the cost of living arising from the introduction of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
Climate change threatens Australia’s way of life and our future prosperity.
Australians want action on climate change.
That is why the government has moved to introduce the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
It will allow economic growth without growth in total emissions.
However, the introduction of the scheme will have a modest impact on the cost of living for households.
That is why the government is providing low- and middle-income households with upfront assistance to adjust to the impacts of the scheme.
Through a package of cash assistance, tax offsets and other measures, the government will help these households maintain their standard of living while moving to a low pollution future.
This bill delivers on the government’s commitments given in the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme white paper that:
The assistance in this bill delivers on these commitments.
This bill takes account of changes to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme announced on 4 May 2009 that introduces an initial $10 per tonne fixed carbon price in 2011-12 and a flexible carbon price in 2012-13. The composition of the household assistance package reflects this staged approach.
The bill also takes account of other policy changes in the budget, principally the government’s secure and sustainable pension reform, which will affect how assistance is paid.
The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme will see a modest increase in the overall cost of living as we start to recognise the costs of carbon pollution in our everyday lives.
It is anticipated that the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme will result in increases in the cost of living of 0.4 per cent in 2011-12 and 0.8 per cent in 2012-13, resulting from an initial $10 per tonne fixed carbon price in 2011-12 and a flexible carbon price in 2012-13.
For many households government payments only represent a share of their income. Therefore increasing payments in line with headline consumer price index impacts alone will not fully restore their standard of living following the introduction of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
To adequately compensate these households, compensation needs to go beyond the average household consumer price index impact.
To ensure fairness, household composition has also been taken into account in designing the assistance.
This household assistance will be funded from the sale of carbon pollution permits. The government has committed to use every cent raised from the introduction of the scheme and the sale of carbon pollution permits to help households and businesses adjust to move Australia to the low pollution economy of the future.
Increases to pension, benefit and allowance payments
The measures contained in this bill will increase the amount of certain social security and veterans’ affairs pension and allowance payments by 2.8 per cent over two years. This includes a one per cent increase from 1 July 2011 and a further 1.8 per cent increase on 1 July 2012, including upfront indexation.
These payment increases include the bring forward of the expected consumer price index related indexation increases that will automatically flow from the scheme’s introduction. These indexation increases are expected to be 0.4 per cent in 2011-12 and 0.8 per cent in 2012-13. The 0.4 per cent expected indexation increase for 2011-12 will be brought forward and paid from 1 July 2011. The 0.8 per cent increase in the expected indexation increase will be brought forward and paid from 1 July 2012.
Because assistance for the cost-of-living increase provided through certain payments will be brought forward, subsequent indexation arrangements will be adjusted to avoid duplicate assistance.
These increases will apply to a range of income support payments including the age pension, carer payment, veteran service pensions, disability support pension, Newstart allowance, youth allowance, parenting payments and the special benefit. A list of affected payments is included in the bill.
Increases to family tax benefit
Similar to pension and allowance increases, family tax benefit will be increased to help low- and middle-income families meet the expected overall increase in the cost of living flowing from the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. The increases to family tax benefit will include the upfront payment of the expected automatic indexation increases that will flow from the scheme’s introduction. These automatic increases are expected to be 0.4 per cent in 2011-12 and 0.8 per cent in 2012-13. Subsequent indexation points for family tax benefit payments will be adjusted to avoid the duplication of assistance.
The per child maximum standard rates of family tax benefit part A for under-16-year-olds and the family tax benefit part A supplement will be increased by 2.8 per cent over two years, in line with changes to pensions and allowances.
Per family standard rates of family tax benefit part B and the part B supplement will also be increased by 2.8 per cent over two years.
Additional increases are also being made to the base rate of family tax benefit part A to assist recipients of these payments.
Adjustments will be made to indexation of family tax benefit part A and part B rates on 1 July 2012 and 1 July 2013 (and over further indexation points if necessary) to prevent duplication of the amounts brought forward on 1 July 2011 and 1 July 2012.
A new family tax benefit combined end-of-financial-year supplement will be created for families eligible for both family tax benefit part A and part B, where the main income earner has income above $60,000 per year. The value of the supplement will be up to $240 per family in 2011-12 and up to $680 per family in 2012-13 and later years. The supplement will phase in at four cents in the dollar when the primary earner’s income reaches $60,000 until the supplement reaches the maximum amount. The entitlement to this supplement will cease when a family’s entitlement to family tax benefit part A or part B ceases.
Measures delivered through the tax system
Assistance is also being provided through the tax system. These measures provide additional assistance to eligible low- and middle-income households through increases to the low-income tax offset and various tax offsets for taxpayers who maintain a dependant.
Low income tax offset
From 1 July 2011, the low-income tax offset will increase by $150 from $1,500 to $1,650. From 1 July 2012, it will increase a further $280 to $1,930. This will increase the taxable income up to which a taxpayer is entitled to an amount of low-income tax offset to $71,250 for the 2011-12 income year and to $78,250 for the 2012-13 income year and later income years.
Senior Australians tax offset
These increases in the low-income tax offset will increase the income level above which senior Australians eligible for the senior Australians tax offset begin to pay tax. From 1 July 2011, eligible senior Australians will have no tax liability until their income reaches $31,474 for singles and $27,680 for each member of a couple. From 1 July 2012, eligible senior Australians will have no tax liability until their income reaches $32,948 for singles and $29,547 for each member of a couple. Adjustments will also be made to the Medicare levy thresholds for senior Australians.
Dependency tax offsets
Measures for households include assistance to eligible adults who maintain a dependant. These increases will apply to the dependent spouse offset, the child-housekeeper offset, the invalid-relative offset, the parent/parent-in-law offset and the housekeeper offset.
From 1 July 2011, these dependency offsets will increase by $60 while, from 1 July 2012, they will increase by $105. These increases will be in addition to the annual increases in these offsets that occur due to automatic indexation.
Transitional payments
A carbon pollution reduction transitional payment will be payable for each of the 2011-12 and 2012-13 income years to independent adults in low-income households who can show they have not been assisted in line with the government’s commitments.
The amount of the carbon pollution reduction transitional payment for the 2011-12 income year will be $200 per claimant and $550 per claimant in 2013.
The carbon pollution reduction transitional payment will become payable to qualifying individuals for the first year from 1 July 2012 and will be assessed with reference to the individual’s income in the 2011-12 financial year. The person will have until 30 June 2014 to lodge a claim for the 2012 carbon pollution reduction transitional payment.
The second year of carbon pollution reduction transitional payment will be assessed with reference to the individual’s income in the 2012-13 financial year and will become payable from 1 July 2013. A person will have until 30 June 2015 to lodge a claim to receive the 2013 carbon pollution reduction transitional payment.
Interaction with pension reform legislation
The bill includes several provisions that enable legislative instruments to be made, providing for increases of payment rates and adjustments of subsequent indexation factors beyond those explicitly included in the bill.
These provisions have been included because of the interaction between this bill and forthcoming amendments to the social security and repatriation systems flowing from the government’s secure and sustainable pension reform.
The government proposes to pay Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme household assistance to pensioners through the new pension supplement, announced in the budget as part of the pension reform package. As this supplement does not yet exist in law, this bill cannot pre-empt its existence. The legislative instrument provisions allow this timing discrepancy to be addressed.
In practice, the government intends that the legislative instruments are only a transition measure. It is proposed instead that a bill implementing the pension reforms will make substantive amendments to this current bill (when enacted) to reflect the structure of the new pension system following the government’s pension reforms and pay the household assistance to pensioners via the new pension supplement.
In the meantime, the legislative instrument provisions included in this bill will ensure that the government’s commitments as set out in the white paper for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme can be implemented regardless of parliament’s consideration of the pension reform legislation, when that is introduced. The government intends the pension reform legislation to remove the relevant powers to create legislative instruments regarding payment amounts and mechanisms for pensioners, and these details are to be included in the primary legislation.
Any legislative instrument that may possibly be made under these provisions will be subject to full parliamentary scrutiny in accordance with normal arrangements.
Conclusion
Through the measures introduced by this bill, the government will provide upfront support to low- and middle-income households to help in adjusting to a low-pollution future.
The government will update the household assistance package on the basis of any new information on the estimated carbon price before the scheme starts. Each year, the adequacy of this assistance will be reviewed in the context of the budget. I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Billson) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Bowen.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This bill will increase the Medicare levy low-income thresholds for individuals and families in line with increases in the consumer price index. The low-income threshold in the Medicare levy surcharge provisions will be similarly increased. These changes will ensure that low-income individuals and families will continue to be exempt from the Medicare levy or the Medicare levy surcharge.
The bill will also increase the Medicare levy threshold for pensioners below age pension age to ensure that individuals in this cohort do not have a Medicare levy liability when they do not have an income tax liability.
Those on low incomes are among the most vulnerable Australians—particularly amid this global recession—and the Rudd government is determined to make sure these Australians remain exempt from the Medicare levy.
The amendments will apply to the 2008-09 year of income and later income years.
Full details of the measures in this bill are contained in the explanatory memorandum.
I commend this bill and present the explanatory memorandum.
Debate (on motion by Mr Billson) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Bowen.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The International Monetary Agreements Act 1947 (IMA Act) currently enables the Treasurer to lend money or enter into a currency swap with a country in support of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) program.
These arrangements were put in place by the former government in 1998, through the IMA Amendment Act 1998, with the purpose to establish a framework for the provision of financial assistance by Australia in support of IMF programs.
The purpose of this bill is to extend the current arrangements to include support for World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) programs.
This will also allow Australia to enter into a standby loan agreement with Indonesia, as announced by the Prime Minister on 10 December 2008.
The Indonesian government has approached the World Bank, the ADB, as well as Australia and Japan, to seek assistance with its budget financing.
The global financial crisis is impacting on all countries, right around the world, and it is having a very significant impact on many emerging economies.
Australia’s standby loan, which will form part of a World Bank led package, is a support mechanism in case private capital markets become too costly or effectively closed to Indonesia in 2009 or 2010.
The World Bank has worked closely with Indonesia and other development partners as well as liaised with the IMF throughout the preparation of the loan arrangement.
The standby loan would only be drawn upon if certain triggers and criteria are met.
The loan, if activated, will be paid back in full at an appropriate rate of interest.
There is no certainty that Indonesia will need to draw down on the loan.
However, it is in Australia’s national interest to be able to assist should the situation deteriorate.
If drawn on, the loan would be used to help support Indonesia’s budget and, in doing so, support economic growth and stability in Indonesia.
Continued growth in emerging and developing economies is important for global recovery and therefore recovery in the Australian economy.
Australia has had a substantial direct trade and investment relationship with Indonesia, and ensuring Indonesia’s continued economic growth and stability will benefit Australian exporters and jobs.
Supporting stability and economic recovery, particularly in our region, is an issue on which there is an established history of bipartisanship.
When the former government introduced the 1998 IMA Amendment Bill, it noted that:
The government’s decisions to provide support reflect the importance of economic and political stability in the region for Australia and the Australian economy.
It is important that governments are able to act swiftly in such circumstances to help mobilise international support to deal with a crisis and to provide commitments on our own participation.
Consistent with the 1998 IMA Amendment Bill, this bill will allow Australia to continue to play its part in international cooperation efforts when necessary to safeguard and promote Australian national interests.
In extending current provisions in the IMA Act to World Bank and ADB programs, this bill also extends the same important conditions currently contained in the IMA Act that currently apply to IMF programs.
There must be a request for assistance by the World Bank or ADB for Australia’s assistance.
The agreement must also allow Australia to require repayment if the World Bank or ADB program is suspended or prematurely terminated.
This is to ensure that assistance is provided only where a World Bank or ADB program is in place and continues to be adhered to by the recipient country.
The Treasurer must be satisfied that other countries or international organisations will also be providing support to the recipient country as part of the World Bank or ADB program.
This is to ensure that Australia’s assistance under the bill is part of a multilateral effort.
Consistent with the IMA Act, the bill provides for the Treasurer to release publicly and table in each house of parliament a national interest statement relating to an agreement entered into under the bill.
Statements will include a description of the nature and terms of an agreement and set out why it is in the national interest, having regard, in particular, to foreign policy, trade and economic interests.
This bill ensures that Australia will be able to contribute to World Bank and ADB financial assistance programs, and the provisions I have just outlined will ensure that this assistance is only offered when it is in Australia’s national interest.
Further details of the bill are contained in the explanatory memorandum. I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Mr Billson) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Griffin.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I am pleased to present legislation that further improves the operation of Australia’s repatriation system. This is in line with the government’s election commitment, demonstrated in successive budgets, to deliver better services and benefits to the ex-service community in Australia.
The bill will introduce two budget measures that will assist veterans, members and their dependants and improve the effectiveness of the repatriation pension system. A third measure will assist members of the veteran and defence communities.
The first budget measure will provide more convenient payment arrangements for Australian veterans, members and dependants who live permanently overseas.
Currently Veterans’ Affairs beneficiaries who live permanently overseas must have their Veterans’ Affairs payments paid into an Australian bank account, often incurring relatively high bank fees when transferring money internationally. In comparison, most other Commonwealth beneficiaries who live in overseas countries with reliable banking systems can receive their pension directly into an overseas bank account. In 2008 the Prime Minister made a commitment to review this inequity for members of the Australian veteran community living overseas. This budget measure will deliver on that commitment.
The second budget measure will extend eligibility for the Defence Service Homes Insurance Scheme to persons eligible under the Defence Home Ownership Assistance Scheme Act 2008. The Defence Service Homes Insurance Scheme currently provides home insurance to eligible Australian veterans and members, peacekeepers and widows and widowers. This measure will extend eligibility for Defence Service Homes insurance to those serving and former members and reservists eligible under the Defence Home Ownership Assistance Scheme, introduced in 2008. This extension will provide eligible persons with access to cost-effective insurance designed specifically for the service and ex-service community.
The final budget measure will cease payment of an outdated dependant pension and will pay existing pension recipients a lump-sum payment equivalent to three years of pension.
Under previous repatriation legislation, certain dependants of veterans or members on disability pensions were eligible for a dependants pension at a rate which reflected the rate of disability pension paid to the veteran or member. The maximum fortnightly payments are $8.42 for partners and widows and $2.86 for children. The minimum payments are 84c and 29c respectively. This small pension has been virtually frozen for many decades and new grants of the pension ceased in 1985.
The purpose of the payment when it was introduced was to provide financial support to the dependants of veterans. Other government programs, such as the partner service pension and social security payments, now provide this support more effectively.
The government will pay a one-off payment equivalent to three years of payments to current recipients. Entitlement to the dependant pension will cease on 22 September 2009. We anticipate the lump-sum payment will be made on 24 September 2009. The lump sum payment will be exempt from income tax. It should be noted that dependant pensions that were granted on the basis that the person was without adequate means of support are not part of this measure. I also want to make it quite clear that existing war widow and widower and orphan pensions are not affected by this measure.
With a pension of such a relatively low amount, the value of which will continue to erode over time, a three-year, lump-sum payment will be of greater use to many current recipients.
The government is committed to maintaining and enhancing services and support to Australia’s ex-service community. This legislation continues the progression we have made since coming to government to ensure that the support available through the Veterans’ Affairs portfolio is effective and equitable.
Debate (on motion by Mr Billson) adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr O’Connor.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Social Security Amendment (Training Incentives) Bill 2009 introduces two significant changes to the social security law arising out of the 2009-10 budget. These changes will encourage participation in study or training by job seekers with limited formal education and young people who are early school leavers.
Early school leaving is of particular concern when we look at how this affects the transition of young people into further education and employment.
When we compare the experience of working-age Australians without year 12 or a vocational qualification to people with these qualifications, we find that they are less likely to participate in the labour market and more likely to be unemployed. By age 24, only seven out of 10 young people without a year 12 or certificate III or IV qualification are in further training or employment. By contrast, nine out of 10 young people with such a qualification are in further training or employment. In other words, the lack of a qualification means a young person is almost three times as likely not to be in further training or employment.
There is also a demonstrated link between higher educational attainment and significantly better wages—around $100 a week for each extra year of education for full-time workers. Education clearly delivers better opportunities for individuals and for their families.
Early school leavers and people with low skills are likely to experience particular disadvantage during both the economic downturn and the recovery. In times of economic downturn, we know that youth unemployment tends to rise rapidly and then it falls back more slowly during the recovery. In the recession of the early 1990s, young people without year 12 were around three times more likely than their counterparts with year 12 to not be in further education and to be unemployed. In fact, around one in three early school leavers was unemployed.
This can result in youth unemployment remaining stubbornly high compared to the broader labour market.
We need to act decisively to prevent those with low formal qualifications or skills being left behind. This is why the Council of Australian Governments agreed that governments needed to work together, without delay, to improve young people’s connections to education and training.
The initiatives in this bill support the government’s commitment to improve the educational attainment level of Australians by encouraging completion of year 12, or its equivalent. They also support the government’s commitment to unemployed Australians to provide improved access to education and training opportunities.
The first component of the bill will give effect to the government’s $83.1 million investment in a training supplement for certain recipients of Newstart allowance and parenting payment. The supplement is for recipients who do not have year 12 or an equivalent qualification, or who have a trade or technical qualification that could be enhanced or upgraded. This measure will better equip recipients to find future employment.
Job seekers meeting these requirements will receive an extra $41.60 per fortnight if they undertake an approved training or further education course of less than 12 months duration at the certificate level II, III or IV level.
The training supplement will be available for people commencing this training between 1 July 2009 and 30 June 2011. This is a temporary measure to respond to the global recession. The training supplement will be available until any approved training commenced in this period is completed. It is estimated that over 50,000 low-skilled job seekers will be assisted over this period.
The second element of the bill will introduce changes to the participation requirements for youth allowance. This will support the action agreed by the Council of Australian Governments on 30 April 2009 to increase and improve young people’s participation in education and training.
All governments signed up to a Compact with Young Australians. This is a commitment to give young people aged up to 25 years an entitlement to an education or training place for any government subsidised qualification, subject to admission requirements and course availability. For 15 to 19 year olds, states and territories have agreed to fully implement this commitment by 1 July 2009.
Young people will access this education entitlement through schools, TAFE colleges or registered training organisations. In some cases, they may also be referred to do a course through the Productivity Places Program (PPP).
At the same time, COAG agreed to introduce a national youth participation requirement, to commence on 1 January 2010. Under the national youth participation requirement, it will be mandatory for young people to participate in school or an equivalent institution until they complete year 10. It will also be mandatory for young people who have completed year 10 to participate full-time (for 25 hours a week) in education, training or employment or combined activities until age 17.
Consistent with this, the Council of Australian Governments also agreed to bring forward the 90 per cent year 12 or equivalent education attainment rate target from 2020 to 2015.
To support these initiatives, the Commonwealth government committed to make education and training a precondition for young people without year 12 or the equivalent to obtain youth allowance (other) and family tax benefit part A. The Social Security Amendment (Training Incentives) Bill 2009 will give effect to this commitment for youth allowance. The changes to family tax benefit will proceed by way of separate legislation later in 2009.
The changes in this bill will apply to young people who do not have year 12 or an equivalent qualification. This is currently agreed by all jurisdictions to be a certificate level II qualification under the Australian Qualifications Framework.
To receive youth allowance, young people will need to ‘learn or earn’. If they have not completed year 12 or an equivalent qualification, they will need to either participate in education and training full time or participate full time (that is, generally for at least 25 hours a week) in part-time study or training in combination with other approved activities. They will need to do so until they attain year 12 or an equivalent certificate level II qualification.
The arrangements will be flexible for young people with complex needs. Young people with multiple barriers such as homelessness or substance abuse issues will have alternative ways in which to meet their participation and qualification requirements. Similarly, young people with a partial capacity to work or young parents will have their hours of participation tailored to their assessed capacity.
The present legislative exemptions that deal with any difficulties a young person may be having, for example alcohol or drug abuse issues or homelessness, will continue.
Also, young people or young parents with a partial capacity to undertake study or training will have their hours of participation tailored to their assessed capacity.
The amendments will apply to applicants for youth allowance from 1 July 2009. The new requirements will be progressively implemented for existing youth allowance recipients without year 12 or the equivalent between January and July 2010.
Past economic downturns have taught us that young people and others with limited education and skills are particularly vulnerable to becoming unemployed over the longer term.
The training incentives bill provides two much-needed measures to encourage people to continue to train and learn during periods of downturn so they are skilled for the recovery ahead.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate (on motion by Dr Southcott) adjourned.
I move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, it is expedient to carry out the following proposed work which was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works and on which the committee has duly reported to Parliament: RAAF Base Edinburgh redevelopment stage 2, South Australia.
The Department of Defence proposes to undertake stage 2 redevelopment of RAAF Base Edinburgh, South Australia, at an estimated out-turn cost of $99.56 million plus GST. The main role of RAAF Base Edinburgh is to provide maritime surveillance operations throughout Australia’s airspace and operations related to information warfare. The project will provide improved infrastructure services, upgrade existing security for the base and provide new air-side and domestic facilities to improve the overall capability of the base.
In its report the Public Works Committee has recommended that this proposal should proceed. Subject to parliamentary approval, construction will commence in the second half of 2009 and be completed in 2011. On behalf of the government I would like to thank the committee for its support. I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
Debate resumed from 27 May, on motion by Mr Bowen:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Last night when I was speaking on the Car Dealership Financing Guarantee Appropriation Bill 2009, just prior to the adjournment, I was referring to my understanding that several Mitsubishi dealers around Australia had been provided with temporary financing arrangements by Mitsubishi Motors Australia Ltd. Those arrangements expire on 30 June this year, so it is important that this bill be passed and thereby provide those dealers with another financing option. The car dealership financing guarantee is just one of a number of measures that the Rudd government is taking to support the automotive industry. Another measure has been the small business tax break, which provides a 50 per cent tax concession for eligible asset purchases, and the extension of that concession until December 2009. That concession provides a substantial incentive for small business owners to purchase a new vehicle for their business. In fact, following the recent budget, the Chief Executive of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, Andrew McKellar, said:
… the tax break will help stimulate the new vehicle market and support jobs in the industry. Every plumber, every painter, every electrician—in fact every small business owner—is encouraged to take advantage of this offer … I encourage small business to bring forward purchasing decisions …
It is not only tradespeople who will benefit. All small businesses, including farmers, farm contractors and suppliers, can benefit and at the same time support their local auto dealer by taking advantage of the 50 per cent tax concession.
I would like to speak briefly about General Motors Holden Ltd, who have their manufacturing plant in Elizabeth, adjacent to my electorate of Makin. Many of the people who work at General Motors Holden live in the electorate of Makin. I personally know many of them and I have visited the plant on several occasions. I understand how important it is to them to ensure that General Motors Holden remain viable. Obviously, to remain viable they need to sell cars. I also understand that General Motors Holden have announced that they will be building a four-cylinder car as a part of their response to changes in the market. That announcement has certainly brought a great deal more confidence and security to those families who depend very much on the production of the company’s cars.
But the General Motors Holden plant at Elizabeth is important for another reason. In the northern suburbs of Adelaide 25 per cent of the economy is based on manufacturing. That manufacturing base is heavily dependent on General Motors Holden being there, not simply because firms in northern Adelaide are direct suppliers to General Motors Holden. In many cases operations there are not direct suppliers, but having General Motors Holden in the region indirectly underpins many of those manufacturing industries. So for the benefit of the entire region and the state it is important that we do what we can to ensure that the automotive industry remains viable in South Australia.
In respect of that I welcome the $6.2 billion announcement that the Rudd government made last year in support of the automotive industry around Australia and, in particular, in providing an allowance and support for the greener cars that will be made in the future. In fact last year, when the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr, visited the GMH plant to talk about the $6.2 billion new car plan for Australia, I accompanied him, as did the member for Wakefield, and we had discussions with employers, the heads of GMH, as well as a number of employees who were on the shop floor. It was clear to me that the employees very much appreciated the support that this government was giving to ensure that their jobs were going to be supported in whatever way was possible. I was also at the plant last year when the Prime Minister and Minister Carr again went to it to announce $149 million worth of support for the new four-cylinder car that will be manufactured at the Elizabeth plant.
The Australian automotive industry employs around 63,000 people directly and it is estimated that a further number of people, probably more than 100,000, depend on the industry for their employment. In fact, industries associated with the automotive industry, such as the steel, plastics and glass industries and other industries, are heavily dependent in many cases on that industry. It is important to our national economy. The Rudd government understands that and for that reason has introduced a number of measures to support the automotive industry since coming to office. The establishment of the car dealership financing guarantee special purpose vehicle is another example of the Rudd government understanding the importance of the automotive industry and supporting that industry in Australia.— (Quorum formed)
I note once again, for people listening in today and for the Hansard record, the disgraceful behaviour of the opposition. For the member for Dunkley, on a really important bill such as the Car Dealership Financing Guarantee Appropriation Bill 2009, to disrupt the proper processes of the House is an abuse of the standing orders. The way they are abusing this place, abusing the standing orders of this place and trying to prevent members speaking on what is a really important bill is completely disgraceful behaviour.
This bill is about making sure that the Australian economy continues to function properly and efficiently, and it is about ensuring that car dealers actually have a business. This is from a mob who claim to be the great supporters of small business. We are here trying to actually pass legislation to support small businesses and car dealerships. I am sure that they are going to be very thankful to the member for Dunkley and the opposition—the Liberal and National parties—when all that the opposition is interested in is disrupting the debate and disrupting the passage of this bill.
Why don’t you get on with it, then?
I have got plenty of time to get on with it, and I will, but the member for Dunkley and the member for Paterson are more interested in disrupting this debate and not letting us get on with it. Car dealers—
And here we go again with the member for Paterson abusing the standing orders of this place.
Mr Speaker, on a point of order: the member has misrepresented me—I have not disrupted the House, but seeing as he wishes me to do so, I—
There is no point of order. The member for Paterson will resume his seat.
(Quorum formed)
Mr Deputy Speaker, I commend you on your correct ruling that there was no point of order. I also thank my colleagues for coming in here and spending the time to hear me speak on this very important bill.
The reality is that the opposition is interested only in disrupting a really important debate on supporting what should be a core constituency for them: small businesses and car dealerships, and supporting them not just in the big cities but in the remote and rural communities across Australia, in places such as Ipswich in my electorate. Whether they be in Brisbane, Victoria, Queensland or wherever, these are fair dinkum small businesses that are operating under very, very tough conditions—conditions which are no fault of their own. They have been left in a perilous position, not just by the global financial crisis but by what I think is the unscrupulous behaviour of a number of financiers worldwide and in this country who have refused to continue to provide the sort of liquidity that car dealerships need to continue their business.
We are not talking about failing businesses. We are talking about businesses that are going concerns, that have had long histories and balance sheets in good standing, that have been more than capable and more than able to meet all of their liabilities and that continue to do so. I find the behaviour of companies such as GE Money and GMAC towards some of their clients—some of whom have been their clients for more than 20 years—completely outrageous.
It left this government in a position where we had to act to fill that gap and that void, and that is what this bill is about. The OzCar SPV, the special purpose vehicle, is designed specifically to provide critical wholesale floor plan finance to eligible car dealerships to ensure that the departures of GE Money Motor Solutions and GMAC—and the liquidity challenges that also confront Ford Credit—do not result in the closure of hundreds of otherwise viable car dealers across Australia, which would in turn result in thousands of job losses.
What has taken place in the past six to 12 months has put an enormous amount of pressure on car dealerships—small businesses in a whole range of communities. It has put a great deal of strain on their businesses. For some, if action had not been taken early, it could have meant the closing of those businesses, putting at risk many, many jobs. The SPV initiative will protect jobs. It is part of a broader government strategy of supporting the economy, supporting the community and supporting small business in this country. We are determined to meet all of those challenges. We accept the responsibilities we inherit as government in terms of where we find ourselves economically, given the global financial crisis. You have to act and you have to act locally. You have to support and maintain jobs by providing the sorts of economic stimuluses people need to ensure that they can continue on with their lives. You also have to provide mechanisms for small businesses, medium enterprises and large businesses through industry support to make sure that they can continue to do what they do, in turn supporting jobs. This is exactly what this Car Dealership Financing Guarantee Appropriation Bill is all about—it is about underpinning a vital sector of our economy.
You have heard the previous speaker, the member for Makin, talk about the broader industry support we have given to the automobile industry—the key strategies of the $6.2 billion car plan and the green car initiative that we have put into place—along with our stimulus packages, what we have done for pensioners across the country and what we have done in terms of investing in schools, jobs, communities, manufacturing, and education and training.
There was one group of individuals that has been particularly impacted by the global financial crisis which was not really covered off in any other area, and that was the car dealers. They fall into a special category. Car dealers may appear on the surface to people looking from the outside to be wealthy or large businesses that involve massive turnover and make a lot of money for the owners. In some cases, that is the case, but generally speaking car dealers are small businesses. They are a franchise business. I have had some involvement now over a period of time in franchising and understand some of the difficulties that franchisees face in their day-to-day operations. I continue to be out there advocating for franchisees and a fairer go for all people involved in franchising. Car dealers fall exactly into that category. Car dealers are often held to ransom by the large auto groups. They are compelled to spend millions of dollars for showrooms—a fancy glass chrome showroom, which is the expectation—and have massive sunken costs. They find they have either little recourse in terms of a long-term contract or little opportunity to expand or diversify their business.
One of the problems they face is that not only are they limited in their potential to diversify but they are also tied in through their financing of their floor plan, often through the specific dealership group that they are involved in or through one particular financing organisation, such as GE Money Motor Solutions, GMAC and, as is relevant to this debate, Ford Credit. Car dealerships really were left hanging in the air for a period of time until we put forward our plan, the OzCar SPV, the special purpose vehicle, to ensure that car dealers actually had access to some finance at reasonable rates and that it was possible for them to continue in their business.
The government has been working with the four leading Australian banks—the ANZ, the Commonwealth, the National Australia Bank and Westpac—as well as other financiers to put in place an arrangement that can provide that critical wholesale floor plan finance to those eligible car dealers that were left stranded by the exodus—I would say the unprovoked exodus—from the Australian market of GE Money and GMAC.
The facility that we will be putting in place will be used to provide liquidity support for 12 months to almost 200 Ford car dealerships as a result of the liquidity pressure facing Ford Credit. Car dealerships generally cannot remain in business without a viable floor plan financing arrangement. That is the bottom line. I do not know if people actually understand how that works—and we are talking about new car floor plans here. The way it works is that the dealership is compelled to purchase the cars to put them on the floor. They have already outlaid the money. They do it through a financing plan. It means that they carry a lot of costs, not only sunken costs in terms of their infrastructure expense—the showroom, the dealership itself—and the continuing costs of maintenance and staff, which are very high numbers, but also the initial full purchase of the vehicle. They may sit on the lot for months—hopefully not years. But, given the current troubles that the car manufacturing industry is facing globally, there are some serious issues with the turnover of vehicles in those particular car dealerships.
I have had the good fortune of knowing a number of car dealers, being friends with them and having some understanding of their business—not as well as they do, obviously—and how they operate and the tough economic and cyclical circumstances they find themselves in. While it is true to say that in some good years they did do quite well and they grew their businesses, they also grew a lot of jobs and provided a substantial economic base for small communities, particularly if we start talking about country and rural areas. Sometimes one of the big employers in a small town will be the car dealership. You do not get too much choice. If you travel around this country and go to some more remote and rural parts, you find that there may be just one—if you are lucky, maybe two—brands or dealers in a particular town. So trying to support them, providing the mechanisms to support their survival, making sure they have access to finance and making sure they continue on with their business is critical. It is critical to those local economies as well.
The government have been responsive to the needs of that particular segment of small business, as we have in a whole range of other areas. We have been responsive in how we have dealt with housing across the country. The Minister for Housing is here and I put on the record my appreciation of the good work she has been doing and that her department has been doing in dealing with one of the toughest problems we have across this country of trying to get people into a home and public housing. We have been making some real investments for the first time in a very long time with the Commonwealth’s decision that it was part of our responsibility to front up and do these things.
It is very much the same principle that applies to car dealers. I am very proud when I go and talk to my community about the programs we have put in place, about the sort of legislation and mechanisms that we are providing to ensure that we do not just talk about small business and medium enterprise but actually support them with real funding, real programs and real strategies. We support them with real things that will make a difference to their survival so that they can get over this tough period. We will get over this tough period. We will come out of it at some point soon—hopefully sooner rather than later. But we will come out of it at some point and we need to prepare our economy for when that actually takes place. That is what the government are doing.
I was listening to some debate yesterday from members of the opposition and I heard about the so-called plan that they had, which sounded to me like a wish list. I particularly refer to the member for Paterson, who is here. He talked about a plan: world peace in essence, goodwill to all men. There was this grand plan, but to me it just sounded like the sorts of things you might say if you attended an international beauty pageant and they said, ‘What do you want to achieve in your life?’ and the answer was, ‘I want world peace and to travel the world.’ I think people are pretty familiar with it. But to me it just did not sound like a plan—it did not have a roadmap. It did not have a path or a strategy.
Your only plan is debt—deficit and debt.
It did not have a mechanism or some sort of vehicle to actually get there. We all want world peace, but you need a strategy and a plan to get there. You cannot just say, ‘My plan is world peace.’
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order and ask you to bring the speaker back to the actual bill in question. He has no idea what he is talking about but I think he should restrain his remarks to the bill.
Thank you, Member for Paterson. I will listen very carefully.
Thank you for the interruption and the debate, which was out of order, from the member for Paterson.
Order! The member for Oxley must not reflect upon the chair.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I am certainly not reflecting on the chair.
You certainly were.
I can assure you I was not, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I will accept whatever your ruling is.
Mr Deputy Speaker, the member for Oxley was referring to the shadow minister opposite, I am sure, rather than to you. I am sure he would never intend to reflect on the chair. Mr Deputy Speaker, I would urge you, while calling the member for Oxley to speak on the legislation, to take account of the constant interjection that is happening from the other side of the chamber and call the interjectors to order.
Order! The minister needs to be a bit careful as well.
I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker. I do not understand your comment.
You were reflecting on me.
Mr Deputy Speaker, it was certainly not my intention to reflect on you and I would offer you an apology if you understood it in that way. I am asking, Mr Deputy Speaker—
Order! The minister will resume her seat.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The financial impact of the bill that is before us is important to note in this debate. The overall contingent liability for the Australian government is estimated to be around $550 million, comprising around 45 per cent of the remaining GE and GMAC loan books and about 85 per cent of the Ford Credit loan book, and it is important to note this. We do not expect that that will necessarily be the case but it is estimated to be around that amount.
The SPV will only be able to advance funds if it is satisfied that the dealership is a viable business. I think that is a fair proposition in terms of the government providing that security, that guarantee, and making sure we can use the good credit rating that the government has in providing assistance and liquidity to car dealerships across the country. The terms of any alliance must also be consistent with the usual commercial lending criteria of recognised finance providers. At that point I particularly mention the good work that Perpetual and also Credit Suisse will be doing in being the managers of this special purpose vehicle.
In all, this is really good legislation and really good policy. While we are debating the Car Dealership Financing Guarantee Appropriation Bill 2009 today, it is probably also worth noting that we actually did move on this matter quite quickly. On 23 December 2008 we moved to bring in the package and earlier this year provided the mechanisms for that to happen. This is more evidence of a government that is in touch and responsive to the needs of small and medium enterprises in this country. It is part of a national suite of measures to ensure that the economy continues to grow and that people have an opportunity to do the best they can. My view has always been, as is the view of many people, business ought to get on with doing— (Time expired)
I rise today to speak on the Car Dealership Financing Guarantee Appropriation Bill 2009. I am going to spend a couple of moments reflecting on comments from the member for Oxley in his contribution to this debate. The member stated how expeditiously this government had acted on this matter. Well, it is true that this package was introduced on 1 January this year but it is now 28 May. What we have had is—let us be very sure about this—the government guarantee of taxpayers’ money to industry, and yet they have had five months to bring this legislation to the House. That means that this legislation and the actions of this minister have been very, very tardy indeed.
There is no doubt that, with the falling volume of sales, some financial institutions have got very nervous about the motor vehicle market, in particular the withdrawal of GE Money Motor Solutions—a subsidiary of GE Money, which is a division of GE Capital—and GMAC Australia from the automotive and motorcycle finance business of Australia. It created a huge problem. But this problem was exacerbated by this government. This came about directly because of the actions of the Rudd Labor government. When they rushed in and provided that unlimited deposit guarantee, a lot of money was stripped from financial institutions and locked into the banks. So we have seen not market driven per se but government driven readily available finance shifted into the banking sector because people wanted this ironclad, gold plated guarantee by the government—and by that I mean now the taxpayers—through the banks.
This special purpose funding vehicle was initially set at $2 billion, and the current estimates are that the exposure will be more in the vicinity of $550 million, and will operate for about 12 months. It is funded by the big four banks but it is guaranteed by the Commonwealth to provide finance to dealers unable to secure commercial finance. I should clarify at this point that this finance is not for consumers to buy motor vehicles. This finance is purely restricted to the financing of floor stock. I have had discussions with motor vehicle dealers in my area and, without going into individual names, a most interesting comment came from one of the dealers who said, ‘We are paying far too high an interest rate, which means we are making very little profit.’ This guaranteed finance is two per cent above the market rate. He said, ‘If we do not sell the car within 30 to 40 days, the interest starts to rack up significantly at a rate we cannot afford.’ As such, this year they have taken to having no new stock on the floor and to only ordering it in when there is a direct request from customers to purchase a vehicle. I am talking about a motor vehicle dealer in a regional and rural area. This is not the magic mile of motors where you have an endless stream of motor vehicle dealers and lots of floor stock; this is a small country area with a relatively small turnover in motor vehicles and where the cost of providing floor stock for display can be very expensive. Make no bones about it: these motor vehicle dealers need to be extra competitive in their pricing because of the deals that are offered by the magic miles of motors in the major cities.
It is important, though, that this funding was put into place; otherwise, we would have had a collapse of the motor vehicle industry. I will look at some of the figures for motor vehicle sales from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries. The new vehicle sales figures for April 2009, released on 5 May 2009, showed that 63,965 passenger motor vehicles, SUVs and commercial vehicles were sold in April 2009—a fall of 23.9 per cent when compared with the same month in 2008. The year-to-date total is 276,935 new vehicles sold—a fall of 20.3 per cent compared with the same period last year—suggesting annual sales of 840,000 in 2009 compared with 1,012,164 in 2008. So not only are sales dropping but also it means the floor stock is sitting on the dealers’ floors for much longer and that, in turn, means greater cost to the dealers. This has occurred, as I said, in part because of the government’s mismanagement of the economy by rushing in to provide unlimited deposit guarantees to the banks. We have already heard that some of the financial institutions, not GE Money or GMAC necessarily but some of the smaller financial institutions, have actually locked up their capital and are not allowing people to withdraw or shift their money to the banks because they would face a severe liquidity problem.
These are the issues we have to deal with, but this is no different from Ruddbank. The Ruddbank was set up for failed overseas financial institutions. The Ruddbank was set up to hold finance for toxic assets—in other words, huge office blocks and facilities in major cities—but it was not available to small to medium enterprises. This was put together with the banks with a government contribution—and, again, that government contribution comes from the taxpayers of Australia. Do those small to medium enterprises that pay their tax and fund the Ruddbank and fund OzCar—this special purpose financing vehicle—have this sort of money? Let me tell you what is happening right now out in the business community. One sector of the building and construction industry is flying along brilliantly because of the first home owner grants—and I think that is a worthy contribution. But it is one sector. Many builders cannot access the capital to actually enter into that market. What is happening is that you are getting a narrowing confine of people able to actually work in the construction industry because of the lack of access to capital and finance. So where is this government’s guarantee of finance to that sector of the industry? The other thing that the First Home Owner Grant scheme has done is to inflate the market in the first home owners finance sector.
Mr Deputy Speaker, a point of order on relevance: I noted earlier that you asked the member for Oxley to focus on the content of the legislation before the House. I wonder if you would do the same here.
I will listen very carefully, Minister.
Mr Deputy Speaker Secker, I am directly correlating taxpayers’ guarantee of financial institutions and the fact that this government has cherry-picked industries but not broadly supported capital requirements, and I am providing the comparative analysis. Indeed, if the minister had been listening she would have understood that. I think she would have—
You’d better vote for ABIP if that’s your concern.
understood that all industries need support, not just some industries.
So you’re going to vote for ABIP.
The Assistant Treasurer!
The Assistant Treasurer should know better, because this is part and parcel of his problem. He was one of the people who led the charge to make sure that there were unlimited guarantees for the banks, which created a lot of this financial problem.
The development and building industry is suffering. Their loan facilities are being called in and they are not being refinanced. That is the equivalent of their floor stock as they deal with people in providing developments, including schools, houses and industrial lots, and job opportunities, particularly in regional and rural areas. Where is their guarantee of finance? Where is their taxpayer guarantee, funded through the four banks? It is not there. These people pay their taxes too, and when the Labor government provides these guarantees to other industries it is with their money. They just ask for a little bit of equity.
I am not against the motor vehicle industry being supported but I would also like you to consider the marine industry, which has just had its boat show on the Gold Coast. It has the same problem: it has stock that it needs to put on the floor and it needs finance. Where are its guarantees? They are not there.
It is no different in the tourism industry, which wants to embark on new ventures or buy new equipment. This government introduced the 30 per cent accelerated depreciation for investment allowance and extended it to 50 per cent for small business, but the problem is that people cannot get the capital. You can have all the incentives you want, but if you cannot get the capital you cannot commit with it. One reason they cannot get the capital is that the banks want more and more guarantees.
Constituents of mine say to me that if it is good enough for this government to use taxpayers’ money to guarantee the finances of one industry then why not do it for them? Why do they have to wait until they are on their knees? This government talks about how it is being proactive and decisive, but being proactive and decisive, when you are spending money collected from all taxpayers, means supporting all taxpayers in their industry and development. Clearly, this government does not understand where it is going in what it is providing here.
It is also no different for engineers and manufacturers. What about the support industries in the motor vehicle industry—the people who provide the wiring looms, the seats, the panels, the accessories? Why aren’t their capital requirements being guaranteed by the government? When you cherry-pick sectors you change the structural integrity of the market, and if you prop up one side of the market but not the other you create a massive imbalance. It is like being pregnant, to use an analogy. You cannot be a little bit pregnant. You have to be in either for the whole shot or not at all. I say to you that, in financing, the problem is that the government has created this imbalance.
The coalition have said that we will support this bill because it is important that we find a way through this economic crisis. The one key measure that has been left out in the way in which the government has dealt with financing is that it has done absolutely nothing to instil in our community confidence in our economy, because the confidence in the leadership of this nation is rapidly diminishing. The government can spend all the money it wants. It can create all the guarantees it wants at the expense of the taxpayer. But, unless this government drives confidence in the marketplace, confidence in the community so that they can invest and confidence in finance companies, we will get into a situation where finance companies and banks keep tightening up because of risk profiles. They will tighten up to the extent that the government will have to step in and provide more guarantees.
What the government has started here is an avalanche of underwriting capital requirements in Australia. Mark my words: we will be coming back here over the next few months with another industry on its knees because it cannot get finance and this government will say: ‘Let’s underwrite this; let’s guarantee this; let’s provide vehicles.’ And that will continue to distort the market. The initial step taken by this government, when it rushed in, did not consult with the coalition and did not sit down and get consensus opinion—it did not even listen to the people at the 2020 Summit, despite the great fanfare about listening to the greatest minds in Australia—is now having a downstream avalanche effect on the finance industry. So we will be back here regularly. There will be many bills providing financial guarantees for many industries, and I think that is the issue that we need to address.
I say to the government: you are going down this track but how are you going to explain to all those other industries that you are not prepared at this stage to underwrite them? What are you going to say to them? What are you going to say to all those people who become unemployed because you started an avalanche that they are now paying for? Always remember, as you go down this path of guarantees and cash handouts, that it is not your money in total; it is the money of the taxpayers of Australia and of the kids up in the gallery. It is their money and money that will be theirs in the future that you are handing out and playing with, and they expect nothing less than for you to be responsible in the administration of their finances. We have said we will support the bill and we will do so, but you need to think long and hard about the direction in which you are taking the finances of this country.
The member for Paterson would be well advised not to use the term ‘you’ so often.
I am sorry I reflected on ‘you’ through the chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. I obviously meant the Labor government.
in reply—I thank all honourable members for their contribution in the debate on this bill. I must, however, start with the rather bizarre and confused contribution we have just heard from the member for Paterson, who said: ‘We support this bill, which affects car dealerships, but what is the government doing about the commercial property sector? What is the government doing about other sectors having trouble getting finance? Why won’t the government do something about those sectors?’ He said, ‘It’s not your money; it’s theirs.’ I have a response for the member for Paterson: it’s not your job; it’s theirs! It is the people in the commercial construction industry who are looking for government action. They are also looking for opposition action and opposition support for a bill in the House called the Australian Business Investment Partnership Bill, which the opposition is opposing all the way. (Quorum formed)
I was in the process of pointing out the confused and bizarre contribution from the member for Paterson when the quorum was called. The member for Paterson said the opposition supports the special vehicle for car financing but asks: ‘What else is the government doing? Where is the government support for the commercial property industry?’ This is from a member of the party which has opposed to the bitter end the Australian Business Investment Partnership, which is designed to do just that. Talk about inconsistency. The member for Paterson must not have been present at the party room meeting that decided to oppose the Australian Business Investment Partnership, a partnership which has been called for by business across this country for months. The opposition of the Liberal Party is something that business just cannot understand. They cannot understand the reason why the so-called pro-business party in this country would oppose such a sensible measure.
I thought the member for Paterson laid out quite a good case for the Australian Business Investment Partnership. I thought he made quite a compelling argument to vote for it. And yet this is a man who voted against it and whose colleagues in the other place are threatening it. They are trying to derail it and they may very well be successful in derailing the Australian Business Investment Partnership through their opposition. If a member of the opposition is going to come in here and say, ‘We’ll support this: it’s good as far as it goes. It’s fine inasmuch as it achieves, but the government needs to be doing more,’ it would be helpful if he put his vote where his money is and supported the government’s actions by supporting the Australia Business Investment Partnership. So it was a particularly bizarre contribution from the member for Paterson.
I want to take this opportunity to also respond to another opposition member. This time the contribution was not bizarre; it was a contribution that was quite passionate by the member for Riverina. The member for Riverina spoke on this debate last night and I watched her contribution. She clearly is very interested in this topic and she clearly feels very strongly about this topic, and I welcome her contribution. The member for Riverina, if I understood her argument correctly, was concerned that the criteria of the special vehicle may restrict some of her car dealers from applying, but that is certainly not the case. It is the case that this special vehicle will not be operational until the bill has passed both houses of parliament, and certainly we join with the opposition and the member for Riverina in wanting that to happen urgently.
If I interpreted the member for Riverina’s concerns correctly, she was concerned that there may be criteria in this bill which would require a turnover of half a million dollars a month for the car dealer to have access. That is certainly not the case. That is a requirement from some of the private sector providers in place at the moment, but it is certainly not the case for this special vehicle. There are some former GE or GMAC finance dealers who have not been able to secure new financing arrangements, particularly in rural and regional Australia, which the member for Riverina referred to. Most of these dealerships have now been issued final notices. That is the reason the government has embarked on this process and would like to see the bill passed swiftly. I think it is correct to say that the member for Riverina has been in contact with the Treasurer’s office, and I certainly encourage her to continue that dialogue and we will certainly do everything we can to facilitate matters with her constituents who have raised those issues.
So while it is very pleasing that it has not been necessary to activate the OzCar facility in the last six months since it was launched because of the success of many former GE and GMAC finance car dealers in securing the wholesale floor plan financing from alternative providers, it has now become necessary to activate the facility. The OzCar SPV facility is critical in ensuring that one of the largest providers of the wholesale floor plan financing in Australia, Ford Credit, is able to remain in Australia to continue to support its network of around 230 car dealers, about 140 of which are in regional centres.
There is little doubt that, if Ford Credit is not able to secure liquidity from the OzCar SPV over the next 12 months, a large number of Ford Credit’s current dealers in regional New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia will fail, resulting in hundreds of job losses in many vulnerable communities. The OzCar SPV is also critical in providing liquidity support to the small number of former GE and GMAC dealers who have not yet secured alternatives sources of wholesale floor plan financing.
It is often forgotten that the vast majority of car dealerships are small family businesses. These businesses have often been developed over many years involving generations of the same family. This bill will therefore allow a large number of small family businesses to continue to develop and grow during a very difficult and challenging economic period. The Car Dealership Financing Guarantee Appropriation Bill 2009 simply seeks to enact a standing appropriation to support the Commonwealth guarantee that will apply to around $550 million of securities issued by the OzCar facility. The Commonwealth guarantee is necessary to provide the four major Australian banks with the legal certainty they need to purchase their respective equal share of OzCar securities. OzCar will raise funds by selling securities to the four major Australian banks. At a time when the debt securitisation market has dried up as a result of the global financial crisis, we welcome the willingness of the four major Australian banks to support this initiative by agreeing to purchase OzCar securities.
The overall size of the OzCar facility will not exceed $850 million; it is likely to be much smaller. The contingent liability risks to the Australian government are small. Treasury has entered into a contractual arrangement with Credit Suisse, the OzCar program manager, and a range of service providers on the operation and administration of the OzCar SPV facility. The Treasury will be providing the Treasurer with regular reports on the operation performance of the OzCar facility and will prepare quarterly reports on the operation of the SPV that will be made available to parliament. The OzCar SPV is designed to wind down by 30 June 2010. The standing appropriation that this bill puts in place will then wind down.
There is no doubt that the Australian car industry is facing some very serious challenges. The next 12 months are expected to be more challenging than the 12 months that have just passed for that sector. Throughout the global financial crisis, the government is acting decisively and responsibly to support Australian jobs. Initiatives such as the OzCar SPV are absolutely critical in providing not only real material support to many car dealers but also critical confidence to the entire car industry at this time, when it needs it most. Again, I thank honourable members who have contributed. I welcome the opposition’s support—despite the bizarre contribution from the member for Paterson, who I thought, at one stage, had announced the opposition’s support for the Australian Business Investment Partnership, because he made a very cogent argument for it. I commend the bill to the House.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Debate resumed from 14 May, on motion by Ms McKew:
That this bill be now read a second time.
As the shadow minister for early childhood education, amongst other things, I rise in this debate to provide the coalition’s general support for the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care) Bill 2009. The bill essentially provides for a number of what seem to be general housekeeping amendments to the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Administration) Act 1999. The Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Child Care has generally already outlined the main changes being made by this bill, and the coalition will support it.
I would like to have a closer look, though, at one specific change being made. That is the amendment that will enforce the provision in the bill which imposes civil penalties on childcare operators who breach their obligations in relation to when and how they notify their intention to cease operations, specifically breaching the rule that requires 30 days notice to be given before a centre can close. This is an important amendment.
We have seen over the past few months a situation where a large operator, ABC Learning Centres, collapsed leaving many thousands of parents, carers and, most importantly, children facing great uncertainty. They faced a situation where they did not know if their centre would close, change ownership or remain open. For many families with children in care this type of situation did cause a great deal of stress. In a very real and personal sense, this stress was brought home to me recently when I was contacted by parents from the ABC Learning Centre at Altona North in the electorate of Gellibrand, located just five minutes from the electoral boundary of the Minister for Education and member for Lalor, Julia Gillard.
ABC Altona North was one of the ABC Learning Centres which was deemed to be unviable under the ABC Learning business model. It became part of the 241 centres in the ABC2 Group which was controlled by the government appointed receivers, PPB, and for which a buyer would hopefully be found. Last month, on 15 April, PPB announced that, of the original 241 centres in the ABC2 Group, buyers had been found for 210. Altona North was listed as ‘new operator identified—negotiations continuing’. On 5 May it was announced that Sydenham Preschool Trust would take over the Altona North centre and operations would continue as normal. However, on 8 May, parents at the centre were informed that the centre would close as of 15 May. Parents were given seven days notice to find alternative care arrangements. An email that I received from one of the mothers at the centre sums up her distress. She said—and this is not a full quote:
The closure of this centre and the provision of one weeks notice represent an exceedingly unacceptable situation. I fail to understand how it can be allowed to happen in this country.
The process that was undertaken to reach this decision has been thoroughly unacceptable:
Communication throughout the period has been inadequate:
The alternative childcare options and support provided during this process have not been adequate:
That is just a glimpse of part of the frustration and the distress caused to one mother in one centre who received very little notice that it would cease operations.
The Minister for Education has said publicly on numerous occasions that centres cannot close without giving parents 30 days notice, and yet here is an example of a centre which was being assisted by government funds and run by the government appointed receiver giving parents seven days notice to find alternative care. Needless to say, the tightening of the provisions to impose civil penalties on operators who breach this 30-days notice requirement is a good thing and will be welcomed by parents. I wonder, though, what would have happened if Altona North had closed after this legislation was passed by the parliament. Would the civil penalties have been imposed on the minister, being the person ultimately responsible for the closure?
It is my view that this bill should have included a provision to ensure childcare operators provide 30 days notice to parents of children attending a centre which, for whatever reason, has to close its doors. We know how these closures affect families; we saw the evidence of it on the news every night for weeks. The children are the reason that these centres exist and in this industry more than any other there needs to be stability and certainty.
Over the past few days I have been working on an amendment to this bill that would specifically provide for the notification of parents. However, in discussions with the parliamentary secretary last night, I was assured that the department already has the power to specify the form, manner and way in which the childcare service provider must notify that they are ceasing operations. The department has apparently already trialled a form for such notice, and the parliamentary secretary assures me that the standardised notice of cessation forms will ensure parents receive at least 30 days notice. I accept her assurances and will therefore not be moving an amendment to that effect.
However, it must be noted that the case of Altona North ABC shows that the parliamentary secretary and the minister really have not been on top of things and they have not ensured that what they promised parents has been adhered to. The minister has said time and time again over the past six months that there was a legal requirement for services to provide at least 30 days notice to parents before closure, but exactly what has been done to ensure that is enforced? Nothing that we know of.
While I take the parliamentary secretary at her word on this matter, I will be monitoring very closely the operation of the new notice of cessation forms to ensure that the government’s rhetoric matches the outcome at least on this occasion. The Rudd government has shown a somewhat dismissive attitude to the childcare system, seemingly happy to hide behind the ABC situation rather than provide genuine national leadership on the future direction of the industry. Such a dismissive attitude is exemplified by the very quiet binning of the government’s promise to build 260 childcare centres around the country.
For those who remember, there was such fanfare in 2007 when Labor’s Affordable Child Care Plan—not my words but words used by the Labor Party to describe the policy—was announced and we were told that under this plan 260 additional childcare centres around the country would be built. After 18 months, the government has budgeted, at a cost of $114.5 million, for 38 centres. Of those 38 only five or six are at any type of planning stage—not one has yet been completed. The coalition has called repeatedly for the Rudd government to answer the questions: who is going to pay for the other 222? Where will they be built? How much will they cost? Will they contribute to the problem of oversupply in some areas? Exactly when will the promise be delivered in full? These are very valid questions that need to be asked.
This government makes the very simple criticism that any questions asked of its policies are negative, not helpful and un-Australian. That is not so. I say to members opposite: it is a fundamental responsibility of opposition to look at and scrutinise the policies and expenditure of government to ensure that they are in accordance with the interests of the Australian population and with what the government has promised it would do. To do nothing, to blindly pass every single bill and decision without comment or scrutiny, would be letting the Australian people down. The opposition would not be doing its job in our system of government of doing its bit to hold the government accountable. That is irrespective of which political party is in government. To have a strong, healthy democracy that delivers results and solutions for the Australian people and Australian families and, in this instance, Australian families with children in care, the opposition must be on its toes and doing its job. The government needs to accept constructive criticism because that will only help it do its job better. We know anyone without any checks and balances in doing their job is likely to do a lesser job than they otherwise would.
On budget night, Julia Gillard’s ministerial statement on education contained a quiet, two-line reference, saying:
The remaining up to 222 early learning and care centres will be considered when the child care market is settled and based on the experience of the priority centres.
For an issue which formed such a significant part of the government’s early childhood policy, this is certainly a significant backflip. The collapse of ABC Learning has raised all sorts of demand and supply issues within the childcare industry. In order to provide some certainty in the childcare market, the industry’s main requirement now is to have some idea where the demand hotspots and chronic undersupply are actually located.
The government has not helped this uncertainty; in fact, it has contributed to it by refusing to release the childcare vacancy data which was last released publicly under the Howard government in April 2007. I will take this opportunity, as we canvass a range of childcare issues in this bill, to once again implore the minister and parliamentary secretary to do something about providing an indication of vacancy rates in the childcare sector. This is one of the most crucial things the government can do to help with the future planning and viability of the sector. The sector has effectively been flying blind without these figures since April 2007. Alarmingly, the utilisation rate in long day care in the 2006 childcare census was 74 per cent, down from 85 per cent in the 2004 census. That is a dramatic drop in just two years. Now it has been three years and we do not know what the situation currently is.
As I understand it, the government will no longer conduct the census, as it collects very similar data through the new Child Care Management System. I note that the parliamentary secretary announced on the fifth of this month that the CCMS is now fully operational. If that is the case, surely this means that the government can now provide an accurate indication of utilisation rates within every centre across the country. While I concede this does not present the full story on oversupply and undersupply, it is an important and significant indicator. There is growing anecdotal evidence that there is an oversupply in some areas, just as there is a shortage in others. What the industry needs is a clearer picture.
You really have to wonder why the government continue to be so very, very reluctant to reveal the data on vacancy rates. They collect it electronically every single week. It seems to some of us that their reluctance is tied in with their promise to build these 260 new childcare centres. So now the government in the budget papers, on what they considered to be their very clear and unequivocal election promise, have created even greater uncertainty. We have seen a promise of 260 centres and now we have seen a backflip on this promise. The actions of the government, by refusing to release the vacancy data, are contributing to this uncertainty and instability. They have indicated that they may revisit the issue of the 260 centres when there is greater certainty in the childcare market. But if they do not help create greater certainty by releasing vacancy data then they will not be helping the industry and they certainly will not be helping themselves get back on track with their election promises. The two-line reference on budget night seems like a pretty good ‘out clause’ if you ask me. I do not believe the government have any intention of revisiting that particular election promise.
Despite the concerns that I have raised today over the government’s handling of child care generally over the past 18 months, the opposition will support this bill because it is essentially a housekeeping bill. I thank the parliamentary secretary and her office for making some of the departmental officers available for a briefing and also for the written reassurances on the issue of the 30-day notification for parents. I commend the bill to the House.
I rise to speak in support of the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care) Bill 2009. Before I start talking about the substance of the bill, I note that it is interesting that the member for Indi talked about an unacceptable situation. I will tell you what was an unacceptable situation: one of the first acts of the Howard government was to disinvest in childcare centres in this country. It is a fact that the Howard government spent one-fifth of what our OECD colleagues did when it came to funding for education in the early childhood sector. That is a fact. They underinvested in the area.
It is also a fact that it was on their watch that the ABC Learning Centres debacle emerged and grew and grew. The ABC Learning Centres situation—the catastrophe that the Rudd Labor government had to deal with—happened on the watch, and with the consent, approval and approbation, of the Howard coalition government. We have had to fix that up. Because the member for Indi mentioned the ABC Learning Centres, in the course of this speech I am going to go through and show how the government has worked in an early, decisive and constructive way with the sector, with the court appointed receivers and with the families affected to ensure good outcomes across the country for the 120,000 children in the 1,000 ABC Learning Centres across the country which were put in jeopardy. I am going to give the example of just one centre, in the largest suburb in my electorate, where the outcome was favourable; indeed, it was a terrific outcome for the local community.
The amendments in the legislation before the House are quite technical, but they do go towards improving the accountability, administration and accessibility of the sector. In the second reading speech on this bill, the Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Childcare said:
The Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care) Bill 2009 … marks another step along this government’s path to accessible, affordable, high-quality child care for Australian children, their parents and carers.
This bill is about the three pillars: administration, accessibility and accountability. It is about ensuring that our children, from the cradle to the creche and to the primary schools that they will attend, get the kind of education and care that we believe is appropriate in a fair, just and prosperous country.
As I said, the changes in the bill are quite technical, but they are important. For example, the change of the name of the rebate from the ‘childcare tax rebate’ to the ‘childcare rebate’ is simply a statement of reality. It is no longer a tax offset; it is a benefit through the Family Assistance Office. It makes it more comprehensible to the public, and they know it is not a tax rebate but in fact a benefit. The substitution of the childcare rebate on the death of a parent or guardian is a sensible outcome. It is sad for children when their parents or guardians pass on, so it is important to ensure that the individual who assumes the care, control and what we used to call the custody of a child receives the CCR entitlement to assist them in providing the basic necessities of life for that child.
It is important that we ensure the recovery of debt where there is a debt owed to the Commonwealth in the form of a CCR overpayment. These amendments require that you take into consideration also the fact that we introduced quarterly CCR payments from July 2008. The civil penalties are appropriate, through regulation under family assistance law. Imposing civil penalties and issuing infringement notices is important to ensure rigorous accountability in the sector. If the matter goes to court, we know that the courts have a discretion to review the infringement notices issued and to take into consideration the nature and character of the organisation—its size, for example—in determining whether a penalty should be upheld or an alternative penalty imposed. But it is important that there be a civil penalty regime to deal with noncompliance.
The amendments with respect to the childcare rebate for the final quarter are also prudent and appropriate. This will allow the final CCR quarterly payment to be withheld until an individual taxpayer knows what their taxable income will actually be so that, when the final payment is made, there will be no overpayment or underpayment. It is important that people who deal with the Family Assistance Office ensure that they advise the office of any overpayments or underpayments so that they can adequately adjust their income and the government knows their true situation for the purposes of the provision of child care and out-of-pocket expenses.
It is important that these recipients, who may or may not be listening, understand that we have two types of benefit. We have childcare benefit, which is a payment by the Australian government that helps individuals with respect to the cost of child care. It can be taken as a lump sum or as reduced childcare fees. It is dependent on a person’s income, the type of care used, whether it is approved or registered, the amount of care used, whether they pass work, training or study tests and the number of children in their care. I would encourage all those people who may be listening to log on to the website www.mychild.gov.au to find out more information in relation to that. The second type of benefit, if I can put it that way, is the childcare tax rebate, which we are renaming, as I said. It is a payment made to the individual by the Australian government to help the family with the costs of child care. It is separate from the CCB. To be eligible for this rebate, you must have used an approved childcare centre and be eligible for the CCB, even if entitled at the zero rate. There is no income test for this type of rebate. If you are eligible for the CCB, you can get this as well. (Quorum formed)
The member for McPherson, who is the shadow spokesperson for ageing, seems to simply not be interested in children. There were 120,000 children at ABC Learning Centres across the country whose places were in jeopardy. The financial security of their families was in jeopardy and their arrangements in terms of family life were in jeopardy. And what do we get today? We get quorum calls. They are not interested in this topic. The fact that they want to call quorums on us during debate on an important bill like this indicates their lack of sensitivity to this issue and their lack of understanding of the necessity of certainty in business and certainty for the many people who use childcare centres across the country. They are a necessity in family life in this day and age. It is a disgrace that the opposition should engage in the type of juvenile action that we have seen time and time again today.
We have fulfilled our election commitment and we will continue to be assiduous in fulfilling our election commitments. The member for Indi should have a good look at the election commitments that we made in relation to areas of her portfolio if she thinks that we are not doing so. Unlike the opposition, we tell the people of Australia up front what we are going to do, and we do it.
When it comes to the childcare tax rebate, we made an election commitment to increase it to 50 per cent to benefit families across the country and to pay it quarterly, and that is what we have done. We did it from 1 July 2008. That makes an appreciable difference to the financial security and the livelihoods of people across the country. That is important.
The opposition failed to do anything of the sort during their tenure. The member for Indi talked about what we were doing in terms of help for Australian families in the area of child care. I thought that she was here on budget night, but she must not have been. For her benefit, I will go through a few of our plans with respect to child care. The Rudd government is investing $12.8 billion over the next four years to help 800,000 Australian children in child care. We are investing $2.5 million to provide a childcare estimator to help families make decisions about this. The childcare tax rebate will provide $4.4 billion over four years to assist working families with childcare costs. The CCB will deliver $8.4 billion over four years to reduce childcare fees. We are 100 per cent committed to quality child care for the people of Australia.
When the childcare problems emerged with respect to the ABC Learning Centres, we acted in the way that was necessary in the circumstances. On 6 November 2008, ABC Learning, Australia’s largest provider of child care, entered voluntary administration. The government stepped in with a support package of $22 million to ensure that the centres would continue to operate while the receiver, McGrathNicol, undertook a review of its operations. The government’s childcare industry task force met with the receivers and assisted the review of the operational data of each centre. The government immediately set up a dedicated information hotline to provide basic information to parents and employees about the announcement. It provided necessary information on the website, mychild.gov.au. This provided invaluable assistance to parents in these circumstances.
In December, the receiver announced that 720 centres would continue to operate as ABC1 and that 55 would close, with children being accommodated in neighbouring centres. A further 262, including 21 defence centres, were not viable. The government provided a further package of $34 million for these non-viable centres, known as the ABC2 group, which became the subject of an expression of interest and which were run by the court appointed receiver, PPB. On 13 March 2009, the Deputy Prime Minister noted PPB’s progress as they commenced the exchange of contracts for the first tranche of centres. At that time, it became clear that the number and complexity of the offers meant that PPB required an extension of its appointment to mid-May 2009. You can see that the government got involved in this issue to support working families across the country.
On 15 April 2009 PPB announced the outcome of the expression of interest for ABC2 centres and specified that 200 centres would continue to operate with new operators and that 19 centres would close, as no new operator had been found. However, alternative child care had been identified in neighbouring centres for all of the children. Four centres had closed during the EOI; eight centres would continue to be reviewed by PPB; the 21 defence sites would move to a new management arrangement with B4Kids; the 75 new operators of the centres were a mix of small and big and private and not-for-profit organisations; and it was expected that about 85 per cent of the staff would be retained in all the circumstances, which is a good outcome for the staff. The ABC1 centres remain in the control of the ABC receiver, McGrathNicol. A process to determine their future is yet to be announced.
So from the position we had in November last year when we had to step in after the failure of the Howard government, where it appeared 1,000 childcare centres would be in jeopardy, we are now in the position where the future of just a handful of centres remains unresolved. Approximately 120,000 children have certainty. There is certainty for their families. There is certainty for the staff. There is certainty for the businesses for which the parents work. The government has worked in a dedicated and determined fashion to ensure stability in the childcare sector following the upheaval caused by ABC Learning Centres’ voluntary administration.
Locally, an expression of the government’s commitment can be found at the Brassall Shopping Centre, where an ABC centre was at risk of closure. With increased demand for child care across Ipswich we saw Bush Kidz Day Care open its doors to replace the ABC Learning Centre on 11 May 2009. Bush Kidz refused to accept that closures in the Ipswich community were necessary. There was a united and tenacious team, led by Bush Kidz Area Manager Ms Lolita Brennan and the family owners and operators of Bush Kidz: Mrs Ronelle Kearney, Mr John Kearney and Mr Brent Stokes. They joined with the centre owners and the Brassall Shopping Centre management to secure the centre’s future. Mr Stokes said:
The support and encouragement from everyone has made this possible.
He also said:
We could not have achieved this without the tremendous support from the Federal Member for Blair, Mr Shayne Neumann M.P., the State Member for Ipswich West, Mr Wayne Wendt M.P., and Councillor Cheryl Bromage—
I might add, all of whom, including me, have their offices at the Brassall Shopping Centre.
Bush Kidz is committed to working closely with their new colleagues, including the current Brassall childcare centre director, Kylie Smith, and her fantastic team, to ensure all staff employment and enrolments for existing families remain secure. Bush Kidz is a wonderful organisation. It is a multi award-winning childcare service. It received the 2008 Business Achievers Award in Tuition, Training and Children’s Services and the Commonwealth Bank’s Small Business Champion Award in 2008.
We have seen an increase in enrolments by approximately five per cent since Bush Kidz have taken over and it is estimated that in the next few weeks there will be another 17 per cent increase. This is a fantastic outcome that would not have happened without the support of the Rudd Labor government. (Time expired)
Reading the second reading speech for the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care) Bill 2009 delivered by the Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Childcare I was interested to see how she summed up the bill. She said:
… this bill is about administration, accessibility and accountability—what I could call the AAA rating.
That was a fairly nifty use of the English language. I certainly would not in this House want to in any way, shape or form suggest that the parliamentary secretary was less than sincere in supporting the purposes of this bill for the reasons she outlined.
When I look at what the bill seeks to do, it seems that any reasonable person would have to support the bill, and that is what the Liberal-National opposition are doing in the House today. The bill will make changes to allow the final quarterly payment of the childcare tax rebate to be withheld until a parent’s taxable income is determined for that financial year. The government has advised us that the reason for this is to reduce the number of families who are overpaid or underpaid. That certainly makes a lot of sense and appears to be logical.
The bill also seeks to align the operation of the CCR provisions with the childcare benefits in the case of a deceased individual. That means that, if an individual who received CCR payments passes on and the child continues to attend approved care, the payments can continue to be received by another approved adult who takes over guardianship of the child. Again, no-one could object to that provision.
The bill allows for those people who have been assessed at a zero rate for the CCB to request a review of their entitlements within two years of the relevant year that they received the zero rating. Where a variation to the CCB is made as a result of the review, an automatic review will be done in relation to the CCR payments. Again, that is not unreasonable.
Civil penalties are imposed on childcare operators who breach their obligations in relation to when and how they notify their intention to cease operations. My understanding is that the current provisions provide that 30 days notice be given before a centre can close. Yet, only about 14 days ago, the ABC centre at Altona North in Victoria—a centre to which the government appointed receivers and on 5 May said would remain open, with final negotiations to be completed—announced that it would close and parents were given only six days notice. So six days notice was given but the law requires 30 days notice. It is understandable that the government would seek to impose civil penalties on childcare providers who breach their legal obligations.
Logically, also, the childcare tax rebate is being renamed as the childcare rebate because the payment is now made as a quarterly payment through family assistance legislation rather than as a tax offset under taxation legislation.
I have held a view for a very long time that the cost of child care for a working person is as much a cost of earning assessable income as would be the purchase of tools by a tradesman or the purchase of reference books by an accountant or a lawyer. I must say that this is not Liberal-National opposition policy and it is certainly not government policy. But I have had a view that childcare expenses ought to be fully tax deductible and that that way there would be a linkage between them and the cost of producing the assessable income. The linkage would mean that before the income is actually assessed for tax the cost of producing that income would be taken into account and the person’s taxable income would therefore be reduced by the amount of the childcare payment.
For a whole range of reasons, including equity and the fact that there are people who are not in the paid workforce but who benefit from child care—and I accept that as well—this view of mine has not been adopted by any major political party. But I do think that as far as working people are concerned it makes a very fair case for childcare costs to be fully tax deductible and then, for those people who need child care for other reasons, the law as it currently stands could well be actioned with respect to those people. We will just have to wait and see whether anyone ever picks this up. But I find it quite amazing that many people who are in the paid workforce do not actually object to the fact that they are not receiving as a tax deduction the full cost of what they pay out. If they did not pay that out they would not be able to earn the assessable income because, in many cases, they would not be able to go to work.
Having said that, this is a bill that does enjoy the support of the opposition as well as the government. The bill includes housekeeping measures as well as amendments that the government would want us to accept as a result of the failure of ABC Learning. It is also a bit of a worry that you can have one operator who controls such a large section of the industry, as we saw with respect to ABC Learning. I suppose it does not really matter who controls the centres, but when you have a market failure, as occurred with respect to ABC Learning, clearly that has an incredible impact. We saw the action by the government, which was forced on the government, to ensure that those families who relied on ABC Learning were not left entirely in the lurch. The government, I believe, could well have handled the ABC Learning fiasco much better, but that is history—we are not discussing the ABC Learning fiasco in the debate on this particular bill. Because this bill, when you look at it as a freestanding bill, is worthy of support I am very happy to commend it to the chamber.
in reply—I thank those members of the House who have contributed to this debate. I particularly thank the member for Blair for his very comprehensive appreciation of everything that the government is doing in this important area of early learning. The Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care) Bill 2009 continues to strengthen childcare governance. The bill builds on the comprehensive package of childcare initiatives that was passed last year through the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Budget and Other Measures) Act 2008.
Our first step is to rename the rebate as the childcare rebate in recognition that the payment is now made through the Family Assistance Office. We are creating a debt recovery provision so that if a person’s childcare rebate exceeds the entitlement determined at the end of the income year the difference is a recoverable debt.
We are taking further steps to simplify the calculation of the rebate for the income year and we will pay the rebate to an individual in substitution for someone who has died. Measures contained in this bill will also strengthen the compliance framework.
We are enabling the extension of the civil penalty and infringement notice regime through regulations and we are tightening the link between a service and an operator to hold operators liable for meeting the obligations imposed on their service.
We are introducing a power to request information when a childcare service has notified that it is ceasing operations. In particular, this power will introduce a requirement for an operator of an approved childcare service that is ceasing operations to notify the department in the form, manner and way specified by the secretary. Within that notice we intend to include a requirement for a service operator to provide evidence of the written advice of their intention to close and the fact that they have sent it to the families of the children enrolled at that centre. This change will work in concert with the amendments that allow the imposition of civil penalties through regulation. For example, regulations could be put in place so that a civil penalty would apply in a case where an operator failed to provide evidence of written advice of their intention to close to the families of children enrolled at that centre.
Through these measures we will continue to protect the government’s investment in child care. Last year the government delivered on its commitments to child care. We said we would do more. Through this bill we are doing more and we will continue to do more to meet the childcare needs of the Australian community.
I note that this bill is making a number of technical amendments to improve the operation of Australia’s childcare sector, but in the debate I noticed that the member for Indi also made a number of comments regarding ABC Learning. In particular, she raised the issue of problems in relation to one centre at Altona North. I want to put on the record the fact that PPB, the court appointed receiver, wrote to all families involved in the Altona North centre about the receivership process on three occasions—families received letters on three occasions. It is of course regrettable that this centre is closing; however, alternative local care is available and has been offered to all the affected families and children. Nonetheless, I certainly concede that this has been stressful for families, and particularly for employees.
But I would like to take a minute to put this into perspective. Given what the outcome could have been last year, when the vast empire that was ABC Learning went into receivership—an empire that extended to 1,084 centres—and we were faced with the possible loss of tens of thousands of childcare places, for a start, the management by the government and the receivers has been remarkable. Today I note the member for Indi spoke about what parents need. In cleaning up the mess of the ABC corporate collapse, I think the Rudd government has shown the ultimate concern and respect for the children, for the parents and for all of the employees involved. Throughout, we have acted to provide stability and certainty.
As I said in my second reading speech, this bill looks to improve the administration and accessibility of childcare entitlements and the accountability of the childcare service operators. It is clearly a step in learning the lessons of ABC Learning to ensure that this mistake is never repeated. I note as well, though, that the member for Indi—remarkably, really—said that the government was not on top of things. I have to say, it requires spectacular front to make that claim, when you consider that the member for Indi was a member of the previous government and, during the Howard years, the entity that became known as ABC Learning grew unchecked. We saw unchecked commercial growth. When it went into receivership last year we had to clean up the mess. We have done that and we are acting in many other areas. We have very ambitious plans with regard to early learning. I note that the member for Indi made no mention of these things. We are acting on quality early learning. We are acting on ratios. We are making an unprecedented commitment and investment in training. And, most importantly, we have acted on affordability. Today we heard from the member for Blair, who made the point that we acted on our first promise in the budget last year and introduced the 50 per cent rebate—that is, 50 per cent of all out-of-pocket expenses. That has made child care more affordable than it has ever been.
I will finish on one other important point, something we did not promise in the election campaign. In this budget, during what is going to be a very difficult year, we have done the best possible thing for parents right across the country: we aim to introduce a universal system of paid paternity leave, something that the Howard government never managed to do during the long boom years. We have very big ambitions in early learning. I think it is time the opposition got on board.
The Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care) Bill 2009 fundamentally strengthens governance in child care. I commend the bill to the House.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Messages from the Governor-General reported informing the House of assent to the bills.
Debate resumed from 13 May, on motion by Mr Albanese:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Nation Building Program (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2009 reinforces what we already know about the Rudd Labor government: it is all about spin. It has certainly been about debt, spending, unemployment and running an economy into the ground, but fundamentally it has been about spin. We are all amazed that this government has managed to blow a budget surplus of more than $20 billion and turn it into an astonishing $58 billion deficit in just 18 months. We already know that Australia is facing a gross debt of at least $315 billion, or around $15,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. And of course that $315 billion does not include the $40 billion that is going to have to be borrowed for the broadband fantasy or the $60 billion for projects that have been referred to by the government in its Nation Building Program, for which additional money is required. We do not know how much we are up for with the Ruddbank or for defence commitments and any number of other spending initiatives that the government may be intending to take between now and the time when that debt peaks. We also know that a very large proportion of this debt is due not to revenue downturns but to reckless spending decisions that the government has taken.
But what is worst of all is that there is no plan to repay this money. Labor has no idea where the funds are going to come from to repay the spending spree that has been going on in recent times. We all know that there is really only one plan: to spend, spend, spend and then rely on the next coalition government to pay it off. It took 10 years to pay off the last debt. How long is it going to take to pay off the current one?
Labor often criticises the coalition for not having spent enough when in government. The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government is a frequent offender in this regard, saying, ‘We are spending where the previous government didn’t spend.’ What the minister for infrastructure needs to remember is that when we were in government we were paying for what Labor spent the last time it was in government. The key issue is not so much how much you can spend in a day but how much you can actually pay for.
In fact, there are many things that the previous coalition government would have loved to have done—worthwhile projects we would have liked to have pursued—but we could not because we had an interest and redemption bill to pay on the previous government’s mismanagement. Of course, the next coalition government is going to face similar difficulties. No-one believes that any Labor government will ever retire debt. The reality is that the next coalition government will also not be able to spend as much as we would like on roads, rail and other things because we will be paying off debt. But that is not something that Labor should be boasting about; they should be ashamed of the fact that they will leave behind such a deficit for future governments and future generations to repay. To be out there boasting about how much is going to be spent, when all of that money is going to have to be borrowed, much of it from overseas, so that these projects can proceed, is only telling a very small proportion of the story. There are potholes that will not be filled in the future because of the expenditure that is going on today. When you buy a new car, you get the pleasure out of the purchase of that car, but you cannot afford to buy another one until you have paid off the one you have. You spend the next few years going without other things because you are paying off your car. This kind of simple lesson in household budgeting seems to have been lost on the incumbents on the government benches.
The government uses a lot of rhetoric and spin to talk about the work that it has been doing—the so-called revolutionary processes and the biggest spending program in history—all of which is essentially empty spin. Infrastructure Australia, for instance, is not the first to have some kind of a process to assess projects on their merits. Infrastructure Australia is not the first to have transparent opportunities for public input into assessing road projects and making decisions about infrastructure expenditure. AusLink was established to achieve those sorts of objectives. It involved consultation with the states. The community even had opportunities to make suggestions about projects which should be considered, and that entire process was undertaken in a fair and appropriate manner. If there is some suggestion that there was a coalition conspiracy about the projects that were funded, I would remind you that all of the state governments were Labor for a fair proportion of that time and they were actively involved as partners in this process and were generally co-funders. So, in reality, there has always been an open and transparent process. In fact, a stark change in the way in which this government is dealing with issues is that the processes of Infrastructure Australia are clearly not open and transparent. They are not available for public scrutiny. None of the documents are going to be released. We saw the spectacle during Senate estimates yesterday of the minister flatly refusing to provide any of the data that might support the choices that the government has made in relation to the funding announcements. I am going to talk more about that later.
This legislation is another example of where spin is actually triumphing over economic sustainability. It is an example of spin to cover up economic incompetence. The key element of this bill is a name change. That is right; it is just a name change. It is changing the name of AusLink to the Nation Building Program. It is remarkable that the government would consider using the resources of the public purse, the time needed to draft legislation and the priority given in parliament to what is essentially a piece of spin-doctoring. It is perhaps not surprising, though, because the government think that using the time of this place for a rebranding exercise, to change the name of something that was a great success but is also linked to the previous government, is a worthwhile activity. The government are trying to wipe out the memory of AusLink. AusLink, in the hearts of Australians, is associated with the previous government, and we cannot have anything good that the people love find its way through a Labor government. So they changed the name. This has been a successful program and its name is being changed for no other reason than it was associated with the previous government.
During the election campaign Labor were quite happy to talk about projects that were going to be funded under AusLink and AusLink 2. They allowed the word to pass their lips on hundreds of occasions during the election campaign, but when they came into office they started choking on the word. So we started seeing new descriptions of the program that everyone knew was AusLink 2. First they started talking about a ‘building Australia program’. Those words were attached to projects in December 2008, but on 5 February 2009 in a COAG communique AusLink was turned into the Nation Building Program. That is the term that the George Orwell robots in the minister’s office have settled on, and that is why we have this bill of spin and the rewriting of history. It says so much about the government that they consider this legislation a priority to be brought on in budget week.
The bill is designed to encourage the error and create the myth that nation building is something unique to Labor. It is not. We see the Prime Minister running around with his helmet on and the tractors starting up behind him while the television cameras are in sight. That is the kind of thing we are getting—spin and the image but no substance. The commitment to infrastructure lies with those who have delivered it over the years and delivered the sound economic management to be able to build things and pay for them—namely, the coalition. I remind members of the Labor Party that infrastructure spending in Australia boomed during the years of the coalition government. In spite of what you may hear the minister say during question time about us having done nothing in government, the reality is that, according to the engineering construction activity index published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in constant 2007 dollar terms infrastructure spending increased from $21 billion in 1996 to over $56 billion by 2007. Put another way, infrastructure spending in Australia rose from just under three per cent of GDP in 1996 to nearly 5½ per cent of GDP in 2007.
So much for Labor’s claims that infrastructure spending declined under the coalition. It is true that, in the early years of government, the task of repaying the debt consumed resources that might otherwise have been spent on road funding. But when AusLink was introduced there was a massive increase in road funding. For the first time we had a national plan which dealt with infrastructure requirements in the years ahead, a plan which schematically dealt with the corridors around the country, identified the task and looked at the best way to deal with it, whether it be road or rail—and there was a significant increase in expenditure at that time. It was the coalition, not Labor, that established AusLink. It was the coalition, not Labor, that developed Australia’s first national land transport plan since Federation. It was the coalition, not Labor, that massively increased expenditure on upgrading road and rail.
Under AusLink the coalition government spent more on nation building than any other Commonwealth government since Federation. In terms of AusLink 2, the former coalition government, in 2007-08, pledged to invest $31 billion in transport infrastructure. Labor have never matched this. They are committing less money over the next five years on transport infrastructure than the coalition had pledged over the same period. In 2009-10, Labor will spend nearly $1.5 billion less on transport than in 2008-09. There are two key points here. Firstly, the Labor Party say they have a huge program on road and rail infrastructure. The truth is that they will spend less on road and rail over the next six years than the coalition had committed—less, not more. This program represents a reduction in expenditure on road and rail from what the coalition had committed. Secondly, the government are talking about an increase in expenditure to deal with a recession, and they say we need to have some kind of stimulus program. They are actually going to spend $1.5 billion less in 2009-10 than has been allocated this year. So the whole of what Labor are talking about is empty spin.
Mr Laurie Ferguson interjecting
I am opposed to the cuts in expenditure on road funding that Labor have introduced—and I will explain why I am opposed to that as we go further. The key element of Labor’s proposal was the idea that Infrastructure Australia would transparently assess projects on their merits. Sir Rod Eddington was appointed, with a group of mates, to make these assessments and deliver advice to the government on which projects should be funded. But they will not tell us what any of this advice was. They will not release any of the documents. They will not release any of the data. In fact the only thing we have from Infrastructure Australia is a list of 97 projects last year—and now we have Labor’s national infrastructure priority report of 2009.
But Labor have not chosen the projects on their list that are identified as ones to be funded. Some of those projects are included, but other projects that merely have potential have been funded—they have been brought forward. And other projects that are on none of the lists have been funded. In fact the government have now publicly admitted that they chose the projects. The Infrastructure Australia exercise was completely irrelevant. It was a waste of taxpayers’ money and a waste of the resources of people who meaningfully made contributions to the assessment process. Their advice was simply ignored. Labor had already made up their minds which projects were going to be funded. Many of the projects appeared on Labor’s election promises list and were therefore somehow immune from Infrastructure Australia’s processes. Are they being funded on the basis of their merits—or not? It sounds like the Better Regions Program to me—the Better Regions rort—under which Labor’s election promises are being funded whether or not they have any merit. No-one other than Labor candidates could even apply for this particular scheme—and won’t I be looking forward to the Auditor-General’s report into this program! I hope the Auditor-General will also do a report into the Infrastructure Australia process, because it too has been designed to cover up the facts rather than expose them.
We have a list of projects that have been announced. It is in fact Labor’s list. It is not Infrastructure Australia’s list at all. These are projects that Labor have chosen. The list includes some projects which Labor had committed to but the coalition had not. It does not include some projects that we had committed to but Labor had not. It commits to some projects that both sides of politics had committed to. If the government want to make decisions about which projects are going to be funded, they should be honest about it and say they are making all the decisions for their own political reasons. Don’t try and blame Sir Rod Eddington or someone else and try to pretend there is some kind of open process when clearly it has not been there.
I will now discuss some of the specific projects that are being funded by the government. There are two projects that have been brought forward on the government’s claim that they are shovel ready. This is part of the government’s problem: they have all these grand ideas but none of the projects are ready to start. Not only do they not have the money; they do not have the engineering plans, and the planning process has not been gone through. So some of these projects are years and years away. Indeed, many of the projects in this budget go out for more than a decade before they are actually funded. So much for them being a stimulus package.
But there are two projects that are genuinely shovel ready. One of them is the F3 extension to Branxton in the Hunter Valley. That is genuinely ready because the previous government had spent $109 million getting it genuinely ready. We purchased the land and got the design process underway, and it was ready to go. Indeed, the member for Hunter was very supportive of this project before the last election. But on the very day after the election he withdrew his support and the project was put on hold for 18 months. Here is a project that was shovel ready 18 months ago and Labor did nothing. Instead they commissioned a new study, a new report, on the traffic needs of the Hunter.
I do not know what has happened to that study—it has not seen the light yet—but they are going ahead with the project that we had ready to go. All Labor have done with this project is delay it for 18 months, by which time the cost has gone up further. So it was ready, all right, but give the credit where it was due: it was shovel ready because the previous government had got it shovel ready. But, of course, we cannot have the previous government being given too much credit for it, so it is not going to be called the F3 to Branxton anymore. In a new piece of spin, it is now going to be called the Hunter Expressway so somebody might think that it is actually a different project from the one that they held up for 18 months.
The second project that was genuinely shovel ready is the 12-kilometre Cooroy to Curra section of the Bruce Highway. That is shovel ready because the Queensland government got it shovel ready because it is the road that goes around the Traveston Crossing dam. We all hope the Traveston Crossing dam will not be built and that the Commonwealth will have the good sense to honour its environmental responsibilities and stop the project. But, if it goes ahead, nine kilometres of the Bruce Highway will be flooded. Nine kilometres will go under water by 2011, so if the government does not start building this road now there will be a nine-kilometre gap in the national highway that you will have to traverse by boat. That is why this project is shovel ready. In fact, the Queensland Minister for Main Roads said before the last state election that they were going to pay for the whole road themselves. The Queensland government intended to build this, to actually fund it—and they had the money there to fund it. The Commonwealth government has been conned into funding a project that the Queensland government intended to pay for, and it is trying to make some kind of a virtue of it.
The second thing that the minister often says is that they are doing it when the previous government did not do it. Again, let me make this point absolutely clear: it was the previous government that got the four-lane highway up to Cooroy; it was the previous government that significantly upgraded the existing road, including the work that is being done through Gympie at the present time; and it was the previous government that did the design work to get it to the stage where, with a route identified, the project can proceed. That had not been done by previous Labor state governments, but we did all the work to get it to that stage. This is a project that is shovel ready because it is a part of a dam scheme that the state government had already developed.
I will also make some comments about the quite appalling way in which the minister and the Prime Minister have tried to make out that this is some kind of compassionate program. He referred to the 13 people who have been killed on this section of road over recent years. There have in fact been 54 lives lost between Cooroy and Curra over that period, only 13 of them on this section, and very few, if any, since the road was upgraded in 2006. A significant amount of money was spent on safety improvements on that section of the road, including a centre fence, because this section had been laid with a stone mastic service which proved to be unsafe in wet times. Most of the accidents and fatalities that have been referred to have in fact been on a section of road that has subsequently been repaired, so if they actually want to fix the places where people are dying at the present time they should choose other sections. Indeed, there was a serious accident earlier this week—the news report said ‘mother critical’—but it was not on the section where the Prime Minister has been out with his hard hat on, pretending that they are doing this to deal with the safety problems on the road.
Let me say that there are safety problems on all sections of this road—it all needs to be fixed— and it is reasonable that this section be considered in that context. However, the government has not solved the safety problems on the Cooroy to Curra section by building this section of road. The most dangerous sections still remain to be done. So I call on the government to honour the coalition’s commitment made at the last election to complete this section by 2020. Put forward the necessary funding to make sure there will be an ongoing program so that this ‘death’ highway can in fact be rebuilt.
There are many other projects of this nature that remain on the list, but key Labor election promises remain unfulfilled. Labor’s pledge to allocate $840 million for a dedicated freight line between Strathfield and Gosford, dealing with one of the most serious rail freight bottlenecks on the east coast, remains delayed for another study. We are still waiting for Labor to duplicate the Western Highway from Bacchus Marsh to the South Australian border, as it promised, and for Labor to honour its commitment for $2½ billion for the missing link from the Gateway Motorway to Nudgee in north Brisbane.
We need to look at some of the other projects that are being funded. It is quite interesting that the government is going to spend significant funding on the Pacific Highway, as did the coalition. However, Labor has made a significant change. Previously, this project was jointly funded by the New South Wales and Commonwealth governments—it was a 50-50 project. The Commonwealth is now going to pick up the full cost of the Pacific Highway, letting New South Wales off their 50 per cent of the cost. That is a $5 billion plus gift to the bankrupt New South Wales Labor government. Instead of paying their share, they are being let off the hook. Look at some of the other projects that are on this list, such as the proposal to do a $91 million study on the Sydney West Metro. The actual cost of this project will be about $6 billion. There is a $20 million study for the Brisbane inner-city rail. That project is going to cost about $14 billion. Labor cannot pretend they are actually building these things; they are just studying—so we are going to have a study-led recovery.
What about the increased expenditure on the Ipswich Motorway? This is because the cost of the scheme has blown out of all proportion. There is $365 million for the Gold Coast railway, and that is only a possible equity contribution, with no guarantee the project is even going to go ahead. It is described only as a possible equity contribution, so who knows whether we will get any real benefit from that as well. The Darwin port and the Oakajee port also require significant investments by other parties. And if anyone had any idea that perhaps this was some kind of genuine and honest process they only have to look at the Adelaide O-Bahn project. It was announced as a priority project, but it was not even requested by the South Australian government. It was never on the short list that was published by IA in December last year, and yet it is being funded. When it was announced, the minister in South Australia was honest enough to say, ‘Well, that’s a nice surprise; we didn’t even ask for it’—and yet it is supposed to be such a magnificent priority. This is the hypocrisy of the way this government has been behaving. It is addicted to spin.
In the few minutes that are still available to me I want to deal with some of the other features of the bill which again demonstrate some disturbing trends. It is clear that Labor is firing another bullet in its war against regional Australia in this legislation. We already know that most of the $8.4 billion for new projects, funded from the former government’s surplus, will be spent on urban passenger transport projects. There is a significant shift in funding in what the government has announced away from road and rail projects, especially in regional areas, to urban public transport.
This bill modifies part 6 of the principal act, the AusLink (National Land Transport) Act 2005, to enact a basic change to what was known as AusLink strategic regional projects. Members may recall that the AusLink Strategic Regional Program was designed to assist state and local governments to build better transport networks, and to support industry, tourism and economic development. The purpose of the strategic regional program was to foster partnerships and to develop networks to upgrade infrastructure related projects in areas off the National Land Transport Network. Around $469 million went to fund projects under the strategic regional program between 2004 and 2007, and there are many very worthwhile projects around the nation that benefited from that funding. That is going to change because the government want to amend section 55 of the act to remove all references to ‘regional’ and simply rename the strategic regional initiative to become a nation-building program for off-network projects. In other words, the key characteristic of the strategic regional program will cease to exist and funding will be available for urban Australia. You have got regional strategic roads program funding and now it is going to be spent in the cities. This is a clear shift in the priorities of the Labor Party and it will be opposed by the coalition. Clearly, Labor have identified a long list of projects that they intend to fund with this money and $762.5 million, or 86 per cent of what is to be available, has been set aside to fund their election promises. Many of these promises were made for areas that could not be funded under the strategic regional program because they did not meet the guidelines, so Labor are getting rid of the program so they can fund ill-thought-out, ill-considered and ill-valued projects that were simply Labor Party election stunts. This amendment clears the legislative path to use these significant funds for transport related infrastructure away from regional Australia.
There is a second element of major change which we will oppose. I refer to the changes to the Black Spot Program, a very successful program that has saved many lives. The then Bureau of Transport Economics estimated that by 2007 the Black Spot Program had saved at least 130 lives and prevented 6,000 serious accidents by upgrading 4,200 dangerous sites on state and local roads. This was a coalition initiative. We had to restore it after Labor had abolished the program. The government allocated $30 million in 2008-09 and $60 million in 2009-10 to extend its coverage. This is on top of the government’s announcement in December 2008 that it would more than double the Black Spot Program funding for 2008-09 from $50 million to $110 million. So it is pleasing that this Labor government has not done what the previous Labor government did and abolish the program but has indeed committed some additional funding. We welcome that. However, what Labor is now doing is proposing to change the very nature of the Black Spot Program so the benefits will not flow in the future to projects in local communities, to the roads and streets where there have been accidents. In fact, the black spot funding is now going to be available to be spent on the national network, so it will be subsumed into the highway system.
I accept that there are dangerous spots on our highways, but there is a very substantial funding program that provides support for upgrading the highways. We should not be taking away money from projects for local streets and roads to spend it on the national highway network. I wonder whether we will see any money left for the local roads. I wonder whether it is all now going to go on one or two projects for the national highway that would take all this money away. So we will be opposing that element of the bill and will be putting forward an amendment to keep the black spot funding for areas off the National Land Transport Network. They can be in either city or country, as they are now, but the funding should not be allocated into an area which is already funded in substantial quantities through other programs.
This bill is all about government spin and, unfortunately, Labor are attempting to rewrite history to take out of the public’s memory some of the excellent work that the previous government did with road and rail funding. In particular, well-known names like AusLink are to disappear so that any association with the projects of the previous government can be written away. That is just typical of the way in which Labor governments behave: it is all spin. It is all about TV images and 30-second spots on the news. It is all spin and there is no substance. (Time expired)
I have to say there is nothing like living in the past and dwelling on memories of things well back in the past, particularly when those opposite did not deliver on any of this stuff. They may have wanted to just speculate at one time, but in terms of delivery I have got to say the shadow minister for transport and regional development has got a lot to answer for. They had 12 years to do the various things that he has just mentioned. They did precious little.
As I address the Nation Building Program (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2009, I note the Australian Labor Party in government has always been dedicated to building this nation. It is worth acknowledging that this has been evident over a long period of time. Any student of politics would know the values of the Chifley government and its initiation of the hydroelectricity scheme for the Snowy Mountains. It was a nation-building government. Indeed, take the Hawke government, which opened up the economy to competition, and Paul Keating’s government, which introduced the Building Better Cities program. All were part of a broad range of strategies and reforms that indicated innovation, with housing programs with a renewal focus and also urban consolidation. They were big-ticket governments. I know they might get a few criticisms from the people opposite, who want to dwell in the past, but they should look at the contributions that those governments made in not only putting innovation forward but building for this nation’s future. That is a vast contrast from the previous Howard administration, with its wasted opportunities. It failed to build on that tradition of nation building. It actually squandered the nation’s future. We saw that with education. Its contribution to education was to rip $1 billion out of the system. That wasn’t bad, as that was their first year in government! They also managed to take billions of dollars out of the healthcare system. Those are not exactly what you would put down as nation-building efforts.
For too long national budgets under coalition governments had been short-sighted as they focused only on the next election. They continued to ignore the big challenges faced by this country. They squandered the proceedings of the mining boom and the opportunities with resources that we had. What they did not do was invest in this country’s future. There just cannot be an argument about that. Those opposite cannot get up here and try to spin their way out of it. They had the time. They have a track record and, in this regard, their track record was failure.
The bill before the House today reiterates Labor’s commitment to being a nation-building party. This bill should be fully supported by all members of this parliament, if they genuinely do believe in nation building. This is not like the support which was offered by the member for Sturt, the Manager of Opposition Business, in his motion of privilege yesterday. It seems that members opposite are becoming hopelessly embarrassed. When they have to visit their local electorate to talk to schools and local councils about road based infrastructure, claim credit for it and then come into this place and vote against it, it is no wonder they feel embarrassed. They should be embarrassed. People did not put those opposite into parliament to try to capture as much press as they could in their local electorates by aligning themselves with Labor led projects and then coming into this House and voting them down. That is what they have attempted to do and what they continue to do. My colleague here probably wants to have another go at it. (Quorum formed). I know it is embarrassing for those opposite to have to sit down and hear this and for someone to have to come in here and point out the facts.
It is embarrassing for somebody here.
Greg, I had wished that during that quorum a few of your other colleagues had turned up. I would have liked to have seen the member for Cook here. This bill is very much concerned with the issue of black spots. That is very significant and goes to the heart of this bill. Those opposite want to oppose important aspects of the Black Spot Program, as it is contained in this bill. But what do they say when it gets down to their electorates? The member for Cook just got $50,000 for the installation of guard rails on the Pacific Highway at Sylvania. I am glad he did not run down for that quorum. The member for Paterson—big, bold Bob—is likely to do many things in this House, but he has not come in here and said how he welcomed the $450,000 for the installation of traffic lights on the New England Highway at Metford. The member for Cowper, who during the diatribe from the Leader of the Nationals just sat behind him in the House, got $75,000 for three separate projects on the Pacific Highway in Clybucca, Urunga and Corindi. They made much of these projects in their electorates. They went out and tried to claim credit for these things. But the fact of the matter is that they are here, and they will be here again today, voting against this part of the program. When it comes to the issue of what this opposition should be tagged as, ‘hypocritical’ comes to my mind. This bill is central to the delivery of a $26.4 billion road and rail program—the Nation Building program. The bill proposes changes to ensure the more effective provision of major road and rail infrastructure projects throughout the national network, as well as various projects that are off the network. The bill also provides for a more efficient application of the Roads to Recovery Program and the Black Spot Program. As I have mentioned, these are three projects that fall into coalition electorates now.
We need to make these changes now to make sure that we can deliver on our road and rail infrastructure program in the most efficient and effective way. This budget has been carefully crafted to stimulate the economy now to support jobs. But it has also been crafted to build the long-term savings infrastructure to ensure fiscal stability so that the net debt level of this country remains the lowest of all major advanced economies in the world. That might be a tall order, but that is something we have committed to.
Despite all the ranting and raving of the opposition, we have heard absolutely nothing yet of their plan. At this stage they like what we are doing in relation to schools—at least in the local media they like it. Yet they came in here and opposed our $17.4 billion investment in education. They opposed the bill that led to Building the Education Revolution. They came into this place and opposed our commitment to social housing and the building of 200,000 additional houses. They also opposed the maintenance and refurbishment of existing public housing stock. They have a track record. They have already been tagged. They are hypocritical to the extreme.
They do not have a position with respect to the economy. That is pretty clear when you look at the exchanges that have occurred in the media, particularly when you contrast the views of the shadow Treasurer with those of his leader. If you listen to what they have actually said—if you listen to what the shadow Treasurer has said in relation to borrowings—you know they would be running a debt. Of course they would. Not once in the Leader of the Opposition’s budget reply speech did he refer to the effect of the world financial crisis. They have tried to perpetuate this myth that the difficulties we now find ourselves in are a consequence of 18 months of a Labor government. They do not believe that. No-one in the Australian community in their wildest dreams believes that. Most people have a TV set and if they do not they read the newspaper. They actually know what is going on out there. Yet the opposition want to come in here and try to perpetuate these myths with a view to avoiding saying what they would do and simply voting against the initiatives that have been taken by the government.
I concede that the opposition leader has a very hard job. I often said that when we were in opposition. I think the hardest job in the parliament must be that of an opposition leader. Clearly, it is a difficult job. I feel sorry for the bloke.
Chris, you’re all heart, mate!
I am all heart. I have feelings too! But look at what has occurred. Nothing has occurred that has not been for someone’s own personal, political interest. This is an opposition based on spin. It is not based on anything that is contributing to the national debate; it is about running a scare campaign. That is what this is opposition is about.
While I am on the topic of the opposition leader, he has one of those problems we would all love to have. I noticed in reading the Australian newspaper this morning that he is in the BRW top 200 list. He is one of the top-200 richest people in the country. He has assets worth $178 million. (Quorum formed) I acknowledge the embarrassment I have caused the other side by what I have said. They are employing childish tactics to disrupt the parliament. They are feeling a bit precious about something. I invited William Carey Christian School to visit the parliament today, and I would hate to think that the extremely childish and precious tactics employed by the opposition would leave an indelible mark on these young people’s minds about how this opposition perform. I fear that the students will take away from this debate the view that the opposition do not care about the issues in this bill—that is, that the opposition do not care about the efficient delivery of road and rail infrastructure around the country but do care about playing piddling games in this parliament. I would hate to think that young minds would be corrupted like that. I would have hoped that the opposition would have played a more responsible role in the debate and have had a contest of ideas.
I would welcome the opportunity for debate. I have been sitting here eyeballing someone on the other side who wants to have an argument about the application of this bill and what it means for their electorate. I would like the member for Paterson to come in here, be honest and say that he would support the traffic lights for the New England Highway. The member for Cook should come in here and have the argument on whether he wants that money. I am dead sure when he talks to his local newspaper that he will have his photo on the front page and claim some responsibility for getting that $50,000 for guardrails on the Pacific Highway. None of the people who are net beneficiaries of these programs have even had the audacity to front up in this parliament and be honest about the approach.
People listening to this debate can at least take one thing away. The Labor government are committed to nation building. We are a Labor government who are going to roll these things out. We are generating jobs and stimulating employment and demand now, but we are also providing assets and infrastructure needed for the economic future of this country. As much as the opposition hate it, they know that it is true. They know that in their heart of hearts, and that is why they all go scurrying away. They do not want to participate in this debate because they know that what we have said is absolutely right on the money.
I would like to finish by mentioning some of the benefits that I have attained in the area of Campbelltown in my electorate of Werriwa. We have done reasonably well in black spot funding. We have been able to ensure that road safety in three specific projects—one in Blairmount, one in Glenfield and one in Minto—is being taken care of. We care for the safety of those people and their families and the victims affected by road accidents. We also care about the police and emergency service people who have to attend to those accidents. (Time expired)
I am here on behalf of the people of Townsville, I am here on behalf of the people of North Queensland and I am here on behalf of the people of rural and regional Australia. I am glad that the member for Dawson is with me because it is likely that both of us will move an amendment to the Nation Building Program (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2009, because this bill should be called ‘southern votes are more important than northern lives’.
Rubbish! Absolute rubbish!
Order! The member for Dawson will come to order.
The member for Dawson well knows, and I do not have to tell him, about the terrible state of the Bruce Highway in North Queensland. I do not have to tell him what needs to be done but has remained unfunded in this current program.
Mr Bidgood interjecting
It is almost like the potholes shake hands with each other. The port access road is not the Bruce Highway, Sir, as you well know. It is the Bruce Highway that we need to attend to. There is no doubt about that. With your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am joined by the member for Blaxland and I understand students from a school in his electorate are in the gallery. We have St Mary’s Primary School from Georges Hall in Western Sydney. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Parliament of Australia. You have a very fine member here in the parliament. Now back to North Queensland. The federal government needs to make the Bruce Highway survivable for Queenslanders and in fact for all Australians.
Under your government they were allocated nothing. You didn’t do anything.
Member for Dawson, how do you explain this? You would rather shave 28 minutes off a journey between Newcastle and the Hunter region, which is not even on the national highway, than look after the national highway in North Queensland. How can your government get it so wrong? The Hunter Expressway is not even on Roads Australia’s list of priority projects, yet it gets $1.45 billion, and North Queensland and the Bruce Highway are only allocated one-third of that. Where is the priority?
You didn’t do anything for 11 years.
It seems to me, Member for Dawson, that your party rates Hunter region votes as more important than the lives of North Queenslanders, and you need to stand up for North Queenslanders. You are not standing up for North Queenslanders. That is what our role is here in the parliament, and that is why I am here at the dispatch box standing up for North Queensland.
Rubbish!
Order! The member for Dawson will come to order.
To add insult to injury: for the projects that are being funded, what is going to happen? I asked the question, ‘Is your super really yours?’ As taxpayers we have been bombarded with rhetoric about the wonders and benefits of the $42 billion nation-building plan and we have even footed the advertising bill. But we are going to pay for much more than just advertising. The government cannot actually afford to pay for all of these projects it has committed to so it is seeking private investors. The trouble is private investors have more sense than to put money into poorly-costed and financially unviable projects. So where is the money going to come from? The government’s advisory group, Infrastructure Australia, has the answer. The plan is to use the $1 trillion of superannuation that Australians have put away for their retirement to plug the $58 billion hole in the disastrous Nation Building Program. I will come back to that in due course.
This is what North Queenslanders are seeing, and they are asking these questions. Why did 15,934 dead people get an estimated $14.3 million in tax bonus payments? How could that be? How is it that Labor is spending $50.8 million to advertise Labor policy? How is it that the broadband waste keeps coming? Taxpayers will pay $703,000 worth of expenses racked up by Labor’s broadband panel of experts and we have this ongoing problem with potholes on the Bruce Highway. The cash splash has put our AAA credit rating at risk, and all Australians will be very concerned about that.
This bill before the parliament is just another example of the Rudd Labor government’s obsession with spin. This bill seeks to rename the AusLink program, which was established by the coalition government in 2005, as members know. It was a landmark program when it was established. It created the first national transport framework in Australia. AusLink 1 commenced in 2004-05 and ran to 2008-09. AusLink 2 was scheduled to run from 2009-10 to 2013-14, until Labor became determined to rename the program. The Labor Party referred to AusLink during the 2007 federal election campaign. From 2008, however, it became clear that the new Rudd government disliked referring to a successful coalition program, so the renaming process began. The first attempt, in December 2008, was to call it the Building Australia program. This must have failed the test of Labor’s spin doctors, as the second name was developed just three months later, in February 2009. The AusLink program has begun to be referred to as the nation building program; thus we see the new name in the present bill. What we can see from the Rudd government is a desire to claim as their own a successful coalition program—and I mean a successful coalition program. Rather than display true commitment to the Australian transport network, the bill displays the Rudd government’s commitment to spin.
Labor has driven us into debt. It has turned a healthy surplus left by the coalition government into $58 billion of debt this coming year. During this time of economic crisis, rather than show true commitment to Australian transport networks, it is more concerned with political acts of renaming projects. Labor has lost control. Labor has lost control of the nation’s finances. Labor’s reckless spending has built a mountain of debt we may never pay off. Everything Labor touches turns to debt. Two-thirds of Labor’s debt is the product of its own new spending commitments. Labor has spent on new commitments $10 million an hour for every hour since it was elected, which is extraordinary.
Labor are assuming 12 years of economic miracles to pay off their mountain of debt by 2022. We all see, as we sit in question time, Labor’s refusal to answer the opposition’s questions about how that debt is actually going to be paid off, and you can see by their silence they do not know. I hope the Australian people see that. Labor are not known for presiding over economic miracles or paying off debt, especially under Rudd and Swan; and, alas, I think our strong record of paying off Labor’s debt will be required again when we return to government. We will make those tough decisions necessary to do it.
The member for Dawson now has to answer the following point: the coalition, of course, are committed to Australia’s transport infrastructure, and that is why we pledged an investment of $31 billion in 2007-08 for AusLink 2, but that is not what we see now from the Labor government. Labor has not committed the same level of funding to the national transport network. Despite all the rhetoric we hear, Labor has not committed the same level of funding that we committed to the national transport network.
You know that’s not true!
Here are the facts. Labor’s claims that they care about the transport infrastructure system ring false. The 2009-10 budget provides for nearly $2 billion less than it is spending on land transport infrastructure in 2008-09. On your own budget papers, you are less $2 billion this year than last year. Despite all the spin and branding undertaken by Labor, it is not delivering true and proper support to the national land transport network.
This bill is what we have come to expect from the Rudd government. The amendments in the Nation Building Program (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2009 demonstrate how the government does not support regional Australia. This is my next point. The government is not supporting regional Australia, and that is why the member for Dawson should be standing and joining with me as a colleague. The member for Solomon, from regional Australia, should also be standing with me demanding our fair share of the government largesse that is currently being spent in the metropolitan areas. A large proportion of the funding for new projects will be spent in urban areas. Regional Australia misses out yet again. The Rudd government seems concerned only with urban Australia, and I am disappointed that my fellow regional colleagues are not supporting me in standing up for regional Australia.
The amendments in this bill alter part 6 in the AusLink (National Land Transport) Act 2005. Under the coalition government’s strategic regional program—and ‘regional’ is important: it is our area, guys—funding was provided to projects not on the national land transport network, most notably in regional areas. The coalition understands the needs of regional Australia and supported valuable projects in such areas. Surprise, surprise! The Rudd government intends to revoke the support for regional Australia. Member for Dawson, I hope you are listening. This bill revokes support for regional Australia. It seeks to do this by amending section 55 to rename the Strategic Regional Project the Nation Building Program Off-Network Project. Under this change, the funds previously earmarked for regional projects could now go to an urban area and, under the track record of the Labor government, will likely go to an urban area.
Labor’s target is the language of the act. Attempts to remove the word ‘regional’ are at the heart of this. But these amendments do more than alter language. They are telling of the Rudd government’s priorities. I fear for North Queensland. I fear we are going to get less and less money allocated to our dangerous road system. Regional industries become only industries. Regional communities become only communities. The bill is trying to delete regional Australia from the program, and I am strongly opposed to these changes. I want ‘regional’ remaining in the language of the government and the language of the act. It is very important that the parliament sends a message to the bureaucracy and to the people of Australia that ‘regional’ is important.
The bill also seeks to allow areas on the national land transport network to be entitled to funding under the Black Spot Program. This is a large change. Councils will be very unhappy with this. The Black Spot Program, originally established by the coalition government, is designed for local roads. It is unfortunate that parts of our national highway are dangerous. Provision and funding for areas on the national network already exist. These areas should not be funded at the expense of funding dangerous local roads. Surely that is common sense. I do not understand why the Rudd government is taking away a very sensible coalition program. It is, of course, something that affects our local councils so much.
Under the amendments contained in this bill, the Black Spot Program itself is subject to a name change. The ‘AusLink Black Spot Program’ becomes the ‘Nation Building Black Spot Program’. The Rudd government is determined to rebrand AusLink as its own. It is undertaking renaming policies on a project as important as this one.
The Rudd government has driven Australia into debt and lost its focus on regional Australia. It is a government that is unable to manage the Australian economy and, in fact, it has lost control of our nation’s finances. It is clearly unwilling to demonstrate the same commitment as the coalition to the national land transport network. In a failed attempt to distract from all of these things, it engages in needless spin.
I want to return to where I started—that is regional Australia and particularly North Queensland. Yes, there is some money announced in the budget for the Douglas arterial duplication—that was announced a year ago. There is money in the budget for the Cardwell Range realignment—that was announced a year ago. There is work on the Townsville port access road, which was announced a year ago. But the spin is to try to get North Queenslanders to think, ‘These are new projects.’ But they are not new projects. They were announced a year ago. You cannot keep claiming credit for the same project as if it were a new project, because people will see it for what it is—government spin.
Mr Bidgood interjecting
I want the member for Dawson to tell me what he thinks about the importance of the Townsville-Mount Isa rail corridor and why the government has not funded that very important nation-building corridor. Why is that? The north-west minerals province relies so much on that rail corridor. The rail is old and out of date. It is not heavy enough in gauge to carry the weights. There are not enough passing loops. Why the member for Dawson does not support investment in the rail corridor—the 900- to 1,000-kilometre rail corridor from Townsville to Mount Isa—I do not know. It is very odd.
I would like to conclude by making this challenge to the member for Dawson: what about the much needed passing lanes on the Bruce Highway? What about them? We need passing lanes every five kilometres. You are the government and you have just dropped North Queensland as a priority. We are second-class citizens. You are more interested in the people of Newcastle than the people of Darwin or Townsville or Mackay. And that is sad. It really is sad. The wealth of this country comes out of regional Australia. Yes; we do not have the population and ergo we do not have the votes. That is the spin from the Rudd government: go where the votes are. But, at the end of the day, if this nation is going to be prosperous it has to have proper regional infrastructure, as it has proper urban infrastructure. We have not got that. When this speech is reported in the Mackay Daily Mercury and the Townsville Bulletin, the residents of North Queensland will see that I was standing up for North Queensland and the member for Dawson was opposing me. I thank the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I seek leave to table this document.
Leave not granted.
Mr Bidgood interjecting
The member for Dawson can seek to table the document when he has the call to make his speech.
I rise today to support the Nation Building Program (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2009, which is central to the effective delivery of the government’s $26.4 billion road and rail program—the nation building program. The previous speaker, for some reason, spoke about why he does not believe that we should build this nation. The program before the House today delivers to projects that will support jobs today and support jobs tomorrow. This program funds essential road and rail upgrades that will improve the capacity of the Australian economy long into the future. This investment in infrastructure is essential if Australia is going to get out of the infrastructure deficit left to us by the previous government. While the previous government, as we know, enjoyed the fruits of the mining boom, they squandered it. They did not use that opportunity wisely. They squandered the opportunity to invest in critical economic infrastructure for the country’s long-term future. And it has now been left to this government to rebuild Australia. We have taken up this challenge with gusto.
I would like to take this opportunity to commend the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government for delivering the nation building program. He is doing so with the full support of the states. This support comes because, unlike the previous government, who, when they talk about infrastructure, really like to just blame the other side—
Mr Pyne interjecting
The member for Sturt might like to listen to some of this. There are some very important things in this.
I remind the member for Sturt that it is actually the prerogative of the chair who the call is given to.
(Quorum formed)
I know that the opposition and members of the previous government do not like to talk about their failings, but I am going to talk about them. They continue to blame the states for infrastructure issues; they play this blame game. The minister for infrastructure has looked at being cooperative with the states and I commend him because he is committed to meeting the needs of local communities and committed to working with the states to deliver important pieces of critical infrastructure for this nation.
I would like to talk about a couple of these examples of investment in my electorate of Kingston. Firstly, among the projects funded by the government’s nation building program is the Victor Harbor Road and Main South Road intersection upgrade. This project received $3.5 million from the federal government in this budget to ensure construction is completed by 2010. The upgrade will provide three northbound lanes on Victor Harbor Road instead of one, three northbound lanes on Main South Road extending through to the Flemington Bridge, two southbound lanes to the Victor Harbor Road, two southbound roads between Seaford Road and Victor Harbor, two right turn lanes into Seaford Road and a left turn acceleration lane out of Seaford Road. This is a big boost for safety for the people in the southern suburbs of Adelaide who use this road. This will ease congestion at an incredibly busy intersection. It is another example of this government delivering on its election promises.
Fixing this intersection will improve access to the Fleurieu Peninsula. The Fleurieu Peninsula is a lovely destination for holiday makers, but often on long weekends there is a huge amount of frustration at this intersection. This intersection will improve access and stop frustrated motorists from taking a parallel route through the Old Noarlunga township. This means less through traffic on our local roads, which will improve safety and quality of life for those in Old Noarlunga. This improvement of the Victor Harbor Road has been demanded by locals for some time. However, it was ignored by the previous government. I just want to illustrate this by quoting David, who lives in the southern suburbs. He sent me an email, which said:
Hi Amanda,
I have lived down south for six years and the bottleneck at Victor Harbor turn-off is getting beyond a joke in the mornings.
I was pleased to tell David that this government is listening to local residents and is doing something about it.
In addition to dealing with one of Adelaide’s worst bottlenecks, the nation building program provides funding for the Black Spot Program, which will provide funding in my electorate for upgrades at Wickham Hill Road at McLaren Flat and Meadows Road at Willunga Hill. This means an extra $235,000 will be invested in an extension of guardrails, shoulder sealing, delineation and signage on a three-kilometre section of the Wickham Road and $185,000 in shoulder sealing on a three-kilometre section of Meadows Road at Willunga. These projects are critical for the safety of residents who use this area. The safety of some of these roads has been raised with me a number of times and I am very pleased to let the residents know that we are concerned about safety, despite what the previous speaker said. We do want to make our roads safer and we are doing just that.
This funding is in addition to the Roads to Recovery funding for southern Adelaide provided in this budget. The Roads to Recovery program is another important part of our nation building program. Through the program, the City of Onkaparinga and the Marion council will receive over $2.3 million. These funds will assist in the maintenance and upgrade of roads across the southern suburbs, and the jobs generated by this activity in tandem will increase the capacity for people in the south. This shows real value infrastructure. We hear a lot from the opposition, who talk about poor spending on infrastructure. My message to the opposition is clear: money provided to my electorate in this budget for local roads is high-quality spending. The investment builds on the investment from the first Rudd government budget for roads in Kingston. The previous budget provided for $2.8 million to both of the councils in my local area, and it was certainly welcomed by my constituents.
The bill before the House today makes administrative changes to ensure that there are more effective provisions for major road and rail infrastructure projects, particularly those that are on and off the national network. It also makes more effective provision for the two programs I have just discussed—that is, the Roads to Recovery and Black Spot programs. For the Black Spot Program, the bill extends coverage of the Nation Building Program Black Spots Project to allow the minister to approve funding under part 7 of the act for projects on the national land transport network. Importantly, the bill also allows the minister to increase funding to Roads to Recovery projects if the minister sees fit. This flexibility is incredibly important, as currently no increases can be made during the funding period once the funding has been determined. This is impractical in the real world, where costs are not stagnant, and certainly not as stagnant as bureaucrats’ lists. We need to make these changes now in order to make sure that the government can deliver on its road and rail infrastructure program in the most efficient way.
The bill before us today is just one part of this government’s nation-building agenda. In addition, we have seen this government create Infrastructure Australia and the Building Australia Fund, which will also invest in major infrastructure projects. I am pleased that one of the projects announced in this budget is the rail extension from Noarlunga to Seaford. I have already mentioned this project a number of times in the House and I will do so again, because this project is critical to the outer metropolitan suburbs of Adelaide. It will create a significant benefit by reducing urban congestion and providing vital public transport infrastructure to those in the outer southern metropolitan suburbs of Adelaide. The outer metropolitan suburbs of Adelaide are growing, and they need this infrastructure. The corridor from Noarlunga to Seaford has existed for 30 years with no previous government doing anything about it.
There are a number of other nation-building projects that have also been mentioned in the budget. Another project in South Australia is the extension of the O-Bahn. The member for Makin has made it clear that he has been calling for this project. The member for Makin, who is here in the chamber—
He was here.
He was here a moment ago; he is no longer here. The member for Makin informed me that previous speakers have said that this project was just dreamt up—
It’s a D’Ath moment.
The interjection from the shadow minister for environment and water suggested that that was an embarrassing moment. I am not sure what is more embarrassing: not investing in infrastructure or realising that someone is not in the chamber. I would say that it is pretty embarrassing not to have invested in infrastructure for so many years—not to have invested in infrastructure in southern Adelaide and not to have made a commitment to the extension of the O-Bahn, which the member for Makin has been calling for for many years. I would say that is pretty embarrassing.
This government’s Nation Building Program will address the previous government’s infrastructure deficit. We hear a lot of criticism from the opposition about deficit. They need to stand up and account for the deficit they left for this nation when it comes to infrastructure. They squandered the proceeds of the mining boom and did not invest in the critical infrastructure that we need today. The Seaford rail is just one example of a project that has been desperately cried out for. This is a project that the local residents association, the council and the state government have all wanted. I am very pleased that this is one of the many nation-building projects around the country that will be delivered. This program, along with the many other programs that have been announced in the budget, will support jobs today by investing in infrastructure that we need for tomorrow. The population is growing in the southern suburbs of Adelaide, and those people want and require this investment in infrastructure.
The bill will help support jobs in Kingston, it will help support local jobs in the southern Adelaide region and it will help employ people right across South Australia. The improvement of Main South Road and the Victor Harbor Road intersection is just one small part in the Rudd government’s investment in infrastructure across the country. The Rudd government is working with councils, working with state governments and cooperatively investing in our future. Along with other projects in southern Adelaide, this is of tremendous importance to the local area and to the economy of South Australia generally. This bill allows for a very effective way to provide these funds. This bill is very much about investing for the future and making sure that we have a nation that is prepared for the future. I have been overwhelmed by support from local residents, who have been clear that this is the type of investment that they want for the future because it shows that this government is planning for the future. It is planning not for five years, not for 10 years but for decades into the future. I therefore commend the bill to the House.
Given the short period between now and question time, I would like to make some introductory remarks on the Nation Building Program (National Land Transport) Amendment Bill 2009. I have a lot of comments that I will be making a bit later on, but one of the issues in nation building that I think the government has addressed and on which it does need to be congratulated is the recognition and financing of the tunnel through the Murrurundi Range. The Minister for Defence is one of many members who would be well aware that there are connectivity issues between the Liverpool Plains and New England as well as issues of transportation through to the port of Newcastle. Currently, a third coal loader is being constructed in Newcastle. That has always been a bit of a bottleneck for the coal industry, but one of the major and significant bottlenecks which has existed for many years is that mountain range between Murrurundi and Willow Tree. So I am absolutely delighted and would like to congratulate the government. The Minister for Defence is in the chamber now, and I acknowledge his role in relation to the Murrurundi Range. It is a much needed piece of infrastructure which is finally being delivered.
Order! It being 2 pm the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 97. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the member for New England will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.
My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his claim that he can repay the nation’s $315 billion debt by 2022. I also refer to the statements from the Treasurer’s office last night confirming that contrary to what was said in the House yesterday these claims are not supported by the budget papers but rather by Treasury modelling. Will the Prime Minister now release the Treasury modelling or are Australian taxpayers just to be left with a debt repayment promise that does not add up?
I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. The government’s strategy for returning the budget to surplus and for repaying the government borrowing is outlined clearly in the budget papers. Furthermore, what I would say to the Leader of the Opposition, as his question goes to the point of numbers, is as follows. We had the clear articulation of the opposition strategy on debt and deficit on display at the doors today. The Leader of the Opposition was asked the following question, given we are all about specificity on budget numbers: ‘What does the coalition regard as an acceptable level of debt?’ The answer from Mr Turnbull was: ‘The level of debt should be no more than is absolutely necessary.’ Then the journalist asked this question: ‘What’s that, then?’ Mr Turnbull’s answer: ‘Well, it’s not a question of a number.’
We have had a two-week strategy from the opposition which is all about numbers, specificity and drilling down, and then when asked a simple question on the doors today—‘Come on, Malcolm, what is it?’—the answer was, ‘Well, it’s not a question of a number.’ Can I just say: this is the ultimate bookending of what began with the Hockey doctrine two weeks ago, which confirmed that the Liberal strategy on deficit and debt is equal to the government strategy on deficit and debt, equal—
Not true!
Oh! ‘$25 billion less,’ they say and then they refuse to back $22 billion worth of savings. So Joe’s position is this. You have a $275 billion Liberal deficit and debt strategy, add $22 billion worth of savings forgone and that equals a $300 billion debt and deficit strategy. That is the Hockey doctrine of two weeks ago. The Turnbull doctrine today says it is not about a specific number. Is it any wonder that nobody actually attaches any credibility whatsoever to this scare campaign on debt and deficit? The opposition have one single objective in mind. The government is building the economy up; the Liberals are seeking to talk the economy down.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, how is the Australian government building out of recession through its nation building for recovery program?
I thank the honourable member for Page for her question. I note that under the Australian government’s nation building for recovery plan there are over 157 projects underway in the member’s electorate. And there will be an investment of $43.8 million in the member’s electorate. There will be 121 projects under the largest school modernisation program in Australia’s history. Twenty social housing units will be built in the member’s electorate, and there will be 16 projects under the government’s black spots and boom gates program, including $950,000 towards the accident prone area of the Kyogle Road at Lismore. There will be $10.9 billion for five local councils under the Community Infrastructure Program, including a $3.4 million investment in the Evans Head Aquatic Centre. These are practical projects aimed at building the infrastructure her community needs tomorrow while supporting jobs, business and apprenticeships today. That is the government’s overall strategy in response to the global economic recession, which is ripping the heart out of economies across the world.
Secondly, I would like to confirm today to the House that the government through its strategy is providing funding for infrastructure for every one of Australia’s 9,540 schools—every one of them. I would like to confirm to the House that under the National School Pride program we will be delivering $1.3 billion to 9,490 schools for 13,176 projects. I also confirm to the House that works on 8,863 projects at 5,994 schools are due to commence this month. On top of that, on 7 May the government allocated $2.8 billion of funding to 2,010 major projects like school halls, gymnasiums and multipurpose centres across nearly 1,500 Australian primary schools. That is the government’s strategy on nation building.
Yesterday we had some interesting exchanges with those opposite on their responses to nation building in their electorates. I draw the attention of the House to one of our favourite members opposite, the member for Canning—a person given to enormous generosity of spirit. He said at the time when this stimulus package supporting these projects was put through the House:
… I am saying tonight, as the Leader of the Opposition has said, that we will not be a part of this.
That is what the member for Canning said in February. What did the member for Canning have to say last night? He said this:
I support whatever taxpayer funds or funds borrowed on behalf of taxpayers are going into my electorate.
What a distance it is—
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order: for the Prime Minister to be relevant he must be accurate and the issue was—
Order! The member for Canning will resume his seat.
How they squirm and turn when presented with the facts. That was a bit like the member for Fadden yesterday: ‘Will I, won’t I, put my hand up? Put it half up? Put it down? What day is it? Are they watching back home? Are they watching on TV? Are they listening to the broadcast?’ It is called being transparent and honest with your community. Either you vote for it or you do not. And those opposite know nothing whatsoever about transparency.
Opposition members interjecting—
I always love Joe’s interventions. It is called the Joe Hockey bellow factor—the louder you bellow, the lesser the amount of content lying behind the bellowing. Let us go to our good friend opposite. We will pass by the member for Fadden—he made a notable contribution to the House yesterday, as well, on this. Let us go to the member for Wentworth, who we know as the Leader of the Opposition has a keen interest in local infrastructure as well. We know, when the minister for infrastructure showed up to announce an investment in the Waverley Park pavilion, the Leader of the Opposition had the following to say:
Could I just say that I’m delighted that the Government’s spending this money on the Pavilion here.
‘Delighted’. He said:
… I’m delighted to be here to welcome that investment, it’s a very good investment in infrastructure.
I have a few problems with this. How does that reconcile itself with the huff and puff and bluster we have heard here for the last two weeks? But I can also go on to the question of schools in the honourable member’s electorate. Let us just look at a few of these schools. We have St Anthony’s school. Does the Leader of the Opposition support the refurbishment of the playground and classrooms and the installation of broadband at St Anthony’s school in his electorate? Does he support the refurbishment of classrooms and roofing at St Clare’s College in Waverley? What about that one?
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We have raised before this business of the Prime Minister posing questions to the opposition. If he wants us to respond, if he wants us to respond to the way he is using billions in borrowed money to blackmail members of parliament—
Order! The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat.
Mr Turnbull interjecting
The Leader of the Opposition is warned.
Opposition members interjecting—
Order! The use of these rhetorical questions highlights a need for the House to consider the amount of debate that is allowed in the answers to questions. I remind honourable members that a lot of the angst that is expressed relates to the fact that the standing orders have several restrictions on questions and those restrictions do not apply to answers.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I direct you to standing order 98(b), which is a very specific standing order. It says:
During Question Time, a Member may orally ask a question of a Minister (but not a Parliamentary Secretary*), without notice and for immediate response.
Contrary to the commentary made to the House—
The member for Sturt will resume his seat.
I have not finished my—
The member for Sturt will resume his seat. I thank him for supporting my case.
I am entitled to—
The member for Sturt will resume his seat. I call the Prime Minister in response to the question.
Mr Speaker, under standing order 86 I am entitled to take a point of order. The point of order that I am taking is that, indeed, you pointed to the standing orders as inhibiting your capacity to make the Prime Minister conform with the standing orders. Standing order 98 specifically prohibits a question being asked of a member of the opposition—
The member for Sturt will resume his seat. Again, I thank him for supporting the point that I am making. There is no way, then, that the Leader of the Opposition can get up to answer a question because there is no question. The Prime Minister is responding to the question.
The degree of discomfort on the part of those opposite is transparent to the nation. We then come to the question of the Galilee Catholic Primary School, and we would be interested to know whether the honourable member supports the refurbishment—
Opposition members interjecting—
Order! The Prime Minister has made his point.
or reconstruction of the covered learning area at that school or the upgrading of floors, roofs and sewerage at the Woollahra Public School. It looks like a nice school, but I am sure they could deal with the upgrading of the floors, roofs and sewerage.
Who has paid for all these photos?
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I refer to your own ruling of this week in which you said that props should be incidental to an answer and to previous speakers’ rulings—rulings of Speaker Andrew and Speaker Jenkins Senior—on numerous occasions that props were out of order or were not to be encouraged. For the bulk of the Prime Minister’s answer he has been waving embarrassingly pathetic photographs around, and I ask you to rule them out of order. Otherwise, props will become the major aspect of answers and questions—which I am sure you do not want to happen, Mr Speaker.
Order! I am not sure about the generational reference but I will check that. It will probably amuse me on the weekend. The House of Representatives Practice says that the use of props is tolerated but not encouraged—that is correct. I read a ruling from the previous Parliament into the record again yesterday—and there are several similar rulings. I also made the point that this illustrates to me that, yet again, this is something we may not be able to approach with maturity. I remind honourable members on my left that, when the member for North Sydney decided to take an action that would give his question more vibrancy, it was allowed—and at least one media agency gave him the outcome that I assume he was after.
I noticed that one of the interventions on the part of those opposite referred to ‘embarrassment’. Can I just say that what is singularly embarrassing for those opposite is to have to stand before their local communities and say that they voted against each one of these investments in their local schools. That is why they are embarrassed—except for the good old member for Canning, who yesterday in the parliament did a complete backflip with reverse pike and twist. So we have the Kincoppal-Rose Bay School of the Sacred Heart multipurpose hall and performing arts centre—to show that our program is directed to non-government schools as well—the St Francis of Assisi School; the St Catherine’s School; and the installation of wireless broadband at St Charles’ Catholic Primary School—a very nice school as well. Those opposite said that these questions have been posed to them in a manner inconsistent with the standing orders.
I inform the House that we have present in the gallery this afternoon the Minister of Planning and Investment of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Dr Sinlavong Khoutphaythoune. On behalf of the House I extend to him a very warm welcome.
Hear, hear!
I was unsure whether the Prime Minister had finished his answer. If the Prime Minister is not finished, he should now conclude his answer.
The Leader of the Opposition, on the question of the investment in these very good schools in his electorate, has disputed—
Mr Speaker, on a point of order.
The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. I think I created some confusion—I am not sure how. Before greeting our distinguished visitor, I was going to ask the Prime Minister whether he had concluded his answer. The Prime Minister, I think, had anticipated your point of order and had sat down. I call the Prime Minister.
Mr Abbott interjecting
I am glad to have our good friend Tony Abbott intervening so volubly as well. I know that he stands up for investment in his electorate as well—and, of course, he strongly upholds parliamentary standards himself.
Order! The Prime Minister will refer to members by their electorate.
The Leader of the Opposition has objected to a series of questions that have been posed to him about whether he supports investment in each of these schools. He could use the device—and I challenge him to use the device—used yesterday by our good friend the member for Canning, who stood up in this place and said that he supported the investment in his electorate, that he supported the borrowing to support the investment in his electorate and that he supported the schools that were funded as a consequence of that investment and borrowing. The procedures of the House have the facility available for the Leader of the Opposition to stand up at the conclusion of question time and say, on each of these schools that I have presented, whether or not he supports the investment in those schools and the borrowing to underpin the investment in those schools. That is his challenge, pure and simple.
My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. I remind the Prime Minister that in life, it is said, there are only two certainties: death and taxes. Given today’s revelations that this government’s reckless cash splash has resulted in $14 million in cheques being sent out to the dead, isn’t the Prime Minister reminding the Australian people of a third certainty: that Labor can never be trusted with taxpayers’ money?
First of all, can I say to the honourable gentleman who has asked the question that the criterion for the administration of the payment concerned goes to the completion of a tax return in the year that has been specified, which is 2007-08. Furthermore, as the honourable member would know—and the member for Higgins would be fully familiar with this himself—when the previous government implemented low-income tax offset bonuses, they applied exactly the same methodology as has been employed by the government in relation to this matter as well. Therefore, I would suggest to those opposite that they reflect carefully upon the standards they bring to bear in this debate. Can I also say to the honourable member that he should be exceptionally mindful of the circumstances of those who have lost loved ones in the last 12 months. This is a sensitive matter.
Mr Turnbull interjecting
The honourable Leader of the Opposition interjects on this point. I would say to those opposite that, for those who have lost loved ones in the last 12 months, this is not an incidental matter; it is of direct and personal concern to them. I would urge those opposite to reflect on that as they pursue this particular line of questioning.
My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline for the House the importance of stimulating the economy through direct investment in infrastructure so we can support jobs in local communities?
I thank the honourable member for Makin for his question. There are something like 107 projects underway in Makin, something like 102 school projects in Makin, and they are supporting jobs and supporting small business in Adelaide. They are key parts of our nation-building plan for recovery. But, of course, not one of those 107 projects would go ahead if those opposite were in government—not one. These vital jobs, this vital support for business, would not be there and the consequence for those local communities would be higher unemployment and more business failures. It is really that simple. And, of course, that is why those opposite are so embarrassed about the fact that they do not have an alternative fiscal policy, which is why we are getting this scare campaign on deficit and debt.
We have put in place through the budget an historic investment in essential infrastructure—road, rail, port—to expand the productive capacity of our nation. Something like 70 per cent of our stimulus is invested in infrastructure, which of course is being opposed by the opposition here, but it is vital in supporting jobs today. Without the government’s investment, up to 210,000 Australians would be out of work. We should think about that for a moment. That is the logical consequence of their position.
They are our fellow Australians. They are our neighbours; they are our family members; they are our workmates. Those opposite should seriously consider the unsustainability of their position in this House, as has been demonstrated day after day by the Prime Minister and other ministers, because this stimulus through investment in infrastructure is absolutely vital to support jobs. But I suspect there is only one job that the Leader of the Opposition is worried about here, and that is his—only one job.
I could see that coming three paragraphs ago!
Well, it is the truth. The only job he is worried about is his own job. He is not worried about the jobs of Australians because he does not walk in the same shopping aisles as average Australians. He certainly does not do that, because otherwise why would he vote against stimulus? If he understood the impact of his decisions to oppose these measures, why would he vote against stimulus? Because he is chronically out of touch with the needs of the Australian economy and chronically out of touch with the need to support jobs in our community. The only job he is worried about is his own. Naked political opportunism—that is what rules the day. We on this side of the House will go on supporting jobs—
Mr Dutton interjecting
Order! The member for Dickson!
doing the responsible thing by the Australian economy, while those opposite do the opposite.
Mr Dutton interjecting
The member for Dickson is warned!
My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the reason he gave at a press conference this week for personally blocking the appointment of Mr Hugh Borrowman as ambassador to Germany. I quote the Prime Minister’s words:
… when it comes to foreign diplomatic appointments I do place priority on languages … and last time I looked at Germany they speak German.
Given that the foreign minister had boasted in a media release only a few days earlier of Mr Borrowman’s German language qualifications, will the Prime Minister now give the real reason that he personally vetoed the appointment of this highly respected senior diplomat as Australia’s Ambassador to Germany.
One of the delights about the member for Curtin is originality. One of the further delights about the member for Curtin is spontaneity. One thing about the member for Curtin is that you just need to turn to the pages of the Australian today to work out that you are going to get a question from the member for Curtin, because it says so, that she is going to ask a question on this subject today. Can you picture that 40-member tactics committee of the Liberal Party? Monday, Julie goes in: ‘Can I have a question?’ No. Tuesday: ‘Can I have a question?’ No. Wednesday: ‘Can I have a question?’ No. Thursday: ‘It’s in the newspapers—I should be given a question.’
Mr Speaker, on a point of order: this is a serious matter about the Prime Minister personally interfering in the career prospects of a highly respected Australian diplomat. I ask him to answer—
The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will resume her seat. The Prime Minister will respond to the question.
One thing almost as enjoyable about one of Julie’s angry looks is it is one of Alex’s angry looks when Alex used to be in the House—and we miss Alex!
Order! The Prime Minister will refer to members by their titles.
Mr Speaker, on a point of order: if the Prime Minister has had so much time to prepare why doesn’t he answer the question?
It is not a point of order. The Prime Minister will refer to members by their titles. The Prime Minister will respond to the question.
Referring briefly to the former foreign minister, Mr Downer, the current Leader of the Opposition’s chief of staff would be entirely familiar with how the former foreign minister dealt with ambassadors in Argentina and elsewhere when they happened to cross the paths of the then foreign minister, but I am sure they could answer for that on their own account.
The Prime Minister will respond to the question.
Mr Speaker, on a point of order: the Prime Minister made a public statement about why he interfered with the diplomat’s appointment. That statement was not true.
Order! The Deputy Leader of the Opposition is raising relevance.
I ask that the Prime Minister now give the real reason why he blocked—
Order! The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will resume her seat. The Prime Minister will respond to the question.
Consistent with practice which I understand was probably the case with Mr Downer and Mr Howard, the foreign minister and I regularly discuss senior diplomatic appointments. The foreign minister and I agree on appointments which go to the question of which skills are best applied to which of our most senior diplomatic appointments abroad. That applied in the case of the posting which is the subject of this question as well. On the question of Mr Hugh Borrowman, he is a first-class diplomat. The kingdom of Sweden is an important country for Australia. It will soon, as I am advised, assume the presidency of the European Union. We therefore wish him well in that appointment. He will do an excellent job. Furthermore, could I say applying those national interest criteria to appointments was exactly the discussion the foreign minister and I had in relation to the appointment of Mr Tim Fischer as Australia’s first ambassador to the Holy See.
Mr Speaker, I seek leave to table letters from the Attorney-General which include a shell press release in my name which is now obviously, on the Prime Minister’s behaviour, an invitation to entrapment.
Leave not granted.
The member for Braddon has the call.
Mr Speaker—
Leave is not granted.
Well, I will just put it out in the boxes for everybody.
Someone’s going out in a box! My question is to the Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, and Minister for Social Inclusion. Will the Deputy Prime Minister update the House on what the government is doing to invest in education infrastructure and on the reaction from local members to this investment?
I thank the member for Braddon for his question and for his bringing of decorum into the House. The member for Braddon would be welcoming the 75 projects in his electorate under the Building the Education Revolution program. I know he is a member who cares very passionately about the state of his local schools and also about supporting jobs in his electorate and would be welcoming those 75 projects, under Building the Education Revolution, which are part of the 93 projects in total in his electorate worth $35.3 million. Of course these projects are just some of the more than 15,000 projects that have been approved through the opening rounds of the National School Pride program and the Primary Schools for the 21st Century program. The great unknown about these programs is not which schools have benefited so far but whether or not the Leader of the Opposition supports this expenditure on these schools, a question I hope he clarifies after question time.
When he is clarifying that question, he may, during the course of question time, want to look into the galleries above us where we are expecting, during the course of question time and in the House today, to see Sacred Heart Primary School, from the member for Mackellar’s electorate; Pymble Ladies College, from the member for Bradfield’s electorate; Green Point Christian College, from the member for Robertson’s electorate; St Gertrude’s Primary School, from the member for Prospect’s electorate; and Hornsby Heights Public School, from the member for Berowra’s electorate. I would also ask the Leader of the Opposition to note, as he contemplates whether or not he should say he supports this expenditure, that these schools have received assistance from our National School Pride program for things like the refurbishment of classrooms and schoolgrounds, the construction of new shade structures and general refurbishment. I note that individually some of these schools have benefited already under our Primary Schools for the 21st Century program with $2 million going to Hornsby Heights Public School, $3 million to Green Point Christian College and $2.5 million going to Sacred Heart Primary School. This is important national expenditure about the future of our schools and about supporting jobs today. It is expenditure that every member of the opposition voted against. It was consequently with some surprise that I read a media release put out by the member for Bowman on 12 May where he says, having come into this House and voted against this expenditure:
11 Redlands schools will receive major building grants worth a total of more than $26 million, Federal Member Andrew Laming announced today.
It goes on:
I am a strong supporter of any investment in educational infrastructure like language and science laboratories.
So he is a supporter of any investment in educational infrastructure when he is putting out a media release in his electorate. What he cannot do is bring himself into the parliament and vote for it when it is under consideration by this House. I know that the surname of the member for Bowman is Laming but I think the behaviour by those opposite would be better caught under the word ‘lemming’. Lemmings are rodents famous for throwing themselves over cliffs in herds.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Under the standing orders, Mr Speaker, you are required to keep order in this House and the actions of the Deputy Prime Minister in using demeaning language against a member in this House is also precluded by the standing orders and she should be made to apologise and withdraw. It is highly unseemly and brings nothing but dishonour on her.
Order! The member for Mackellar will resume her seat. The Deputy Prime Minister has the call.
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and there is nothing like getting lectured by the party of Wilson Tuckey on parliamentary standards. But of course, Mr Speaker, you would be aware of the myth of the lemming and to quote the ABC science website, ‘This myth is now a metaphor—
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Again, under the standing orders, when somebody draws a point of order it is required to be ruled upon. I would ask you to rule upon my point of order.
The member for Mackellar will resume her seat. I ruled on the point of order by giving the call to the Deputy Prime Minister. The Deputy Prime Minister.
As the website says, ‘This myth is now a metaphor for the behaviour of crowds of people who foolishy follow each other lemming-like regardless of the consequences.’ Well, who does that remind you of, Mr Speaker? I think the lemming-like Liberal Party of Australia.
My question is to the Treasurer. I remind the House that, the last time the Labor Party had a debt, it took the coalition to pay it off. Now the Labor Party has an even bigger debt which is going out all the way—
The member for North Sydney will resume his seat. The member for Blair has the call.
Oh, Mr Speaker!
Opposition members interjecting—
Mr Speaker, my question is to the Minister for—
The member for Blair will resume his seat.
Mr Speaker, this is a very serious point of order. You have, over successive days, allowed the Prime Minister to wave posters around in this place, which, we have pointed out to you on numerous occasions, is provoking the opposition. You are now, apparently, if I am correct, ruling out a question—
The member for Sturt will resume his seat. Now hop up and do your stunt. I am ruling it out of order—
Opposition members interjecting—
No! The member for North Sydney will resume his seat. I am ruling it out of order because, having just suggested that the actions that the member for North Sydney took yesterday were appropriate in inviting other members to assist him with a prop, is a blatant—
Opposition members interjecting—
If you are suggesting that, yesterday, the passing of the papers that were to be tabled is akin to what you just did, I am surprised.
Mr Speaker, on a point of order: I respectfully suggest to you that I am using this prop to illustrate the matter that goes to the substance of my question—
No, the member for North Sydney will resume his seat.
How is it different from yesterday?
I am about to explain to you, Member for McEwen. If we had been presented with each of those frames individually, there would have been no complaint.
Opposition members interjecting—
The member for Blair will resume his seat. The frames need to be shown one at a time.
Opposition members interjecting—
Separated. I will give the member for North Sydney the call next after the member for Blair—it will let you prepare. Well, come on! We are not running a sideshow.
Opposition members interjecting—
Mr Speaker, on a point of order: I think the ludicrousness of the situation has been amply demonstrated and I respectfully ask you to give the member for North Sydney the call to ask his question.
The member for North Sydney will come to his question now or he will lose the question.
I refer the Treasurer to the fact that the last time the Labor Party was in—
Mr Speaker, on a point of order: you gave the call to the member for Blair. His call has been interrupted by a number of points of order, but he actually still had the call.
The member for North Sydney has the call.
I refer to the fact that, the last time the Labor Party was in government, the coalition had to pay off its debt after it left Australia with a burden of $96 billion. This time the Labor Party is in government again and the Labor Party is accruing debt on a massive scale as the biggest spending government in modern Australian history. The debt is getting bigger and bigger and bigger and redder and redder, just like the Deputy Prime Minister’s face. I ask the Treasurer: now that the Minister for Finance and Deregulation has said that simple mathematics explains how to pay off all of this Labor Party debt, will you now come clean with the Australian people about just how much debt you are really leaving Australians?
Mr Robert interjecting
The member for Fadden is warned!
They can never get fired up about jobs in local communities. They can never get fired up about the people who are being cushioned against the global recession. What we just saw was the Hockey $300 billion debt. That is what we saw. He has admitted, and the Leader of the Opposition has admitted, that in the circumstances that this country finds itself in they would have to borrow as much as the government will have to borrow and they would not pay it off one day sooner. That is what they have confirmed, because if they are not confirming that, where is their alternative plan? What is the alternative fiscal policy? That is their alternative fiscal policy: a blank piece of paper. They have no alternative fiscal policy because they know that this government has had forced upon it, and this country has had forced upon it, a $210 billion revenue collapse. If they were going to do something different, what they would have to do is savagely increase taxes or savagely cut back services. They come into this House and will not nominate one saving they could make. What that means is that they would borrow every cent the government has borrowed and they would not pay it back one day sooner. They are complete frauds.
My question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. Why is it vital for the government to invest in nation-building infrastructure? Why is it crucial that the importance of infrastructure investment is emphasised in debate about Australia’s economy?
I thank the member for Blair for his question. I notice that there are 392 projects underway in the member’s electorate—projects supporting jobs and small businesses—as part of the government’s nation building for recovery plan, the plan that is committed to building Australia for the future and which the opposition continues to vigorously resist, carping negatively about Australia’s economic prospects.
The government has a long-term strategy as well as a short-term strategy of stimulating activity in the economy. It also has a long-term strategy to return in Australia to a strong productivity growth pathway. There are three central elements to this strategy: investing in infrastructure, investing in skills and reforming regulation. They are the key items in the government’s strategy to lift the productivity performance in the Australian economy, which has been inadequate for a number of years. Central to this has been the investment in infrastructure that forms part of the stimulus package that the government has put forward for the Australian people to boost economic activity.
The opposition does not accept that investment in infrastructure is crucial. It is happy to participate in local photo opportunities, it is happy to be part of the picture in the local paper, but the opposition is not prepared to support infrastructure investment when it comes to voting in this chamber. It has always puzzled me somewhat as to why the opposition is not prepared to support nation-building infrastructure. Indeed, it puzzled me for nearly 12 years when they were in government as to why they were not prepared to invest in infrastructure for Australia’s future. It has always puzzled me. Given the astonishingly juvenile performance we have just witnessed from the opposition, perhaps I should not be that puzzled. But I can tell you this, Mr Speaker: yesterday I got a little bit of a hint, a little bit of a clue, as to why the opposition does not support investing in infrastructure, because in Senate estimates hearings yesterday the shadow minister for finance, Senator Coonan, asked a question of public servants. The question she asked was this: ‘What is infrastructure?’ That was her question. She then followed up with a question: ‘What is your definition of infrastructure?’
The problem the opposition has is that they do not even know what infrastructure is. That is why they do not support it. The government is committed to investing in infrastructure. It is committed to lifting the productivity performance of the Australian economy, which for too many years languished under the now opposition. For too many years they did not invest in infrastructure and skills and they did not seek to reform Australia’s regulatory structures and, as a result, Australian productivity performance languished. The Australian government knows the importance of investing in infrastructure. Australian business knows the importance of investing in infrastructure. Indeed, the wider community knows the importance of investing in infrastructure. Senator Coonan, I remind the House, was not a minister for a portfolio with nothing to do with infrastructure; she was the minister responsible for broadband. The minister responsible for broadband has to ask, ‘What does infrastructure mean?’ That gives you some indication, Mr Speaker, of the true depths of ignorance and complacency and lack of regard for the long-term productivity development of this nation that the Liberal Party opposition represents. The Australian government, the Rudd government, has a very different perspective. We regard investment in productive infrastructure as central to the economic future of this nation—in broadband, in ports, in road, in rail and in skills. They are the central drivers of long-term prosperity for the Australian people.
My question is to the Treasurer. Has the government received advice from the Treasury detailing scenarios in which government debt could blow out further than the Treasurer has forecast?
The advice the government has received from the Treasury is the advice that is conveyed in the budget papers.
My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. Will the minister outline how the government’s Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan is supporting green-collar jobs and reducing cost of living pressures for households?
I thank the member for Chifley for that question and note that already some 140 households in his electorate have applied for either the insulation rebate or the solar hot water rebate under the Rudd government’s plans. The member’s constituents join over 50,000 Australian households which have already accessed the Energy Efficient Homes plan, which is part of the $42 billion Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan. I also note that the member for Chifley’s electorate is home to the Fletcher Insulation plant in Rooty Hill, where the insulation production is going through the roof.
That is what the economic stimulus package is about. It is about making sure that we have jobs—jobs that are created in the local community—and, at the same time, rolling out the largest energy efficiency program that Australia has ever seen. This package from this government will deliver energy efficiency to around three million Australian households over the next three years. This is an ambition well beyond any previous energy efficiency program in this country. It is a mark of the Rudd government’s commitment to getting on with the business of supporting jobs that we are seeing this program deliver so quickly right across the nation.
I saw some comments earlier this week from US Secretary of Energy, Dr Stephen Chu, who said: ‘The quickest and easiest way to reduce our carbon footprint is through energy efficiency. Energy efficiency is just not low-hanging fruit. It is fruit that is lying on the ground.’ The government could not agree more. It is well overdue that we begin to harvest that low-hanging fruit because the previous government were asleep at the wheel for too long on this issue. I can report to the House that the Energy Efficient Homes call centre has already received more than 83,000 calls since February—27,000 Australians looking to install ceiling insulation and 23,000 Australians looking to install solar hot water. This is all before the rollout of components. The full rollout starts on 1 July.
Come on, Peter, you could have harpooned your own whale in that time.
I will come to the member for Flinders later on. I am glad he has made that interjection, because I will come to him later on.
Order! The minister will ignore the member for Flinders, and the member for Flinders will stop interjecting.
The Bradford Insulation Group have informed my office that they are adding to employees on the manufacturing side alone by some 55 people. That does not include additional jobs in call centres and warehousing. Just last week as well Fletcher Insulation announced an $8 million upgrade to its Victorian manufacturing plant and the extension of its Dandenong and Rooty Hill plants to 24/7 production. That is the Rooty Hill plant in the electorate of Chifley where I understand that, prior to the Energy Efficient Homes package, there was some consideration of rationalising operations. Now they are going 24/7. Fletcher Insulation has also announced the creation of 50 jobs as a result of this increased demand.
What are these jobs about? With Fletcher Insulation these jobs are about pink batts. It is not just about pink batts of course—it is about green batts, it is about polyester, it is about glass wool, it is about rock wool, it is about cellulose, it is about natural wool and it is about foil. If it meets the standards, you can install it under the Energy Efficient Homes plan. But of course pink batts is the product that is so often maligned by the member for North Sydney, the shadow Treasurer, who takes every opportunity to ridicule an investment that is already supporting Australian jobs and saving Australians’ energy bills. ‘We would not have had the pink batts,’ the member for North Sydney says, and he goes out of his way to run down the most cost-effective energy efficient improvement that Australians can actually apply at this time, and it is one that produces jobs.
The opposition leader is fond of getting up in the House and saying that it is all about jobs, jobs, jobs, but I saw a weekend report in the Sydney Morning Herald pointing out that when he was environment minister he actually wanted to roll out a program of ceiling insulation around Australia, as this government is doing, but he was blocked by the member for Higgins just as he is being blocked by the Nationals on an emissions trading scheme. I think this says a lot about where the opposition is at because they are voting against and publicly ridiculing measures, and some of these were the same measures that the Leader of the Opposition wanted to introduce when they were in government, but he was not able to.
The government is delivering. It is providing leadership on an issue that produces green-collar jobs, which produces the largest energy efficiency program that has ever been rolled out in this country. It supports and assists Australians in reducing their energy bills; it is taking care of cost-of-living pressures and providing real leadership in the infrastructure of this country; and it is helping people to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
My question is, again, to the Treasurer. I refer the Treasurer to his last answer in which he referred to the budget papers. I ask him: has the government received additional and separate advice from the Treasury detailing scenarios in which government debt could blow out further than what the Treasurer has forecast?
What we have here is another smokescreen from those opposite to try and camouflage the fact that they do not have an alternative fiscal policy. The member well knows that net debt is projected to fall to 3.7 per cent of GDP by 2019-20. But what this is all about is to cover up their embarrassment for not having an alternative fiscal policy and for not being able to articulate anything about it either in this House or outside.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The question was very specific as to whether the Treasurer had received additional and specific advice.
The Treasurer has the call.
On the doors yesterday we got a real insight into the predicament of those opposite. We had the member for Bowman doing an interview and this is what he said in answer to this question from a journalist: ‘What level of debt is not too high?’ Laming: ‘There is no level of debt that is too high or not too high.’ Journalist: ‘What do you regard as an acceptable level of debt?’
Mr Randall interjecting
Order! The Treasurer will resume his seat. I simply say to the member for Canning that it does not really justify the member for Bowman denying the Manager of Opposition Business the call, which is the amazing point.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Under the standing orders relevance is required and the Treasurer was asked a specific question about advice. If he does not wish to answer the question—
Order! The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. The Treasurer will relate his response to the question and he will refer to members by their titles.
I was asked about debt and I am talking about debt, absolutely. This is what the member for Bowman had to say this morning when asked by a journalist, ‘What do you regard as an acceptable level of debt?’
Member for Bowman: I won’t name a number.
Journalist: Give us a number.
Member for Bowman: No numbers, no numbers.
Order! The Treasurer will respond to the question.
As hopeless as that sounds, it was then taken up by another member of the opposition this morning. It was taken up, in fact, by the Leader of the Opposition. This is what he was asked this morning—
Opposition members interjecting—
Order! If there were less interjecting, I would be able to listen to the Treasurer. The Treasurer has the call and the Treasurer will respond to the question.
Mr Speaker, this was what the Leader of the Opposition was asked this morning: ‘What does the coalition regard as an acceptable level of debt?’ The Leader of the Opposition—
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The Treasurer is defying you. You have directed him to answer the question and he is defying you.
Order! The Treasurer will respond to the question and relate his material to the question.
Mr Speaker, I am talking about debt and about the Leader of the Opposition this morning when he was asked, ‘What does the coalition regard as an acceptable level of debt?’
Leader of the Opposition: Well, the level of debt should be no more than is absolutely necessary.
Journalist: What then?
Leader of the Opposition: Well, it is not a question of a number.
The Treasurer will resume his seat. I call the member for Leichhardt.
My question is to the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel. Will the minister update the House on the progress of Defence Housing Australia in constructing the 802 houses funded under the Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan?
I thank the member for Leichhardt for his question and thank him for joining me in his electorate on 19 May when we launched the defence healthcare trial in Cairns. He is a strong supporter of the defence community and he was with me as we delivered on another election promise from the Rudd government. I note also for the member for Leichhardt that, under the Australian government’s nation building for recovery program, there are 236 projects in his electorate, projects that are supporting jobs and small businesses in suburbs such as Woree and Redlynch.
As we know, this is a part of the government’s program of nation building for recovery, supporting jobs, business and infrastructure for Australia’s needs for tomorrow. Of course, we know that, if the Liberals had their way, not a single one of these projects would commence. You would be aware also that, as part of this nation building program and as part of the government’s decisive action, we announced expenditure of $251.6 million in funding for Defence Housing Australia. This is to construct 802 dwellings for Australian Defence Force personnel and their families in metropolitan and regional centres.
I am pleased to be able to announce that DHA have made significant progress since this announcement. Nationwide, over 260 houses have been contracted to date, tenders for over 650 houses have been issued and major site works have begun on over 180 houses. Unfortunately, though, as ever, the opposition has not supported this measure. The following members are significant. The member for Herbert, the member for Hunter, the member for Mayo, the member for Gilmore, the member for Groom, the member for Indi, the member for Flinders and the member for Gippsland all voted against Defence Force families having new homes built in their electorate.
Opposition members interjecting—
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
Order! It is not a point of order but you are making a point.
Mr Speaker, I would not have called the member for Hunter not a supporter of Defence Housing Australia. I think he would counsel his own minister—
I understand. The member for Paterson will resume his seat.
Of course, I meant Paterson’s curse, not the member for Hunter. Unfortunately and sadly, while these members say they advocate for Defence Force families, they failed miserably when it came to the opportunity to show their support by voting for this investment in this chamber. No doubt, as we have known, they will be shameless in attending any ceremonies celebrating the handover of the new homes.
Of course, we expect them to carry placards. Those placards should say, ‘We are here in body but not in spirit because, unlike the members of the Labor Party, who have Defence Force families in their electorate, the provision of this additional housing for Defence Force families and the job and business opportunities it creates, we do not support.’ That is what they have done by voting against these proposals in this chamber. Yet I note that the member for Herbert got up earlier this afternoon and spoke about the need for people to stand up for regional Australia. I ask the member for Herbert: when is he going to stand up for the people of regional Australia? When is he going to stand up for the people of his electorate? The fact is that he voted against it.
Mr Speaker—
Order! The member for Herbert will resume his seat. The minister has the call. The member for Herbert has other ways of dealing with the matter that is causing concern.
Mr Speaker, on a point of order—
All right. The minister will resume his seat. The member for Herbert on a point of order.
Mr Speaker, when is the minister going to deliver the family medical centre for Lavarack Barracks?
Order! The member will resume his seat and then leave the House for one hour under standing order 94(a).
The member for Herbert then left the chamber.
When he leaves he might read the Townsville Bulletin and explain why—
Opposition members interjecting—
Order! Those on my left will come to order.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, in light of the continuing flood and wind recovery efforts underway on the Mid North Coast and North Coast of New South Wales across four electorates, in light of this being the third natural disaster in three months of this kind, in light of ongoing regional impacts of the global banking collapse felt on the ground through such examples as one local council now writing off $25 million of its investment portfolio and up to 5,000 local residents being caught by the recent collapse of three locally managed funds, in light of unemployment rates for the Richmond-Tweed and Mid North Coast now breaking 10 per cent last month, in light of employment rates and participation rates being the lowest in the nation right now, income levels being the lowest in the nation right now and tertiary education levels being some of the lowest in the nation right now and in light of poverty levels across these four electorates being some of the highest in the nation right now—in light of natural disasters, financial disasters and ongoing structural disadvantage for the Mid North Coast and North Coast regions—will you now look to increase government support and attention to our region along the lines of the seven Australia-wide Jobs Fund regions recently announced by your government?
I thank the honourable member for his question. He legitimately points to the difficulties which have been experienced recently in the Richmond-Tweed, Clarence Valley and Mid North Coast on the back of natural disasters but also, more broadly, on the impact of the global economic recession on the communities which he represents. Therefore, he legitimately raises questions of what can be further done in his area.
I was speaking with the Minister for Employment Participation about the member’s area recently as we looked at unemployment data from across the country. The member represents an area which, from recollection, looking at the data from April, is north of eight per cent—8.3, 8.5 per cent. Therefore, in terms of those priority areas which the government is seeking to address additional efforts to at the moment, it would, from our point of view, qualify for further consideration by way of additional assistance. In my discussions with the Minister for Employment Participation we have agreed that this should be designated as a priority employment area—that is, the area of the Richmond-Tweed, Clarence Valley and North Coast. We would also confirm to the honourable member in response to his question that we will proceed with the appointment of a priority employment coordinator for this area as well.
The particular mechanism that the priority employment coordinators are deploying across the nation is to engage with local communities, their business leadership, their community leadership, their local government leadership and local church and charitable organisations and to work together to come up with practical projects which could form the basis for further investment from the community jobs fund, which is a fund that we provided support for in earlier allocations from this parliament nationwide of some $650 million. In response to the announcement of that fund we also made it clear in statements from the government that in our Jobs and Training Compact with Australia we would be implementing compacts with young Australians, compacts with those Australians who have been retrenched through no fault of their own and compacts also with local communities. This particular program comes off the back of compacts with local communities.
In the seven areas that we currently have designated around the country we have already, together with the Minister for Employment Participation, addressed local community seminars about practical projects which could be supported. Further, in conversations with the minister recently I understand that in response to the first round of seeking applications from the community at large we received more than 3,000 applications—I am looking for a prompt from the minister here—
Yes.
3,000-plus applications from around the country. Therefore, there will be further rounds which will be sought for expressions of interest from local communities. I would invite the honourable member and other affected local members in this region to work with the priority employment coordinators, once they are appointed, on particular projects which will have effect in their area.
What I would say more broadly about the challenge of unemployment is that, as the global recession has deepened and the recession has inflicted damage on the Australian economy and on the workforce more generally, it underlines again the absolute importance of a nation building for recovery program of the type which the government has outlined in this parliament over the last two weeks and prior to that as well. That provides an additional injection of activity in the economy. Again I emphasise something which the Treasurer correctly put to the House before, which is that in the absence of the government’s action to date—through, firstly, our stimulus payments in October last year; secondly, the Nation Building and Jobs Plan, which was released in February this year; and, thirdly, the measures contained in the budget—the 200,000 jobs that we are providing support for on the back of those investments in the Australian economy for each of the two subsequent years would otherwise be lost. That is a huge number in the overall dimensions of the size of the Australian workforce. Therefore, what we have sought to do on top of that is to provide additional support, in particular areas of intense unemployment activity, through the application of local jobs funds.
I therefore thank the honourable member for his question. I would encourage him, together with the member for New England, the member for Page and the member for Richmond in terms of the particular area we are speaking of—Page, Richmond, Lyne and other affected areas—to work closely with the local employment coordinator and get applications in for what will work locally to try to bring that unemployment rate down a further notch compared with what it would otherwise be, building on the back of the nation building for recovery plan that the government has outlined comprehensively in the parliament.
My question is to the Prime Minister. What action is the government taking to improve the health of rivers and wetlands in the Murray-Darling Basin?
I thank the honourable member for Wakefield for his question because it goes to the health of the whole Murray-Darling river system and it goes to what investments we are making in that system for the future in order to deal with the fact that water allocations across the Murray-Darling have been excessive not just for years but for decades. The challenge on the part of any responsible government of Australia is what action you can take to take some of that pressure off the system.
In response to the honourable member’s question, I say that all honourable members in this House should ask themselves one question: how many litres of water entitlement did the previous government buy back in their 12 years in office? Zero. Twelve years of rhetoric on the Murray-Darling, 12 years of rhetoric on taking pressure off the system, but not one gigalitre, not one litre of water entitlement was ever purchased back from the system in order to take the pressure off the Murray-Darling. That is the record of those opposite. I seem to recall that the Leader of the Opposition, at a certain stage in his political career, was also the minister responsible for water. Again, this is parallel to what we have seen on climate change, there were a lot of statements of rhetoric at an earlier time, but when the rubber hits the road and he is required to do something to actually deliver an outcome—be it on climate change, be it on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, be it having occupied a ministerial position able to purchase back entitlements from the river system—not one litre of water entitlement was ever purchased back.
This government is a government of action; this government has committed to assist in taking pressure off the system. I would like to confirm to the House today that the Australian government is buying almost 240 gigalitres of water entitlement for $303 million from the Twynam Agricultural Group. This represents the single largest purchase of water entitlements for the environment in Australia’s history. That is what we have done in this decision today, announced by myself and the Minister for Climate Change and Water.
Once again, we hear barracking from the National Party. The National Party actually calls the shots within the coalition on water policy and climate change.
It’s the tail wagging the dog again!
Yes, it is the tail wagging the dog once again. The National Party says, ‘We’re not going to do anything on climate change’. What does Malcolm Turnbull do? He collapses in a heap. What does the National Party say on buying back water entitlements? ‘We’re not going to do anything on that’. Malcolm Turnbull collapses in a heap.
Order! The Prime Minister will refer to members by their titles.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order on relevance. I just wonder if the Prime Minister can tell the House how much of this water will reach Wakefield?
Order!
It is always a delight to hear from the former member for Mayo’s replacement in this place. What we have is a clear indication of government action: 240 gigalitres purchased for $303 million. If you add that to what we have also purchased back, this government has purchased 300 gigalitres of water entitlements to take pressure off the system. I would say to those opposite—
Mr Hunt interjecting
Again the member for Flinders seeks to intervene; again a stellar parliamentary career of great achievement when it comes to delivering real results—nothing. This government has acted to buy back water entitlements of nearly 300 gigalitres. Contrast that to not a single litre of water entitlement purchased in their 12 years in office. Why? Because it is the National Party that controls the coalition on this. The National Party dictates the shots. Any leader worth his salt would stand up to the National Party. The current leader does not.
This investment is part of the government’s $12.9 billion Water for the Future program. Under this Water for the Future program, it provides $3.1 billion for the purchase of water for environmental purposes. Also, our water purchasing program is complemented by a $5.8 billion program for infrastructure investment to improve water use efficiency. These are practical decisions to take pressure off the system. For the benefit of those opposite, let me just say what 240 gigalitres actually amounts to: it is the equivalent to one half of all of the water used in Sydney in a year. I heard the minister for climate change say this morning that it is in excess of what the city of Adelaide takes off the Murray-Darling system each year. These are not small numbers, these are large numbers. This government takes seriously—
Mr Truss interjecting
Ah, the Leader of the National Party intervening again. How many gigalitres of entitlements would the National Party have us buy back? I cannot hear anything! Once again what we have is the National Party parading itself in this place as the tail that wags the coalition dog on both climate change policy and water policy.
In this place, when we are debating serious questions of climate change and its most direct impact—that is, what is happening to the once great Murray-Darling river system, what is happening to the Great Barrier Reef and what is happening to Kakadu—what we need in this parliament is leadership. What we need is leadership from the Liberal Party on water and on climate change so that we can make a difference in the Senate. What we have is the Leader of the Opposition, who has on these hard questions of policy squibbed in the face of the right-wing ideologues within his own party and within the National Party more broadly. As a consequence they stand ready in the Senate to vote down measures on climate change that would make a difference. This government is about making a difference on climate change and water. Those opposite are simply captive to the National Party and the climate change sceptics within their own ranks. We have a plan of action for the Murray-Darling; those opposite have nothing but a litany of excuses for inaction on the Murray-Darling. The contrast is clear for all to see.
My question is to the Treasurer. I refer the Treasurer to the fact that it was confirmed in Senate estimates this week that there are only $2.4 billion of funds available for the National Broadband Network and that the government will have to borrow more than $40 billion for this project. Why haven’t those numbers been included in his debt forecasts?
Because you just made them up. What we have included in there is provision for an equity injection. That is what we have done. We have also acknowledged that, if we move forward and we do more, we may have to guarantee borrowings, and that is accounted for in the statement of risk.
My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Will the minister update the House on the latest swine flu developments and any steps the government has taken to protect the community from the disease?
I thank the member for Shortland for her question. She is always interested in steps that can be taken to protect the community. Obviously the Prime Minister and I went through a number of steps that the government has already taken to tackle this problem in question time yesterday, but there are some further developments today that I would like to keep the House abreast of. Before I do that, I advise that we now have 103 confirmed swine flu cases in Australia. The number has jumped significantly overnight. In the course of that time we have also seen the number of new cases increase, for example, in the United States by a thousand and in Canada by an additional 200. The disease has got to a point where the numbers are increasing fairly significantly around the country and we can expect, unfortunately, to see more of that in the coming days.
I advise the House that there is a significant change to a number of circumstances that members might need to be aware of. Whilst most of the 103 people who have been confirmed as having swine flu have been experiencing mild symptoms, we do now have four people who have been hospitalised—two in Victoria who presented with quite severe conditions but who are both recovering well, one young man in New South Wales whose condition is improving and one case where we still do not have confirmed details as there seem to be other unrelated complications with that person’s circumstances.
There has also been a lot of focus on the situation of the cruise ship Pacific Dawn that has been up in Northern Queensland. In addition to the comments that I made earlier, I can advise that the Queensland government and P&O have now announced that an agreement has been reached for the ship to dock in Brisbane on Saturday and return to Sydney on Monday—three days early. This agreement has been reached in order to ensure that passengers can still spend some of their time having their holiday safely on the boat and can get support, if any is required, at these two major ports. Three crew members have tested positive to swine flu. They have all been receiving Tamiflu from the commencement of the trip and do not believe, as I have been advised, that they have been in contact with other passengers. No passengers have currently tested positive to swine flu, and P&O do advise that passengers will be compensated for the shortening of their trip. We obviously thank P&O for their cooperative actions and, of course, want to join them in apologising to passengers whose holidays might have been disrupted. I think the public health advice is to ensure that this disease, which is not yet in Northern Queensland, can be isolated for as long as possible from parts of the community that do not have any cases.
The government has taken an important step to further protect the community today. We have placed an order with CSL for the purchase of the swine flu vaccine. This vaccine is expected to be developed in the next couple of months. We have a priority agreement with CSL which has been activated, and this means that we will be placed high in the queue to be able to receive this vaccine once it is able to be produced by CSL. We have placed an order for the purchase of sufficient doses for 10 million people. That is based on the current expert advice that this is sufficient to contain the spread of the disease and also to protect those at risk of any complications. Of course, further work will continue while the vaccine is being developed as we have further evidence in Australia of particular groups that might be more vulnerable.
CSL is currently working fast to develop the vaccine. It will need to do clinical trials. It will register with the TGA to ensure that the vaccine is safe. In the past fortnight, we have also purchased an additional 1.6 million courses of Rolenza for the stockpile, which means that we are building on our existing supply in the stockpile. We will have 6.9 million courses of Tamiflu, 1.8 million courses of Rolenza and the additional purchases that I have just announced—meaning that we will have 10.3 million courses of antivirals in our stockpile. I advise that the first requests for Tamiflu have been made by the states and territories and that the first release of Tamiflu from the national medical stockpile has commenced. The Chief Medical Officer authorised the release of 7½ thousand doses of paediatric Tamiflu suspension for Victoria and Western Australia and 10,000 packets of Tamiflu to Victoria. This is of particular importance because the paediatric version needs to be used for very young children. In Victoria, where we are seeing the disease spreading more quickly than in other communities, that is to ensure that they will have a sufficient supply. I understand that Western Australia did not have a large supply of paediatric Tamiflu and, although they have only one case confirmed, they wanted to make sure that they had some on hand if the situation develops.
We will continue to consider requests as they come in. We have already taken steps to ensure that the stockpile is not being held just in Canberra but that it can be readily made available to state and territory authorities, if and when they need them. The Chief Medical Officer will take account of the different circumstances in different parts of the country in making a decision about whether the stockpile should be used and will look at the number of cases, the spread, the epidemiological advice and the availability of medicines in the states and territories.
These medicines will be dispensed by state public health officials in line with agreed national guidelines. It is important to remember that this means that Australia is very well placed to handle this situation. The community does need to be prepared for the fact that there will be an increased number of cases, probably significant, in the coming few days. Members can continue to give support to the public by reminding them that there is no need to be alarmed but there is certainly a need to be vigilant. It is important to provide advice to people to see their medical professional if they are experiencing any flu symptoms, particularly if they have travelled to countries at risk or believe they have been in contact with any confirmed cases.
My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts and it concerns his declaration during question time on 12 May in relation to logging activities in New South Wales Central Murray State Forests. He stated:
It is particularly important for me to confirm to the House that no stopwork order has been issued by the department.
Is the minister aware of this letter from the assistant secretary of his department dated 1 May 2009 to Forests New South Wales clearly stating that by 31 May there must be:
… cessation of all harvesting operations in the Central Murray State Forests Ramsar site until further advice from this department.
Can the minister explain the inconsistency between his statement and his department’s actions?
I thank the honourable member for his question. It astonishes me that the honourable member has not been following this debate more closely since that article was first produced, and in fact since that correspondence was first issued. What we have said—and this is the case—is that we will continue negotiations with the New South Wales government on those matters that have been identified in that correspondence. I am happy to report to the House that those negotiations are ongoing. I also want to make it perfectly clear to the honourable member opposite that no stopwork order has been issued. This is correspondence between the department and the New South Wales government and on that basis negotiations are underway between those two governments.
My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. How has the Australian government been working to increase Australia’s engagement with international regional organisations?
I thank the member for his question. Since coming to office the government has been working very hard to increase Australia’s engagement across a range of countries in a range of regions. Regrettably, when we came to office we discovered that there were many parts of the globe, many regions, where there had been considerable inattention so far as Australian foreign policy and activity had been concerned. That is why, for example, we have moved very quickly to establish observer status with the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, a very important south Asian regional group which includes India and Pakistan. That is why I attended the African Union Summit in January this year—the first Australian foreign minister to do so. That is why before the end of this year we will start our strategic dialogue with the Gulf Co-operation Council—the GCC—across a range of trade, strategic and security matters. That is why last year we established a modern framework for the basis of the relationship between Australia and the European Union with the presentation of the European Union-Australia Partnership Framework.
I am very pleased to advise the House today that Australia has taken additional steps to deepen our engagement with both Europe and Asia. The Asia-Europe Meeting process, or ASEM as it is known, brings together 16 Asian nations in the ASEAN secretariat along with 27 European Union nations and the European Commission. ASEM was inaugurated with the first ASEM leaders summit in Bangkok in March 1996. Australia, some members will recall, applied for membership in 1996 but we were unsuccessful. We applied again at the 1998 leaders summit but were unsuccessful. Regrettably, no further efforts were made for a decade to get Australia into that important regional organisation, deepening and broadening our engagement with both Asia and Europe.
At the ASEM meeting in Beijing in 2008—the first after the government came to office—Australia applied for membership. The government put forward Australia’s name. I am pleased to advise the House that in Hanoi this week Australia’s application to join the Asia-Europe Meeting process was welcomed by ASEM foreign ministers. Once arrangements have been effected to formalise the detail of Australia’s membership, Australia will join ASEM at the next leaders summit, ASEM8, in Brussels next year. Our participation in that process reflects the government’s very strong commitment to deepen and broaden our engagement both in Asia and in Europe. It also reflects the modern basis of our relationship and engagement with Europe, just as it does our strongest possible commitment to our friends and colleagues in Asia.
Membership of the Asia-Europe Meeting process will make our engagement with both regions stronger. This is a very positive and welcome development and it is one, frankly, which has overcome a decade of inattention and inactivity which has not been in our national interest. Despite that lack of activity and interest over a 10-year period, our membership of ASEM from next year at the leaders summit in Brussels will enable us to more appropriately and effectively advance our national interest both in Asia and in Europe.
My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister. I refer the Deputy Prime Minister to the fact that in 2005 she solicited more than 1,300 signatures for her petition to oppose any reduction in Medicare funding for IVF. She described such cuts as ‘a cruel measure’. Does the Deputy Prime Minister support her government’s broken promise to cut the Medicare safety net funding for IVF?
Order! The minister can only be asked questions within her public administration and portfolio. I would rule that the question was out of order.
Mr Speaker, on a point of order: my question went to her as the Deputy Prime Minister. She was a member of the Expenditure Review Committee; she was a member of the executive government. These are her decisions, and I seek leave to table the petitions referenced in Hansard that are under her name and those of other members of the government.
Mr Speaker, leave is not granted. The question is clearly out of order. Member for Cook, you should have gone to the health minister; it is her responsibility.
Leave not granted.
But it was her petition.
Order! The member for Cook will resume his seat.
Mr Speaker, on the point of order: standing order 98(c) says:
A Minister can only be questioned on the following matters, for which he or she is responsible or officially connected:
I would have thought that the Deputy Prime Minister, who lodged a petition herself with 1,300 signatures with respect to a matter of public affairs, would be prepared to answer the question of whether she stood by the contents of that petition.
I think that we had examples of this surrounding the actions of parliamentary secretaries before they became—
Honourable members interjecting—
Order! We had instances—
Mr Robert interjecting
The member for Fadden will leave the chamber for one hour under standing order 94(a).
It’s cowardly and you know it.
I name the member for Fadden. I call the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and I apologise; I have been describing him as the member for Perth when referring to him as the acting Leader of the House.
I am very proud to be referred to as the member for Perth, and I move:
That the member for Fadden be suspended from the service of the House.
Question put.
Order! The honourable member for Fadden is suspended from the service of the House for 24 hours.
The member for Fadden then left the chamber.
My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Will the minister inform the House of research into the impact of climate change and policy responses on our agricultural industries, and whether there is any threat to action on climate change?
I thank the member for Oxley for the question. The ABARE modelling is now available on the costs of doing nothing on climate change and the costs of action. As members are well aware, there is no cost-free option in either direction. The modelling on what would happen to Australian agriculture if Australia were to do nothing on climate change was released more than a year ago. It contains export figures for commodities, which are alarming to say the least. If we were to do nothing, our wheat exports would take an 11 per cent hit by 2030 and a 15 per cent hit by 2050; our beef exports would take a 29 per cent hit by 2030 and a 33 per cent hit by 2050; our sheepmeat exports would take a 15 per cent hit by 2030 and a 21 per cent hit by 2050, our dairy exports would take a 19 per cent hit by 2030 and a 27 per cent hit by 2050; and, most alarming of all, our sugar exports would take a 63 per cent hit by 2030 and a 79 per cent hit by 2050.
That said, taking action would not be without costs either. The costs are real. They were referred to by ABARE the other day in Senate estimates, and I think it is important to advise the House of those figures now. By 2011 the costs at the point of processing, which include the impact of on-farm inputs and the inputs by the time you get to processors, would be $1.83 per head of cattle, 17c per head of sheep, 61c per tonne of grain and $4 per head for the average dairy. These costs are real. They are small compared to the costs of not acting. Nonetheless, there are significant costs in acting. That is why the government, through the Climate Change Research Program, is determined that scientific research in this space will find the areas where we can get alignment between improvements in productivity and a reduction in emissions. While each of these models presumes that there would not be any improvements in technology, the government, by more than tripling the money originally promised for the Climate Change Research Program, is determined to make sure that these issues can be aligned.
I was also asked about the threat to a response on climate change. The threat to the government being able to respond through the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme lies very clearly in the coalition’s behaviour in the Senate. When the Leader of the Opposition first took on that role, some people were reasonably confident that we would end up with a constructive approach and that we would not actually end up seeing a significant threat to action on climate change. That was until this week came around. If ever there was any evidence that the Leader of the Opposition had become a threat to action on climate change it was before a word was spoken when he appeared side-by-side with the Leader of the Nationals at a media conference. It is not unknown for a Leader of the Opposition to go searching for a power base when times are tough—to go to powerbrokers or to try to get a base of support—but the National Party? This is a group of people who not only disagree fundamentally with the views put forward by Leader of the Opposition on this issue but also cannot agree with each other.
The member for Wide Bay said on that very day that the Nationals wanted to take a constructive approach to these issues. Yet the Leader of the Nationals in the Senate had these words on a constructive approach: ‘The answer is no. There you go. No, no, no, no, no. Okay.’ That is the constructive approach of the National Party. One member of the National Party was reported on 6 August as saying he is prepared to out himself as a climate change sceptic to bring a voice of reason to the debate. Another member of the National Party, in a media release last Monday, described climate change as a massive threat.
The concern about the ‘massive threat’ as opposed to the ‘climate change sceptic’ is this: I was actually referring to the same member of the National Party. It is the same person, the shadow minister for agriculture, who is both the climate change sceptic and the person who believes climate change is a massive threat. The National Party will never want to act on climate change, and the Leader of the Opposition at the moment has caved in entirely to the sceptics. At least there is an opportunity now, though, to show some leadership. The opportunity for leadership is there, at least in terms of the local electorate, to stand up as requested at the end of question time and let us know whether or not you support school funding in your own electorate.
Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
Mr Speaker, what areas of this parliament are prescribed by the standing orders as off limits to any elected MPs to this House, particularly when they are denied the democratic right to table documents in the chamber?
Ignoring the last phrase, I think that this arises from some action that occurred in the gallery above me and behind me during question time. I would think that the answer is that there are no areas where a member is denied access. I will be following through on the basis of what I believe to be the member for O’Connor’s concern and checking on this. I will leave it at this point, but I will get back to the member for O’Connor if there is a different answer.
With your indulgence, Mr Speaker: the Leader of the House and the Manager of Opposition Business have already commented about the leaving of Tony Levy, the Parliamentary Liaison Officer, who has occupied the job for four years. He is at the heart of seeing legislation flow through the chamber and is responsible for ministers and bills being on time and in the chamber. He has a thankless task in trying to talk to both whips to ensure how long their speaking lists are and how quickly legislation can get through. Tony in his four years has done an outstanding job. He certainly has the respect of us all. We thank him for his great contribution. Like so many people in this House of Representatives, we are totally dependent on people such as Tony and the way in which they do their jobs, their high standards, for us being able to do ours. I thank him, and I wish Glenda every consideration when she will become his boss when he departs this place.
I would like to add my comments on behalf of the opposition to congratulate Tony Levy on his retirement. I happen to have known Tony since he and I were in our early 20s, as young blokes in hostels around Canberra, and I assure you that Tony has always been a nice, quiet, gentle sort of person—like me—who does his job to the best of his ability. Being in opposition, our task has been made a lot easier by the service that Tony has provided us. I join the Chief Government Whip in wishing him all the best for his future.
On behalf of the Nationals and as part of the opposition, and formerly as the Nationals Whip in government, I would like to take the opportunity to make some kind comments about Tony Levy and his service. His service has been absolutely extraordinary. He is an extremely competent worker and has always made the task of the whips much, much easier by his actions. I also wish his wife the very best in Tony’s retirement. I think that is one of those most extraordinary cases where there has to be some new ground determined in the household when one retires. From the Nationals and on the half of the previous whips: Tony, thank you very much for the service you have provided to us always.
I join with the comments made by the Leader of the House and the member for Cowper on Tuesday and by the Chief Government Whip, the Chief Opposition Whip and the member for Riverina, on behalf of the National Party, today. The admission by the member for Fairfax that he knew Tony in his 20s explains a lot, and I wish I had known that earlier. But, in all seriousness, the position that Tony Levy holds as the PLO—I should explain: the Parliamentary Liaison Officer—is a very important bridge between the parliament and executive government. He has followed in a great line of occupants of that position who have ensured that things have run smoothly, that there is a recognition that from time to time there are different priorities of this institution but that we are here to make sure those things that are wished to be achieved through the parliamentary program are achieved. I congratulate him and thank him. I apologise that I am amongst one or two people around here who have perhaps compared him unfairly to some of his predecessors, but I think that he has done the job with great distinction, as we would expect of officers of the Australian Public Service and in particular the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. I wish Tony all the best for his retirement, capital R through T.
Mr Speaker, I have a question to you where I seek your help and advice. Earlier in the week I was making some remarks in the chamber and I gave a direct quote from the Prime Minister where, 12 days before the election, on 4BC radio he said that he would not change the superannuation laws ‘one jot or one tiddle’. In Hansard I saw that the word ‘tiddle’ had been replaced with the word ‘tittle’. I sought to advise Hansard that in fact the word that the Prime Minister had used was ‘tiddle’. Hansard have refused to correct that, being a direct quote of the Prime Minister. They have said that the word the Prime Minister used is not a correct word. Mr Speaker, I am sure our PM would not use an incorrect word. I would seek your help to change the Hansard so it reflects the direct quote, that the Prime Minister would not change the laws on superannuation ‘one jot or one tiddle’.
I will take advice on the matter raised by the member for Aston.
Documents are presented as listed in the schedule circulated to honourable members. Details of the documents will be recorded in the
Yesterday the member for Sturt raised, as a matter of privilege, references made by ministers to the role that members have made in making representation about, and being involved in, infrastructure projects in their electorates. The member claimed that members would be intimidated from becoming involved in such activities as a result of the references in the House thus interfering with the performance of their duties as members. The member for Sturt also referred to particular electorates being disadvantaged by the government’s administration of the decision-making about infrastructure projects.
I have had the opportunity to reflect on the matters raised by the member and to refer to precedents. In relation to the first matter raised by the member, the alleged interference with members, a relatively similar matter was raised in 2006. The then Leader of the Opposition and the members for Ballarat and Chisholm raised matters of privilege following references made during question time by the then Minister for Education. The minister had made references to representations she had from opposition members under the Investing in Our Schools Program. The member for Ballarat alleged that the references impeded her ability to communicate with and represent her constituents. In response to this complaint, the Speaker noted that there was no evidence that the references made by the minister were designed to interfere with the ability of members to raise such matters in the future and as a result a prima facie case of a breach of privilege had not been made out. In this case the matters referred to by the member for Sturt may be seen to be part of a similarly robust political debate and, on the information presented, as not constituting improper interference with members continuing to perform their duties in representing their constituents.
In relation to the possible differential treatment of members in relation to infrastructure projects, I refer to my comments about the matter of privilege raised by the member for Sturt earlier this year concerning invitations to members to participate in openings of projects in their electorates. As I noted, these are government programs and are matters for the government to administer. Unless there is evidence that such administration amounts to an improper interference with members performing their duties as members within their electorates, having regard to the precedents in such matters it is not easy to see that a matter of privilege arises. I do not see evidence of such interference in the matters raised by the member for Sturt. For these reasons, and having regard to the long-established policy of restraint in matters of privilege and contempt, I do not consider a prima facie case has been made such as would warrant precedence being given to a motion in respect of this matter.
On indulgence, Mr Speaker: I thank you for the consideration of the matter of privilege which I raised yesterday and I thank you for your speedy response. Before taking the matter any further, I will consider your sage advice and take advice from my colleagues. If we wish to pursue it, we will obviously have the opportunity to do so next week.
by leave—I wish to update the House on developments following North Korea’s underground nuclear test and its further threats and provocations. Though verification work is proceeding, Australia and the international community have little doubt that a nuclear test occurred on 25 May. Australia remains very gravely concerned by this development and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s subsequent missile tests, which have the potential to directly affect Australia’s national security. I repeat the Australian government’s view that this was an unacceptable, provocative and destabilising act by North Korea.
I note with concern reports that North Korea has issued statements to the effect that, following the Republic of Korea’s accession to the Proliferation Security Initiative, North Korea would ‘no longer be bound’ by the 1953 Korean War ‘Armistice Agreement’. While Australia does not propose to respond to every statement by North Korea, no matter how threatening or provocative, this statement is of course completely unjustified and unjustifiable on North Korea’s part. These statements and North Korea’s threats of military action do nothing to enhance its security and leave it increasingly isolated. Any act of aggression by North Korea would of course be a breach of the United Nations Charter.
Australia welcomes the Republic of Korea’s decision on 26 May to become a full member of the Proliferation Security Initiative, now composed of more than 90 nations. And Australia strongly supports the United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea in working with the international community to respond to this major security threat. Australia reiterates its strong condemnation of North Korea’s actions, unanimously condemned by the United Nations Security Council. North Korea’s nuclear test is a clear breach of United Nations Security Council resolution 1718. It is in flagrant disregard of North Korea’s international obligations.
As I said to the House on Monday, there is only one option for North Korea: it should immediately desist from all of these provocative acts; it should immediately comply with United Nations Security Council resolutions, in particular resolution 1718; and it should immediately resume the six-party talks. Both the Prime Minister and I are consulting our counterparts on the international response. The Prime Minister has spoken to his Japanese and Republic of Korea counterparts, as well as to the United Nations Secretary-General.
I spoke on 26 May to United States Secretary of State Clinton to express Australia’s resolve to work with the United States to get North Korea to denuclearise and resume the six-party talks. I have also spoken to my South Korean counterpart, Foreign Minister Yu, and I am scheduled to speak to Japan’s Foreign Minister Nakasone tomorrow. Australia will also continue to work with China and others to send a united message to North Korea over its provocative actions. At my instruction, Australia’s Mission to the United Nations is also working to encourage a strong new Security Council resolution with new and additional measures against North Korea. Work is proceeding at the United Nations and we expect a new resolution to emerge in the near future.
Australia already has strong sanctions in place against North Korea, following North Korea’s 2006 nuclear test. Australia has fully implemented the sanctions under UN Security Council resolution 1718. The sanction regime requires:
In addition to fully implementing these sanctions, Australia has a visa ban that applies to North Korean nationals. North Korean flagged ships are banned from entering Australia and bilateral aid is suspended. Given the suffering of the North Korean people, Australia continues to provide emergency humanitarian aid through United Nations agencies and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
North Korea’s recent actions—its nuclear test, further missile tests and threatening language—pose a very serious threat to regional and world security. Its actions have breached international norms of behaviour. To ignore North Korea’s behaviour would undermine the credibility of the United Nations. It would send the wrong signal to others about the international community’s steadfast commitment to preventing the further proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The international community has no option but to respond very firmly to North Korea’s actions. That is why Australia is calling for new, targeted sanctions to be imposed on North Korea and for the United Nations Security Council to work to ensure that United Nations members implement new sanctions together with full implementation of previous sanctions that have been imposed on North Korea, including through resolution 1718.
North Korea is a particularly complex international security problem. It is a closed society, one seemingly impervious to international community concerns or the desperate plight of its own people. We have, unfortunately, become accustomed to North Korea’s provocative, belligerent threats. The international community should not, of course, overreact. North Korea has engaged in this sort of brinkmanship before. It is in Australia and the international community’s interest to ensure that the door is left open for dialogue with North Korea. Australia is not starry-eyed about this, but the eventual resumption of dialogue is something we need to work towards. Australia will continue to support our key partners, including the United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea, in their efforts to get North Korea back to the path of dialogue.
There is already a mechanism in place for dialogue with North Korea, a mechanism that is strongly supported by Australia and the international community. That mechanism, of course, is the six-party talks, involving the United States, China, Russia, Japan, the Republic of Korea and North Korea. This is the avenue for the North Korean regime to ensure its own security.
The only way to create better opportunities and to improve the lives of its starving population is by the regime in North Korea returning to conformity with United Nations Security Council resolutions, and by North Korea engaging in serious dialogue: North Korea needs to recommit to and implement the commitments towards denuclearisation that it has already made through the six-party talks. As the Prime Minister said yesterday, North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs are an increasing threat to regional security and represent an emerging threat to Australia’s national security. Australia is determined to play its part at the United Nations with its friends and partners to respond to this major international security threat.
I ask leave of the House to move a motion to enable the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to speak for a period of seven minutes.
Leave granted.
I move:
That so much of standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent Ms J Bishop speaking in reply to the ministerial statement for a period not exceeding 7 minutes.
Question agreed to.
As a result of the extremely provocative acts of North Korea this week, there is now a new and disturbing security landscape in North-East Asia. The decision of the North Korean military regime to detonate a nuclear device earlier this week was particularly provocative after its test firing of a long-range missile in early April. It is deeply concerning to read reports that North Korea has raised the level of its rhetoric, saying it is no longer bound by the terms of the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953. North Korea has subsequently threatened a military strike against South Korea. It is also reported to have restarted its nuclear reprocessing plant to produce additional weapons grade plutonium and has fired numerous short-range missiles.
These actions represent a direct challenge to the authority of the United Nations. The ballistic missile and nuclear tests are a clear breach of United Nations Security Council resolution 1718 of 2006 which demands that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea not conduct any further nuclear test or launch any ballistic missile. The resolution was passed in response to North Korea’s first nuclear test in October 2006 and it was absolutely clear in its requirement that North Korea desist from any further development of nuclear weapons. The Security Council has previously described North Korea’s nuclear weapons program as having the potential to destabilise the region and beyond.
While the world is understandably focused on North Korea and the necessity for a multilateral response, our focus and support must also go to our close ally, Japan, and our strong strategic and trading partner, South Korea. Seoul is only 30 kilometres from the border with North Korea and would bear the brunt of any military outburst from the north, and there are still around 28,000 United States troops stationed in South Korea. This morning, the US-South Korea Combined Forces Command was placed on higher alert, and surveillance over North Korea is to be upgraded in response to the nuclear and missile tests and threats of war. Japan has been placed in an extraordinarily difficult security position by the actions of North Korea. It is bound by its longstanding interpretation of constitutional nonaggression: to only develop military defensive capability. It is now forced to grapple with the consequences of North Korea actively pursuing nuclear weapons capability which may well mean a shift in Japan’s military stance.
Tokyo is planning a stronger quarantine strategy against North Korea to end all trade with that country. Seoul has joined the Proliferation Security Initiative, a US-led initiative with 90 member countries designed to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction. For the people of democratic South Korea, North Korea’s bellicose talk of turning Seoul into a ‘sea of fire’ has meant a life forever on the edge, with the fear that the conventional threat posed by one of the highest concentrations anywhere in the world of artillery, rockets and missiles will one day be superseded by the threats of weapons of mass destruction.
North Korea’s delinquency is highlighted by the fact that this regime is responsible for the only two nuclear explosions in the 21st century. The North Korean investment involved in embarking on a nuclear weapons development program is immense and the impact on regional security and stability is profound. The costs imposed on the peoples of the Korean peninsula, in particular, have been cruel in the extreme. The diversion of North Korea’s meagre resources to the regime’s efforts to acquire this weapons technology has robbed a beleaguered people of their basic needs of decent food and decent shelter.
Australia has a direct stake in the de-nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula as a critical element in the interests of longer term peace and stability in our region. We do look to China as North Korea’s major trading partner but also as a responsible stakeholder in the region to bring maximum pressure to bear on the North Korean regime to comply with its international obligations—in particular, the unanimous call by the Security Council for North Korea to abide by resolution 1718.
It would be a mistake for these latest developments to simply be dismissed as a repeat of a familiar cycle of alarmist statements and threats. While there is an element of ‘Groundhog Day’ about North Korea’s behaviour—we have been down this path before; the threat-crisis-response cycle—it is important that the international community ensure that the military regime is not rewarded for its provocative behaviour. In the past there has been a carrot and stick approach to negotiating with North Korea. Provocative behaviour by North Korea has in the past been successful in eliciting concessions and incentives. In exchange for concessions, North Korea has repeatedly promised to halt development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. But North Korea has failed to honour these commitments in the past and cannot be trusted to honour future commitments.
The Security Council has said that it will work to develop a new, legally binding resolution with regard to North Korea. The coalition is of the view that all members of the international community should refocus efforts to enforce the provisions of resolution 1718—fully enforce the existing provisions. The calls for additional sanctions must consider past events in terms of the most effective approaches in dealing with North Korea. For example, the United States imposed strict financial sanctions in 2005 and targeted a bank in Macau—the Banco Delta Asia—that was alleged to have been involved in money laundering and other activities that supported the North Korean regime. The United States sanctions are reported to have effectively crippled that bank and brought pressure to bear on the regime. Many analysts have also pointed to the greater willingness of North Korea to resume the six-party talks in the wake of that action.
That raises the prospect that similar actions to limit North Korea’s access to finance through banking and corporate sanctions should be considered again, and the coalition would urge that the Security Council consider such sanctions. The coalition condemns the actions of North Korea. The coalition stands with our allies the United States, and Japan, with South Korea and with the international community, in finding a resolution that encourages the Security Council to develop a strong framework to deal with North Korea that includes further sanctions. The coalition calls for the full and proper enforcement of all sanctions currently contained in Security Council resolution 1718, and the coalition supports the call for the six-party talks to recommence to see if diplomatic engagement can divert this game of brinkmanship and diffuse the latest frightening scenario being played out on the Korean peninsula. (Time expired)
I have received a letter from the honourable member for Flinders proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The Government’s failure in its administration of environmental programs.
I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.
More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—
On Sunday we read that the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts had harpooned his own whaling envoy. Today we are hearing porkies over parrots. Let me deal with both of these issues under the general question of a minister’s duty to administer his portfolio with a moderate degree of competence and in Australia’s national interest.
What have we heard just today from Senate estimates? I want to take the House firstly through Senate estimates and secondly through what occurred in question time today. From Senate estimates on the question of the poor whaling envoy who has been harpooned, we know that the envoy’s contract was only ever until March, and yet it was denied as such. The appointment of an envoy was promised, not in 2009, not in 2008, but on 17 September 2007. Was the envoy appointed in January or February or March or May or April or June or July 2008? Not even in August or September? No, it was in October 2008. And what had happened in the meantime on this grand whaling issue which had been promised? Where we had been told there would be action in 2008, what we saw is very simple. The ships were late. They spent the summer in the port of Fremantle before arriving for the tail end of the season. They missed the action. The planes never flew, other than for a couple of flights where they made no contact with the principal Japanese whaling fleet. The envoy was missing in action.
Is this it?
We will be back, my friend! The envoy was missing in action. But then we go to something very simple: this minister’s promise on eight occasions through himself and his friends to bring a case before the International Whaling Commission. On 20 May 2005:
Our challenge to the Howard Government is to prepare a case now for the International Court of Justice which will bring the international public spotlight on Japan’s claims.
On 24 May 2005, somebody who now occupies the Prime Minister’s chair:
The Howard government must initiate a case against Japan in the International Court of Justice.
Mr Rudd and Mr Albanese, on 19 June 2005:
The IWC will not stop the … slaughter.
On 20 June 2005:
The Howard government should take Japan to the International Court of Justice to end the barbaric slaughter of whales once and for all.
On 18 July 2005:
… must act immediately to take Japan to the International Court of Justice.
On 19 May 2007, the minister’s own words:
… take Japan to international courts such as the International Court of Justice or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to end the slaughter of whales.
On 20 May 2007:
… take Japan and any other country necessary, to court in the International Court of Justice ….
And, on 20 May 2007, he said that the IWC had not worked.
They appointed an envoy to go to the IWC but what have we found today in Senate estimates? Not only was the contract initially for six months but we had a six-month envoy one year late. We have also found $1,800 per day—and I do not begrudge him his per diem—with total fees $79,000, total flights $80,000 and additional costs all adding up to about $309,000. Now, under pressure, it seems the government may extend it for another three months, but here is the rub: the whaling envoy for whom $300,000 has been paid, for whom an international court case has been abandoned, is not going to go to the International Whaling Commission. No, the whaling envoy does not go to the International Whaling Commission. My advice is to send the whaling envoy and leave the minister at home. This is ultimately about who gets the job done.
We had a minister who promised not just once, but through himself and his colleagues not just twice, three, four, five, six or seven times, but on eight occasions that Australia, under their leadership, would take Japan to the International Court of Justice. Strangely it never happened. All of these other things never happened. Now we see that for all the money they have spent on an international whaling envoy, whose personal credentials I do not disparage at all, the envoy is not going to the International Whaling Commission meeting. What an extraordinary situation. We had a promise, a pledge, a commitment but ultimately what we have is a failure, a deception, a distortion, an abandonment and an international whaling envoy who does not go to the International Whaling Commission. But his contract is being extended to deal with the Sunday Telegraph headline. Just in case anybody missed it, the Sunday Telegraph headline sums it up very nicely—the editorial, ‘Garrett betrays the whales,’ and the article, ‘After eight months Garrett acts as whale envoy breach of promise.’ Breach of promise and betrays the whales. Never can we say that it has been better or more succinctly summarised. But that is only one part of today’s news.
What we also saw was a very significant beginning. I say significant because we raise the issue of what was said on the floor of this parliament, in this chamber, in question time on 12 May. I would guess that we have not heard the last of this issue—maybe I am right, maybe I am wrong—but I suspect we have not heard the last of this issue. What the minister said to this House in this place on 12 May was very simple: when he was asked during question time in relation to logging activities in the New South Wales Central Murray State Forests he stated:
It is particularly important for me to confirm to the House that no stopwork order has been issued by the department.
That was clear, it was simple, it was categorical. We took him at his word that no stopwork order had been issued. The words were not even ‘was ever’. This was an issue about ‘it has not happened’ and we look at what was the case. In this letter from an assistant secretary in the minister’s own department what we see very simply is something slightly different. In this letter from the assistant secretary of his department dated 1 May 2009, 11 days before he stated that no stopwork order had been issued, there were a few inconvenient phrases. I say ‘inconvenient’ because in the letter, addressed to the Murray-Darling area manager of Forests New South Wales, we find that the department has made the following statement as to what must happen by 31 May 2009: ‘Cessation of the use of Australian group selection across the south-west New South Wales Murray-Mildura management area.’ That is one. But then even more expressly, by 31 May 2009: ‘Cessation of all harvesting operations in the Central Murray State Forests Ramsar site until further advice from the department or referral of the wider operations.’
In anyone’s language this was a stopwork order, unless of course a cessation is not a stop. That is a bit perhaps like a temporary deficit. What we have is a cessation, a stopwork order. And we have a denial that any such order was ever issued. This of course was preliminary because if this did not happen we are told everything, anywhere would also be stopped. So it was clear and categorical that these activities must be stopped and they must be stopped by 31 May because if they are not stopped we will stop everything.
I discussed this with the Leader of the Opposition. We looked at the idea from him as a former environment minister of what a stopwork order is. He looked at it. He knows this type of thing. He used to issue them. He said, ‘Oh, we have a stopwork order here. I had to look at these things. I recognise that type of action. It is a legally binding commitment. It is a statement from one tier of government to another. It is a statement from the minister through his department.’ But more than that, the current minister did not deny that it was him; he denied that even his department had issued a stopwork order. Yet we see that this letter, this piece of evidence, shows that a cessation of work was ordered by 31 May. That is clear, it is absolute; it is without doubt a stopwork order.
I would simply make this point. What we have seen today is not just a whale envoy who has been harpooned but we have seen porkies over parrots and we have seen a minister place his future on the line because we will return to this issue. You may well look very carefully at the transcript over the weekend but let us be clear that this minister has made statements to this House which are clearly and categorically untrue.
I move:
That the House, at its rising, adjourn until 10 a.m. on Monday, 1 June 2009
Question agreed to.
Order! It being 4.30 pm, I propose the question:
That the House do now adjourn.
This evening, I wish to raise the debacle that is Perth airport and the likelihood that significant and long-overdue developments will be strung out. I have raised this matter repeatedly with the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, the Prime Minister, the airport operators Westralia Airports Corporation, Qantas and the coalition when they were in government, and I am raising it again now.
While the draft 2009 Perth Airport Preliminary Draft Master Plan was released last week, all indications suggest the planned $1 billion overhaul could be delayed by at least five years, supposedly as a result of the credit crunch, which has ravaged Westralia Airports Corporation’s investments.
Like many Perth travellers, I have been eagerly anticipating the redevelopment of the ‘third world’ Perth airport that WAC aptly named ‘Vision for the Future’. That is it in a point; it is a mirage. The truth is that I should not have to have this debate now. If WAC had not been asleep at the wheel, major upgrades would not be in this cloud of doubt. When passenger movements and aircraft traffic were on the up-and-up a decade ago, and even five years ago, they should have had lift-off. It is no secret that the airport is shambolic. Only 64 per cent of flights leave Perth airport on time—this means that more than one third do not. The morning logjam is phenomenal, with 70 aircraft taking off between 5 am and 7 am. There are frequent traffic jams on the tarmac where passengers often have to disembark because there is little open space and few gates. The 2009 master plan extends the time frame for the major domestic and international terminal consolidation from between five and seven years to more than 10 years. To the Australian last week, WAC CEO Mr Geatches conceded there would be some issues meeting their own timeframes. He said:
Certainly, when we announced our plans we were flat strap and in the middle of a historic period of growth, and boom conditions in WA.
And when pressed for giving time frames we said we expect five to seven years.
Now there’s no doubt that this softening will cause that to slip to some degree …
Airport executives have said that they are making arrangements to move forward. However, international ratings agency Moody’s said that the time frame for merging the domestic and international terminals could expand to well beyond the planned 2013, stating:
Major capital expansion—in the absence of an improvement in market conditions in agreement with airlines—is not expected to occur as it could pressure the WAC’s credit rating.
The financial crisis is just a convenient excuse. Not only am I concerned about the delays to redevelopment but, under the circumstances, it appears that, when or if plans proceed, they could be significantly watered down. When Westralia unveiled its redevelopment plans after some sharp criticism from coalition members and former WA Premier Alan Carpenter, there were grand plans that it was to be among the best airports in the Asia-Pacific region.
Recently the West Australian newspaper reported that it could now be a C-class airport, which is minimum standard rating under the International Air Transport Association standards. Originally, it was to have 44 aerobridges; now the new terminal will have only 20 to 25 in its plans. That means passengers will continue to walk to their aircraft on the tarmac in all sorts of weather conditions.
While investment performance may be lacklustre, airports are profitable. This may be because airports like Perth are gorging on commercial property development rather than the core business of aviation services.
Perth airport is a money maker. In the financial year to June 2008, the airport recorded a profit of $84.5 million—an increase of more than 45 per cent on the previous year. Perhaps the beneficial owners and chairman David Crawford are trousering the profits rather than reinvesting them back into the airport.
I acknowledge that some improvements—in other words, Qantas $50 million terminal upgrade, baggage carousels and parking—have been made at the domestic terminal. However, these are predominantly cosmetic and have not resolved the underlying problems of capacity. There is increasing pressure on existing infrastructure and no real vigour from owners to make the necessary changes.
Both state and federal governments have committed to major investment in the surrounding road network, particularly the Tonkin and Leach highways. WAC must come to the party. Surely the profits of a 99-year lease are enough incentive to keep these things moving. The airport owners need to provide a strict time frame for the redevelopment, including key progress indicators. I will be seeking advice on WAC’s obligations under the current 99-year lease and the federal government’s ability to enforce those obligations or, alternatively, have their lease rescinded. It is now time that WAC were put on notice, and by its own admission— (Time expired)
The electorate of Bonner, which takes in the south-east suburbs of Brisbane, is I think one of the most beautiful and biodiverse electorates that you would find amongst our three major metropolitan capital cities. It is bordered by Moreton Bay and the Brisbane River and it contains several mountains and some pristine creek catchments. But undoubtedly the jewel in the crown of that electorate is the magnificent sand island, Moreton Island. That is why members in the House will appreciate that those of us who know and love that island so dearly were devastated when we saw the first images of the massive oil spill that had occurred on 11 March. The Pacific Adventurer, off the island in the ocean at the time, lost 31 containers, causing approximately 270 tonnes of oil to leak into the ocean and wash up on the pristine beaches of Moreton Island. It was a dramatic sight to see what are usually beautiful white sands completely black and covered in oil. It was of grave concern and required an immediate but also practical and effective response.
I rise this evening to congratulate all of those who were involved in the clean-up of Moreton Island. I am happy to say that as of 11 May the beaches have been open to the public and you would not know the devastation that had occurred only a couple of short months ago. Of course, 11 March was also significant in Queensland because we were in the final days of a state election campaign. It was unfortunate that the oil spill on Moreton Island, which should have required everybody’s support, focus and attention, became a political football. There were criticisms from members of the Liberal and National parties at both the local and state level about the government’s response. It is unfortunate that when these things occur people want to score political points.
Not only did those involved in the clean-up take the time to become informed about the nature of the response; for a start, you were in cyclonic conditions and the safety of workers had to be paramount. Secondly, the oil was washing up onto the beach. If you had gone in there straightaway and removed it, inevitably you would also have been removing sand. You would have had more oil washing up on the beach and therefore more sand to be removed, and indeed the damage to the beaches would have been quite significant. It was a much more practical response to wait for all of the oil to be washed up onto the beach and then begin what was an incredible clean-up operation.
It is also a shame that when we have these political games played that it is fair cop for us as politicians to get involved in the argy-bargy. Unfortunately, it is those incredibly dedicated people who are out there trying to do their best in these situations that feel the brunt of that criticism. They take it personally. I know that. I have visited the island twice since the oil spill and on both occasions I have discussed with the workers the incredible efforts they have made. All of them to a person feel so proud of what they have achieved but hurt and disappointed because of criticisms that were made that blamed them for not cleaning up the beaches appropriately.
I want to particularly acknowledge Peter Keytes, who was the incident control officer; Adrian Haws, who ran the incident room; Jane Howard, the media officer, who obviously dealt with all of those difficult criticisms; ‘Squirrel’, a great guy out there driving trucks and looking after the contamination area; Willy, the bobcat owner; and particularly Trevor Hassard, the Manager of Tangalooma Island Resort. He had to cope with 300 men being billeted to his resort, often doubling up in rooms. They had to be fed, looked after and catered for. This was an incredible operation. You are on an island where the beaches can only be accessed by two sand roads. The men were taken over in buses on very sandy, bumpy roads every day. I commend the operation and those who were involved. (Time expired)
Right now there are thousands of households and businesses in my electorate trying to get by with unreliable and slow dial-up or impossibly expensive satellite internet. Broadband with high speed and low latency for them has become an impossible dream. It did not have to be so. It was the Labor government which cancelled the Howard government’s $2 billion contract with Optus and Elders to deliver metro-equivalent broadband services to regional and remote parts of our country, including of course in my own electorate. The vastly improved services under that OPEL contract would be coming online now if the contract had been upheld. Families in rural and regional Australia would have been able to compete on an equal footing in business and education communications with those in the cities. Instead, halfway through this government’s term, Labor has not done anything to improve broadband services in rural and regional Australia. If anything, it has made the situation worse, cancelling OPEL and dissolving the $2.4 billion communications fund which was an in-perpetuity fund to provide improved services to regional and rural Australia.
As if the collapse of Labor’s first national broadband project was not bad enough, Labor has committed itself to building a fibre-to-the-premise network which leaves more than two million people outside its latest broadband announcement—two million people from rural and regional Australia—and specifically excludes towns and communities across Australia with fewer than 1,000 residents. Towns in my electorate which will miss out include Beachport, Blanchetown, Cadell, Callington, Cobdogla, Coonalpyn, Kalangadoo, Karoonda, Lameroo, Lucindale, Meningie, Morgan, Mount Burr, Nangwarry, Paringa, Pinnaroo, Port MacDonnell, Swan Reach, Tantanoola, Tarpeena, Tintinara, Truro and others. We are not talking outback towns; some of them are just over one hour from Adelaide. It does not have to be so.
Last, week a young man whose parents live in Coonalpyn in my electorate wrote to me. Coonalpyn is a small town with a population of just over 200 residents in a farming community. This young man put to me that just because a town is excluded by the Labor government from being part of the National Broadband Network on account of population, it is unacceptable that they be left to put up with slow speeds, dial-up or even satellite broadband. I do not deny that satellite has been a blessing for many farm families and communities. However, satellite broadband users miss out on many of the associated benefits of high-speed, low-latency broadband, including MSN, Skype, ABC iView et cetera. Certainly our young rural people can only envy these services already highly used by their city cousins. He further pointed out to me that private companies Internode and Agile have endeavoured to solve this problem by building infrastructure throughout the Coorong district region with low-maintenance, solar powered transmitters which provide a wide-reaching area. This is a great example of a local solution for a local problem. Internode started as a small company in the Coorong communications network providing ADSL2+ and Naked DSL access to small towns such as Coonalpyn, Tintinara, Tailem Bend and Meningie.
These small companies have ensured that these towns can now receive ADSL at 22 megabits per second, a significant improvement. Simply put: the young man stated that there is no reason that the exchanges in the towns I previously listed cannot have fibre to the exchange of similar nature, then provide a town-based copper broadband structure or implement a wireless alternative for those for whom that is not possible. I should add that under OPEL many exchanges in my electorate would have already been upgraded in exactly this manner. The point is: if a small company with limited resources can identify a problem and then solve it, why can’t the Labor government do the same? Instead of denying regional communities the broadband service they would have been receiving this year under the OPEL contract and then making them pay for the $43 billion network that will not reach them, why can’t Labor come down from their ivory city towers and talk to companies who have made it happen? Who knows, they might learn something about communications for rural and regional Australia.
The Fremantle electorate encompasses or touches upon four local government areas, and while the shared name and historical importance of the City of Fremantle reflects the strong connection between the two, it is actually the City of Cockburn that contributes the large share of the territory and population of the federal district. The municipal area of Cockburn is located within the traditional land of the Nyoongar people and it extends 15 kilometres inland from the exquisite coastal waters of Cockburn Sound to the lee of the Darling escarpment. Running north-south through the middle of Cockburn, the Beeliar Regional Park is comprised of a string of precious wetlands that runs from Lake Banganup to North Lake. I have previously spoken in this place about the community efforts to protect those wetlands, especially in the context of the state government’s intention to resurrect the Frankenstein’s monster that is Roe Highway stage 8.
The City of Cockburn is one of the fastest developing localities not only in Western Australia but in Australia as a whole. The current city population of approximately 80,000 is anticipated to grow to 90,700 by 2011 and to 102,600 by 2016. This growth has received a critical boost from the completion of the Perth to Mandurah rail line by the Gallop-Carpenter Labor government. New suburban development and house construction in Cockburn has flourished over the last decade as a result of this forward-looking and sustainable urban transport infrastructure. But rapid growth also brings with it the challenge of supporting that growth, and certainly the expansion in Cockburn needs to be appropriately met by an expansion in services. As the member for Fremantle, I take it as one of my ongoing priorities to ensure that the growing southern and south-eastern parts of my electorate are assisted with a growth in services as they develop.
To that end, in January I wrote to the Minister for Human Services in relation to a petition of 10,000 signatures calling for a Medicare office to be established at the Cockburn central shopping and services precinct. I have also argued, and will continue to argue, the case for locating an integrated primary healthcare centre at a site owned by the City of Cockburn within the suburb of Success. Cockburn is an area of identified need, with its ratio of GPs per head of population of 1 to 1,613 being significantly behind the national average 1 to 1,403. The proposed site is well served by private and public transport, and it would dovetail well with the new Fiona Stanley Hospital as an important addition to the area’s existing and expanding health service needs. It is a greenfields site and I understand that with appropriate government support the Cockburn central primary healthcare centre would be in a position to go ahead quickly towards full operation.
As an area of new and rapid growth, it is of course understandable that Cockburn is more exposed than other places to the vicissitudes of the current economic downturn. For that reason, I was pleased to be joined last month by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Employment Participation at a community jobs forum that was hosted very professionally by the City of Cockburn. The Rudd government recognise that the southern metro region of WA is an area of serious economic impact in the current circumstances, and the siting of a local employment coordinator to cover this area—one of seven key locations identified across Australia—is an important part of our response. As I said at the forum in April:
This is a strong, resilient community—and we will face this challenge together, in partnership with government; in partnership with business, and with employment and support agencies; and in partnership with our neighbours and families and friends.
Of course, the Rudd government’s efforts to both grow and underpin employment through nation-building initiatives are taking effect in Cockburn, as they take effect right across Australia. In addition to the unprecedented investment in school infrastructure, the support for installing insulation and photovoltaic cells to households and the direct support for the City of Cockburn itself, I am very pleased that $2 million will go to the construction of the Coogee surf lifesaving integrated community facility under the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure program. All these measures represent immediate support for jobs and economic activity in Cockburn; and they take the form of long-term investments in the future of this community.
I would like to conclude by noting that in October the City of Cockburn will celebrate the 30th anniversary of achieving city status. It is a strong, diverse, and dynamic community with a high level of engagement in its development and, I might say, in its governance. As a federal member, I am privileged to represent the people of Cockburn, and I look forward to celebrating their 30th birthday with them.
I rise to talk about a very real person from the Nyngan community called Denise Ward, who was killed in a car accident recently. Mrs Ward was a pillar of the Nyngan community and everybody who knew her—and that was certainly most people in the region—was shattered by her loss in that car accident. David and her family have my sincere condolences and those of everybody else who knows them, as well as those who do not know them but know of them because they have always worked tirelessly on behalf of the people of the region, and I am sure the family still will. That would include, in Denise’s case, working for what used to be called the Rural Lands Protection Board, the Country Women’s Association and many other volunteer groups in our region. Denise was passionate about the economic and social development of Nyngan and the Bogan shire and was one of those people who was always willing to stand up and put her hand up. It is a funny thing, but the people who do that seem to get asked to do it all the time and Denise was someone who did not avoid it.
She was always willing to help out with her friends, her neighbours and the general community and she never looked for any kudos—people like her quite often never do—but she always said good things about people rather than bad. Her passing is an incredibly sad loss, not just to the people of Nyngan town and Nyngan shire but to western New South Wales and Australia in general.
I also wish to talk about an issue which is of great importance to everybody in regional Australia and particularly to some of my country in the west, and that is communications. Regional communications have been belted again. Not long ago, we had the then new government renege on a contract with Optus which would have provided broadband to almost everybody—98 per cent of Australians. During the estimates this week it was revealed that, of the $400 million interest earned by the former Communications Fund, which was set up to earn interest to be spent on maintaining and keeping regional Australia in touch with the latest developments—and this interest was promised by the Rudd government—just $75 million has been allocated to projects in response to the regional telecommunications review. The rest has vanished into the entirely unrelated Building Australia Fund, which sometime in never-never land not only is supposed to look after Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane but way beyond that, possibly by 2025, may give everyone except eight per cent of Australians in regional Australia some kind of broadband.
We are talking at a time when the Prime Minister and the Treasurer are quite happy to run up a $315 billion debt. They claim, as they mentioned in estimates, that the remaining $325 million out of the $400 million which was promised to regional communications is coming, but it is unbudgeted and they do not know when it will come. Yet we should hold our breath and wait for it. Regional Australia has been done over on this, like it has been done over on water and like it has been done over on infrastructure generally.
On 15 May this year, I was pleased to host the jobs forum at Ipswich Region Community Church. Present at that occasion was the Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon. Kevin Rudd; the Minister for Employment Participation, the Hon. Brendan O’Connor; the federal member for Blaxland, Jason Clare, who is the Prime Minister’s special adviser on jobs; the member for Oxley; the member for Forde; and the member for Rankin, who is also the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy. It was a jobs forum concerning Ipswich and Logan. There are a lot of parallels between Ipswich and Logan. They are both on the south-west side of Brisbane and their communities are very similar, in ethics, in ethos and in the experiences they have had in terms of developments and infrastructure, their progress and the challenges they each face at the time. Both of those communities are determined to unite and work together to combat the challenges we face locally as a result of the global recession. I am convinced that the compassion, the commitment and the common sense of the people of Ipswich and Logan will survive and prosper and ensure that the effects of the global recession locally will be mitigated.
I thank the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, who came to the Ipswich Motorway near the Centenary Highway roundabout. There were many people at the jobs forum—business leaders, union leaders, members of both Logan and Ipswich councils, and young people from the various schools. I was pleased that they could come. I was pleased to see members of the not-for-profit sector, the church and charitable institutions of Ipswich and Logan. They make such vital contributions and are at the front line of dealing with people, families and businesses that are facing difficulties, conflict and challenge in their everyday lives. I commend Senior Pastor Mark Edwards and the Ipswich Region Community Church for the wonderful work they do in my community of Ipswich. They, together with other churches, make an important contribution in the lives of people in the city of Ipswich.
The greatest manifestation of the government’s commitment to nation building for recovery and the Nation Building and Jobs Plan in my local community is the upgrading of the Ipswich Motorway. We are pleased that the Prime Minister has seen fit to employ, in the interim, a local employment coordinator, Samantha Wilson from DEEWR, to help in Logan and Ipswich. I was very pleased that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer came to Ipswich Motorway and had a look at the construction that is going on there. The motorway is being upgraded in three stages. The first stage was the Goodna to Wacol section, which will be completed by the middle of this year. The Wacol to Darra section will be completed by the end of next year. The Dinmore to Goodna section, which at the moment is having preliminary construction and activities taking place, will formally be under construction in a real and serious and determined way by the middle of this year.
The Ipswich Motorway forms part of the government’s network road freight corridor known at Network 1. It is an $884 million commitment for additional works this year. We are investing money locally, and thousands of jobs are being created. It was interesting for me to note yesterday that the Queensland Minister for Main Roads, the Hon. Craig Wallace, announced that as part of the motorway upgrade—near the area where the Prime Minister and Treasurer were that day, looking and talking with the workers and various people who are transforming the western corridor—the Centenary roundabout will be further advanced in the replacement of what could be described as a very ordinary roundabout that connects Ipswich, Springfield, Forrest Lake and Brisbane. We are going to see that whole area replaced by a multi-level free-flowing interchange. I am pleased that that is about to take place. The work will commence on the weekend of 12 to 15 June. I am sure the member for Oxley, who has campaigned with me for so long on this issue, will be absolutely delighted. I commend all those people involved in the construction, the federal and state governments, and the companies involved. (Time expired)
The following notice was given:
to move:
That each Member of the House supports:
I rise to speak on a very important issue and to present a petition collected by the principal petitioner, Charles Edwards, with regard to the need for a Medicare office in the Pakenham community.
I have only been in Pakenham for a very short 35 years, and have seen the community grow from 400 or 500 people to 27,000 people—one of the remarkable explosions of population that we have seen around the country in many seats such as mine. We have had huge growth patterns, particularly in outer metropolitan areas of our country. Previous governments and this government have acquiesced to provide services for those communities. They provide not only Medicare offices but they supply veterans’ offices, help for many other areas of their activities and of course they have Centrelink offices spread in a network right around this country.
But in two locations—Moe and Pakenham—we do not have a Medicare office. The demographic of the community is not a lot different to the demographics of other electorates. It has pensioners, it has carers that need carer payments and it has people that need government services; but they need them where they can access them. You can say, ‘Well, they can get on public transport and do that.’ But as you know very well, Madam Deputy Speaker—being a Melbournian yourself—the public transport in outer areas does not always connect directly with the public service they need to attend. That is why we have Red Cross support to help older people to travel, which is a very important service.
However, because of this massive growth of population, the lack of public transport and the fact that the service that is provided is at Fountain Gate some 20-odd kilometres away, there is a real case for this. I congratulate Charles Edwards and his wife for making the effort to get this massive number of signatures with regard to this very special need in the Pakenham area.
The petition reads as follows—
To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives
This petition of residents of Pakenham and surrounding district in the state of Victoria, Electoral Division of McMillan, draws to the attention of the House:
We therefore ask the House to do all in its power to ensure that a Medicare Office be located in the township of Pakenham:
from 5,155 citizens.
Petition received.
As politicians, we have the rare privilege of meeting many people from all walks of life. We particularly get to meet those who inspire with their courage and determination to beat the odds. Today I proudly speak of one such person, an 11-year-old constituent of mine who lives in Cranbourne: Tess MacCartney, and her mother, Mairi-Anne.
Tess and her mother came to see me last Friday to discuss her role as Youth Ambassador for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and to discuss her experience of juvenile diabetes. Prior to meeting Tess, I did not really have an idea of what type I diabetes was or how it could affect someone so young. What impressed me was how Tess described her own experience. I learnt a lot by hearing what happened, and what it would mean for Tess in the future. Tess told me she was diagnosed as having type 1 diabetes in November 2008. Her mum, Mairi-Anne, told me that Tess was ill last year with stomach aches, as well as being very thirsty and needing to go to the toilet a lot. Imagine Mairi-Anne’s shock one day going to a doctor to discover what had caused these health problems, and the next day having her daughter immediately admitted to hospital and being treated for a week.
For many people in this situation it would be easy, given that this is a life-altering illness—an illness that, left untreated, can cause blindness, amputations and increased incidences of stroke and kidney disease—to feel despondent and without hope. But Tess has decided to become an ambassador to raise awareness about the symptoms of diabetes, as well as raising funds that can be directed towards finding a cure. She has organised fundraising activities at her primary school during diabetes month in May, and is doing her best to raise awareness about this disease by discussing the issue with members of the public in my electorate. Tess is now part of the ‘Remember me’ campaign, and has left me with a picture of her, which I now have on my desk in my electorate office, to remember her and children like her who are affected by type 1 diabetes.
As a consequence of Tess’s visit to my office, I now know the insidious nature of juvenile diabetes. It affects close to 100,000 of our children. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, where the body’s immune system suddenly mistakenly attacks and destroys the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Without insulin, your body cannot turn the glucose from the food you eat into energy for your muscles and other cells of your body. I know that a lot of research is being done to determine what causes type 1 diabetes, and there is still a fair way to go. I know that talking to other people about your diagnosis might be hard, but it is very important to build a support network—through friends and family and at school, uni and work. Diabetes does not have to stop you or anyone from living a full and active life. You can be a professional athlete, like NRL star Brett Stewart; a singer, like Marcia Hines; or a politician, like Guy Barnett. I know this and many other facts about juvenile diabetes for one reason—that is, a very brave little girl who walked into my office last Friday.
It gives me great pleasure to talk about two Defence Force related events in my electorate I participated in recently. The first was a visit a couple of weeks ago to the cadets in their regular training session down in Victor Harbor, in the southern part of my electorate. Twenty cadets attend once a week to do their training. They are a great group of young people, led by Sergeant Graham Coller and Sergeant Frank Cooper. They do a wonderful job each week in helping these cadets learn many skills—including drill, communications, first aid, navigation, orienteering and safe weapons handling. They are a lovely bunch of young people. It is a great thing for young people to do. It teaches them all sorts of skills. I am very supportive of what they do down there at Victor Harbor. Importantly, they learn how to become young leaders in our community. I pay tribute to this group of young people, and I urge more to get involved if they can. They plan next year to get over to Canberra for the Anzac Day service at the War Memorial, which I fully support. I will help in their fundraising attempts to make that trip possible. I acknowledge the cadets down in Victor Harbor and thank them for a very enjoyable evening.
The second event was this. In the week leading up to Anzac Day, on Monday, 20 April, I was fortunate to be part of a defence medal presentation in Mount Barker—in the centre of my electorate—to seven Australians who had served their nation with pride. It was a great initiative of the former government to recognise people who gave that commitment to our nation. It was an enjoyable morning tea with the seven people who received the medal. Army Warrant Officer Class 1 Carthew, who was from Keswick, helped with the presentation. Those who received the award were Darryn Maxwell, from Strathalbyn; Peter Simpson, from Strathalbyn; Richard Eylward from Goolwa; Lyn Gardiner from Yankalilla; Robert Schroder from Crafers West; Trevor Davis from Kersbrook; and James Kirk, from Macclesfield. They were all very proud. They had their families there. It was a lovely ceremony. It was a very well-designed and thought-through initiative that the previous government brought in, and I was very privileged to be part of that ceremony.
I am appalled that the United States has just taken a big backwards step towards protectionism, announcing its reintroduction of dairy export subsidies. This could lead to other countries blocking free trade. It could push prices down and distort the market. There are other ways to deal with need and adjustment. It might make them feel good, but it will distort the trade markets. The danger is that more will follow, like lemmings. This flies in the face of the G20 leaders agreement not to impose protectionist measures in the face of the global recession. We now have the EU and the US paying dairy subsidies. This further highlights the importance of concluding the WTO’s Doha Round, which would see the complete elimination of export subsidies—a process we in Australia are committed to. I know from direct contact with dairy farmers that many are experiencing some tough times due to the difficult and challenging economic climate.
In my seat of Page, the dairy industry is a key industry. We are home to the long-established and successful dairy cooperative Norco. Our dairy farmers over the past decade and even before have coped with and adjusted to many reforms. Some have been painful, but they have come through. The combined value of farm milk production from the Northern Rivers to south-east Queensland was 230 million for the 2006-07 period. Many farmers have already had significant cuts to the farm gate price following the fall in international dairy prices from the historic highs of 2007-08. ABARE forecasts further reductions in prices paid to farmers until 2010-11, after which it forecasts that prices will begin to recover. In spite of this, I know that the industry is optimistic about its long-term future. Importantly, two-thirds of dairy farmers still feel very positive about their future.
In the Sunday Age of 24 May 2009 Alan Burgess said that the American subsidies will depress already low world prices. I agree. The headline was, ‘US kick in the guts to dairy farmers.’ I could not agree more. It felt like a kick in the guts to me when I read it, knowing all the dairy farmers in my area who toil hard for long hours seven days a week. I am pleased that our Minister for Trade and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry are running hard on this, protesting loudly and at the highest levels. All of us are going in to bat for our dairy farmers. I am also pleased to report that, after much detailed negotiation by the government, the Indian market for Australian dairy exports has reopened for the first time since 2003—a hard market to crack. I ask our US friends to rethink. This is not a friendly act towards our dairy farmers.
The release of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Defence budget brief for 2009-10 irrefutably confirms that the Defence minister is engaged in what can only be described as gross mismanagement of the Defence budget. The Defence white paper was spun as a panacea document. Goodness knows we waited long enough for it. Yet, after all that time, it was delivered with the least comprehensive Defence budget papers of the past decade. I quote from the ASPI report:
There is a glaring absence of substantive information on funding, investment and reform.
In the 2009-10 budget, there is a commitment to increase real Defence spending by a maximum of three per cent annually out to 2018 and by 2.2 per cent from 2017-18 to 2029-30. The coalition government guaranteed a minimum three per cent annual real growth. Yet the numbers are not what they seem. Defence’s total funding of $26.6 billion in 2009-10 shows an increase of 14.9 per cent, largely because of the $1.4 billion commitment to support our forces in Afghanistan. However, the increase in 2010-11 is only 1.45 per cent to $27.028 billion. After that, the funding level falls even further: $27 billion in 2011-12 and $26.337 billion in 2012-13.
The ASPI report suggests that there may be some small element of good news contained in the muddled and disjointed white paper and companion reviews—that is, military numbers continue to grow. Indeed, that is good news, but then why is it that the Rudd Labor government is cutting the number of available places on the widely popular gap year program from 700 to just 600? The coalition government’s policy was always to increase the size of the program from the initial 700 to 1,000 available places. Additionally, internal Defence sources have advised that the Army will be slashing 1,000 continuous full-time positions that the reserve personnel currently fill, purely as a cost-saving measure. How can the Defence minister justify the loss of these positions when there is an ongoing shortage of military personnel?
In addition, 50 per cent of regular army members in reserve units will be cut, severely limiting the continuation training of reserves. The reserves have done a lot of heavy lifting for the ADF in the past decade, particularly within our often volatile northern approaches. This is yet another attempt by the Rudd Labor government to reduce the $188 billion worth of debt at the expense of our military personnel.
In conclusion, the incompetence of the current Defence minister has been revealed time and time again. It is directly and irrevocably harming Australia’s defence forces. How can the outstanding men and women in the ADF—and for that matter in the Australian public—have confidence in the future direction of Australia’s defence forces when the white paper and the budget papers are so scant on detail and so silent on what is to occur and what things will cost? This is just another smoke and mirrors campaign, resulting in a white paper that has no substance or credibility. The Australian people deserve a fulsome and detailed explanation of where their tax dollars are being spent. (Time expired)
The Federation of Indian Students of Australia say that, of their 33,000 members in Victoria, 60 have been seriously assaulted in Melbourne. In one recent attack two Indian students were hit on their heads with a bat at Tottenham station. The youths who attacked them taunted them racially. In another incident Sourabh Sharma, an Indian international student, was commuting home on a train after a shift at KFC when he was brutally bashed and robbed by six people. As the 21-year-old lay on the floor being kicked in the head and body, his attackers screamed racial insults. This is the latest in what police sources call an epidemic of attacks on Indians at western suburb train stations.
These attacks are a disgrace to Australia. As an MP from Melbourne I am angry and ashamed that these things are happening in my city, which has always believed in cultural diversity. Part of the ambience of Melbourne is cultural diversity, and this is a direct attack on our pluralist way of life. These attacks are also potentially harmful to our economy and national interest. Education is our largest export industry. Its success depends on our ability to offer international students a safe and welcoming environment. India is a booming democracy and will play an important role in Australia’s trade, security and political future.
I am pleased that authorities and people in Melbourne are acting swiftly to stamp out these disgraceful attacks. The Police-Indian Western Reference Group was established in January to help shield Indian visitors and residents, particularly students, from an escalation of night-time street crime in the western suburbs. In fact, a team is being sent to India—unfortunately, there is a necessity for doing this—led by Victoria Police Multicultural Liaison Officer Victor Robb. It will tour five cities, including Mumbai and Delhi, next week and students will be briefed on what to expect when they come to Melbourne.
Understandably, there has been extensive reporting of this thuggish behaviour on the streets of Melbourne. The Times of India ran one story under the title ‘Now, Indian students facing hell down under’. Kanan Kharbanda, a 28-year-old, lost his sight after one attack. He returned to India for medical treatment. Thankfully, he is back in Australia completing his studies. It makes you cringe to read in the Hindustan Times:
One hopes that students pursuing degrees in Australia only have to worry about their academic results not their safety.
The bogans initiating these attacks are undermining the strong relationship between Victorian universities and the international education system. They are undermining Australia’s reputation for pluralism. I am sure all members will support me in condemning these attacks. I urge the Victorian government and the Victoria Police to continue in their efforts to crack down on the idiots responsible for them.
I rise today to voice my concern about the current plans by the New South Wales state Labor government to cut staff at railway stations in my local community and the effect this will have on not just commuters but also the disabled in particular. This will affect stations from Marayong through to Richmond—Marayong, Quakers Hill, Schofields, Riverstone, Vineyard and the other stations between Windsor and Richmond. The standard of public transport that the people of the Hawkesbury and north-west sector have to put up with is unacceptable, and now we have a state Labor government cutting valuable front-line staff because they cannot manage their state. This is just another example of the state Labor government failing the people of New South Wales and treating the people of Greater Western Sydney like second-class citizens.
The many stations in my electorate that I have listed are going to be affected, including Riverstone and Windsor. I acknowledge the local papers, particularly the Rouse Hill Times and the Hawkesbury Gazette, for highlighting this issue. To give you some idea of what the cuts will mean, I will outline the impact on Windsor station. The New South Wales Labor government plan to, firstly, abolish the station manager position, thereby reducing the staff numbers at Windsor to one full time and one part time; secondly, delay the opening of the ticket office until 5.55 am; and, thirdly, design the roster in such a way that there are no staff manning the station on weekends. This will have a huge impact on commuters who use the station. The effect it will have particularly on the disabled is an absolute disgrace.
During this week one of my team was at the station and a person in a wheelchair was about to board the train. Because there is quite a large gap between the station and the train, the staff need to put a platform out so that the person in the wheelchair is able to get onto the train. On the weekend there will be no staff. How will a person using either a walking frame or a wheelchair get on or off a train on the weekend, when there is no staff member there to assist them with the placement of the temporary ramp? They will not be able to. The gap between the platform and the train is approximately six inches and there is a six-inch step up to the train.
This clearly demonstrates how out of touch the state Labor government are. Labor have ignored the needs of people with a disability and made changes which will isolate commuters with a disability even more. I call on the local residents to contact the state member for Riverstone, and I call on him to make representations to reverse this decision. (Time expired)
Last Monday I had the pleasure of visiting Northlakes High School in acknowledgment of the fine work that is being done by everybody associated with the CATE program. I have to congratulate the careers advisor, Phil Williamson. He is the person that designed the program and has implemented it within Northlakes High School.
It is a rather visionary program. It looks at recognising students and the work that they do, to actively increase their employability skills through participation in a variety of vocation based programs. In these challenging economic times where it is much more difficult to obtain a job, it is those people who have the skills and the personal attributes that they need who will be fortunate in finding employment. As the job market contracts, employers will be seeking young people as employees who have some skills and who have a record of being able to participate in the workforce.
The CATE program endeavours to acknowledge and reward students who have demonstrated personal attributes and employability skills through a program of vocation based activities. They are activities and programs that are assessed by both the school and the industry sector. It is an industry based and assessed workplace experience. Occupational health and safety and senior first aid are part of the course, as are community and school based voluntary projects and activities, an employability skills audit, undertaking extensive career based assessment activities and interviews, a career path transition plan, an employment portfolio and CATE interviews upon completion.
The CATE program is offered to students in years 10, 11 and 12. It is not designed to overburden students; rather, it is aimed to enhance their employability and their view of the world. It recognises student activities and the engagement that they have had to date. It acknowledges student participation in course placement and experience in part-time or casual employment, voluntary work and career planning. Students can undertake the CATE program over a maximum of two years. At the end of it they are awarded two documents: a career and transition excellence award and a record of achievement. This is an excellent program that is supported by industry— (Time expired)
On 19 February 1950 at approximately 4 pm, Daphne Knowles, aged 16, was swimming about 25 metres from the shore at North Cronulla when she was caught in a notorious rip near ‘the alley’. After she had been swept about 300 metres, she managed to cling to a surf ski which was being paddled by a member of the North Cronulla Surf Life Saving Club. Other surf lifesavers also managed to make it through the break to reach her, but by this time she was exhausted.
Club Captain ‘Major’ James Peryman, known as Jim, aged 24, was observing from the beach and realised the situation was critical. A member of North Cronulla’s champion R&R team and an accomplished swimmer with considerable knowledge of local surf conditions, Jim summoned another reel, line and belt team from the patrol and ran to the northern end of the beach. After a tremendously difficult swim, during which he strained against the weight of the line, Jim managed to reach Daphne. He took control of the patient and eventually the line began hauling him and Daphne back to the beach. He was assisted by another surf lifesaver visiting from Queensland, Frank Bergstron.
Jim continued to hold Daphne until he disappeared under the water, his line weighed down by the massive amount of seaweed in the water at the time. Jim was last seen conscious with his back towards the beach, an apparent sign that he was still prepared to rescue Daphne. Daphne was eventually taken to the beach by another surf ski and was safe.
During a lengthy haul-in, with increasing weight on the line, the linesman observed in the shallows of the sandbank a mass of seaweed. They raced to the scene and after frantically digging through the weed found the unconscious Jim Peryman. After numerous resuscitation efforts, Jim was transferred to the St George Hospital where the resident medical officer pronounced his death.
Jim was posthumously awarded a silver medal and certificate of merit by the Royal Shipwreck Relief and Humane Society. He has been acknowledged now in our local community also with the naming of Peryman Square at North Cronulla and, most recently, at the dedication of Australia’s first national surf reserve on Cronulla’s beaches in Bate Bay.
However it was not until this year’s National Surf Life Saving Championship in Perth that he was acknowledged by Surf Life Saving Australia. Thanks to the efforts of North Cronulla Surf Life Saving Club life members, Allan Cameron, Edward Larsen, Harry Brown and club patron Warren Rennie, together with the late Bill Marshall, patron of the Cronulla Surf Life Saving Club, in recognition of the fact that he continued to rescue at the risk of his own life, ‘Major’ James Peryman was awarded posthumously Surf Life Saving Australia’s highest recognition for bravery, the Meritorious Award Silver Medallion.
Jim is one of 40 such recipients in the movement’s more than 100 years proud history, joining the shire’s E. Salisury Baker from the Cronulla club, who received the award in 1944 for his rescue of a shark victim, and Keith Weir, at Forster Beach. I commend Surf Life Saving Australia for their long overdue recognition of ‘Major’ Jim Peryman and thank all of our surf life savers—particularly those from our Bate Bay clubs in the shire who follow in Jim’s footsteps every summer, putting themselves at risk to protect our safety.
Last week I had the privilege of witnessing one of the most impressive transformations that modern medical science can achieve. The member for Bradfield approached me some months ago about the issue of hearing screening for newborn infants and, in our discussions, in order to understand the issue and how we could improve the service across Australia, I asked whether he could arrange for me to have a look at an operation where cochlear implants were put into a little child. So I attended the Prince of Wales Hospital where Dr Phillip Chang performed the implantation of a cochlear implant on a four-month-old girl who was profoundly deaf. It was with the consent of the parents, and I acknowledge the role of the member for Bradfield in arranging this.
The cochlear implant is designed to allow people with profound deafness to hear sounds and communicate with the hearing world. Four months is the earliest that one can be fitted safely but, in terms of giving the child the benefit of hearing, the earlier the better.
I then visited the Shepherd Centre in Darlington where children who have been fitted with cochlear implants are able to benefit from a four-year program to help them learn to speak and understand. They get the services of speech pathologists and auditory professionals. The idea is to ensure that when these children start school they are as well-equipped to learn and to reach their potential as children born with the ability to hear.
To meet a four-year-old child at the Shepherd Centre, as I did, who was born profoundly deaf yet was now able to speak and identify syllables and words, was a beautiful experience. I watched a video of a young child exposed to noise for the first time, and that was also incredible. When the child’s cochlear implant was switched on there were the tears of the parents and the initial reaction, perhaps anger, of the child hearing noise for the first time. But then comes the understanding that the child will be able to hear. It was a very powerful experience.
One hundred and fifty thousand people, both children and adults, have had cochlear implants since its invention and, as the technology improves, the implants are coming closer to the goal of replicating the sounds heard by the functioning human ear. The cochlear implant is the result of research in several different countries, but Australia has played a major and proud role in its development. Professor Graham Clark of the University of Melbourne was the creator and developer of the world’s first multichannel implant and is considered by many to be father of the cochlear implant.
The issue which I pursue as a result of this visit is the possibility of screening newborn infants across Australia for deafness. Some states do it to 100 per cent; others states do not yet do it to 100 per cent. I do believe this is an issue worth further investigation and support.
I would like to record my particular appreciation of the work of Dr Phillip Chang, who was the surgeon, and his very capable theatre staff including Dr Harry Koumoukelis, who was the anaesthetist. I also would like to record my appreciation of the work done by Michael Shepherd, the Chairman of the Shepherd Centre; Aleisha Davis, the Manager of Clinical Programs; and Anthea Green, the CEO. I also acknowledge the work done by Dr Michael Brydon, Dr Maree Doble, the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson and the Hon. Craig Knowles. My visit was a great experience.
Order! In accordance with standing order 193, the time for constituency statements has concluded.
Debate resumed from 27 May, on motion by Mr Swan:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I rise today to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and cognate bills. I want to take some time today to address some of my own concerns about the appropriation bills and the budget that was brought down just over two weeks ago and indeed some of the concerns that my constituents have raised with me over the last fortnight. There is no doubt that the budget plunges this country into enormous debt. In fact, we can look forward to years of debt. With a budget deficit of $58 billion brought down, there is no doubt we have a debt bomb, and this country is going to pay for this debt for many years to come.
The government wants to lay blame for the debt and deficit. This is a government who said they were going to stop the blame game, but they are back at it and have certainly started to point the finger. There is no doubt we live in difficult times and, yes, we are having a global financial crisis the likes of which we have never seen before. But I believe Australians are looking for leadership at this stage and they deserve a government that can make tough decisions and not buy votes with reckless spending. We all know in our own lives that whatever we put on the credit card has to be paid for. All Australians will come to the realisation that one day the credit card debt that is being racked up at the moment is going to have to be paid. I believe we now have a legacy of reckless spending—a budget deficit and a debt that will take us well into the future. It is going to impact very heavily on our children and our grandchildren for decades to come.
We have heard some very big numbers bandied around over the last two weeks, but I would like to put some of those big numbers on the table today to put some of that debt into perspective—what these numbers will mean for the future and what they will mean for every Australian in this country. The word ‘billion’ seems to slide off people’s tongues with little regard for its enormity far too often these days. However, the Rudd-Swan deficit is equivalent to $10,000 worth of debt for each man, woman and child in this country. It is a $58 billion deficit. People might say: what does this matter? It will certainly matter in 2012-13, when the annual interest bill paid by the Australian people will be $8 billion—yes, $8 billion, which is more than the Commonwealth spends each year on infrastructure and housing combined. High interest costs will mean less money for public services like hospitals and schools and less money to address the needs of an ageing population—and I will have more to say on that a bit later.
It is projected that there will be more than one million unemployed Australians by 2010-11. Those unemployed will include someone in your family, a friend, your neighbour. Someone you know is going to lose their job. An extra 500,000 people have become unemployed since Mr Rudd was elected to office in 2007. Net debt by 2012-13 will be $188 billion, and that figure does not include the National Broadband Network—another $43 billion—or indeed the Ruddbank. Spending decisions since the 2007 election account for $124 billion. That is $124 billion spent in just 18 months. What a spending spree. In other words, two-thirds of the debt owed by taxpayers in 2012-13 will be due to spending decisions taken by the Rudd government in the past 18 months—spending that has not proven to be the economic stimulator that we were promised.
This is classic Labor: spend like no-one is watching the bottom line. But let me say to the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and all Labor members of parliament: we are watching and we will hold you to account. The Australian people will not accept such a sloppy destruction of the nation’s balance sheet—a balance sheet that the coalition left in the black. A surplus was left to this government when we lost government in 2007. Mr Rudd was not elected with a mandate to destroy our economy. He was elected as an economic conservative, a statement that seems laughable two budgets into his term as Prime Minister.
A lot has been said by Mr Rudd about our bottom line compared to the rest of the world. When the coalition were in government we made it our aim to be the best in the world. World leaders show the others how it is done, as the coalition did in the past. We went into the global financial crisis with a solid surplus, and Mr Rudd and Mr Swan, the Treasurer, have squandered the hard work of the coalition under John Howard and Peter Costello.
I want to talk about how the locals of McPherson have been hoodwinked by this budget. Mr Swan announced in his budget speech:
… $365 million towards a light rail corridor for the Gold Coast …
Imagine my surprise to read in the budget papers:
The Government has made provision for a possible equity contribution of $365.0 million in 2009-10 in relation to the Gold Coast Light Rail project.
Nothing but smoke and mirrors—‘a possible equity contribution’, if the Queensland Labor state government can find some private partners for the project.
Mr Rudd wants to know what a coalition government would do to stimulate the economy. How about some infrastructure projects that deliver long-term economic benefits to local communities? Today I would like to propose a project for the Gold Coast that I hope Mr Rudd and his government will consider and adopt as policy. This idea would stimulate small business and the tourism industry on the southern Gold Coast by funding the extension of the train line from Varsity Lakes, which is nearly completed, to the Gold Coast Airport at Coolangatta immediately. Consider this: we have an international airport located at Coolangatta that is not serviced by any transport other than private vehicle, taxi or tour bus. The Gold Coast is the sixth largest city in this country. It is ludicrous for international passengers to get off a plane and not be able to get any public transport from the Gold Coast Airport. In my view, there is still no plan to address these needs of the Coolangatta airport. The state government, which looks after public transport on the Gold Coast, has no plan.
In the year to 30 December 2007, 850,000 overseas tourists visited the Gold Coast. I believe these tourists should be met with welcoming arms and easy access to our beautiful beaches, our theme parks, our stunning hinterland and our tourist spots. Instead they are stuck. I cannot tell you how many then contact my office to raise this issue with me. Small business would like to see the airport precinct developed more, with public transport as an option for those people arriving on the Gold Coast.
On the subject of small business, it is my belief that this budget does not help the 2.4 million small businesses that drive Australia’s economy. Small businesses are the engine room of our economy, and the 15,020 small businesses in McPherson need a break. The government want to stimulate the economy. I say to the government: to stimulate the economy give small business a break. The Labor government want to keep unemployment low—well, encourage small business to hire and employ people. If you want to help small business, you need to see their cash flow grow. The small business tax break offered is nonsense because small businesses are under cash flow stress and they cannot afford to buy any new equipment and qualify for the scheme.
Small businesses in my electorate are screaming for practical help from the Rudd government and it is falling on deaf ears. In particular, I have been contacted by dozens of restaurants that will be adversely impacted by the award modernisation process of the Rudd government. The Deputy Prime Minister’s Forward with Fairness IR policy has an ironic title given that it is completely unfair to lump restaurants and caterers with staff costs equivalent to those for hotels and casinos that stay open 24 hours a day. Award modernisation is just one example of how Labor continues to mismanage the economy and contribute to the unfavourable conditions currently faced by small business.
Restaurants in my electorate—and many of these restaurants have been operating for many years servicing our community and the tourists who visit the Gold Coast—are predicting that labour cost increases of up to 20 per cent will inevitably lead to higher consumer costs and job losses. And dare I say that many of them have indicated to me that they will be closing the front door. The coalition does not support any policy that results in increased unemployment and inflationary wage outcomes.
Unemployment on the Gold Coast has doubled in the last 12 months, after reaching a record low under the previous, coalition, government. It was no fluke that the coalition government presided over low unemployment. Our policy supported small business to employ staff and retain them. The coalition recognised that small business is the engine room of our economy.
Labor has missed the point once again with its present policies. It is enterprise that creates jobs, not government. McPherson residents have been let down by this government, and shamefully so. Not only have the Rudd government let down Australians; they have done it in a deceitful way, by giving with the one hand and taking with the other.
There is no more obvious example of this than their blatant disregard for the health and wellbeing of older Australians. I welcome the increase in the age pension in this budget, which came after the Rudd government rejected calls from the coalition to increase the pension last year. Across Australia, young and old urged the government to recognise how tough it is for age pensioners, particularly single age pensioners, to make ends meet. Earlier this year I tabled a petition calling on the government to recognise just how difficult it is for age pensioners in this country. More than 7,000 people signed that petition calling on the government for an increase in the single rate of pension, and I am delighted that that has happened. However, it did take more than a year for the government to recognise how tough they were doing it. They ignored the stripping-off of clothes by our age pensioners in a Melbourne street and they ignored the legislation the coalition put on the table last year calling for that increase, so pensioners had to wait 12 long months to see that money come through, and they are not going to see that increase in their pensions until September this year. However, I would say, on a note of caution, to our senior Australians: they should be aware that the dismal state of the budget will affect them even with their pension increase.
Australians will work longer, will retire later and will live on less under the irresponsible changes to superannuation in this budget. The superannuation co-contribution scheme has been cut by a third, from $1,500 to $1,000, and tax relief on voluntary super contributions has been halved. The coalition encouraged people to save for their retirement. Many will be shocked to learn that this Labor government is not supportive of people planning for their retirement.
I am concerned that senior Australians will now pay more for their health needs, with this Labor government having broken their promise to leave the 30 per cent private health insurance rebate and Medicare safety net untouched. We heard from the Prime Minister, hand on heart, and the now Minister for Health and Ageing that they supported the private health rebate, and here we see in this budget—only their second budget—that they have attacked the private health rebate.
Labor’s changes to the Medicare safety net will have wide-ranging effects on local residents who try to access essential services such as obstetrics, reproductive technology and cataract surgery. It is disappointing that, with our ageing population, the Treasurer has presented no plan as to how he will sustain the pension rise and balance the books for the future.
Self-funded retirees have received a slight reprieve, with the government quietly backing down on their proposed changes to eligibility for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card, and so they should. We strongly opposed these changes from the outset, and it is only because of pressure from the coalition and seniors groups that this government accepted that the proposal—the one they put on the table—was wrong. Now this measure, which was part of last year’s budget, has been quietly withdrawn. But they are not doing anyone a favour because while they give with one hand they take with the other, having made cuts to the private health insurance rebate.
The 52,659 residents of McPherson with private health insurance will pay the price for the Rudd government’s sustained attack on private health insurance. The Rudd government hates choice and is pushing those who choose to provide for their health needs and that of their families onto the public health system.
Another broken promise that will adversely impact on my electorate of McPherson is the NBN, the National Broadband Network—more aptly named the ‘nonsense broadband notion’. First Mr Rudd was going to spend up to $4.7 billion on the rollout of a national broadband network, providing fibre based services to 98 per cent of Australians. Now Labor wants us to believe in a plan to construct a $43 billion network, likely to require a taxpayer contribution in excess of $21.5 billion, to be rolled out to around 80 per cent of the population. But when is this to happen? The key elements of affordability and commercial viability to encourage a partnership with the private sector are the obvious missing details. In the absence of a business plan or cost benefit analysis, the Australian people need assurances that such a massive government investment is going to work. It is a risky plan. We need more details. The coalition are committed to ensuring Australians have universal, reliable and affordable access to fast broadband services. Where we differ from Labor is on how that is to be delivered.
I would like to put on the record, in the few minutes I have left, a few comments about the aged-care sector. The Rudd government’s massive debt and deficit ignored a Senate report, a Productivity Commission report, industry leaders and its own National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission report when it callously overlooked the embattled aged-care sector in this year’s budget. I believe this government is not serious about addressing the challenges of an ageing population in this country. The Rudd government’s poorly targeted cash-splash handouts and reckless spending have come at a high cost to the aged-care sector, which has missed out as a result.
Wayne Swan was quoted on 8 May as saying:
… the federal budget will contain reforms to address longer-term structural problems caused by the ageing population.
What he says and what he does are two completely different things. The Rudd government has completely failed to recognise the impact an ageing population will have on the aged-care sector. If Kevin Rudd were serious about caring for senior Australians, aged-care infrastructure would not have been excluded from the $22 billion infrastructure package and the two previous stimulus packages. It is disappointing that investment in the aged-care needs of an ageing population is not a Rudd government priority. Investing in local aged-care infrastructure would have provided long-term economic and social benefits and created vital local jobs. There were no reform measures in this budget to improve the availability, quality, flexibility and sustainability of aged-care services throughout this country. Under the current policy settings, older Australians will not be able to access the quality of and the choice of care they want and need. It was a discouraging budget from a consumer and service provider perspective.
One comment worth noting was in Budget Paper No. 2. The Treasurer and the Minister for Finance and Deregulation stated:
The Government will continue to consider the longer term needs of the aged care system, taking into account relevant recommendations in the final report of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission.
We can only hope that the absence of major reform measures in the budget may reflect the timetable for the NHHRC report. The final report is due to be released in June.
We know that baby boomers—people reaching the age of 65 in just over a year—will be looking for those aged-care services in the future, whether those services are delivered through an aged-care facility or at home, and we know the aged-care sector is under a lot of stress at the moment. The industry has said it and all those reports have said it. I think it is disappointing that in this budget we did not see anything for aged care for the next 12 months. We saw cuts in the budget but nothing to assist with the infrastructure needs of the aged-care industry and, indeed, for those people requiring aged-care services in their own home.
I rise to support Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and cognate budget appropriation bills. These bills follow what has been one of the greatest economic challenges of our times. In building the budget, the Rudd government were faced with a considerable challenge: how do we develop a budget that supports local jobs now, a budget which invests in infrastructure in the long run, and a budget that is fiscally responsible? These are challenges faced by the Rudd government at a time when tax receipts have been revised downwards for the forward estimates by $210 billion. They are the facts of this budget.
We have made some tough choices in this budget—choices that are in the interests of our nation’s future. We as a government have chosen to borrow responsibly to provide support for our economy at a time when investment is most needed. Almost 70 per cent of the Rudd government’s economic stimulus is going towards nation building, creating jobs today and building our nation’s infrastructure for tomorrow. This economic stimulus is going towards the largest modernisation of schools that this country has ever seen. It is building new road and rail links and investing in new buildings for hospitals and health facilities, and in higher education and TAFEs.
Already in my own electorate I have announced $9.5 million in funding to refurbish 85 schools across the Ballarat district, $40.1 million for major infrastructure projects under round 1 of the Primary Schools for the 21st Century program, funding for 59 social housing units constructed across my electorate, $563,000 for Moorabool Shire, $425,000 for Hepburn Shire and $1.5 million for Ballarat City Council to build community infrastructure to improve the wellbeing of our community. There will be $2.2 million towards a community recreation facility at Creswick, $5 million towards the Eureka Centre for Democracy in Ballarat and some $5.3 million for 18 black spots across my electorate. That is to name just a few of the announcements that have been made.
In the face of this global recession, the government have chosen to go down the path of building our nation because we know that this downturn in the economy needs to be addressed quickly. It needs to be addressed in the most productive way possible, and that is by building our infrastructure, removing capacity constraints in the economy, training our people and ensuring that our children have access to 21st century facilities to learn in. All of this is so that when this recession ends we will be in the best possible position to grow our economy and grow it strongly. These are the circumstances that we are in today. Our gross domestic product is expected to fall by half a per cent in 2009-10, with a recovery sometime in 2010 or 2011. Unemployment is expected to rise to 8½ per cent by June 2011. Government revenues are expected to continue to decline dramatically. That is why we have announced a third round of stimulus measures, to support our national economy for the long term.
But it is not all doom and gloom, as those opposite would lead you to believe. Our economy is facing this challenge in a much stronger position than any other advanced economy. A sturdy financial system, a strong public finance sector and early and decisive action mean that we are in a good position to come out of the other side of this global recession positively. I am proud to be part of a government that has acted so decisively instead of sitting on its hands and doing nothing. Our measures are going a long way toward supporting jobs and protecting families from the impact of the worst global recession in 75 years.
I want to go to some of the measures in the budget. As part of the Rudd government’s budget, we have announced we will extend the first home owners boost for an extra six months and then phase it out. This extension has been announced to support jobs and to support those looking to buy their first home. I encourage those in my electorate who are in a position to take advantage of this, and the additional money on offer from the Victorian state government, to act within that extension period. There is no doubt that the first home owners boost has saved the home building and construction industry from significant job losses and injected much-needed funds into local economies. The real estate industry across the Ballarat electorate and those to whom I speak in property development have clearly told me that the first home owners boost has been a significant factor in sustaining their industry during this time of global uncertainty.
I would also like to draw attention to our announcement, as part of this budget, to increase the small business and general business tax break from 30 to 50 per cent for eligible assets. At the start of May, the member for Rankin and minister for small business, Craig Emerson, visited the Ballarat electorate. We met with a large number of small business owners. The message from small business was across-the-board support for the original 30 per cent tax break. Over the past fortnight, I have had the pleasure of discussing the Rudd government’s commitment to increasing the tax break to 50 per cent. This is again a measure that is assisting small business but is also designed to keep cash circulating within local economies. I have no doubt that jobs in the retail sector in particular have benefited and will benefit from this initiative.
One of the central focuses of this budget is strong investment in major infrastructure projects across the nation. The investment in infrastructure via this budget across the Ballarat electorate is frankly unprecedented. Let me run through some of the projects. As part of the budget, we have allocated funding to have work started on two key major road projects on the Western Highway—one at Anthony’s Cutting, the Djerriwarrh Creek intersection between Melton and the town of Bacchus Marsh. We have also committed funds to start work on the Western Highway duplication from Ballarat to Stawell. These projects come on the back of the opening of the Deer Park bypass. The combination of these three projects alone will transform the Ballarat electorate into western Victoria’s regional network hub.
At the previous election, members on this side of the House committed to removing infrastructure bottlenecks across the country. We are achieving this commitment through such measures. Not only will regions of the Ballarat electorate be more accessible to Victorians for tourism but local residents will find it much easier to travel to work and to visit family and friends. Combined with this efficiency, this sound investment in major road projects will significantly improve safety on our major roads. It is anticipated that the Anthony’s Cutting project alone will support over 500 jobs, keeping people employed and money circulating through local economies.
Other measures have also been implemented locally, as part of this budget, to address road safety. In addition to these large-scale infrastructure projects, $5.3 million is going towards eliminating 18 dangerous black spots on local roads across my electorate, combined with funding for boom gates and other safety measures at six high-risk level crossings. The Rudd government has also been working with local councils to implement its infrastructure program. The Community Infrastructure Program has seen local councils across the Ballarat electorate receive funding from this budget. Community infrastructure projects that have had funding allocated are well underway. I have already opened the first of them in my electorate, at Paddock’s Creek Reserve in Gordon. I congratulate Moorabool Shire and the local community at Gordon on a wonderful job.
On top of this, the Rudd government is also providing some $5 million to the City of Ballarat for the Eureka Centre for Democracy. We have committed $2.2 million to the Hepburn Shire Council for the Doug Lindsay Recreation Reserve. Other significant infrastructure projects include the $1.5 million for the Ballarat aquatic centre stage 2 redevelopment, which is just about to commence, and some $200,000 for the Trentham neighbourhood centre renewal. All of this is significant investment that is supporting local jobs and businesses through the current global recession. It will support jobs across building and construction but also across other parts of our economy as the workers employed in that industry spend their wages in our local economy.
I also want to mention the National Broadband Network. We have committed to building a $43 billion superfast broadband network, an incredibly important piece of infrastructure for regional areas. The government has allocated in this budget some $54.2 million over two years to implement and establish the National Broadband Network. Across the electorate of Ballarat, I already have major stakeholders keen and interested in the rollout of the network and looking at how they can participate. Residents across my electorate are fully aware of the benefits of the National Broadband Network, the biggest nation-building infrastructure project in Australia’s history. I strongly support the rural and regional initiatives announced as part of the budget and look forward to working with Senator Conroy on how these measures will benefit the various parts of my district.
I also want to touch on our Clean Energy Initiative: I support our investment of $4.5 billion in new clean energy initiatives. I welcome the introduction of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and the changes to the national renewable energy targets. The Rudd government have continually recognised our role in the fight against climate change. This has been reflected in our nation-building plan. It is important in local and regional economies that we take advantage of some of these measures to make sure that we grow green jobs for our future.
As part of the budget the Rudd government announced $2.6 billion for tertiary education and innovation infrastructure through the Education Investment Fund. As part of that announcement, I was pleased to announce over $58 million coming into my electorate for the University of Ballarat. The University of Ballarat Vice-Chancellor, David Battersby, stated:
We look forward to developing these projects … to add to the learning, teaching, research and industry strengths of Ballarat and its region.
This funding is broken down into two major projects: $39.97 million for the university to rebuild its science and engineering precinct to establish a world-class regional learning, teaching and research facility, and $18 million for a manufacturing technology training centre for the University of Ballarat. The $39.97 million for the science and engineering precinct will fund a new three-storey building to enable both the science and engineering disciplines to collaborate and interact in a new multidisciplinary environment. Students, staff and researchers from the university’s mining, engineering and environmental sciences disciplines will all take advantage of this great new facility.
The head of school, Dr Kim Dowling, emailed me on the announcement and stated:
I am certain many people have thanked you for your support of the University of Ballarat but I wanted to personally thank you for your support of the School of Science and Engineering. The building project ($40 Million for the new Science and Engineering precinct) that was announced in the budget affirms that it is a great time to be in a regional University and this is a clear message of support for our work. There is much to do and I am sure we have some obstacles before us, but I have to say, it is a wonderful time to be in Science and Engineering.
The $18 million funding to go to the manufacturing technology training centre at the University of Ballarat’s TAFE campus will provide modern training facilities, both expanding and enhancing diversity and delivery of courses in emerging manufacturing technologies across my electorate. The introduction of state-of-the-art learning technology will address an area of skill shortage in the region by providing job-ready graduates who are familiar with current industry practice.
Both these projects are great news for the education sector across Ballarat as we work towards building first-class education facilities. But they are also good news for jobs. Not only will local tradespeople be able to get involved with the building of both these projects but by investing in projects such as a manufacturing technology and training centre we set up our local manufacturing industry for future growth. I also look forward to those opposite and senators supporting this funding for the University of Ballarat in these appropriations.
I also briefly want to talk about paid parental leave; it is something which seems to have got a little lost in the post-budget debate. Another measure outlined in these appropriations is our commitment to paid parental leave. This is the first of its kind in Australia and it ensures families can strike a good balance between paid work and supporting their children. The investment is over $731 million over five years and will start from 1 January 2011. The investment will see 150,000 new parents eligible for an income while looking after their children.
The Rudd government’s commitment to introducing a paid parental scheme in our country is something that I am very proud of, and is a significant moment in my time as a member of parliament. For too long our country has dropped the ball in the area of supporting working families, and members on this side are wholeheartedly supportive of this initiative. I also urge those members opposite to support it. I have no doubt the member for Indi will support the measure, as I note in her speech to parliament on 10 March 2009 she stated:
… the Labor Party cannot come up with any funding for a paid parental leave scheme about which it has built such high expectations.
We have come up with the money in the budget and we have come up with a decent scheme. I certainly hope the opposition supports it.
There are also a number of retirement income measures in the budget. Since the election I have spoken to hundreds of pensioners, as many other members of parliament would have. I have told many pensioners throughout the Ballarat electorate that I am committed to reforming our nation’s pension system. Let us make no mistake about this: there has absolutely been a need for change. Single age pensioners, in particular those who do not own their own home, are some of the financially worst off in our community. Despite years of talking about it in opposition, when in government the coalition did absolutely nothing. After 13 years in government they waited until they were in opposition, a position from which they can actually deliver nothing, to promise pensioners a pay rise—a meaningless promise. They made the promise knowing they would never have to deliver on it.
The Labor Party has delivered on its promise. It is the Labor Party that shows it understands the plight of people in poverty and acts to try and alleviate that poverty. As part of this budget we are delivering on our commitment to pensioners. As of 20 September this year, full-rate single pensioners will be delivered increases of $32.49 per week, and full-rate pensioner couples will receive an increase of $10.14 per week combined. For the 15,000 age pensioners across my electorate, many of whom I have talked to about their pensions, this is welcome news. These pensioners across the district will now receive $336.68 per week instead of the $304 they previously received.
As part of the budget we have also announced that the new annual carer supplement of $600 will be paid to people who receive carer payment. This payment will be provided to around 450,000 recipients of carer allowance, with an extra $600 for each person they care for. Some 5,000 carers across my electorate will benefit from these changes. These are just some of the income support measures that are happening across my electorate to support local jobs and to grow local economies. I have also outlined the infrastructure projects that are occurring.
I would like to recognise the government’s commitment to guide the nation’s finances back to surplus. As I said earlier, the global recession has ripped some $210 billion in government revenue out of the budget. Two-thirds of the budget deficit is as a result of the decline in government revenues. Despite the claims of the opposition, the decline in government revenues is the single largest factor affecting the size of the deficit—a deficit that would therefore exist whether it was us in government or the Liberal Party in government. The Rudd government have put together a budget for the future of Australia. We will continue to work to uphold Australia’s AAA rating given by the Standard and Poor’s rating agency and maintain our nation’s strong financial position. The Rudd government’s decision-making through this budget and other major initiatives will see removal of significant capacity constraints that have been pushing down on our nation’s economy over past decades. Our investment in the long term will ensure that we are in a much stronger position financially into the future. We are spending responsibly on those productive elements of the economy to ensure that we have strong growth into the future.
It is not possible, given the need to provide financial stimulus to the economy and with the collapse in government revenues, to avoid deficit budgets. That is the untruth of the Liberal Party’s line. If you follow their logic, the only way that there would not be a deficit is to either dramatically increase taxes or to drastically cut government spending. Unfortunately, the opposition has yet to present which of these alternatives it intends to follow.
The budget we have delivered is economically responsible. We have delivered a budget that supports jobs. It sets up our nation in the short, medium and longer term. Unfortunately, those opposite have taken a different view. They have decided to run yet another scare campaign—something that is very easy to do from opposition. We obviously managed to do that many times ourselves from opposition. It is clear that the opposition either does not understand what is happening with the global recession or is deliberately refusing to acknowledge it. It is clear that the opposition does not have a plan to support jobs in local economies. That was clear in the lack of any alternative fiscal policy in the Leader of the Opposition’s budget in reply speech. It included a lot of talking down of the economy and a lot of scaremongering, but it did not include an alternative fiscal policy.
It feels like only yesterday that former Prime Minister John Howard was in the chamber telling us how, yet again, he would splurge the government’s boost in revenue from the mining boom. As a result of that poorly targeted investment in the past, we have seen increasing pressure on infrastructure bottlenecks, underinvestment in health and education and lack of support in the long-term sustainability of our nation’s jobs. There was so much they could have done in those 13 years with that massive amount of money. They all know that most of this deficit has been caused by the end of the mining boom and the global recession. Those opposite have clearly been outspoken in their opposition to the government’s stimulus plan and in their decision not to support many of the infrastructure building measures—opposing our investment in roads, rail, ports, schools and broadband. Those are all measures to support jobs and to grow our local economy.
I challenge those members opposite and duty senators in my electorate who do not believe to visit some of the nation-building projects in my electorate and explain why they have not supported them. I challenge them, when they come to the openings of the school buildings—because we, unlike the previous member, will invite duty senators to openings—to explain why they did not support our local economy and why they failed to support investment in local projects. I rise here today proudly to support the budget. I commend these bills to the House.
It is a pleasure to speak in this important budget debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and cognate bills. We have heard many things in the two weeks since budget night. A budget is more than just a set of financial statements. It very much tells the story of a government at so many levels. A budget shows the competence of a government. A budget shows the priorities of a government and sets a window through which the public can see how their government is really performing. This budget of two and a bit weeks ago, coming halfway through this parliamentary term, has given the Australian people a much clearer view of the Rudd Labor government.
Through this budget process the public are beginning to see the true Labor Party. At every level this budget has shown a government that is economically incompetent, a government that panics and bungles, and, most particularly, it shows a government obsessed with spin and silly language. It is obsessed with silly language to the point of comedy. The sad thing about it is that the only people that do not seem to see the comedy are the Labor Party ministers and their backbench.
We just heard a 20-minute contribution from the member for Ballarat. I do not single her out; she just happened to be speaking before me. We could check later, but I think she uttered the word ‘decisive’ about five or 10 times—as they all do. It is as if they have been told that every sentence they utter must have one of the Prime Minister or Treasurer’s buzzwords and that somehow that will cover for their economic incompetence and bungling.
We saw this begin before the government was elected, but we witnessed it plummet to new depths in the week before the budget. We saw the Treasurer and the Prime Minister talk seriously about temporary deficits for the next six years—six years being a temporary period of time! They persisted with this line day after day. As I have said in previous debates, it is lucky that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer are not running a garage, where you dropped your car off and took the temporary car while your car was serviced. Imagine coming back every night for six years only to be told, ‘No, your car is not ready. Stick with the temporary car.’ The language before the budget and the response to it all around Australia, and, rightly, from the press gallery, should have been a warning to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer that their obsession with cute lines and tortuous language was wearing thin.
In a time of economic difficulty you expect a Prime Minister and a Treasurer to be candid. On budget night we saw something that was utterly amazing. At the end of the day, Madam Deputy Speaker, all of the budget papers and the associated financial statements come down to the budget bottom line. That is what they all add up to. When everything is said and done it comes down to one figure—the surplus or deficit. We saw the Treasurer on budget night stand up and give a 30-minute speech and not mention the budget deficit figure. This was remarkable at one level, but I have to say it was sad for the Treasurer. One day he will realise just what a ridiculous omission that was—thinking that not mentioning the budget deficit figure in the budget speech would somehow conceal it from the Australian people.
Just in case that was some accident, the very next day, after the Treasurer had been questioned on budget night about why the figure was not there, we saw him still refusing to be candid and utter the budget deficit figure in a radio interview with Fran Kelly:
Kelly: Treasurer, you didn’t say the deficit number in the speech last night. Are you scared of saying it out loud?
Wayne Swan: No, I’m not scared of saying the deficit number.
Kelly: Do you want to say it now? What is the deficit?
Swan: We outlined it in great detail last night and it’s 57.
Fifty-seven what? This is juvenile beyond belief. Fifty-seven what? We all know—$57 billion. That is what he is talking about. He is talking about dollars. He could not say it in his budget speech and he could not bring himself to say it the next day. Far from concealing it, he highlighted the economic incompetence of this government and its utter determination to do anything but level with the Australian people. In his own performance he shone a spotlight on the failings of this government. Fifty-seven what? ‘$57 billion’ is what he was trying to say, but for those listening to Fran Kelly it could have been 57 hair dryers, 57 hard hats or 57 fluorescent vests—another obsession of this government. You would think that would be enough to make the tactics-obsessed Labor Party say, ‘Hang on—we’ve made a big blue here. We’d better change tack.’ But, no. The Prime Minister gave us a window to see where this was all coming from.
It is quite obvious that this was the Prime Minister again at his manic best, because the Prime Minister embarked on a similar ‘don’t mention the war’ strategy when it came to government debt. In the week following the budget the Prime Minister refused to mention the level of debt and the billions of dollars in the one sentence. It was absolutely torturous to watch, and it reached a peak on the Lateline program. Tony Jones must have thought that he was interviewing John Clarke. It made the John Clarke interview at the end of The 7.30 Report look lame. It is something that we have never seen a Prime Minister do before. Tony Jones said to the Prime Minister: ‘What is the actual figure?’ ‘Well, Tony, I’m about to come to that when I go to the constituent parts.’ He refused to answer the question.
Tony Jones followed up: ‘But all I’m asking for is one figure.’ Prime Minister: ‘I’m about to come to that. In the budget papers, we’ve been aiming to a gross figure of 13.8, which comes out at about 300.’ Again, 300 what? Jones: ‘That figure is $300-billion is that right?’ Prime Minister: ‘As I said before, 13.8 per cent of GDP as described in the Budget papers.’ Finally, in exasperation, Tony Jones said: ‘Is there a political spin rule which says the Prime Minister must not say that figure? Because it seems very hard to get you to say $300-billion.’
The answer to Tony Jones’s question is yes, there is a political spin rule and political spin dominates this government, at every level. This farce is continuing with the Prime Minister in his interviews. We saw exactly the same tortuous language when it came to whether he would admit he had broken promises. He has broken promises, solemn promises he gave, hand on heart, before the election; many of them. The first to stand out is the promise not to touch, in any way, shape or form, or to alter in any respect the private health insurance rebate. Kevin Rudd signed the letter in his own hand which said:
Both my shadow minister for health Nicola Roxon and I have made clear on many occasions this year that federal Labor is committed to retaining the existing private health insurance rebates, including the 30 per cent general rebate and the 35 and 40 per cent rebates for older Australians.
He said in a press conference:
Private health insurance rebate policy remains unchanged and will remain unchanged.
He is prepared to sign his name to a letter and break his own word. On superannuation, just a couple of weeks before the election, speaking on 4BC radio in Brisbane on 12 November, the Prime Minister said:
There will be no change to the superannuation laws—not one jot, not one tittle.
The day after the budget, the Prime Minister was interviewed by Neil Mitchell on 3AW, Melbourne, who began the interview by asking the Prime Minister:
Will you apologise to the Australian people for directly breaking the promises you made before the election?
PRIME MINISTER—Neil, I accept full responsibility for that and for not being able to fulfil some of these policy commitments.
MITCHELL—It’s not that; it’s the broken promises.
PRIME MINISTER—No, policy commitments.
MITCHELL—Promises broken, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER—Policy commitments that we have not fulfilled. I accept full responsibility for that.
MITCHELL: But don’t you accept there were promises broken?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we’re talking about exactly the same thing.
We are not talking about the same thing. This is ridiculous, tortuous language. The Prime Minister now says he has not broken any promises because he did not make any promises before the last election. That will be news to the Australian people. He made policy commitments and in the Prime Minister’s crazy world somehow they are different. The Prime Minister wants the Australian people to believe that he did not make a single promise before the election, that he made policy commitments, and it is okay to break those. The Australian people are beginning to wake up to this.
Australians are beginning to see a Prime Minister that is more worried about stunts than he is about the detail and about getting it right. They have seen a Prime Minister who will play with the truth and who will do anything to avoid levelling with the Australian people. We saw this in the imagery in the week after the budget: the Prime Minister in a fluorescent vest and hard hat, surrounded by fellow ministers. Whenever you see a fluorescent vest and a hard hat coming, you know the Labor caucus is on the way.
It is pretty obvious that in budget week the Labor caucus were not issued with briefing notes on the budget. That has been very obvious this week. The member for Petrie copped some criticism because she could not say at a press conference what the budget deficit figure was. It might shock you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and it might shock my Liberal colleague here, but I felt sorry for the member for Petrie. She sat through the budget speech, and she did not hear the budget deficit figure. She would have sat through the caucus briefing beforehand for half an hour, and what we know from that is that the budget deficit figure would not have been released. When the Labor caucus members came to get their briefing material at the end of budget week for the budget sell in their electorates, they got a kit from Bunnings. They got a hard hat and a fluorescent vest. As I said the other day, when they appear at these sites they should also take a sign: ‘Danger! Reckless spenders in vicinity’.
Only today we saw the extent—and this is just one example—of the bungling of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer say money needs to be spent so, therefore, there should be no scrutiny and there should be no care and responsibility for how that money is spent. We have seen today some more detail on an earlier story about the $40 million of the stimulus package and the $900 payments going to dead people and expats. We knew shortly after the release of the February package that the $900 was going to criminals—Kev’s cash for crims. And today we have the headline in the Herald Sun: ‘Dead lucky: PM’s $40 million gift to Aussies in the grave’. Money going from Australia to overseas does not stimulate the Australian economy. Now $40 million might not seem like a lot to the Prime Minister with the amount he is spending, but this is an example of the litany of mistakes that we have seen at every turn from this Prime Minister and from this Treasurer.
This budget is a budget that Australia has not seen before. It took 10 long years to pay off the $96 billion of debt that the last Labor government left this country. It took 10 long years and it was $96 billion. Now we have debt not seen in our lifetimes and it is at Everest levels. What the Labor Party and those opposite should be saying as they wear their hard hats and fluorescent vests is what the interest cost of that will be for taxpayers not just today but 10, 20 and 30 years into the future, because every dollar borrowed has to be paid back and the interest on that every year is something that will borne by the taxpayers of today and tomorrow. (Time expired)
It is a great honour to speak in support of the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and cognate bills, which are part of one of the toughest budgets that has had to be delivered in Australian history, certainly in the history of the Federation. I hear some snickering from the member for Mayo. He, of course, is part of that chorus of snickering that is taking place on the other side of the House. Looking at history, what does an opposition do? I am not asking what this opposition does; in the Westminster system what does an opposition generally do? As the name suggests, it opposes. But that is a bit of a misnomer. It really should propose rather than oppose, so I guess it should be called the proposition rather than the opposition.
But those opposite have lived up to the term ‘opposition’ because it does not matter how constructive our ideas are, how necessary the budget proposals are or what the government puts forward, the opposition just say ‘no’—‘computer says no’; Malcolm Turnbull says ‘no’; the member for Mayo says ‘no’. They do not look at how times have changed. They do not look at the fact that the waves from the world recession have lapped on the shores of Australia. That requires different thinking.
It is not like 3 March 1996, when Australia had changed significantly in the previous 10, 11 or 12 years under the Hawke and Keating governments. Significant financial reform had taken place that had a significant impact in the community. It is not like workers had forgone pay rises so that there could be significant workplace reform. It was not the Australia of 2009. Back when John Howard became Prime Minister, all the heavy lifting had taken place beforehand. Hawke and Keating had made significant reforms. I have 20 minutes and it would take me that long to go through all the significant reforms of the Hawke and Keating governments.
Under the coalition, one significant reform was put forward, which I will acknowledge. It was basically an accounting readjustment: the GST. In terms of significant financial reform, when Peter Costello looks at his ledger he cannot name anything at all. I always give John Howard his due for three things. One is the fact that he got up and went for a walk every morning, even if he was busy, which is a good message to all Australians. If the Prime Minister is not too busy to go for a walk, then every Australian should be able to go for a walk, or do some exercise like riding a bike. He also brought in the firearm controls, which was quite commendable, and he did work hard for the country—so I acknowledge those three things. But the heavy lifting was done by the Hawke and Keating governments. As to significant reform in Australia, especially in the latter part of the term of the Howard government, when there were rivers of gold flowing into Australia because of the mining boom, nothing was done.
Having worked in the mining sector, I have been up to Dalrymple Bay and places like that, flown over Newcastle and seen all those infrastructure bottlenecks where the government could have stepped in and given a helping hand—a bit of guidance—which is what a good reform government does. It has an eye on the horizon rather than on election night. Maybe Howard and Costello were getting bad advice or something like that—I am not sure—but they were obviously not prepared to do the heavy lifting and instead did nothing.
The Rudd government has come into a situation in which the world’s books are a bit crook. So what do we do? We readjust to that. We look at the fact that we have to do what we can for the future. We have to do a bit of nation building. We have to have the commitment to go into places. We have to think of things like the Snowy River scheme. What is the modern day equivalent to the Snowy River scheme? It is broadband under our streets. That is why we have pumped 70 per cent of our economic stimulus into nation-building infrastructure that will improve all of our schools—
Mr Briggs interjecting
When the member for Mayo went to those school meetings where they said, ‘We’re looking forward to our schools being improved,’ I am sure he would have said, ‘This is a fantastic way to spend our money.’ It is appropriate to undertake the biggest school modernisation program in Australia’s history. It is unbelievable. I was a school teacher for 11 years so I know how tough it can be for schools, both state and private. Going around my electorate and talking to the teachers, principals, P&C presidents and parents I have found that they love it. They absolutely love it. They, like every MP in this House, give it a big collective thumbs up. They love that we are investing in schools. Every community obviously has a school.
But we are not just doing that. In building for the future we are also investing in roads, rail, ports, hospitals, broadband and major solar energy projects. Whether you are in the bush or in the city people are starting to see how we will reap the benefits in the future. ‘Productivity’ is a word that Peter Costello and John Howard did not talk about, or the fact that when they handed over government productivity was at zero. What was it again? Zero. Obviously we needed a budget that was about addressing some of the economic circumstances, because that is what a budget does. Obviously productivity—
Mr Briggs interjecting
You are not suggesting are you, member for Mayo, that productivity is not a part of the economy? Productivity is the No. 1 indicator of a healthy economy. During a global economic downturn, such as this government has experienced, we obviously need to step in and do something and not, as is the opposition policy, wait and see. Now that is a great policy!
When things are a bit tough, it is okay for any responsible, healthy household to borrow. If you have an income of a hundred grand it is not inappropriate to borrow five grand. No-one would suggest that that is a bad thing. So the government is taking responsible decisions to make sure that that borrowing can be paid off, that we can return the budget to surplus and ensure that our net debt remains the lowest of any major advanced economy in the world.
It is great to go around the electorate and see what we have proposed. It is great to look at the black spot projects and how they will save lives. It is great to look at social housing. Now there is a quiet revolution. I think that what we have done and are doing for homelessness is wonderful. I think the Prime Minister’s first white paper was on homelessness. Why? Because it is something that he cares passionately about. You judge a society by how it treats those who are less fortunate not how it looks after millionaires, the upper middle class and the like. You judge a society by how it looks after the unfortunate. When the Commonwealth government deserted the field when it came to public housing what did they do? They rewarded landlords. That is how they addressed homelessness. They did not build units of public housing; instead, they said, ‘Landlords, here’s a bit of extra money in your kitty,’ as if that was a good thing, as if that was good policy.
Look at the policies we are rolling out which will stimulate jobs and ensure that the builder living next door to me—in fact, I have two builders living next door to me and a plumber living on the other side—will have work. They will be able to go to government web pages and phone up government helplines and find out where the work is. If they are not big enough to win the tender they can phone up the successful tenderer and say, ‘What work do you have for a plumber?’ or a builder, a painter, a glazier or whatever.
It is great to be a part of a government that has a plan. We are not the wait-and-see government, we are a government that says, ‘Let’s get out and do the hard stuff.’ We will cop flak from those opposite but, as I said, it would be great to hear them propose rather than oppose; it would be great to hear them put together a proposition rather than just remain the opposition, as if that is their reason for being.
It was great to see the other day that credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s reaffirmed Australia’s triple A rating, the highest rating that it gives to any country. That is a great pat on the back for the Prime Minister; it is similar to the pat on the back given to him by President Barack Obama in terms of his saying that this is what we need to do. I think he used the line, ‘If I had done what the Prime Minister of Australia had suggested, we would all be in a much better place.’ That is high praise indeed from one of the most recognisable and powerful people in the world.
So it is great to see that we are doing this responsibly rather than pulling out fancy corflutes in question time. The opposition use lots of stunts and lots of opportunities to say ‘no’ rather than say what they would do. What would be the responsible decisions they would take to make up for the significant income shortfall? Were they at the mining dinner last night? Did they talk to any of the mining companies and say how difficult it has been for the mining companies that have had to lay off person after person—even in a state like South Australia that has only nine or 10 mines? I know there are a couple more good projects on the horizon.
The uranium industry.
I think you know my position on uranium. Even though I have worked for the mining industry it is not something I can support. Nevertheless, in a resource-rich state like Queensland the impact has been significant. People have lost their jobs and whole mining communities have been devastated by this downturn. What do we do? We do something practical. We do what we can to nation build and to give people work. I talked about housing, but we could also talk about the great practical initiative that will help save the planet and also put people in employment, which is our initiative to put insulation into homes and schools and to put solar panels on roofs. These are great policies that create work for both the unskilled and the skilled. There will be work in every community. I am sure the member for Mayo will be taking advantage of that government initiative. He will be getting pink batts in his house I am sure. He will be putting a sign out the front saying, ‘Thanks, Kevin.’ I am sure he will be doing that. It will say, ‘Thanks for helping to save the country, Kevin.’ I am sure that sign will appear in the front of his house just as a ‘rainwater tank in use’ sign is used, for example. You have a water shortage in Adelaide, I am sure, because it is all up in Queensland!
You steal it all in Queensland.
You have got to talk to the National Party senators. I am from that town but I do not live in that town. Then we move onto other significant budget initiatives. If you look through the budget papers, as I am sure people have, we see that we have a plan to combat climate change. It is important that we get funds available to look after climate change, not just between now and election night and not just between now and next budget night but, more importantly, for our children’s sake and our grandchildren’s sake. We need to act now. All of those policies that I have talked about—solar panels, insulation and even infrastructure bottlenecks—are about making sure that we have got a competitive economy, but they are also about recognising the fact that the world has changed. No scientist would argue about the fact that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased significantly since the industrial age. We have got data going back to the early 1830s that scientifically prove that CO2 has increased. Why has it increased? No fair-minded person—although I think there might be a PhD graduate in the chamber who has a slightly different view of climate change—would disagree with the fact that we need to combat the activities that contribute to climate change. That is why the refusal, seven times, by those opposite to make a decision is reprehensible. We are now up to the eighth opportunity to do something but instead they use the good old stand-by policy of ‘Let’s wait, let’s see.’ That is no way to combat one of the most dreadful economic challenges for the country.
I look forward to the budget taking effect in my electorate. I have had nothing but positive responses from all sorts of people—from the car sales people at the Moorooka Magic Mile to people involved in schools and P&Cs and people who look after the homeless and others who are doing it a bit tough. I have had positive responses from so many people in the community, including accountants and small businesses. Small businesses are happy to purchase equipment because of the tax breaks, which are not 30 per cent but are going up to 50 per cent. My friends in country electorates, where every pharmacist is a small business person, say that they are making decisions about purchasing, which then have a flow-on effect in the community, which creates wealth in those small communities. I commend the legislation to the House.
I am pleased to speak today on the appropriation legislation before the House and also to make some comments, from my perspective as shadow minister for Customs, about the Rudd government’s cuts to Customs, broken election promises and the appalling neglect of our border security. But first to the budget and its effect on all Australians, including those in my electorate of Farrer.
We have all been horrified at the numbers that have been brought before us in respect of this budget. I had an email this morning from somebody in my electorate who said: ‘Can you stop saying “billions” because we do not get an appreciation from that word about the size of the debt. Could you please start saying “thousand millions”.’ Yes, I can. It is worth reminding ourselves that the debt will rise to $315,000 million by 2015-16.
The other point to make about the budget is the government’s response of, ‘We had the global financial crisis’. The only thing that Prime Minister Rudd used the global financial crisis for in the context of this budget was cover. It was cover for him to flood money into our communities at a rate not seen in Australia’s post World War II history. It was a cover to buy votes, to buy popularity and to make him and his government look good. The evidence is there in the budget, because it demonstrates that the spend-a-thon is new money that need not have been appropriated. And of course that is what these bills are doing.
I and my constituents are alarmed, disgusted and quite afraid—and that is not putting too fine a point on it—when we confront this future debt. From 2006-07 to 2021 or 2022 is how long the Prime Minister and the government tell us it will take to get us back into a surplus position—and that in itself is highly problematic because who could possibly forecast that far into the future. It will take 13 years just to get us right back to where we started. Thirteen years is a long time. It is a lot longer than Mr Swan’s temporary deficit. It is a lifetime at school. It is one or two careers. It is half a mortgage. And to think that 13 years of this country’s history will be involved in this long, drawn out effort to repay debt that need not have been accumulated to this level in the first place is an absolute disgrace.
When Mr Rudd comes into the parliament with his ministers and their hard hats, metaphorically speaking—although they are out in the community in their hard hats—and they talk about projects and they challenge whether opposition members support the projects in their electorates, it is a very cheap political stunt and it offends me and my constituents, I can assure you. It is a cheap political stunt because it is the same as saying to people receiving their $900 payment, ‘So you don’t want your $900?’ Of course people would appreciate a $900 payment, and of course people want to see projects, many of which were started under the Howard government, come to fruition in their electorates. It does not mean that we as local members sign off on the economic and financial strategy that has given rise to this expenditure. Again, we welcome new projects that make sense but we do not sign off on the strategy that created them.
There has been a lot of talk about the infrastructure spending, and the hard-hat brigade—the 24-hour spin cycle which says ‘appear to be doing something, appear to be moving and travelling, appear to be contributing to the productive economy for the future’. But there was only $8½ billion worth of new infrastructure spending in the budget. There was a lot of talk about a $22 billion or even $25 billion figure—and apologies to my constituents; I cannot keep on saying thousand million. There was talk about this large appropriation, and of course that was raided from the previous government’s surplus. So the new spending is $8½ billion. They are talking it up big, with $1.7 billion of spending in the current financial year. They are not talking that up so big, because $1.7 billion this year is not really that much—not when you compare it to the stimulus packages, which totalled $23 billion. That has all gone out the door, flooding into the Australian community to buy popularity and votes.
So we have $23 billion in the stimulus package and $8½ billion over the forward estimates on new spending for infrastructure—which is the Rudd government talking about? If the level of expenditure was so necessary and so important, why are they not shouting from the rooftops about the $900 payments? They don’t talk about those payments at all. I think, by now, they are somewhat ashamed of them. I have a constituent, who does not want to be named, who has received three payments—one for being a student, one for being on a low income and one for no particular reason. He, to his credit, went to Centrelink and said, ‘I have received three payments; this can’t be right’. ‘Oh no, that is right,’ they said, so he has received three payments. Today we read in the press that deceased estates have received payments and overseas residents have received payments. I am fairly sure some pets have received payments, too.
This stimulus package has been just a shovelling out the door of money at an unprecedented rate, and it all has such a temporary effect. I talk to retailers, and, yes, there may have been a surge in retail spending, but not as much as they thought and not in every retail outlet either. Many people have saved their $900, paid off their mortgage or paid off their credit card. So, yes, there has been an increase in recent retail spending but that is temporary. In another couple of months, when that $900 is gone, it is not going to guarantee that shoppers are going to continue to walk through the door. The essential fundamental problem is still there. The previous speaker and other speakers have talked about this investment in the productive economy. That was the one sad thing about the budget—that if we were going to borrow up big, $315,000 million, taking 13 years to get us back into surplus, you would think that we could have spent it on something productive for the long term. Only $1.7 billion of that has been allocated for infrastructure spending. They are so embarrassed about the infrastructure spending that the government has scooped up a broadband into that as well.
On the subject of broadband, there has been no response to my questions to the government as to what happens to the many towns in my electorate that have fewer than a thousand people and miss out on the broadband plan. I do not think the broadband plan makes particularly good sense, and the more people who do not sign up to it, the more expensive it gets. So we have no concept of its cost, the time taken to implement it or the numbers of people who may choose to sign up to it. Many people probably would like these very high speeds and they will work well for them, but what I am detecting in their reaction to the government announcement is that the government is actually going to provide it for them and pay for it and that their costs will not go up. In fact, their costs will go up by perhaps three times. The number of people required to keep the cost at, say, $100 a month in today’s terms is quite large, so if people fall away and say they are happy with their current broadband and with their current speeds, the cost will go even higher. So, for the big regional towns that I represent with over a thousand people, there are big questions about cost. For many of the rural areas I represent, those questions do not arise because they are excluded from the plan; they have been told they will get some sort of satellite second-class option. The problem is that Mr Rudd and his ministers, not one of whom has lived a life in rural Australia, do not appreciate what life is like for us.
Back to the budget. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry strenuously insists that drought funding is in place, or at least that the system that allocates it is in place, and that exceptional circumstances will continue. But there are no dollars in the forward years. Maybe they believe that the drought will end; maybe they know something that we do not. But unless they appropriate money to support farmers and rural communities during the drought then I do not buy the line that they are continuing to provide exceptional circumstances drought support. They have a disregard for the agricultural sector of this economy. The cuts to Biosecurity Australia and AQIS have been remarkable. Haven’t we learnt from equine influenza? The Beale review recommend $260 million minimum in new spending on quarantine, but instead we have staff positions and resources cut from AQIS.
The very department that administers AQIS and the agriculture budget, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, seems to have been singled out for special punishment in the budget because it has to meet a double efficiency dividend. In a previous life, I was the parliamentary secretary for agriculture. I thought and do think very highly of that department. There is no waste that resides there that needs to be extravagantly cut. I can only assume that in cabinet the minister did not sufficiently stick up for his department and the work that it does to prevent this extraordinary decision.
The biggest reaction to the budget in my electorate has been the response to the changes to youth allowance. That has been spoken about much in this House and I will certainly return to it when the bills are introduced. I look forward to the opposition-initiated Senate inquiry, which will reveal the truth of the matter. That truth is that rural students from modest families are going to be excluded from going to university. If we want to be as equitable as we should be in terms of access to education, we should recognise this simple statistic: right now, twice as many students from the city are reflected in university attendees as are students from the country. We are already significantly underrepresented. That concerns me. It is not the case that students from the country are less bright or even less willing to go to university, but they are a hell of a lot less able to get there and pay their way.
Parents carefully work out a plan to send their children to university. And remember that this is not parents signing cheques and young people sitting there living off their parents. Youth allowance is just a supplement. They need to work and their income is also supplemented by savings from their parents. The youth allowance is an important component of their support while studying away from home. By the way, those who are currently between school and university do not even get a mention. The clock seems to have to start for them again from 1 January next year. They have not been grandfathered in these provisions and that is totally out of order.
In order to qualify for independent allowance, students will have to work 30 hours a week for an 18-month period within two years. It is not possible for students in small rural towns to find a job for 30 hours a week for 18 months, so they then have to leave home. If they leave home, they have to support themselves. If they cannot go to university, they have to leave home, set themselves up in separate accommodation somewhere and get a job to qualify for youth allowance two years later in order to go to university. Meanwhile, their university place has lapsed, because deferrals generally do not last for longer than 12 months. That means they have to reapply.
What career advisers tell us is that by the end of two years students have lost interest, their life has taken a different direction or it has all just become too hard. Students have come to me and said, ‘If I can see the financial pressure that this is going to place my mum and dad under, I just do not want to do it.’ We see that in the country a lot. We have seen it with the present drought. I see young people on farms in western New South Wales. I wonder what they are doing there because they have recently left school. I think they should be entering the next stage in their life, but they have come home from further study, often in Melbourne or Adelaide, to help because they cannot in all conscience leave their parents to struggle with a drought which, in many cases, has gone on for five or 10 years.
We are going to see the same thing. We are going to see students saying: ‘I’ll do something else, Mum and Dad. I won’t go to university. It’s something I can pick up later.’ But do not think that young people do not have a dream to go to university, if that is what they want, and do not think that the destruction of that dream by the present policy is anything short of appalling. We all have different philosophical perspectives and we come to this place with those different perspectives, and it is important that we respect alternative views—that is the foundation of our democracy—but I do not understand or accept this sudden, savage attack on rural students. That is whom it will affect. There are rallies being held across north-east Victoria and southern New South Wales. I hope that the strength of view that is expressed in those rallies is going to get through to the education minister and members opposite. They probably do not represent rural electorates to the same extent that we on this side do, but they certainly have regional students in their areas. I ask members opposite to get this message through.
I understand that there were inconsistencies, even rorts, in the previous system. Fine—attack those and use policy instruments to correct the loopholes that apparently very wealthy parents and students were able to find. I have no problem with that. I am not saying we should restore the system to what it was before. What I am saying is: please do not attack rural students so that we lose our best and brightest from universities.
In the few minutes remaining I will talk about the effect on Customs, the area for which I am the opposition spokesperson. In spite of a promise to increase the level of air and sea cargo inspections made last year and the year before, the Rudd government has cut $58 million from the Customs budget. There was a promise prior to the last election that there would be an increase in the X-raying and inspection of containers arriving at our ports from overseas. In fact, we saw the first stage of that promise being implemented at the end of last year, with container inspections in Adelaide and Darwin nominated to increase from five per cent to 7½ per cent. Apparently all that is unnecessary now. A container that might have been risky before the budget is no longer risky, is no longer deserving of inspection and will not be looked at.
One in 20 does not sound like very many containers to inspect. We understand that we use this risk based approach because you cannot inspect every container. Intelligence needs to be applied to which ones are likely to contain smuggled goods—including drugs, weapons, cigarettes and alcohol—on which excise is not being paid, but I can only assume that, without additional intelligence being applied and with the target being lowered, we will see more illegal drugs, weapons, narcotics, cigarettes, alcohol and smuggled wildlife. I will throw in illegal fishing, which does not come in a container, but illegal fishing is important too. All these events are going to occur. From the point of view of men and women on the street, we are going to see more drugs on our streets, more drugs being pushed in our nightclubs and more kids being subjected to this scourge. Do not think that it will not happen, because Australia is a top market for the sale of drugs. We have some of the highest prices for ecstasy and cocaine in the world. So, if you are pushing those drugs, come on down. This is where international drug syndicates know they can get the highest price for their products.
Precursor chemicals do not attract a huge fine. Precursor chemicals for pseudoephedrine and amphetamine type stimulants are not necessarily illegal on their own, so sometimes the fine is not huge and the risk is low for someone to send perhaps several drums of these from South-East Asia. If they get caught with three, they might get one drum through. Once it is cooked into amphetamines the damage that it will wreak on our streets is, as we all know, enormous. It is a weakening of the Tough on Drugs strategy, on which the then opposition agreed with the previous government. Tough on Drugs was a bipartisan position and this is a crack, a chink, in our armour. So a reduction in air and sea cargo inspections is not something we welcome. It is something we are very concerned about.
There was a big fanfare on budget night about the increases to border protection because of the unauthorised arrivals et cetera. One of these increases concerned the bay class vessels, the Customs and Border Protection fleet of vessels that are nearing the end of their life. In Senate estimates yesterday, it was revealed that a further $1 million has been allocated to study what we should do after the Bay class vessels go out of service. So there was $1 million from the previous budget and $1 million from this budget. In estimates yesterday we could not get a response as to what value we had received for this $2 million. We are simply going to continue in a holding pattern, keeping the vessels that are nearing the end of their life and not making any plans for replacement. As we all know, you do not just click your fingers and say, ‘We’re going to replace our vessels.’ You actually have to embark on a program of ordering, construction et cetera, and that is nowhere near happening.
The government talked up big about the Triton Customs vessel. In fact, all they were doing was extending its lease—business as usual—and bringing the Oceanic Viking from the Southern Ocean to the northern ocean, moving one asset. But I have not received a guarantee that the entire coastline of Australia is going to be protected in the same way, so we might be cannibalising hours spent patrolling other areas to move that vessel to the north. Serious infrastructure decisions are being delayed by this government. Yes, there are additional flying hours. They add up to 20 hours a week of aerial surveillance, with two additional leased aircraft, but I do not believe that is enough. The intelligence effort allocated to overseas countries is insufficient. (Time expired)
It is a pleasure to rise and speak in favour of the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and cognate bills. In beginning to do so, I want to address the economic background to the bills, the canvas against which the Treasurer needed to frame this budget. I want to note particularly that this seemed completely absent from the opposition leader’s reply. There was no consideration of the gravity and the magnitude of the global recession confronting Australia and pretty much every other country around the world—with the exception, perhaps, of North Korea.
It is 75 years since we confronted anything of this magnitude. The global recession that we confront today has a depth and a breadth that none of us have ever confronted. Though it started in the American financial and housing markets, it has spread all around the world and no-one who is at all connected to the global economy is immune. It has impacted on equity markets and financial markets which around the world are still quite sclerotic. It has impacted on industrial production, on business investment, on consumer confidence and, importantly for these purposes, on government revenue, but most importantly it has impacted already and will continue to impact on jobs. Jobs is the central theme of this budget and the other responses which the Rudd Labor government has made to the global recession over the last five months.
For the first time since World War II, the world economy will shrink. In 2009 it is forecast to shrink by about 1½ per cent. Although there have been quarters since World War II where the world economy has shrunk, this will be the first full year that sees shrinkage in world GDP. For example, following the 1974 oil shock and global economic downturn, the world economy that year still grew by two per cent. After the 1981 oil shock the global economy still grew by one per cent. This will have a very serious impact on the global economy. We will also see, for the first time since World War II, the sharpest downturn in world trade that any of us have seen, and this is particularly impacting on advanced economies. It is forecast that in 2009 the GDP of the advanced economies collectively will shrink by around 3¾ per cent, although we think our shrinkage will be limited to about half a per cent.
There are particular countries where this downturn is impacting with very great severity, and I would point particularly to our largest export market, which is still Japan, where the economy is suffering a very severe contraction. Industrial production in the December quarter of 2008 in Japan shrank by 11 per cent. In the March quarter it shrank by 22 per cent. This industrial production is fuelled by Australian raw materials that have been exported to Japan for most of the postwar period and is the reason why Japan remains, although not our largest trading partner, our largest export market. There has been some recent recovery in Japan’s industrial production, which is pleasing, but it remains to be seen whether that has not been something of a dead cat bounce as Japanese producers seek to restore the inventories that they wound down over the last several months.
Other major trading partners of Australia are suffering similar contractions, though not as severe as Japan’s. I point particularly to the US and the UK, both of which are suffering quite significant contractions, and to other countries of the EU and to Korea. In that picture of gloom, perhaps the only slightly hopeful note is China, where GDP growth appears to have come back to about six per cent. That sounds good, but we all know that the Chinese economy needs to grow at around eight per cent if it is going to absorb the many millions of workers who are moving from the countryside to the cities. Growth of 6.1 per cent is not sufficient to keep the Chinese economy going at the pace that is needed to absorb those workers. But what we have seen very recently is industrial production turning back up. We know that, in the October to February period, Chinese exports dropped by about 25 per cent. This is of very significant concern to Australia, given that our raw material exports drive industrial production, which in turn drives Chinese exports. We have seen, though, in the last month or so industrial production starting to turn up again in China, which is pleasing.
Overall, our exports have been hit very hard. An industry very dear to my heart, and which does not attract as much public attention as some, is tourism. It is the largest service export industry in Australia and accounts for about 10 per cent of total Australian exports in services and goods. We have seen very big declines in traditional markets by way of international arrivals. In the traditional markets, we have seen a drop of 16 per cent in the 12 months to February in business arrivals, a drop of 29 per cent in convention based international arrivals and a drop of about six per cent in leisure arrivals. Those are for the 12 months to February. The figures that are out now for March and April show that those declines are continuing. We have seen continuing increases in the VFR—visiting friends and relatives—market and in the education market, which are mitigating those losses to some degree. But tourism is suffering already as a result of the global economic recession, and we expect it to suffer more as a result of the growing swine flu pandemic.
But the greatest attention is being paid to resource exports, which are obviously being hit very hard as a result of the decline in industrial production in countries that I have mentioned, such as Japan and China. Global steel production has declined very significantly over the last several months. There has been some pick-up in recent weeks in China. Again, one expects that is simply to rebuild inventories that were depleted over the last several months. It is too early to tell whether those increases in production will be sustained or whether they are short term. However, what we do know is that our major exports for steel production of iron ore and coking coal have dropped in the six months to March by about 12 per cent and 23 per cent respectively. Those are very significant declines in the country’s export earnings and, as a result, in government revenue.
Inevitably, all of this has affected the Australian economy. The GDP figures for Australia are expected to decline by about half a per cent in 2009-10. Although this is a decline, it compares favourably to the advanced economies around the world that are expected to shrink by about 3¾ per cent. Business investment is expected to be hit especially hard. We are already seeing that flow through in the economy as some of the pipeline projects that were started before the impact of the recession come to an end. We expect business investment to decline by about 18½ per cent in 2009-10.
These declines are across the board. We are already seeing declines in capital imports, which are having some good results for our current account deficit but which overall are bad. We are seeing very significant declines in non-residential construction, another very major part of business investment. Because of these impacts, the very important story for these purposes is a huge hit on government revenue—a hit which we expect to be of the order of $210 billion out to 2012-13, about $23 billion for the current financial year of 2008-09 and to grow to $50 billion for the next financial year, 2009-10. Compare this to the good fortune enjoyed by the previous Treasurer. In the last five years of his stewardship of the Australian budget, the BCA estimates—
You’re better than this. Come on!
that is, the member for Mayo’s good friends the BCA—showed upward revisions in his last five budgets totalling around $87 billion. We can all continue to wonder where that money went.
Confronted with the magnitude of this global recession and its impact on the Australian economy, the Rudd government has acted, since the beginning of this recession and the impact of the global financial crisis around the world, decisively. That decisive action has come, effectively, in three stages. The first stage was the government’s Economic Security Strategy of October, which was rolled out in December 2008. That was effectively an adrenaline shot to the economy in order to prevent an immediate collapse in confidence and a resulting collapse in jobs. There were very clear targets there: household spending and residential construction. These were seen, on advice from the Treasury and other economic institutions, as being the best way to get money quickly into the economy and preserve jobs. All of the relevant figures show that that strategy worked.
Anecdotally, in my electorate, the largish department store just across from my office reported to me that they were up by about 15 per cent over the Christmas period compared to the same period in 2007. One small business, which I spoke to when I asked them to do some work for me, reported that they had had their best summer period—December and January—in eight years. Hospitality venues were reporting the same thing to me. They were reporting very good takings in the food and beverage sections. Broadly, as I said, the macrofigures for the retail and housing sectors showed that the government’s strategy from October to December was spot on.
The second stage of the government’s response to this recession was the Nation Building and Jobs Plan. It was opposed by the coalition, to their shame. It is currently being rolled out in every electorate around the country. There is no better way to disperse economic activity than by targeting schools. The $15 billion greatest school modernisation program in Australia’s history is being enjoyed by parents, teachers and students. It will be enjoyed by future parents and future students for many, many years to come. In spite of some pretty cynical media coverage in the days following the announcement of this plan, the response from teachers, principals, school councils and parents in my electorate has been overwhelmingly positive. The social and public housing aspects of the Nation Building and Jobs Plan will see the greatest injection of money and the greatest building program for public and social housing since World War II. This will be great for Australia as a whole. For a state like South Australia, which has a very proud history in this area, it will be a wonderful thing. The energy efficiency aspects of the Nation Building and Jobs Plan mean that 2.2 million homes will receive insulation and all of the economic and environmental benefits of that. Again, that has been very well received in my electorate.
Finally, for the second stage, the Jobs and Training Compact initially targets seven regions around Australia, including northern and western Adelaide in my electorate of Port Adelaide. We have already seen unemployment figures in the 12 months to February 2009—and I cannot remember the precise figures off the top of my head—rising from something like 5.7 or 5.8 per cent to about 8.2 or 8.3 per cent. The Prime Minister has recognised that our region of South Australia—northern and western Adelaide—needs some very immediate action to support and sustain it and to create jobs.
The third stage that I want to talk about briefly that is set out in this budget and in these bills is investing in Australia’s long-term economic infrastructure. Compare that to the way in which the previous Treasurer, the member for Higgins, frittered away the benefits of the mining boom and frittered away the upward revisions totalling about $87 billion in the last five budgets he handed down. At the end of his stewardship of Australia’s budget and Australia’s economy, the member for Higgins left Australia ranking somewhere around 20th out of 25 OECD nations in terms of infrastructure investment—a lack of activity that created bottlenecks in the Australian economy totalling around $8 billion to $10 billion of lost economic activity in Australia each year. Although it is hard to compare apples with apples, the best estimate you can make is that the infrastructure investment generated by the member for Higgins in the latter part of his stewardship of the Australian economy was around the same percentage of GDP as it was in the late 1980s. Given the economic good fortune that was enjoyed by Australia over the last decade, that was a shameful contribution to the long-term economic prosperity of our country.
There are a couple of other budget measures I want to talk about briefly—firstly, pensions. There are over 30,000 people in my electorate, whom I represent, who receive one form of pension or another. Early last year I conducted an eight-page survey of older people in my electorate and had 2,500 responses, so there were 20,000 pages of data that someone in my office analysed. They analysed very clearly and specifically the income and expenditure of the average pensioner in my electorate. As a result, I was able to make a pretty substantial submission, I think, to the Harmer review, calling for an increase in the base rate of the pension, and I am very, very pleased that even in a very tough budget this government has been able to find its way through to a significant increase in the single age pension in particular, because all of us who have looked at this know that the single age pension needed a significant boost. Although we would have liked to see more money going to couples, the more you give to couples, the more you have to give to singles if you are going to reach that benchmark of two-thirds of the couple rate being the single rate. So I think all of us realised that this one-off hit needed to have a bias in favour of singles, and I am glad to see it. Also, carers and those on the disability support pension, not just age pensioners, will be receiving this and more.
One aspect of this budget that I am particularly pleased about is related to a concern that I picked up from my surveys and in the course of last year—that, for pensioners in public housing, whatever increase came from the federal government would be lost, to the tune of 25 per cent, to state public housing authorities. I took that up with our state government in South Australia by writing to the Treasurer some weeks before the budget, foreshadowing the likelihood of a significant increase in the pension and asking that the state government quarantine that increase from the public housing rents. I am proud to say that the South Australian state government was the first state government to respond to the Prime Minister’s call for state governments not to take 25 per cent of the pension increases that are flowing from this budget, something that I think is very important.
I would also like to mention the provision for paid parental leave in this budget, which is long overdue in this country. This country remains one of only two OECD nations, the other being the United States of America, that does not have a statutory paid parental leave entitlement. Very quickly, what it means is that, although we rank 10th in the OECD in terms of female labour participation, we rank 23rd in the OECD for female participation at childbearing age.
All the experts and research show a very clear correlation between supporting female workers during their early stages of motherhood and labour participation. This is not only an important social reform; this is very important economic reform to improve labour participation. If we were able to reach the labour participation rate for female workers in Canada, as a percentage of total females, we would add an extra 200,000 workers of prime working age to Australia’s labour force, and that would be a very significant contribution to the Australian economy.
The last thing I will say in the very short time that remains is that I and the people in my electorate of Port Adelaide were very pleased to see budget support for the core elements of the defence white paper—in particular, confirmation that we will be building at least three air warfare destroyers over coming years in Port Adelaide. I hold out hope that we can make the case on an industry basis, but most importantly on an operational basis, for a fourth air warfare destroyer before the time comes for Port Adelaide’s expert workers to begin constructing the next generation of submarines. This was a tough budget but one I am very pleased to speak in support of.
by leave—I seek to make some further remarks to address a couple of the issues raised in the debate. Firstly, I support the member for Port Adelaide on the last issue he raised about the capabilities of the South Australian defence industry to meet the government’s white paper desires. It is an industry which has been built up very strongly in recent years, with a lot of support from the former government. It has the bipartisan support of those of us in South Australia. It does a very good job. We hope very much that this government is able to ensure that the work conducted in relation to building more defence assets is done through that industry in South Australia. It would benefit the member for Port Adelaide very much, of course.
In this debate we heard from the last couple of speakers on the other side about the supposed great bars of gold raining down on the previous Australian government and that the previous Prime Minister and Treasurer did not have a very difficult task at all—that they had an amazing run of gold rush and so forth—which of course is simply not true. It was good management—dedicated and strong economic management—which led to surplus budgets and low unemployment. I will not hold up the Main Committee’s time and, on that note, will conclude my very brief remarks.
I rise today to support Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and cognate bills. The test for any budget is how well it addresses the needs of the present while also investing in a sustainable future. The 2009-10 Commonwealth budget reflects how the Rudd government has ably addressed this dual challenge. The current global economic crisis has presented the Rudd government with an additional challenge. However, despite the difficulties presented in the current economic climate, this budget represents the Rudd government’s commitment to stimulate the economy and support the jobs of millions of hard-working Australians. It provides the necessary stimulus to ensure that the Australian economy is well placed to emerge from the worst global recession since the Great Depression. Simultaneously, the budget lays the foundation for future productivity and prosperity by investing $22 billion in vital infrastructure such as transport, schools and hospitals.
Put simply, this budget is about nation building for recovery. Prior to the last election, Labor warned that the Australian economy could not simply continue to ride on the back of the resources boom. We recognised the need to invest in infrastructure and education to support our productivity, to remain prosperous and to boost our international competitiveness. This budget shows that the Rudd government remains determined to fulfil this objective.
The impact of the global recession highlights that Australia can no longer rely on record company tax receipts generated by an unprecedented resources boom to maintain a healthy fiscal position. Much of the $210 billion decline in revenue in this budget is a result of a shortfall in tax revenue, particularly company tax. The previous government wrongly assumed that our trading partners, particularly China, would continue to demand our commodities. They wrongly assumed that the resources boom would last indefinitely. Worse still, they squandered the benefits of this boom, using it to buy votes rather than invest it in nation-building infrastructure. Their misguided and short-sighted approach to economic policy has resulted in significant long-term problems.
The global financial crisis shows that we can no longer rely solely on the commodities sector as the principal source of our economic prosperity. That is why we need to invest in infrastructure, schools and universities, hospitals and ports, roads and railways. We need to invest in infrastructure so as to diversify our economy and to ensure we no longer rely on one sector to keep our economy strong. A nation that does not invest in this productivity-boosting infrastructure is effectively robbing future generations of their prosperity.
The infrastructure spending announced in the 2009-10 budget supports job creation in the short term whilst also providing the facilities with which to grow our economy. We are investing in a knowledge-based economy that values education and innovation. We are investing in a low carbon, low pollution economy that tackles the real challenge of climate change and supports green-collar jobs. And we are investing in a digital revolution that will increase the efficiency and productivity of businesses throughout Australia by building a national broadband network.
Labor governments are nation-building governments and the Rudd government is certainly no exception. With a $22 billion investment in nation-building infrastructure, such as roads, ports, clean energy and universities, this budget ensures that Australia is well placed to emerge from the recession in a much stronger economic position than many other developed countries.
I welcome a number of key measures that will develop much needed infrastructure in my electorate of Lowe. In particular, I note the provision of up to $6.95 million to local councils in my electorate through the Community Infrastructure Program. This ensures local councils have the necessary funds to build and renew local infrastructure such as community centres, town halls, parks and playgrounds, pools and sporting localities. This investment by the Rudd government will support jobs, small business and families. This is an economically and socially responsible program. The investment will support jobs and stimulate the local inner-west economy. The investment in infrastructure will deliver lasting social benefits and a stronger community. I also welcome the allocation of $1.16 million to local councils to assist in the upgrade and maintenance of local roads. Again, this funding will support jobs and provide lasting benefits with safer passage for people and goods.
This budget also recognises the role that a strong education system plays in developing a productive and prosperous economy. Whilst the opposition preaches the virtues of unfair and unjust workplace laws as a means of boosting productivity, the Rudd government recognises that the answer lies in a world-class education system. That is why on budget night we allocated $2.6 billion over six years in infrastructure projects, including $613 million to fund 11 higher education and 12 vocational education and training projects.
The Rudd government is committed to building a world-class tertiary education system. We aim to have an additional 50,000 students attend university by 2013 and we will achieve this by removing the cap on the number of public university places from 2012 to ensure that anyone who is eligible for a place of their choice can secure one. Moreover, we will spend $394 million over four years to encourage young people from low-income families to attend university. An individual’s socioeconomic background should not determine the attendance of a student at university. For this reason, I welcome the announcement by the Deputy Prime Minister prior to this year’s budget that the government will pursue vigorously the ambition that, by 2020, 20 per cent of higher education enrolments at an undergraduate level will be people from low socioeconomic backgrounds. In total, universities will share in $5.7 billion in new funding for education and innovation as a result of this budget. Secondary education, I am pleased to note, will receive over $62 billion from 2009 to 2012.
The proposed funding by the Rudd government signifies our commitment to Building the Education Revolution. On this point, I would like to acknowledge that three schools in my electorate were successful in obtaining funding in the first round of the Primary Schools for the 21st Century program. Combined, those schools will receive over $7 million to build new halls and libraries. Further, under the National School Pride program, the Rudd government has already delivered millions of dollars to my schools for projects such as covered outdoor learning areas, upgrades of playgrounds, replacement of old electrical wiring, refurbishment of dilapidated teaching areas and specific-purpose classrooms. The works on these facilities will support job creation and ensure that students at these schools enjoy the best possible education in the long term.
Amazingly, the Liberal Party opposed this measure earlier this year, and the shadow Treasurer suggested on the ABC’s Q&A program on 14 May that the opposition opposed this measure. When asked what the Liberal Party would do to reduce the size of the deficit, the shadow Treasurer said:
One of the hardest decisions we made was to oppose the $42 billion package that the government came up with earlier this year … a lot of that money is still to go out the door … and that’s where the $25 billion at least would be saved on the amount of money they’re spending today.
It seems that the shadow Treasurer was suggesting that we should not spend the remaining $25 billion of the Nation Building and Jobs Plan. If this is the case, let us take a moment to consider what it would mean for our economy if the Liberal-National coalition were in government. A coalition government would have no choice but to cut much of the $14.7 billion allocated to schools as part of the Building the Education Revolution program. They would have no choice but to cut funding for ceiling insulation and solar hot water. They would also have no choice but to cut funding for public and community housing, as well as defence housing. Therefore, the stimulatory benefits generated by these projects would not eventuate, leaving our economy more exposed to the negative effects of the global recession, such as higher unemployment. This would be the stark picture if the coalition were in government. Thankfully, they are not.
It is astounding that the opposition are still opposed to increased federal funding for schools. In my electorate of Lowe, local schools were delighted that the Rudd government finally recognised the shortfall of funding after 10 years of neglect from the coalition government led by the former Prime Minister John Howard. One principal in my electorate noted how her school desperately needed the funding for several important projects. She noted that an increase in enrolment numbers will now continue and that the construction and renovation of facilities under Building the Education Revolution were paramount for a safe and convivial learning environment. And I am pleased to reiterate that, despite the difficult economic circumstances the Rudd government now face, we will continue to invest in education and to support our schools. We will continue to fund the education revolution, because it is the right decision, and the schools in Lowe clearly understand this.
The budget reaffirms our commitment to building a highly skilled economy. As the global recession progresses, unemployment will naturally rise. Unfortunately, when people are unemployed they often lose skills and, understandably, some of them become less inclined to look for work. The Rudd government do not blame people for being unemployed. Rather, this budget demonstrates that we will do everything in our power to help the unemployed find work. The $1.5 billion over five years for the Jobs and Training Compact will support young Australians, retrenched workers and local communities. In particular, $438 million of the compact initiative will be allocated specifically to providing immediate assistance to retrenched workers, including access to intensive employment services, 10,000 training places through the Productivity Places Program and increasing the liquid assets test threshold. In the last couple of months a number of my constituents have been made redundant and are seeking help in their search for work. I know that these services, provided under this budget, will be of valuable assistance to those people.
Climate change is a real and serious economic challenge that cannot be ignored. This budget responds to the challenge by investing in green infrastructure that will lay the foundation for a low-carbon future. At the heart of this is a $4.5 billion investment in the Clean Energy Initiative. This includes $2 billion over nine years for carbon capture and storage demonstration projects and $1.5 billion over six years for up to four large-scale solar electricity generation projects. The Clean Energy Initiative highlights the Rudd government’s firm commitment to addressing climate change. These measures will assist Australia in becoming a low-carbon, low-pollution economy. Unlike the opposition, we are committed to an emissions trading system. The coalition’s policy is to delay the introduction of such a system, which is a reflection of the climate change scepticism that exists among the coalition. Many of the opposition members, in my view, are not serious about addressing climate change.
I am a firm believer that a society should be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens, and for this reason I am also proud to be a member of the Rudd government which has provided much-needed support to pensioners in this budget. I applaud the increase of $32.49 per week to full-rate single pensioners and $10.14 per week to pensioner couples. I note that this will benefit more than 15,000 pensioners in my electorate of Lowe. I am also particularly pleased that carers have been recognised in the budget. I welcome the carer supplement of $600 per annum for carer payment recipients and the additional $600 per annum for carer allowance recipients for each eligible person in their care.
Another important measure in the budget, a first in Australian history, is the introduction of a government funded paid parental leave scheme. I am extremely pleased that the Rudd government has taken the first steps to join the majority of the world in providing paid parental leave for working Australians. Prior to this budget, Australia and the United States were the only developed economies without a national paid parental leave program. Even the Congo and Ethiopia have had longstanding paid maternal leave programs. In the budget the Treasurer announced that, from January 2011, Australia will finally have a federally funded paid parental leave scheme. This scheme will be paid at the federal minimum wage of $543.78 for 18 weeks. I also draw to the attention of the House comments by the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, who said the scheme was a ‘major triumph for not only mothers and parents but for our community’. I could not agree more.
Small businesses are the backbone of our national economy, and they are the backbone of the economy of Sydney’s inner west, where my electorate is. One of the finest features of the Lowe electorate is the large number of small businesses there. One has only to walk down the main streets of Lowe, including Majors Bay Road, Concord; Great North Road, Five Dock; or Burwood Road, Burwood—to name a few—to understand just how prominent and important these businesses are in my electorate. Since the budget was handed down I have spoken with numerous small business owners in my electorate. The overwhelming feeling is one of relief. They have welcomed measures that support small businesses and are appreciative of the support the Rudd government is providing to our economy. This includes $141 million to increase the tax breaks for small businesses from 30 per cent to 50 per cent for eligible assets costing at least $1,000 during 2009 for use by the end of 2010. Small business owners in my electorate have also expressed strong support for the newly announced Small Business Support Line, which will provide much needed assistance to small businesses during the economic downturn. I applaud the small business measures announced in the budget, and so do the majority of the small business people that I represent in this place.
I mentioned at the beginning of my speech that Australia could no longer rely on record company tax receipts generated by the resources boom. Australia needs tax reform to ensure that any future slowdown in global economic growth never again results in such significant crippling of our revenue base. I eagerly await the release of the Henry tax review. I have no doubt that the recommendations of this review, coupled with the government’s infrastructure investment, will pave the way for future productivity growth and prosperity. The severe decline in government revenue as a result of the global recession has led to a deficit of $57.6 billion and has given us no choice but to borrow responsibly. The infrastructure investment contained in this budget, the investment in schools and universities and ports and rail, will boost the productive capacity of our economy and provide a source of future growth. As our economy grows as a result of this infrastructure, we will be in a strong position to repay our borrowings.
It is basic economic theory that governments need to spend money in times of downturn to stimulate the economy. HSC students currently studying economics right through to prominent and respected economists like Saul Eslake, Stephen Long and Ross Gittins understand and accept this. Why, then, is the opposition so intent on running such a misguided fear campaign about deficits and debt? I refer the House to comments by Stephen Koukoulas, global strategist for TD Securities, who has described this budget as a ‘nine out of 10 budget, a solid effort in the middle of the great recession’. He went on to say, about the government:
… it has limited the extent and time in which the Budget will be in deficit by offsetting some of the areas of economic stimulus with spending cuts and criteria tightening; it has a realistic set of economic parameters underpinning its projections and importantly, it is as clear as the smirk on Peter Costello’s face that the government will return the budget back to surplus as soon as economic conditions permit …
This all adds up to a Budget that is a well balanced approach to economic management. To do less would have compelled the economy to an even weaker performance and even higher unemployment: To do more would have threatened to damage the country’s AAA credit rating. This is about right.
The opposition, who criticise this budget, would do well to consider these wise words from Stephen Koukoulas. Then again, it does not surprise me that the Liberal Party is criticising the spending measures contained in this budget. After all, the Rudd government has done what the Howard government could not—invest in infrastructure that will drive Australia’s future economic prosperity.
Perhaps we should ask ourselves then what the Liberal Party would have done if they were still in government. Indeed, the former Prime Minister, John Howard, indicated what he would have done in a recent interview with Sky News. When asked, Mr Howard began to eulogise his beloved Work Choices. That is right; he believes that the best way to address a recession is to continue with policies that strip the pay and conditions of hardworking Australians. This would only serve to shatter consumer confidence, slash consumer spending and further weaken aggregate demand. This raises an important question: how many members of the current parliamentary Liberal Party agree with their former leader? I give Mr Howard credit for one thing: at least he has indicated in some way how he would respond to the current economic crisis. It is a pity that the same cannot be said of the opportunistic federal opposition.
The opposition have again displayed the audacious opportunism that Australians have come to expect of them since the last federal election. Playing politics in the midst of the worst global recession since the Great Depression is, in my view, very irresponsible. My electorate knows this and I believe that the wider electorate across the continent understands this. One minute the opposition claim they would not have to borrow despite the $210 billion shortfall in tax revenue. The next minute they admit that they would also need to borrow to make up for this revenue shortfall. One minute they would be implementing a $25 billion budget deficit; the next minute they would be in surplus. We have had the shadow minister for finance running around quoting former US President Herbert Hoover, the very man who sat back and refused to intervene in the early years of the Great Depression and merely exacerbated the problem.
Members opposite have shown a frightening level of economic ignorance and a clear inability to articulate a consistent policy. For a group of people who regularly boast about their economic credentials, their budget reply leaves much to be desired, and the people of Australia are aware of this. Only the Liberal Party—the party that oppose this government’s $42 billion Nation Building and Jobs Plan—would criticise a government that spends money to stimulate the economy in times of recession. Only the Liberal Party—the party that continues to espouse the flawed theory of neoliberalism—would stand on the floor of this parliament and put forward a recipe for disaster to get Australia out of this recession. It is discomfiting that the opposition seriously believe that you can restore a budget surplus by simultaneously cutting spending and cutting taxes.
The difference between the government and the opposition could not be clearer. The Rudd government have a clear vision to stimulate the economy in the short term. Through our one-off tax bonuses we have been able to promote the flow of income throughout the economy by boosting consumption. Now, in this budget, we turn to infrastructure to stimulate the economy and support job creation in the short term and to boost our long-term productivity and prosperity.
This is a nation-building budget. It is a budget that meets the economic needs of the present while also laying the building blocks for future productivity and growth. It is a budget that diversifies our economy by ensuring we no longer rely on one sector alone to fuel our prosperity and it is a budget that builds a modern Australian economy—an economy that recognises that a strong education system is imperative for economic progress, values small business, supports green infrastructure, develops a national broadband network and looks after the most vulnerable people in our society. I commend the bills to the House.
This House is hearing a great deal about debt and deficit versus building and infrastructure from the two tribes that go to war in this place on a regular basis. They are both very legitimate positions, and I will follow the debate closely. I continue to place faith in our national economics and in the budget, and in the Secretary to the Treasury, Ken Henry, who is a mid-North Coast person. I have a very high regard for him and the role he plays, and the status he holds in the Australian Public Service. I therefore place faith in the general budget settings that we see implemented in these budget 2009-10 and associated appropriation bills.
Whilst the debt and deficit versus building and infrastructure debate is all legitimate and very alive, my focus is on whether the mid-North Coast of New South Wales has a net gain or a net loss from these appropriation bills and the budget generally. Generally, in my view, we have net gains. In a lot of ways this budget allows the public participants and policymakers on the mid-North Coast to continue the long and difficult campaign to address some of the deep structural issues faced on the mid-North Coast. I am referring to some of the very real and too often undiscussed issues that the mid-North Coast and indeed the entire North Coast face when compared to the rest of the country.
The mid-North Coast and North Coast areas of New South Wales have tertiary education levels among the lowest in the nation. Poverty levels for all four electorates—of Lyne, Cowper, Page and Richmond—are some of the highest in the nation. Employment rates and participation rates for the mid-North Coast region, Richmond-Tweed, are the lowest in the nation right now when compared with other electorates. We have some deep structural issues there. It is even worse when we consider that we have low employment and a low participation rate alongside some of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. Whilst we hear plenty of debate in this place about whether the national figures are going to tip over 10 per cent or not, we are there. Last month unemployment for the mid-North Coast and Richmond-Tweed went over 10 per cent. We hit 10.6 per cent in the last figures, and we are now down, right on 10 per cent. Hopefully this makes the point to everyone in this place that we have a very low participation market and, alongside that, a very high unemployment rate—so people are looking to participate—which indicates that we face some very substantial structural issues.
As well, our region is not immune to what the rest of the nation is facing from the trigger of the situation we are in—the global banking collapse. The practical implications of that are seen in the fact that some of the local authorities have been significantly caught in regard to their investment portfolios. One local council has now written $25 million off its investments. That is a significant loss on investments for a regional local council, and the implications for future service delivery to the community cannot be understated. As well, in my home town of Port Macquarie we estimate that between 3,000 and 5,000 people in a private sense have been affected by the collapse of three locally managed funds. Again, this is in an area where we have a high population of retirees. Investment funds are incredibly important for people at that stage of life, and having three local managed funds in receivership is placing a great strain on many individual households and the community generally on the mid-North Coast. We are faced with a suite of issues, both structural and more immediate, in regard to people’s financial situation. This means the work that government does through measures such as appropriation bills and the general policy settings really do matter in a practical sense, on the ground.
We can, of course, throw into the mix the more immediate and natural disasters which also have practical implications on the ground. For the third time in three months my region is currently going through a recovery process after the floods, winds and evacuations which occurred on the weekend. The question for me, then, as the federal member for this area, is how this budget fits in with that setting.
There are some pretty important net gains for my region, which the region is certainly appreciative of and which will make a difference with regard to some of those structural issues. Without doubt, the investment in the Pacific Highway and, in particular, the bringing online of the Kempsey bypass—a $618 million commitment of infrastructure—will make a significant difference. It will employ hundreds of people in the Macleay Valley in the short term. It will also remove one of the significant bottlenecks, which is currently the township of Kempsey. It will therefore, overall for the Pacific Highway and particularly the stretch from Hexham to the Queensland border, make a much safer and much more efficient dual carriage highway and be one step closer to the completion of a job that should have been done already.
Plenty of political commitments and promises have been made by all sides of politics, and it is a frustration for many of the one million residents in the North Coast window that still only 50 per cent of the job has been done when it was promised in 1996 by Paul Keating and John Fahey. They were hand in hand up on the Tweed and said it was going to be a 10-year job, and we are 50 per cent there in the year 2009. It is a frustration—and it is dangerous. I think the figure is that there have been close to 500 deaths on the highway since those commitments were made. If each of those deaths equates in public policy terms to at least $1 million in coronials and the whole process around a highway death, in purely economic terms there is a very strong argument for fixing this highway a lot quicker than is being done—and that is before we get into the family and the emotional and moral arguments for it to happen.
So any commitment that the federal government delivers for the Pacific Highway is certainly welcome. The $618 million in the budget for the Kempsey bypass had people jumping in the streets of Kempsey and the Macleay. So, to the minister involved, to the executive and to the government generally: thank you very much, on behalf of residents of that region.
Also, some of the infrastructure projects did make a difference and have made a difference in this 12-month window. The commitment of the federal government to build a closer relationship with local authorities that we are seeing through the Community Infrastructure Program is a real winner on the ground on the mid-North Coast. The three councils that I represent are very happy and want to see that program continue. I again say to the executive and the minister in question that, when the mayors and shire presidents come together nationally at the end of June, I would certainly hope that coming out of that will be a re-commitment to the Community Infrastructure Program.
Regardless of which side of politics is in government, I think there is a general recognition of the need to build a closer relationship between the federal government and local authorities. The previous government started to do it through various roads programs—Roads to Recovery springs to mind. We are now seeing this government take it a step further with community infrastructure. It is working. It does make a difference, it does have general support on the ground and it does make the federal government real for many communities. So it is a fantastic program. Our region is very happy that it has happened. As I have said, there has been record council funding from the federal government so far this year. I implore the minister and the government to continue that program, because it does very good work.
As well, there were two larger projects in our region that were successful through this budget process that will be funded through these appropriations. One involved the Wauchope Bonny Hills Surf Life Saving Club, which was about to close its doors. Again, they were very, very happy with the money and will certainly be enjoying that new facility in a couple of years time. It is not only a surf club facility but a general community facility for Wauchope, Bonny Hills, Lake Cathie and the Camden Haven region.
In addition, the Taree recreational centre received a substantial amount of money. And, again, for the range of sports on offer in the Manning Valley—there is a very rich tradition of elite sports people coming from the region—this was very well received. It will make a difference and it will allow local communities to attract more events to the region. Our area is realising that there are some real financial benefits in having a strategy of trying to attract more and more sporting and general events to the region. But to do that good facilities are needed.
Debate interrupted.
I move:
That the Main Committee do now adjourn.
I rise to speak about an issue of great concern to many of my constituents, and I say this with complete conviction, because I have stood at the front doors of residents of Cowan on more occasions than I can remember. They have presented me with their views about being dissatisfied with the administration of justice in the court system. Let me be clear about this: there is an expectation from the people that crime and antisocial behaviour will be properly dealt with.
There are three parts to any justice system. They are: the enforcement of the laws by the police, the administration of the laws by the courts and the creating of the laws by parliament. I will start by speaking about the police. I can say that every decent Australian has support and the highest regard for the police. I know that the police will always execute the laws to the best of their ability.
In Cowan we are well served by the teams at Wanneroo Police Station under Senior Sergeant Matt Ray, at Ballajura Police Station under Acting Senior Sergeant Narelle Woods and at Warwick Police Station under Senior Sergeant Craig Wanstall. They always do their part and the people of Cowan greatly appreciate their work. I commend them for the proactive work they do under very difficult circumstances. I would also like to note my appreciation for the assistance that Senior Sergeant Craig Wanstall and Senior Constable Ray Lee of Warwick Police provided in Girrawheen last week when we went around local shops and spoke with Vietnamese people in relation to crimes against them.
I do not hear people complain about the police, but I do hear complaints in regard to the courts. The view of many of my constituents is that the penalties do not match the crime. The view of the vast majority of the constituents of Cowan is that they want criminals and other offenders to be held accountable for their crimes and their antisocial behaviour. Recently there was the reported case of Constable Mathew Butcher, a young police officer in the WA Police, being left partially paralysed and brain damaged after he was head-butted from behind. Constable Butcher was attending a fight outside a tavern in Joondalup when a man named Barry MacLeod ran at him from behind and leapt into the air in order to head-butt the police officer from behind. The sickening attack has been widely reported and was filmed on a mobile telephone. What is incredible is that Barry MacLeod was acquitted in the District Court. He offered the excuse that he was worried about his father, who shortly after this incident had a heart attack, but later recovered in hospital. The people in Perth were not impressed and remain very angry about this failure by the courts to hold Barry MacLeod responsible for his actions. I should say that Barry MacLeod’s dad was no innocent bystander in this fight. Obviously, he has always set a pathetic and low standard for his sons, reinforced on that occasion by his own full participation in the fight.
It is a harsh reality that some people in our society are just plain bad. They have no regard for others, they have no regard for the police and no regard for the law. The MacLeods are such people and they should have been dealt with appropriately by the courts. Instead justice was not served and I call it a disgrace and, in fact, a travesty of justice. I believe that the courts should represent the expectations of society and I know that many of my constituents share this belief. I wonder whether this can be achieved when magistrates and judges, who are akin to gods in their courtrooms and who are influenced by their backgrounds, mostly on the defence side in criminal matters, see the accused appear before them in a suit—maybe for the first time—shaved, sober and briefed by their lawyer. The person who appears before the magistrate or judge in these sorts of bodily harm cases is a far cry from the aggressive, drug or alcohol affected dangerous person that confronted police months earlier.
When acquittals and soft sentences occur it is little wonder that most people do not believe that justice is dispensed by the courts. It is for that reason that governments have to step in and impose simpler laws in these cases. Simpler laws that clearly prescribe penalties—unequivocal penalties—for such attacks on police will send a clear message about what society wants and requires its judicial officers to dispense. It requires judicial officers to dispense the right penalties. I therefore look forward to the new government in Western Australia taking steps to implement simpler but tougher laws that ensure the penalties that are dispensed meet the expectations of our community.
I have met with the police minister, Rob Johnson, and I wish him and the Attorney-General, Christian Porter, every success in getting better laws through the WA parliament. I look forward to laws that will send a clear message about dealing with those who attack police. I also look forward to tougher search and seizure laws to deal with graffiti vandals and for the seizure and crushing of hoon vehicles.
Finally, I would like to express my support for the police officers who protect our community well and also my gratitude to officers who are injured, like Constable Matt Butcher, and to those other officers who make the ultimate sacrifice for our community. The police need support and they need protection. The good people of Western Australia believe it is about time that the courts dispensed real justice.
I rise today to speak after receiving a number of letters from members of the Anglesea and Grovedale Baptist congregations in my electorate of Corangamite. I congratulate the congregations for their concerns and thoughts about people in the developing world and the need for Australia to play a significant role in helping to provide better health conditions for their children. It is fantastic to see local people doing such good work in my electorate.
The federal government is committed to providing funding for the improvement of health care in the developing world. The federal government will spend an estimated $595 million or around 16 per cent of the total aid program on health in developing countries. Of this funding, 27 per cent will be aimed at sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV-AIDS. This will hopefully help so that fewer babies will be born with such diseases and there will be an improvement in life expectancy of adults with HIV. Therefore, this aid should enable parents with HIV to live longer and more active lives with their children.
The federal government has committed around 21 per cent of its overseas aid budget to basic health for the developing world. This aid will provide such things as more doctors and nurses on the ground to give basic care for children in developing countries. The federal government will also provide an estimated 21 per cent to control infectious diseases. This will directly benefit children by providing them with immunisation to diseases that the developed world would never consider a risk to their children.
It is Labor, when in government, that provides more funding for foreign aid to enable developing countries to better their health systems and so give their children a better chance to succeed due to their being much healthier. The Rudd government has increased the health aid budget by $155 million or three per cent since the last budget was handed down by the previous Howard government in 2007. The Rudd government is acutely aware of the need for Australia to play a major role in aid in the developing world.
The government has committed to increase Australia’s official development assistance to a gross national income ratio of 0.5 per cent by 2015-16. The Millennium Development Goals agreed at the United Nations summit in 2000 provide a focus for international efforts to reduce global poverty by 2015. The Australian government is committed to the Millennium Development Goals and has brought them to the centre of Australia’s aid program. Three of the MDGs, Nos 4, 5 and 6, focus specifically on health issues.
As the aid program grows, it is expected that health spending will also continue to grow. The Australian federal government understands the responsibility that the developed world has in helping undeveloped countries provide their people with better access to health care. I personally understand that all governments in the developed world have to continue to lift their standards of health for developing countries. Australia is no different. Thus we have to endeavour to continue raising our efforts in supporting and helping the developing world provide better health conditions for their children.
I conclude by thanking the Anglesea Baptist Congregation and the Grovedale Baptist Congregation in fighting the battle for the less fortunate. I give my personal assurance that I will actively continue to pursue these matters in this place. I encourage the Anglesea and Grovedale Baptist congregations to continue their efforts in securing aid for the developed world. I thank the House.
I rise today to bring to the House’s attention some of the ramifications of the government’s Fair Work Bill and the change to new modern awards. One would think anything that modernises the employment system would on the face of it be welcomed. Unfortunately, despite the government’s commitment to not raising the price of labour in the process of award modernisation, it is now becoming apparent that this will not be the case and that the retail and hospitality industries in particular will be digging deeper into their pockets in order to keep their doors open.
Changes such as 25 per cent penalties for weekday work after six o’clock and on Saturdays, currently paid at ordinary time, as well as a steep rise in penalties for Sundays to 100 per cent and public holidays to 150 per cent above ordinary time rates will ratchet up costs, particularly for small employers at a time when they can least afford it. When our unemployment queues are already growing at the fastest rate in the last 40 years, now is not the time for a new wages push in these high-employment sectors. In some cases the wage rises will lead to a reduction in services. The Australian public has made it abundantly clear how much it enjoys extended services—the demand is there and business has shown its commitment to responding—but, in the end, if you cannot make a profit, you will not open.
Retailers in South Australia are currently governed by the state retail award. Some years ago, when the award was adjusted to meet the demands of extended shopping hours, adjustments were made resulting in higher ordinary time wages as a trade-off to the flattening out of penalty rates. It was recognised that these businesses were now required to trade longer hours in order to remain competitive and meet public demand. Now, as a result of the new awards, that higher base rate, put in place to compensate for lower penalties, is being protected and penalty rates are being reintroduced on top of it. It has, in fact, a ratcheting effect on wages.
I have been contacted by John Sandercock, the operator of a medium sized supermarket in the progressive country town of Ardrossan within my electorate of Grey. John currently employs 30 full-time equivalent staff. He calculates that he will see his wages bill rise by $70,000 a year. This amounts to about two staff positions. He tells me he will have to make cuts to his workforce to meet the new constraints. How can this be productive? How can putting wages pressure on a small business at a time of great financial challenge be a good thing? The ramifications for the restaurant industry, which largely operates out of hours, will be even more telling. There is no doubt the Australian public were convinced that they should get rid of Work Choices. This side of parliament has heard the message and allowed it to happen. What the electorate did not ask for was a return to the 1970s.
The time frame for introduction of the new awards is at best difficult—right in the middle of the Christmas-new year retail surge. The name ‘new modern award’ may be all of those things—that is, it may be new, it may be modern and it certainly is an award—but it is not simple. It’s an interesting use of words, isn’t it? New modern award implies simplicity; in fact, it is far more complex than the old award. In the eyes of business this is just more government red tape. Small businesses do not have human resources departments. Awards that have more pay scales and more restrictions on the mix of working hours just make life more difficult.
There have been enormous changes in the Australian community over the last 20 years. There was a time when, on Sundays, buying petrol was difficult, restaurants, cafes and hotels were shut and hardware shops and boutiques were shut. Australians do not want to go back to that era, and yet many of the flexibilities in the workforce that allowed those services to evolve are now being attacked, no more so than by the reintroduction of totally prohibitive penalty rates. The imposition of a 150 per cent loading for public holidays will mean the only businesses which will open will, by and large, be those operated by family members. This is hardly a fair way to distribute the workload. The moves to lift casual loading to 25 per cent are a blunt way of trying to force businesses to put on permanent employees. There is a paradox when at the same time we have reintroduced unfair dismissal laws, which will discourage employers from taking on permanent staff. I urge the Industrial Relations Commission to allow for a phase-in period of a number of years and a later start-up date, which avoids the Christmas-new year 2010 rush, to allow the industry to adapt to the new conditions.
I would like to talk about some of the good news in which the Commonwealth is involved in my electorate of Braddon, on the north-west coast of Tasmania. This is in addition to the Commonwealth entitlements that people receive and the major components of the two stimulus packages. In particular, I would like to mention that, in the housing affordability programs that the government has announced, Wynyard in my area will get savings on 30 dwellings. That will be a significant contribution to much more affordable housing in my region. King Island is being funded for 19 new building lots, which will come in very handy on that beautiful island. Tasmania will pioneer the first rolling out of the National Broadband Network, which was announced in April in my electorate by the Prime Minister and the Premier. We hope that by July the first digging for the rollout will take place. I look forward to the benefits of that for my electorate and Tasmania. There will be good lessons learned, as this will be rolled out throughout the rest of Australia.
I am very pleased the government has initiated the National School Pride Program, with its fantastic investment in schools and, in particular, in primary schools. In round 1, $4 million was allocated to my electorate and, in round 2, there was $4.5 million allocated. A total of $8.5 million will go into providing not just much needed refurbishments in our primary schools but employment—that is, lots of employment for local people who will use local products and local services. Like those of other members in this House, 14 primary schools in my electorate will benefit from a total of $21.5 million from Primary Schools for the 21st Century. Again, that is $21.5 million for jobs—that is, for jobs locally, for jobs services and for those things that will be used to equip many of these projects. That $21.5 million investment in our primary schools will aid the teaching and learning process as well. There is $1.2 million for computers in 21 of our schools. That is much needed assistance with computers. Of course, this will provide employment for people as well. Again, it is stimulating our economy by investing in our schools and investing in our infrastructure. That is at the very heart of our budgetary strategy. We are also getting $1.5 million for a trade training centre at St Brendan-Shaw College, to be shared with Marist Regional College in Burnie. That will be very welcome indeed.
Health is an area that needs investment and one that we are continuing to invest in, and we need to do this in partnership with the state government and health providers. Over $180 million is allocated to the Mersey Community Hospital. It is great to see the positive health outcomes from that, particularly integrating with the North West Regional Hospital as well. There is $7.5 million for two new superclinics in our region, and they have both gone to contract. There is $60,000 for the Penguin clinic and $1.25 million for the Sisters of Charity to provide much needed trauma counselling and mental health services. For patient transport there is $10 million. For patient accommodation, for those who must travel from the north-west coast, particularly for oncology services, there is $1 million. In addition to and augmenting north-west cancer services there is $1.4 million, and there is $1.2 million for developing a pioneering health IT service to integrate communications amongst services providers from the coast. There is $8.65 million under the Better Regions Program, $12.3 million for roads and a further $1.72 million for the community infrastructure program for our region. On top of that and to complete this, there is $12 million for the Enterprise Connect service that has been established in Burnie. (Time expired)
I wish to talk today about one of the most serious matters of road safety within Perth city which exists in my electorate of Stirling. The Reid Highway is a major dual carriageway which passes east-west through the suburbs in the northern part of Stirling. A number of major roads cross the Reid Highway at significant and very busy intersections. Overpasses have been built where some of these roads intersect, and at some intersections there are no overpasses, although it was always intended that these overpasses would be built. They are very busy intersections at two very significant roads.
The Mirrabooka Avenue intersection of Reid Highway has been identified as one of the worst black spots on Western Australian roads. Indeed, by some accounts it is the worst black spot in Western Australia. Thousands of cars traverse these roads every day, leading to congestion and frustration during peak periods and after school. Cars inevitably run the gauntlet out of frustration and the die is of course cast for tragic road accidents. Statistics show that there are over 50 crashes per year at this particular intersection. Many have been serious, including several fatalities, and it has been calculated that the 258 crashes in the five years to December 2007 have cost the community more than $19 million. When I quote that figure, that of course is insignificant compared to the lives that have been shattered by fatalities and very major injuries that have occurred because of this intersection. We all need to remind ourselves of the tragedy of road accidents, which of course is the human face behind the statistics that I have been quoting. The human and financial costs to my community in Stirling, including the drain on health and police resources, are enormous. People have written to me outlining gut-wrenching accounts of personal experiences of car accidents at this site.
The Labor Party has completely forgotten about my community in Stirling and the community of Cowan by not delivering on a promised overpass at this intersection of Reid Highway and Mirrabooka Avenue. The Rudd Labor government has turned its back on these local Perth communities by failing to fund this overpass. Hundreds of local families have already signed an online petition that I started for this overpass to be built. I will continue to fight for this important project because building this overpass will save lives and eliminate a significant amount of road trauma and serious injury.
My community has been promised this overpass at every federal and state election since 2001. In the 2007 election, I secured a promise from the coalition government that, if we were re-elected, we would provide $10 million for funding of this overpass. My Labor opponent at the time, on behalf of the elected Labor government, promised that this project would be considered. The Rudd Labor government must follow up on that promise for road safety and build this overpass at Mirrabooka Avenue and the Reid Highway. By not doing so they turn their backs on thousands of Perth families, especially in the communities of Mirrabooka, Balga, Westminster, Nollamara and Dianella.
I have consistently asked both previous governments and this government to start work on this important project. The Rudd Labor government said it is committed to spending on infrastructure, and the Mirrabooka Avenue overpass should be at the top of the list. This is exactly the type of construction the government should have been spending money on rather than throwing money around like confetti on cash splashes, which has not created a single new job as they promised it would. It would also have brought a significant cash injection to the local Mirrabooka economy through construction work and contract employees’ spending. The government is claiming to be kick-starting the economy during what is a difficult international economic period, yet the bulk of its infrastructure spending is actually not due to commence for another two years.
Set against the backdrop of a whopping $315 billion of debt and $52 billion on cash splashes, the budget papers show that only a paltry $7.1 billion of new infrastructure money will be spent on projects in the next financial year, which of course is the period when we will need it most. Once again, it is all spin and no substance from a Labor government drunk on debt and reckless spending, with very little to show for it. The Western Australian Labor Party said in 2004 and again in 2005 that Mirrabooka Avenue was the worst black spot in Western Australia. They have consistently promised to do something about it, yet they have failed to take any action. I call on the federal government to join with the state Liberal government in Western Australia to look at building this much needed infrastructure in my local community.
It is interesting to follow the member for Stirling and his diatribe in relation to the effects of the stimulus packages on local communities. He clearly does not get out and talk to people in the community about the effects they are actually having. In the seat of Dobell the cash payments that were made in the first part of the stimulus package had a remarkable effect on maintaining employment in the retail area. Retail on the Central Coast is the biggest employer. The purpose of those payments was to make sure that the retail sector did not collapse, as has happened around the world. To that extent, the cash stimulus was an overwhelming success in the seat of Dobell.
I want to focus more on the spending of the Rudd government on education and schools. In the most recent announcement for round 2 of the National School Pride Program, 17 schools in my electorate of Dobell on the Central Coast of New South Wales will receive $2.55 million for minor infrastructure and refurbishment projects. This is part of the $4.4 million of total funding for the Central Coast region under the second round of the National School Pride Program. This program is one of the three elements of the Rudd government’s $14.7 billion Building the Education Revolution. It will deliver much needed funding for school infrastructure projects and, importantly, support local jobs.
Each one of the 17 schools, plus the 30-odd schools that received funding in round 1, will become a mini job centre, with many local tradesmen being employed. Again, this is particularly important for my seat. There is a much higher proportion of tradies living in the seat of Dobell than in most other electorates. Unfortunately, a lot of those tradies have to commute to Sydney, a couple of hours away, every day. Not only is this providing work for them generally but it is providing work for them locally and that is beneficial for the local economy and has social implications as they do not have to have a four-hour round commute.
Our local schools and communities benefit because of the vital school infrastructure and the jobs that are created. The $1.3 billion National School Pride Program will deliver much needed funding for school infrastructure projects and will support local jobs. Together with round 1, the National School Pride Program will deliver $7.375 million to 45 primary and secondary schools in Dobell. That will have a major stimulus effect on local jobs and the community. In total, the two rounds will inject $16 million into the Central Coast economy. Construction and refurbishment work will commence as soon as possible, with many of the National School Pride projects planned to begin shortly. The next few months will be exciting as investment in our schools will flow down to local businesses and others in the construction industry.
In the first round of Primary Schools for the 21st Century, three schools in Dobell were selected to receive much needed funds for infrastructure. Dooralong Public School will get $140,000 for a new COLA and $110,000 for a classroom upgrade. Tacoma Public School is getting $2 million for a new hall and COLA. Wyong Grove Public School will get money for a new hall and COLA too. Wyong Grove Public School is a particularly disadvantaged school. Many kids turn up to this school without having had breakfast, and the school has a very good breakfast program. This school would never have been able to get the infrastructure that is being provided if it were not for this program.
The important part of this program is that these halls are also for community use. It is not just creating jobs and making the schools better for our children but also making sure there is this connection with the community. When we went to Tacoma Public School there was a huge welcome sign that said that this was the best thing that had happened to Tacoma, and I would have to concur with that. These projects are important. The stimulus package that the Rudd government introduced is having real effects locally—creating real jobs and assisting the community with vital infrastructure.
Question agreed to.